Reid Amendment / Digital Piracy

The comments by Mitch Bainwol, chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, misrepresent the RIAA’s own data on who is engaged in illegal downloading and which (broadband) networks are being used for illegal downloading. Some examples: — only 4 percent (329) of the more than 8400 “John Doe” lawsuits filed by the RIAA in 2004-2005 involved college students; the rest were “civilians” using consumer broadband services. — a RIAA news release dated 28 Feb 07 states that “college students are the most avid music fans.” Yet data from the RIAA’s 2005 Consumer Profile reveal that consumers ages 18-24 (including but not limited to college students) account for approximately one-sixth (15-17 pct.) of the music buying population in the United States; in contrast, consumers ages 25 and older purchase two-thirds (66.9 pct.) of all recorded music.— “half” the nation’s more than 16 million college students ages 16-67 are NOT engaged in illegal downloading as claimed by Mr. Bainwol and others from the RIAA.

Directly related to the Reid amendment is testimony before the House Science and Technology Committee Hearing on Digital Piracy on 5 June 2007. All four expert witnesses invited by Chairman Gordon – including Vance Ikezoye, president of Audible Magic, a provider of IT tools intended to stem digital piracy – acknowledged that technology will not solve the digital piracy problem. In his testimony before Chairman Gordon, Mr. Ikezoye stated quite clearly that “technology will never be the entire solution to [P2P piracy].” At the same hearing, Dr. Adrian Sannier from Arizona State University reported that his campus recently spent $200,000 for a heavily discounted site license to use the Audible Magic technology. Dr. Sannier described campus spending on technology to stem P2P piracy as an unwinnable “arms race.”

Consumer broadband providers – telcos and cable companies – promote digital piracy by advertising that home broadband and wireless services provide faster access to “music, movies, and more,” without explaining who owns this content or how to purchase it. Moreover, unlike colleges and universities, consumer broadband providers generally fail to provide any user education about digital content and copyright issues when users establish new accounts. Yet neither the RIAA nor the Congress seems willing to discuss the role of consumer broadband providers in implicitly promoting — or at least condoning — digital piracy.

Reid’s amendment targeting Campus-based Digital Theft Prevention will only serve to force colleges and universities to spend significant sums for ineffective software while imposing additional and significant reporting and compliance costs. The only beneficiary will be the RIAA, which will then report to its members that it has worked with Congress to “do something” to address digital piracy on campus networks.

The RIAA’s almost exclusive focus on campuses ignores the broader and more costly problem of illegal P2P downloading involving consumer Internet service providers and the consumer market.

Ample evidence indicates that requiring colleges and universities to purchase a “technology-based deterrent “ to prevent illegal P2P downloading will be ineffective practice and bad public policy.

Kenneth C. GreenThe Campus Computing Project

Kenneth C. Green, at 5:50 am EDT on July 23, 2007

If the RIAA praises it, you just know it’s stinky.

Unfortunately we are likely to see neither sense nor principle from the Democrats on this issue, as Hollywood is their biggest cash machine.

andythebrit, at 2:00 pm EDT on July 23, 2007

Roads are “a means to steal.”

I’m amazed by the recording industries comments. Roadways are a means to steal as well; They are also funded by taxpayer money, that doesn’t mean we should collect data on which roads people use when committing crimes and close them down. This entire idea is ridiculous.

Markitect, at 8:15 am EDT on July 24, 2007

File Sharing

This is one of those issues that does not need the “long arm” of government but the influence of society. Parents and others should be teaching children to respect the property of others and this education needs to start at home and at school. Why do we need more government laws when what we need is education...

Hugh Miller, at 9:25 am EDT on July 24, 2007

I think this is ridiculous. Representing an unofficial student group on a US University campus, I can honestly say that file sharing is used for much more than just illegal purposes. Universities with computer science programs often have users sharing their source with other users via bittorrent. In addition, look at the major way most people download linux distributions; bittorrent.

Filesharing doesn’t need to be outlawed, as this seemingly ignorant politician suggests. Additionally, the fact that they are helping the RIAA’s personal interests when it is being constantly proven in court that the RIAA’s tactics while dealing with universities is legally questionable at best, is appalling.

It has finally been decided that they have no right to demand universities to hand over information based on nothing more than an IP address; the judicial system has put its foot down and stated that it is not sufficient information. Imagine the implications if this wasn’t the case! If I was the RIAA, I could pull an IP address out of a hat, figure out who owned it, and sue them. How is that legally sound? It’s not!

However with this bill, the government is suggesting that now universities have to report to them all these activities. Not only does this entail universities sniffing ALL traffic, thus creating an IMMENSE privacy violation, but then we have the encrypted P2P networks that the institution has to commit substantial resources to trace and crack.

I feel that people should simply write to their politicians to protest this bill, because if it passes, you can guarantee an increase in tuitions (to cover the cost of this extra monitoring) and a decrease in privacy.

Big brother is trying to watch you. Poke him in the eye.

Cerberate, at 10:20 am EDT on July 24, 2007

Stop posting here. Take these comments and email them to your senator. make valid arguments known.

They all have email web forms. I’ve almost always gotten a response via email or snailmail indicating they at least “processed” the message.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Nick, at 12:35 pm EDT on July 24, 2007

How much do you figure RIAA has made in political contributions —- not that there’s anything unethical about that. :)

Cynic, at 2:15 pm EDT on July 24, 2007

aiming to prevent the distribution of information across the internet seems like an inherently uphill — no to mention goofy — battle. legislation such as this amounts to nothing more than sticks in the river.

dust4ngel, at 3:00 pm EDT on July 24, 2007

The congress is considering requiring colleges to monitor the usage of computers by students for file sharing while, at the same time, forbidding the US intelligence and security agencies from monitoring financial transactions and telephone converations of known and suspected terrorists in order to protect the people of the US.

The Democratic congressional leadership considers the RIAA and their client’s economic complaints a higher priority requiring the infringement of personal liberties than they do the actual safety and well being of the general citizenry.

Go Palosi, Go Reid, go to hell both of you!

Glenn, at 6:05 am EDT on August 9, 2007