Guest EQ Report post Posted April 5, 2003 The Recording Industry Association of America apparently took a page from the military handbooks of coalition forces in Iraq this week when it attempted to "shock and awe" college music pirates by hitting them with hefty lawsuits. The trade group is suing four students for operating Napster-like file-sharing services on their campus networks. "This round of suits is intended to send a message to other students who are engaging in this type of behavior," said Matt Oppenheim, senior vice president of business and legal affairs at the RIAA. "There will be no one free pass. ... The students named in the complaints are Aaron Sherman and Jesse Jordan of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Daniel Peng of Princeton and Joe Nievelt of Michigan Technological University. It seeks to recover $150,000 for each copyrighted work that was downloaded. The students allegedly set up sites using the programs Flatlan, Phynd or Direct Connect, that, like the now-defunct Napster, indexed and executed searches for copyrighted songs on the closed networks. The RIAA charges that one network operator distributed 27,000 music files, while the other three students ran networks offering 500,000 music files, 650,000 files and over 1 million files. http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,...tml?tw=wn_ascii This is absolutely absurd. $150,000 for each copyrighted work that was downloaded?! HA! Let's see them really try to collect on that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest MrRant Report post Posted April 5, 2003 They will go after the schools too. Just you watch. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Harry Hood Report post Posted April 5, 2003 RPI: A Fine institution indeed! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest kkktookmybabyaway Report post Posted April 6, 2003 I hope those were some good songs they stole, err, shared... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest EQ Report post Posted April 6, 2003 I've gotten so much good shit off this network. It'll be sad to see it go. *hugs network & pirated music* Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Harry Hood Report post Posted April 6, 2003 NO good horror movies on the RPI network though by my count Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest MarvinisaLunatic Report post Posted April 6, 2003 Someone did the math and got 97.8 Billion dollars for just the one student. $97,800,000,000 The poor dude would have to work 15,046,153,846 hours at $6.50 (Min Wage) to pay off the fine, which is the equivalent of working non-stop for the next 1,717,597 years.` Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest CED Ordonez Report post Posted April 6, 2003 Someone did the math and got 97.8 Billion dollars for just the one student. $97,800,000,000 The poor dude would have to work 15,046,153,846 hours at $6.50 (Min Wage) to pay off the fine, which is the equivalent of working non-stop for the next 1,717,597 years.` $97.8 billion? That's just ludicrous. No wonder so many people flip the bird at the RIAA in the first place. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest kkktookmybabyaway Report post Posted April 6, 2003 "The poor dude would have to work 15,046,153,846 hours at $6.50 (Min Wage) to pay off the fine, which is the equivalent of working non-stop for the next 1,717,597 years." And he still has yet to pay off student loans -- oh the humanity... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest EQ Report post Posted April 6, 2003 NO good horror movies on the RPI network though by my count RPI Student? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Harry Hood Report post Posted April 6, 2003 freshman this year, and damn if i can't wait for summer Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest NoCalMike Report post Posted April 7, 2003 After all this time, the RIAA still won't drop prices on CDs.....greedy fucks. Maybe people can't afford $20 per cd. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
The Dames 0 Report post Posted April 7, 2003 Well, what do you know. I went to RPI. Dames Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Downhome Report post Posted April 7, 2003 This is no way for them to get on the good side of the public. People will not stand for shit like this. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest EQ Report post Posted April 8, 2003 After all this time, the RIAA still won't drop prices on CDs.....greedy fucks. Maybe people can't afford $20 per cd. I have noticed that Best Buy has had some really good prices on CDs lately. I've picked up some great albums for $9.99. But for the most part, you're right. CDs are overpriced. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Mole Report post Posted April 8, 2003 Awww, this is dumb. What is the point of sueing students for that amount of money? If they sued me, they'd get shit. Litterally, I'd give them my shit. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest DrTom Report post Posted April 8, 2003 But for the most part, you're right. CDs are overpriced. Definitely. CD prices average around $17, for something that cost about a $1 to make and distribute, and probably has 2-3 good songs on it. Keep in mind that the RIAA LOST a class-action suit related to CD price-fixing, and the prices have yet to come down. The RIAA can fuck off. I haven't bought a CD in three years. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest EQ Report post Posted April 8, 2003 I completely agree with the statement that CDs are too expensive, but there's more to making a CD than just the money it costs to physically burn the disc. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Harry Hood Report post Posted April 8, 2003 I heard that the two student sfrom RPI may be expelled... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
The Dames 0 Report post Posted April 8, 2003 Hey....one of my best friends at RPI was expelled last year for stealing computer equipment! Dames Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest EQ Report post Posted April 8, 2003 It sucks that he got caught with the computer stuff... I didn't know him that well, but I knew him well enough to know that he was a cool guy and I wish he'd gotten away with it. Anyway, it's bullshit that RPI might expel those kids... you know RPI knew about the stuff they were doing, and they chose not to do anything about it. They want to fuck these kids over to get themselves out of deep shit. If that happens, I bet alot of students raise hell. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Harry Hood Report post Posted April 9, 2003 you got it, i normally don't like protests and all that malarchy (sp) but i have to draw the line somewhere. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest RubySoho50 Report post Posted April 9, 2003 this is the biggest crock i've ever seen. the RIAA says they're running a napster like service? they're running a search engine! i mean, at least napster actually was providing a channel for distributing music. these students did nothing but index files shared on the campus network. i mean, show me a college campus that doesn't have thousands of mp3's, pirated software, movies, or whatever the fuck else shared on the network! the presence of a search engine changes very little some of my friends were joking yesterday that the RIAA should sue microsoft for creating the networking software (although i believe the RPI network is unix based...) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest DrTom Report post Posted April 9, 2003 I completely agree with the statement that CDs are too expensive, but there's more to making a CD than just the money it costs to physically burn the disc. I hope so, since (including the cost of the media, jewel case, and printed label) that's probably about $0.35. Factor in the artist's puny profit, and we're up to $0.50. If it's a big name, then we're up to $0.85 or so. If cars had the same profit margins built into them that CDs do, you'd be paying about $250,000 for a Chevy Cavalier. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest NoCalMike Report post Posted April 9, 2003 The RIAA is not concerned about their artist's money. They are concerned about their own money. They know damn well that artists in all genres make peanuts on cds. The RIAA is putting pressure on all the artists on their lables to come out publicly against burning CDs. The latest example is Korn who blames sluggish CD sales on bootleg copies. That is a total crock, maybe if they made an album that sounded different from their last 3, more people would shell out the cash for them. I still buy CDs but never at $17+ If anything I go to best buy and pay $12 or down. I download mp3s but for the most part they stay on my computer unless I really am in the mood for the song. Maybe record sales are going down because what people here on the radio is just not interesting or innovative anymore. Every artist sounds so similar now. Record Labels should blame THEMSELVES. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest EQ Report post Posted April 9, 2003 Here's my thing... I have no problem (a) supporting artists that I really like or (b) giving a CD a chance if its cheap enough (no more than 13 bucks). I don't think this is too much to ask. If I happen to like a song I hear on the radio, but the album costs like 17 bucks, I'm not going to shell out my cash if I'm not sure I'm going to be satisfied. Simple as that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Harry Hood Report post Posted April 9, 2003 AS reportsd in the RPI Polytechinic today, the students who are being sued may need to pay up to 150,000 $ for EACH illegal song on their harddrives. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Mad Dog Report post Posted April 9, 2003 So how does suing students, who more than likely are piss poor like 99.9% of other students, solve anything? I mean they might have somewhat of an understandable case if they didn't want freaking $150,000 for one freaking song. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest EQ Report post Posted April 10, 2003 Yeah, it said that same thing about the $150,000 per song downloaded in the article I posted too... That's so rediculous... that's *billions* of dollars. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Harry Hood Report post Posted April 10, 2003 I unshared mine anyway, just in case they can somehow get my shit, I gotta admit, I don't really know how this all works. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
