wow good thing you can use a highgain radio and steal internet from hotspots miles away then isn't it.

And tell us how your transmission works? You don't cause any interference, do you?

Great idea that sounds good, but works a bit less well. The Jetsons sure are a great source of practical ideas., aren't they Elroy?

wonder how the people already paying the huge fines in the past few years feel about this.

Wait why is this an issue? You need to have a product to be pirated in the first place.

The music industry has failed to produce a band worthy of my time and bandwidth for years.

Says who? The huge number of people downloading them??

Oh, I get it. You're *better* than them, right?

*yawn*

Amazing you can hold your head up with an ego that large, man.

Stop buying anyone licensed with RIAA. F*ck em.

I think that the majority of those affected by the actions of the RIAA, already have.
And hence the problem...

when will it end? the RIAA will lose this battle eventually, there is no way for them to win with this strategy. the ones who download illegally will continue to do so, and a few grandmas and children will get sued because of it. DRM is not the answer since the only people that DRM effects are the people who are actually buying and paying for the music. no one who downloads need worry about DRM. same applies to pc games and movies .. look at EA's recent pc offerings.. chock full of DRM and who is complaining? not the ones who downloaded it illegally, there is absolutely no DRM on their copies. The ones who are complaining are the ones who went to install again on their machine only to find out they can't since they already installed it three times before. now that is showing your customers you appreciate their hard earned money.

so lets see here, the best strategy here to combat piracy is to make the experience worse for actual customers, while those who download notice no difference? ahh so lets sue them.. actually lets sue less than .01% of them.. that'll teach them.

Profound.

And NONE of your righteous indignation does squat about the original problem which does result in real damages to the authors and owners of such material, which is the illegal copying and redistribution of copyrighted material without compensation to the artists and owners of said materials.

Its funny how the self-entitled always seem to neglect that small superfluous aspect, isn't it???

Next.

hey great comment jackass.. no where did i state that i was downloading illegally or that i had the answer for the REAL problem as you put it. all i was saying is that the current strategy is terrible, and that it hurts people who actually spend their money rather than those who don't.

way to take every opportunity to try to slam everyone who crosses your path and attempt to trump them with your arrogance and self-deluded intellect.

but hey, keep blowing your trumpet and parading around here like you own the place. just know that a lot of times you come off as a giant douche while doing it.

next.

Profound.

And NONE of your righteous indignation does squat about the original problem which does result in real damages to the authors and owners of such material, which is the illegal copying and redistribution of copyrighted material without compensation to the artists and owners of said materials.

Its funny how the self-entitled always seem to neglect that small superfluous aspect, isn't it???

Next.

I paid them to use it. They got their "creative" fee. f*ck em.

And you agreed to the product EULA/Terms of Use.
Not to mention several of the agents of "change" in Congress, such as Dingell and Conyers who were members of the House and Senate Conference Committee responsible for the DMCA.

So...if you bought it and you don't like the terms, I guess the proper phrasing should be: F%$# you.

But isn't it funny that so many simply whine about the RIAA instead of addressing the fundamental issue, which is the DMCA.

Or is that kind of real "change" simply to much to "change"?

Too all those arguing against this, the world has changed my friends.
Indeed, the next effort will be to demand from RS, MU and the like the ip's of all account holders.
When this is accomplished, it'll be the end of the net as you know it. Hallelujah!
What will be most interesting is to see which posters' here do file shares from these nefarious sites.

This is nuts! Now ISPs can punish people for "suspected" activity? If I use a program to send a file called "britney.mp3" can I be charged extra? What if Britney is my niece and she's saying her first words? If I share this file with my nine cousins, both of my parents, and my aunt in Indiana, will I receive a nasty letter from Comcast in my email? Oh, and which email will they send it to? I don't use my Comcast email for anything since they let so much spam through. So can they be sure I actually get their warning letters? Since I never log into the Comcast servers, I think I could prove my case. This is a stupid solution to a RIAA-created problem. The smart solution has been right under their nose for 8 years now, and they refuse to use it. (sigh)

"What if Britney is my niece and she's saying her first words?"

Then you would be her brother.

And you want an even simpler solution that would preclude all of this?
Stop illegally copying music and redistributing it.
Duh...and the concept is just SO complicated!

Unfortunately it doesn't end there either.

There have been 2 cases in the UK that have been dropped as the UK equivalent of the RIAA had tried to charge people who hadn't downloaded anything illegal (there was one case of someone being away on holiday *with* their laptop at the time of the alleged uploading).

Citing some anomalous action does not a trend nor a significant problem make.

Gee, they picked up a suspect which turned out not to be the guy despite his fitting the description perfectly . Well, no doubt that invalidates the entire concept of questioning suspects! LOL!

And the illegal copying and redistribution of copyrighted material will simply go away with removal of DRM and the RIAA? Right.

But then, its funny that many who lament DRM are the same ones whining about corporate layoffs. I'm not sure why, as after all, those laid off are just greedy ingrates just like those whose livelihood consists of making and ditributing music. After all, we are entitled to their product for free. LOL

Where did you come to the conclusion that "britney" is his sister???

That is not what he said and your statement makes no sense.

Foxy,
The bile of your posts these past few weeks is breathtaking, indeed it's a litotes.
You use polysyllabic words out of context, yet attempt prose contemporaneously, now I know why my buddy PC_Tool has been so quiet, he cannot match the sheer venom of your tirades. This my friend is quite a feat, and on that premise alone you'll be Ben Down, and I'll be Phillup YaCreavase.

litotes and hyperbole?

Ya think?

What, and no criticism of "surprise endings" in such works as those of Ambrose Bierce? I'm disappointed... ;-)

Then if you can figure that out, how come you can't interpret the wry grin intended in the majority of the posts? ...As well as the use of "the dozens". Try expanding your cultural horizons a bit.

And the wry and/or ironic jests are missed entirely by an audience for whom the double entendre just sails on by over their heads as they interpret the reference literally.

Venom? LOL! Well, if you are literally stupid, perhaps. But if you are actually as literate as you claim, then start using your prodigious acumen and start actually reading what is intended, instead of on a base level reflecting neither insight nor understanding of the wry jests.

I mean, you only have to raise your insight a few inches, literally, to view an example of a jest that clearly sailed over the erudite gentleman's cognitive abilities with the playful reference to Britny's niece...

I mean, do we really have to explain ALL of the jokes? Or can't we delight in watching so many interpret literally, what was so obviously a play on a phrase? I mean really, its simply no fun to operate on the level of a 27 IQ ALL of the time in order to have ALL of the jests be understandable by at least half of the audience! ...Especially when posting at a 15 IQ level already has folks thinking my posts "venomous"! I mean, to go much lower would simply be, heaven forbid, Plebian.

;-))

Oh, BTW, I am a bit disappointed that no one jumped on the typo regarding "ditributing" (or however it is goofed up- as I can't see it as I type this) instead of the obviously proper "distributing"

I'm constantly amazed at the ludicrous business plan of the RIAA.

"For his part, Cuomo will actively encourage ISPs to cooperate with the RIAA to institute punitive measures against customers suspected of file sharing."

F*** you, RIAA. "Suspected"? You want my ISP to employ punitive measures against *me*, their actual customer, because *you* "suspect" something? So you stop suing people where you have to actually, you know, prove things, and you go another route where you don't. Nice.

ISPs better remember who pays their bills.

we are waiting in excitement when the RIAA dies because of the economic crisis :)
let's help its doom by not buying anything from them! :D
lets boycott them until we heard in the news that they died. is gonna be easy. is not like we have so much money to spend on them anyway.

Breaking the RIAA is easy to do. You all know you have plenty of music on your hard drive and mp3 players already. I have enough legally purchased music to play for 5 months with no repeats. Most of you do too. :) A 3-month refusal to buy new music would be enough to make them pay attention. Or will they physically come to our homes, knock down the doors, and make us buy something? Lol. Yeah right! We still pay their bills, and we still can stop them. It just takes the will to do it. And the guts. Are you willing? Do you have the guts? Can you convince just 2 friends to do the same thing? We don't have to convince everybody. We just have to convince ourselves and talk to two friends about it. By doing that, we can flex our muscle of choice and bring the balance between customer and retailer back in line.

Do you realize that a definite 15 percent drop in their income will be enough to get the recording label execs to stop listening to the RIAA lawyers? They're already scared of losing business, and they just need some proof to show them that the RIAA is hurting them rather than helping them. That is when the stranglehold will break. That is when we will become customers again rather than adversaries who are guilty until proven otherwise. They'll have to listen to us and treat us well, and they'll have to quit paying the RIAA such hefty fees. If they don't, they'll go under, and they're not going to allow that. They'll actually try listening to us and serving us. We can go back to enjoying our music again, and that will make everyone happy.

Is this what you do when you are not busy spamming folks with the chain letter telling everypne not to buy gas for a week?

You know - the action that hurts small local retailers while the large distributors sell to a world market?

Dimwit, those illegally copying and redistributing material are ALREADY impacting the industry with losses exceeding 15%.

You are like the the idiots in Hamas thinking that they just need fire a few MORE missles from a blockaded Gaza strip to finally make the Israelis remoive the blockade and talk normalization of relations! LOL!

lets impact it even more as much as we can as long as we can. the RIAA already was in economic crisis before the world economic crisis.

The idea that boycotting music sales will hurt a derivative organization more than the fundamental industry and the employees is nonsense.

I just love the "we had to destroy it in order to save it" lunacy expressed here.

Bad idea dude.

Nobody seems to be buying alot of cars right now, and their not getting cheaper either...

You try to break the recording industry and they'll just ask the government for a bailout package!

when do they start charging me for whistling a merry tune. **** these a******s.

F*ck the ISP's who cooperate. Shut these people down. Freedom on the net. Don't post it if you are afraid of somebody stealing it.

Not getting cheaper?

Chrysler Crossfire: 48% off list price. And that was without negotiation, the moment I showed interest in it. Those were dang near the first words out of the salesman's mouth,

But what do I know...

RIAA tells to IPS: "you monitor the traffic, you give me a report, if I don't like some of your customers, then you take punitive measures against them".

I would like to know what the ISP comment about this new approach.

Again...the RIAA does not represent ALL artists and labels, though it thrives off of the misconception. Granting it the special authority to get in bed with ISPs for the sake of monitoring usage and thus violating privacy on a broader scale is perhaps an even worse scenario. There's also the little detail that under the law ISPs are very clearly not liable for user activity. Does that mean that they won't cave to RIAA misconception, though?

Ask yourself who else would really be able to get away with this. The new strategy is not very different. Just trying to watch on the inside rather than from the outside.

RIAA will stop suing unknown people, will use ISPs as investigators, will use attorneys general to pressure ISPs to hand over confidential information about their customers, and then will sue anyway. Glad to see the RIAA helping America create jobs.

Now, if the automobile industry follows a similar track, and has police check to see if cars are being loaned to non-owners, and have the info turned over to those car companies, the owners can be sued, and the auto companies will no longer need a bailout either. ;-)

I think you just might want to reconsider your analogy.

No one is going after anyone for simply loaning their MP3 player or the original CD.

I don't think my ISP has my email address. I refused to accept another email address from TW and they would not take my personal email address.. but I think they still set up the account for me because it's part of the fee and service.

I do not steal this stuff but I wonder how many others that fall into this.. Also, Since I have a wifi AP I can NOT control who uses my internet all the time. WAP/WEP are both cracked in 10mins..

WPA2,set MAC addresses allowed. Problem solved.

First off, I hope you honestly dont think "avoiding their emails" will make them go away, they may not have the email address that you choose to use but they still have your HOME address, and the ability to cancel your account.

Second, failure to maintain wireless security is no excuse. You can take efforts to make sure your router excludes anyone without an allowed mac address as stated by another user on here. Through investigation it can be determined whether or not the infraction came from your machine or an outside party if you wanted to dispute it that far.

Aren't MAC addresses sent in the clear and able to be sniffed?

Yes. MAC address filtering will keep a few unsophisticates out and maintaining a list is now considered passe from an admin POV if you are dealing with many addresses - as the ROI is prohibitive for all of the busy work involved - but it is an easy, if relatively ineffectual, 'additional' measure.

802.11i-AES - the FULL implementation of WPA2 (be aware that there is a less robust implentation option also available to be avoided) is the way to go now. The equipment is readily available, it works great and is secure.

And YES, you are legally responsible for securing your equipment - as YOU are responsible as an accessory for ANY damages resulting from the use of your equipmet, authorized or not. Lay on the floor, kick and scream, or debate all you like, that's the law and its backed up with precedent.

Also, if you have a machine exposed to the internet, or if you have a laptop with which you travel, there is NO reason not to use TrueCrypt data encryption. Its free and easy and reliable.

Its simply too easy to safeguard your data.

But I still get a kick out of how so many righteous folks feel they are entitled to the product of others efforts simply by virtue that they can find a source for it. And no one is discussing reasonable fair use here whereby one copies a source they legally purchased for backup or use on a different format player they own! - but the blatant self righteous justification of theft and redistribution of illegally obtained copyrighted material.

And its an object leson in stupidity to listen to the idiots who actively justify that behavior whining about how un ethical the RIAA may be.

So, in a nutshell, they're not dropping existing cases, just finishing up what they have, hoping the ISPs will do the dirty work for them, and barring that, going back to what didn't work in the first place?

Hmmmm

I still see the RIAA as the devil, and I think this is nothing but a ploy. I'm sure they've started to get some attention by the government, and they have certainly pissed off a few judges. I think this is just to let things cool down in those areas for a bit before starting their sue the world for profit strategy.

RIAA is still disrespected company for their actions. What they're doing is hardly going to change that attitude towards them.

I agree. I think they've been hugely wrong in their previous strategy. But they don't exist for people to like them, nor do I think they 'care' what public opinion is on them.

I still think it consists of a greedy bunch who are more about getting money than protecting artistes, etc. - BUT I think this is at least a waaaaaaay better step than going after people blindly.

It just goes to show how deeply rooted politics is in EVERYTHING, whether people choose to acknowledge or realize it or not.