jd7 says:

hahaha! payback can be painful.

Mr. Fusion says:

Is The RIAA’s Record About To Be Smashed To Bits?

We can only hope.

I don’t have a problem with an owner trying to retain possession and control of their property. The RIAA has gone too far past this point though to legitimately claim they are doing it for the artists, producers, engineers, and writers.

Mark Derail says:

Full 360 contract with music artists is the way to go.

Not just with music, but it should happen with movies and TV shows.

Produce with the Web, not against it.

Proof: more people BitTorrent “Heroes” and “Dexter” than actually watch it on TV.
If it was released to the web, say 24 hrs later, in full HD and some commercials, using http://www.BitTorrent.com website legally, people would actually use it.

Going through multiple torrent sites, like thepiratebay.org or mininova.com, with weird naming conventions, AVI not always available, etc.

Get it from a reputable source, fast download, HD, and I won’t mind commercials!

Imagine having Toyota or Honda sponsering a TV show for a complete season.
“This HD torrent brought to you by…”

Personally I hate HULU, because I can’t use it here in Canada. Or watch The Daily Show / Colbert Report. The Canadian site does a horrible popup in 320×200 pixels.

Glenn E. says:

“The music industry stands to lose countless cases if it loses this particularly high profile one.”

Well if huge profits are at stake, then of course the peoples’ rights must be trampled. It only makes sense if you live in a corporate kiss-up nation such as the US. Corporate rights always out-trump individual rights, because the lobbying dollars are just to overwhelming for any elected politicians to ignore. What do you think they are, anyway? SAINTS?! Those measly automatic 3% pay raises aren’t enough of an incentive for them to think about sticking up for you or me. It takes millions of “get reelected” dollars, to
grab their attention. What we need is a trillion dollar taxpayer funded lobbyist firm to out power all the rest. If that make any sense. Or just shoot all the other lobbyists.
Obviously, I’m being satirical.

Ya know, patents have a life limit (it use to be only one year!). And copyrights, ought to have a limit too, that’s NOT decades long, and renewable at every whim. Art become part of our collective culture, after a time. And keeping a restrictive copyright, on our culture is like living under some commercial dictatorship. Forms of expression can be suppressed, without any justifiable, unconstitutional, reasons. Other than it now violates the copyright holders’ wishes. Well excuse the holy crap out of me for want to say something that treads on some dumbasses song!!!

If they didn’t want to become part of our culture, they shouldn’t have published it so openly, from the beginning. It should have come of stated restrictions, like… The song you are about to hear is protected from use by anyone other than the right holder. Yeah, that would really put a buzz-kill on hearing the Star Wars theme in the Malls at Christmas time.

Let’s face it, the corporations that really own all this junk, have enjoyed all kinds of free (taxpayer paid) protection from theft and transgression. But they shouldn’t expect it to be a permanently granted protection. And the people should expect to get something in return. Like this stuff failing into the public domain, within a generation (NOT AFTER THREE!!). There are statutes of limitations on everything else you or I might contest. Put apparently, if you’re wealthy enough you can bribe Congress and the world governments to look out for your stuff forever more.

sargasso says:

Overlooked point, the RIAA are an international organization which lobbies foreign governments and where necessary threatens US trade sanctions and trade embargoes against tiny, defenseless economies. When the USA is “tearing it a new one”, it thrives in foreign jurisdictions. In New Zealand and Australia, it’s influence permeates all levels of academia, government and commerce.