G
Guest
I have the vista on my laptop. Can I download window xp also?
C
Chad Harris
Yo hammertime--
You won't be downloading XP unless you do it from an illegal torrent or file
share site. But you sure can dual boot it if you do this properly.
Google dual boot vista and xp with vista installed.
CH
You won't be downloading XP unless you do it from an illegal torrent or file
share site. But you sure can dual boot it if you do this properly.
Google dual boot vista and xp with vista installed.
CH
T
Taibear ios
Why do you want to do that? Dont tell me vista is stupid.. because I wont
believe you
believe you
F
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP IE
hammertime said:
You can't download Windows XP.
T
Taibear ios
many people mix up the term download with install
they do not mean the same.. but the MVP's are so dense and with so little
imagination
that they cannot even imagine that perhaps you really mean "install xp"
they do not mean the same.. but the MVP's are so dense and with so little
imagination
that they cannot even imagine that perhaps you really mean "install xp"
T
Taibear ios
many people mix up the term "download" with "install"
A good mvp is keen to pick up these mistakes from people who are not experts
on using computers and are seeking help.
Thus a follow up question should be made for clarification. That is if the
MVP cares and is really interested in helping the posters, in most cases
they just try to snob and make fun of the users if they dont use the right
terms.
Gee if they knew everything they would not be asking questions would they?
Its funny becuase I keep finding mistakes in what MVP's say.. they think
they know a lot.. but they dont.
You may be a good MVP, I have not seen you in here ... the ones in here are
pathetic.. totally pathetic.
A good mvp is keen to pick up these mistakes from people who are not experts
on using computers and are seeking help.
Thus a follow up question should be made for clarification. That is if the
MVP cares and is really interested in helping the posters, in most cases
they just try to snob and make fun of the users if they dont use the right
terms.
Gee if they knew everything they would not be asking questions would they?
Its funny becuase I keep finding mistakes in what MVP's say.. they think
they know a lot.. but they dont.
You may be a good MVP, I have not seen you in here ... the ones in here are
pathetic.. totally pathetic.
A
Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]
You cannot download a retail copy of Windows XP.
D
Dave
You can install XP also, if you have a license for it.
The preferred method is to install the older (XP) operating system first,
but you can install XP after Vista, and fix the boot manager.
The preferred method is to install the older (XP) operating system first,
but you can install XP after Vista, and fix the boot manager.
F
Frank
Taibear said:
You mean like you do?
Well duh...!
Oh, now you're the Vista computer expert....yeah...right.
... they think
Oh, just like you, huh.
... but they dont.
Oh, just like you, huh.
And who the fukk are you? Tell us again as we've forgotten. Are that guy
who thinks he's capin' kurk or is it capin' crunch.
Tell us again...we forgot.
... the ones in here are
And you are...tells us again who you are to be judging others?
... totally pathetic.
Great! Now you've got to be referring to yourself right?
Frank
T
Taibear ios
Frank said...
no wait no one cares what frank said!
<franks stupidity cut>
why are you still trying?.. you have already gotten the title of most
"stupid usenet user"....
you are best at something at last...
no wait no one cares what frank said!
<franks stupidity cut>
why are you still trying?.. you have already gotten the title of most
"stupid usenet user"....
you are best at something at last...
A
Adam Albright
Gosh... did I remind you today how dumb you always are Frank? Well now
I did.
I ALWAYS go to pains to say not all MVPs are rude, condescending and
mostly self-important types and often wrong. Sadly the vast majority
of MVPs that hang out in this goofy newsgroup are that and need a
major attitude adjustment.
As far as MVPs being computer experts, you're kidding right Frank?
Most, even the good ones are mostly cut and paste jockeys.
I got a new classification we should start using. FMM for fanboy
mental midget. You can be the leader Frank. You've already proved you
are the dumbest of the dumb.
C
Chad Harris
Yo Taibear--
Most of us who help bend over elventysix ways to Christmas to read between
the lines and don't taunt. Frank Saunders has been helping for years with
all aspects of Windows, OE, IE etc. tirelessly, but sometimes the words are
ambiguous enough to be taken literally. No one I know of hear wastes a
nano-second taunting, but the intention is to impart helpful info.
Someone who has Vista installed, can easily google with the words "dual boot
with Vista installed" and get detailed instructions to get what the OP
wanted.
It's not always clear that people who write download mean install, and many
people think you can download Vista or XP. Actually you easily can, and
most MSFT software and other major software, but obviously it's not "legit"
software.
CH
Most of us who help bend over elventysix ways to Christmas to read between
the lines and don't taunt. Frank Saunders has been helping for years with
all aspects of Windows, OE, IE etc. tirelessly, but sometimes the words are
ambiguous enough to be taken literally. No one I know of hear wastes a
nano-second taunting, but the intention is to impart helpful info.
Someone who has Vista installed, can easily google with the words "dual boot
with Vista installed" and get detailed instructions to get what the OP
wanted.
It's not always clear that people who write download mean install, and many
people think you can download Vista or XP. Actually you easily can, and
most MSFT software and other major software, but obviously it's not "legit"
software.
CH
Taibear ios said:
F
Frank
Adam said:
Oh, that the best part of your stupid big mouth arrogant diatribe. You,
of all people, determining who and who is not a "computer
expert"?...you, OUR little brained moron who can't even get one little
install of Vista business to run properly is telling all of us who the
"computer experts" are?
Take my advice you idiot and craw back into that dark hole you keep
emerging out from only to make a fool out of yourself.
Frank
F
Frank
Tell me capin' crunch...how many computers do you have Vista OS running on?Taibear said:
Frank
T
Taibear ios
I am sure Frank Saunders is a good MVP....
Its the other ones in here are... let me say "a bit irritating"
You can learn almost anything using Google... and Google groups and other
ways...
sometimes people need guidance and direct replies because they do not know
how to research information.
Its the other ones in here are... let me say "a bit irritating"
You can learn almost anything using Google... and Google groups and other
ways...
sometimes people need guidance and direct replies because they do not know
how to research information.
C
Chad Harris
I take your point, but I have to say that on balance, I have learned a ton
from these groups--MVPs and other posters equally, gotten stuck with a Word
problem at 2AM on a document and gotten an answer from someone who has
written a book on my shelf in 5 minutes so the good far outweighs the bad.
And if you look at some of these specialty groups whether they are XP,
Vista, Outlook, Word, etc. there is a terrific pool of talent that
unselfishly gives a huge amount of their time to help day in day out.
I think the newsgroups are among the most valuable underused resources for
computer education. All the time I'll bump into someone who asks me for
help with their PC/PDA/Windows/3rd party software, and they've never heard
of the groups as a resource they can hit 24X7 to get help or thought of
going to an online forum. That may sound strange to people who use them
regularly, but it's absolutely true.
MSFT has sure made it a couple clicks and easy to setup in Win Mail Vista--I
just wish everyone that might need them would find them.
CH
from these groups--MVPs and other posters equally, gotten stuck with a Word
problem at 2AM on a document and gotten an answer from someone who has
written a book on my shelf in 5 minutes so the good far outweighs the bad.
And if you look at some of these specialty groups whether they are XP,
Vista, Outlook, Word, etc. there is a terrific pool of talent that
unselfishly gives a huge amount of their time to help day in day out.
I think the newsgroups are among the most valuable underused resources for
computer education. All the time I'll bump into someone who asks me for
help with their PC/PDA/Windows/3rd party software, and they've never heard
of the groups as a resource they can hit 24X7 to get help or thought of
going to an online forum. That may sound strange to people who use them
regularly, but it's absolutely true.
MSFT has sure made it a couple clicks and easy to setup in Win Mail Vista--I
just wish everyone that might need them would find them.
CH
C
Chad Harris
Andre--
I made it pretty clear. As far as what you ***can do, you ***can download
anything that MSFT or most third parties make as you know if you use
torrents or file shares, and they work although sometimes WGA and its
sequels won't let you update or get some of the elective downloads. That
certainly includes any current Windows operating system XP or Vista, and any
of the Office applications and many of the popular server softwares, and any
Beta Microsoft has going now. I qualified this carefully and said you
cannot download legit, and if by retail you mean legit fine but you sure
can get the software free. I at no time condoned it; I stated a fact. And
as to the warnings about viruses, anyone with a minimal knowledge of how to
use antivirus software and spyware could pretty much immunize themselves
from those desultory warnings that are always "grandfathered in" to the
caveats on getting free software.
Right now, the percentage of people enrolled in American universities who
steal music and movies is in the high double digits but they would draw the
line at driving mom and dad's car through the doors and windows of Best Buys
or some other store at 3AM to steal that same music physically or software.
These are the federal judges and state court judges throughout the US of
tomorrow and their kids.
A lot of schools are cooperating through their school ISPs and allowing the
RIAA to trace the thiefs and haul them into court and cost them 3 grand or
more accurately their already overburdened parents. It's happening every
day.
As in this scenario in last week's New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/education/10students.html
October 10, 2007 NEW YORK TIMES
File-Sharing Students Fight Copyright Constraints
By RACHEL AVIV
When Zachary McCune, a student at Brown, received an e-mail message from the
university telling him he might have broken the law by downloading
copyrighted songs, his eyes glazed over the warning and he quickly forgot
about it. “I already knew what they’d say about file-sharing,” he said. “It’s
become a campus cliché.”
But the next day, he realized the message had an attachment from the
Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that is
coordinating legal efforts by record companies to crack down on Internet
piracy. The attachment told Mr. McCune he faced a lawsuit with potential
fines of $750 to $150,000 for every illegally downloaded song.
“I was stunned by the extremity of the punishment for taking songs I could
have bought for a few cents,” he said. “It seemed grossly out of
proportion.”
Twelve Brown students received these letters; Mr. McCune ended up paying
$3,000 to settle the claim. But the experience made him interested in
changing intellectual property regulations. Last spring he co-founded Brown’s
chapter of Students for Free Culture, a national organization sprouting up
on college campuses that advocates loosening the restrictions of copyright
law so that information — from software to music to research to art — can be
freely shared.
“The technology has outpaced the law,” said Mr. McCune, who is now a
sophomore.
Established at Swarthmore College in 2004, the group has chapters at more
than 35 universities across the country. “We will listen to free music, look
at free art, watch free film and read free books,” reads its manifesto,
posted on its Web site, freeculture.org. “We refuse to accept a future of
digital feudalism.”
Members assert that the Internet has made it necessary to rethink copyright
law, and they talk about the group’s goals with something like the reverence
that earlier generations displayed in talking about social or racial
equality.
“People wonder why college students aren’t rallying more around the Iraq
war,” Mr. McCune said. “If there were a draft, we probably would be.
Students are so quick to fight for this cause because we’re the ones bearing
the burden.”
Cory Doctorow, co-editor of the popular technology blog Boing Boing, said
the recording industry lawsuits were not “scaring students away from
file-sharing, but scaring them into political consciousness.” Last year, Mr.
Doctorow was an adviser to the Students for Free Culture chapter at the
University of Southern California while teaching a course on the history of
copyright law.
Opposition to the music industry and its efforts to protect copyrights often
dominates discussions on campuses. Chapters have organized demonstrations in
front of major record stores and held “iPod liberation” parties where
students have downloaded software together that makes it possible to swap
songs.
Many chapters have held forums to discuss legal decisions and developments
in copyright, frequently debating what it means to “steal” something as
amorphous as a digital file.
But in recent months, the group has made a point of branching out beyond
music copyrights. At its first national conference, held at Harvard in May
and attended by more than 130 people, speakers gave presentations on topics
like enhancing Internet access in impoverished countries, and loosening
patent regulations for pharmaceutical drugs.
“File-sharing may have brought these issues to public consciousness, but it’s
not our only inspiration,” said Elizabeth Stark, founder of Harvard’s Free
Culture group.
Some chapters have rallied around the Federal Research Public Access Act, a
bill that would make it mandatory for government-financed research to be
published in online journals, free to the public.
The movement is not without its critics. Early on, Ethan Zuckerman, a
research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard
Law School, said the group should pick more consequential problems to rally
around than access to music.
“Part of what’s so tricky about this movement is trying to pry apart access
to entertainment from some of the more serious issues, like access to
medicine,” he said. “The movement does itself a disservice by blending all
the issues together.”
There are student dissenters, too. At Brown, David Harrington, a senior who
did not join the new chapter, said he sometimes felt like the “grumpiest,
curmudgeonliest old man in the conversation” for understanding the position
of the recording industry.
“I’m a musician, so I’m thinking, how are these artists going to earn a
living?” he said.
“The technology makes stealing so easy that it’s hard to tell whether this
debate is about ethics or just convenience.”
Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the recording industry group, said he had
never heard of Students for Free Culture. But he said his group did not plan
to let up on its efforts to protect music copyrights.
“Some say illegal downloading couldn’t possibly hurt successful artists,
which may very well be true,” he said. “But we rely on a few successful
artists to compensate for all the new, risky ones who don’t recoup what’s
invested in them.”
The movement has its roots in an incident at Swarthmore, when two sophomores
posted online internal e-mail messages from Diebold Election Systems, which
makes electronic voting machines. The company ordered the students to remove
the documents, asserting that the messages were its own intellectual
property, and threatening a lawsuit. Instead, the students won a lawsuit
against Diebold for abusing copyright law.
Propelled by their victory, the students started the group, which they named
after the 2004 book “Free Culture” by Lawrence Lessig, a professor at
Stanford Law School. The book applies principles from the so-called free
software movement — the idea that computer users should have the liberty to
copy, distribute and modify software as they wish — to all aspects of
culture. Too many copyright restrictions, Mr. Lessig argued, dampen
creativity.
“Copyright should be a boring subject, but more and more people are
realizing how big this is,” said Cameron Parkins, 21, a member of Students
for Free Culture at the University of Southern California. “You mention the
name Lawrence Lessig to the right people, and they’ll just go bananas.”
Before beginning their meetings, the members of New York University’s
chapter place a copy of “Free Culture” at the center of their conference
table.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a bible, but we do often reference it,” said Fred
Benenson, 23, president of the group and a master’s student in N.Y.U.’s
Interactive Telecommunications Program. His group has held lectures,
protests and an art exhibition, with all work licensed under Creative
Commons, a nonprofit organization that allows authors to change copyright
terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved” or “No Rights
Reserved.”
There are around 15 regular members in N.Y.U.’s chapter, Mr. Benenson said,
and the mailing list includes more than 600 people. He said he and others
were working on composing a list of the top 10 universities with the most
restrictive policies for licensing scholarly research, software and student
work.
“Students want to know which universities are going to take away their
freedom on the Internet,” he said. “The academy is meant to be this
wonderful, separate part of the world that exists for the sharing and
reusing of culture.”
http://www.news.com/Rights-and-wrongs-in-the-antipiracy-struggle/2010-1027_3-6213649.html?tag=item
Rights and wrongs in the antipiracy struggle
By Cary Sherman
http://www.news.com/Rights-and-wrongs-in-the-antipiracy-struggle/2010-1027_3-6213649.html
Story last modified Tue Oct 16 04:00:03 PDT 2007
Why Jammie Thomas?
That question was posed in a CNET News.com story last week, as well as in
other commentaries regarding a copyright lawsuit won by the RIAA. It's worth
revisiting why we, the Recording Industry Association of America, do what we
do and how we got to this place.
From the moment we announced in June 2003 that we would be gathering
evidence for the purpose of bringing lawsuits against end users, the program
has generated attention and debate. We welcome that national conversation.
This was never a step we wanted to take, and we recognized that it would
generate criticism in some quarters. It's tough love--for the first time,
despite years of educational efforts and the availability of plentiful legal
alternatives, we are holding people personally and financially accountable
for the theft of creative works.
But the backdrop was a community hemorrhaging jobs, careers and investment
in new music, amid a pervasive culture of looting in which there was little
understanding of the law or the negative consequences of breaking it.
What have our antipiracy efforts yielded? A legal marketplace that is far
better because of what we've done. The process of bringing lawsuits has
changed slightly since the program's inception, but one constant has been
the process of identifying people who are stealing music online.
When we target an infringer, we do not know who that person is or any
demographic information about the computer user. We know the songs that are
being illegally "shared" (with millions of anonymous people) and the time
and date of that copyright violation, nothing more. We do not have the
ability to screen defendants based on their perceived sympathy or anything
else.
No doubt, if we selectively enforced our rights against those deemed less
sympathetic, the fringe copyright critics would call us arbitrary and
capricious. We target theft. Period.
What have our antipiracy efforts yielded? A legal marketplace that is far
better because of what we've done: Digital revenues doubled as a percentage
of the market in 2006, from 8 percent in 2005 to more than 16 percent. An
illegal marketplace which, prior to the initiation of our deterrence
program, experienced exponential illicit P2P use has now mostly
stabilized--the average number of households downloading music illegally on
a monthly basis was roughly 7 million in 2003 and is now 7.8 million.
Compare that with the growth in broadband access to the Internet, which grew
from 38 million home users in 2003 to at least 80 million today.
Can there be any doubt that a whole lot more of those broadband subscribers
would be illegally downloading but for the lawsuits? Surveys confirm that
fact: People who have stopped illegal downloading cite the fear of being
sued as the first or second reason for changing their behavior. And, lastly,
there is a fundamentally different understanding of what you can and can't
do on the Internet--37 percent of those surveyed in 2003 thought it was
illegal to distribute music for free over the Internet; now that number has
grown to 73 percent.
Think about it. What would the online music world look like had we done
nothing? It's not a pretty picture: skyrocketing illegal peer-to-peer
downloading without even a second thought about its legality or morality,
and a small handful of legitimate businesses struggling to gain traction in
a marketplace overwhelmingly dominated by piracy.
Four years into this program, the first trial of our end-user lawsuits
finally happened. The fact that it took so long speaks to the clarity of the
law and the clarity of the courts' various rulings on our legal program.
Even the Supreme Court called illegal downloading "garden-variety theft."
Some defense lawyers, with an ax to grind and an agenda to advance, have
posited a variety of bizarre legal theories about our cases. Yes, there have
been a handful of procedural motions where the courts have asked us to
proceed in a different manner.
But the underlying facts and the overwhelming court affirmations are
irrefutable. The legal process we follow has been consistently upheld. And
creative counterclaims on such theories as invasion of privacy, trespass and
intentional infliction of emotional distress have been regularly dismissed
by courts as improper.
Which brings us to the case of Ms. Thomas . Let's be clear. We did not
choose Ms. Thomas to be the defendant in the first end-user lawsuit to go to
trial. We repeatedly extended a generous settlement offer, a tiny fraction
of which a jury later imposed upon her, but for whatever reason, Ms. Thomas
turned us down. She and her lawyer chose this fight, not us.
That said, we will not--and cannot--hesitate to defend our rights. What's
the alternative? Are we supposed to say "never mind" and concede the rights
of artists, songwriters, producers, publishers and labels every time a
defendant who may be sympathetic to some refuses to accept responsibility?
What kind of deterrence message would that send?
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A jury of Ms. Thomas' peers--12 ordinary Americans from the defendant's home
state--found her liable for copyright theft. In fact, some wanted to assign
even a harsher penalty, according to news reports. We purposefully did not
ask for any specific amount in damages. We asked the jury to decide what was
appropriate--and after carefully reviewing all the evidence, they determined
that $222,000 was the appropriate amount .
None of this, though, is about being in court or winning monetary judgments.
We would rather be in the record studios helping artists make great music
that we can distribute in lots of exciting new ways that music fans want.
Because that's what this program is ultimately about--creating a marketplace
that rewards investment in creativity and compensates those who make the
best music in the world.
http://www.news.com/For-RIAA,-a-black-eye-comes-with-the-job/2100-1027_3-6212374.html?tag=item
For RIAA, a black eye comes with the job
By Greg Sandoval
http://www.news.com/For-RIAA,-a-black-eye-comes-with-the-job/2100-1027_3-6212374.html
Story last modified Tue Oct 09 08:16:23 PDT 2007
Almost everybody agrees Jammie Thomas is thumping the recording industry in
a battle for hearts and minds.
The single mother of two who makes $36,000 a year was ordered by a jury last
week to pay the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) $220,000.
She was not accused of stealing music, but the jury found that she made 24
songs available online--allegedly for others to download. On Monday, Thomas
announced that she has decided to file an appeal.
The image of a rich and gargantuan corporate entity steamrolling a woman
with limited resources is etched into the minds of many onlookers, say
public relations experts. So why, then, if the RIAA is taking a PR beating,
is the group continuing to pursue Thomas? Why not target people who tug a
little less on the public's heartstrings?
"It's usually inadvisable to turn someone into a martyr," said Jonathan
Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management, a Los Angeles-based
public relations firm. "I would think they could have pursued someone that
drew a little less empathy. What they risk is creating a long-lasting image.
On the Internet, it's simple to create martyrdom (all over the world) and
this is particularly damaging thing to do. It can be very harmful to a
company's reputation."
Jammie Thomas
But according to industry insiders and the RIAA itself, the group has little
choice but to continue to file civil complaints against file sharers--bad PR
or not.
"Yes, this is a form of tough love but it is a necessary one to protect the
rights of artists," said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman. "Look at the
extensiveness of the coverage on Friday. Every single newspaper and TV
station carried the story that a jury of Thomas' peers found her guilty of
copyright violations. This sends a very clear message that if you steal
music online there can be real consequences. There is a lot of deterrent
value to that message becoming public."
Thomas, 30, denies file sharing. She said that she doesn't use Kazaa, the
peer-to-peer service she is accused of using to make more than 1,700 songs
available. In a phone interview on Monday, she said that her IP address
could have been hijacked by a music pirate.
The case is quickly becoming a rallying point for the file-sharing
community. Already, a site has cropped up called Freejammie.com, started by
a supporter who has never met Thomas. More than $2,500 has been raised by
the site. Others have sent donations to Thomas' lawyer.
'No longer my fight'
In a phone interview with CNET News.com, Thomas said that she never meant to
become a standard bearer for the file-sharing community.
"But at this point, I really don't think I have much of a choice," Thomas
said. "As soon as this case went public, it was no longer my fight. It
became everyone's fight. Just because it's my name on the case, doesn't mean
I'm alone. There are so many other people who have taken up the case with
me."
It's hard not to be struck by just how ham-handed the RIAA's legal
maneuverings have been. While old RIAA foes such as file-sharing companies
Napster and Grokster may not have gained a lot of sympathy in the heartland,
people like Thomas do. Even college kids running file-sharing networks on
the sly in dorm rooms can look sympathetic compared with giant corporations
with a reputation for overcharging customers and not sharing profits with
the artists.
The RIAA's antipiracy efforts have sometimes been vilified and other times
ridiculed. Even members of Congress poked fun at the RIAA's attempts to take
legal action in 2003 against Brianna LaHara, a then 12-year-old honors
student from New York.
"Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" Sen.
Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked an RIAA executive during a senate hearing.
The image of a sweet-faced LaHara appeared in scores of media outlets with
many publications asking how the RIAA, with its seemingly bottomless war
chest and army of attorneys, could really be threatened by the likes of
LaHara. The RIAA moved fast to settle the case with LaHara's mother agreeing
to pay the RIAA $2,000.
But if the RIAA isn't going to stand up for its rights, who will, asks Chris
Castle, a copyright lawyer and former executive with A&M Records and Sony
Entertainment.
The music industry can't rely on the federal government. He points out that
the Copyright Office has far less power than other regulatory bodies, such
as the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission.
"The copyright office has virtually no enforcement powers," Castle said.
"That's left up to the Department of Justice and they haven't done much
about this problem. If the RIAA didn't do anything about piracy, then
nothing would get done."
The other thing to consider is what would happen if the RIAA halted the
lawsuits. Some critics say that the litigation is hardly any deterrent. They
point to studies that indicate that file sharing continues to grow even
though the RIAA has sued more than 26,000 people.
While it remains highly unpopular, the RIAA has a fiduciary duty to track
down file sharers, whoever they might be, said Eric Garland, CEO of
BigChampagne, a company that monitors traffic to entertainment sites. He
said that he's talked to many people in the industry that believe the RIAA
could potentially face lawsuits from artists if they failed to protect their
rights.
Now on News.com
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"They have to do everything they can to prevent piracy," Garland said. "Or
else how long will it be before the estate of Cole Porter or The Beatles
file suit against you. The RIAA acts as agents for hundreds of thousands of
artists and for millions of songs. They have to demonstrate to the artists
and also to Wall Street that they are doing everything that they can to
fight piracy. You can't just say we gave up protecting their work. I don't
think they have the option to do that."
In all the talk about the RIAA beating up on Thomas, Lamy wanted people to
know that the RIAA doesn't choose any of the people it files suits against.
There is no way for the RIAA to know anything about the people it files
lawsuits against, Lamy said.
"We know someone was using a computer and IP address to distribute songs. We
know information like the time they used it but we don't know anything about
that person.
"We would undoubtedly be criticized if we were selective in enforcing our
rights," Lamy continued. "We're not. We target theft, period."
_________________________________________
Podcast
How RIAA Won $222,000
http://www.news.com/Podcast-How-the...ared-songs/2324-11424_3-6211990.html?tag=item
RIAA Verdict Playback: RIAA Wins $22,000 from Minessota Woman ()and Several
Links
http://www.news.com/RIAA-verdict-playback/2009-1027_3-6212050.html?tag=item
Week in Review: Download Dilemma
http://www.news.com/Week-in-review-Download-dilemma/2100-1083_3-6213156.html?tag=item
Week in review: Download dilemma
By Steven Musil
http://www.news.com/Week-in-review-Download-dilemma/2100-1083_3-6213156.html
Story last modified Fri Oct 12 12:06:27 PDT 2007
The landmark music copyright verdict refocused attention on file sharing,
including the record industry's efforts to quell it.
Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota woman who last week was ordered to pay the
recording industry $222,000 for copyright violations related to sharing
songs, has decided to appeal the verdict. Thomas announced her decision on
cable news channel CNN and on her MySpace.com page, saying that the appeal
would be based on the federal jury's finding that making songs available
online violates copyright .
"This would stop the RIAA dead in their tracks," Thomas wrote on her blog.
"Every single suit they have brought has been based on this making-available
theory, and if we can win this appeal, they would actually have to prove a
file was shared."
But can she actually win against the Recording Industry Association of
America? CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh says there's probably a 50-50
chance . On one hand, the RIAA has won some minor victories in the last few
years with its "making available" arguments to expand copyright law beyond
what it actually seems to say. Now that there's finally going to be some
serious public and judicial scrutiny, however, the odds are closer to even.
"For decades the industry has run roughshod over the artists and now it
wants to play the 'we're protecting' card?"
-- CNET News.com reader
Some are suggesting that someone may have steered her into taking on the
recording industry . Why would a 30-year-old mother of two, who makes
$36,000 a year, want to go toe-to-toe with the recording industry, asks
Chris Castle, an attorney, former music executive and owner of a small
record label. Last week, Castle accused the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
a group that advocates for the rights of Internet users, of trying to turn
Thomas into the "Joan of Arc of illegal downloading."
Thomas responded by saying "my comment to him is that this was all my
decision," she said. "From the get go, my attorney has pointed out to me
what could happen. We knew (losing the copyright trial) was a possibility. I
am no puppet."
She also got some criticism from one of the jurors in her trial who said the
jury did not believe her story that someone spoofed her IP address. In an
article on Wired.com, the juror said he had never been on the Internet.
"She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars," the juror
told Wired.com. "Spoofing? We're thinking, 'Oh my God, you got to be
kidding.' She's a liar."
That didn't sit well with Thomas.
"I don't need to say too much, obviously," Thomas told CNET News.com. "They
admit that they are computer illiterate. This person has never been on the
Internet, so how can he say whether my story is possible?"
Meanwhile, the image of a rich and gargantuan corporate entity steamrolling
a woman with limited resources is etched into the minds of many onlookers,
say public relations experts. So why, then, if the RIAA is taking a PR
beating, is the group continuing to pursue Thomas? Why not target people who
tug a little less on the public's heartstrings?
But, according to industry insiders and the RIAA itself, the group has
little choice but to continue to file civil complaints against file
sharers--bad PR or not.
However, many CNET News.com readers rejected that argument.
"The industry association is not charged with protecting artists. Its goal
is to protect the industry and its members," wrote one reader to the
News.com TalkBack forum. "For decades the industry has run roughshod over
the artists and now it wants to play the 'we're protecting' card?"
Oracle bids for BEA
Oracle grabbed headlines late in the week with its offer to acquire Silicon
Valley rival BEA Systems for $17 per share, a total of about $6.67 billion
in cash. If consummated, the acquisition could eliminate issues about what
BEA will do for future growth while furthering Oracle's years-long effort to
consolidate as much of the software industry under its own roof.
Oracle's offer, made in a Tuesday letter to BEA's board of directors, is a
25 percent premium over BEA's closing price Thursday of $13.62. BEA's shares
surged 33 percent, or $4.49, to $18.10 in morning trading Friday.
BEA has been under pressure from rivals including IBM, Oracle and a variety
of open-source software projects. Despite introducing new product lines, new
license revenue has been tepid or declined over the past two years. And
investor Carl Icahn, who earlier this month acquired a 13.2 percent stake in
the San Jose, Calif.-based company, has been urging the company to put
itself up for sale.
BEA rejected the offer Thursday. "It is apparent to our board...that BEA is
worth substantially more to Oracle, to others and, importantly, to our
shareholders than the price indicated in your letter," William Klein, BEA's
vice president of business planning and development, said in a letter to
Oracle that BEA made public on Friday.
Around the Hill
In addition to weighing in on the Jammie Thomas case, prominent champions of
tougher copyright enforcement also took their fight this week to a stately
Capitol Hill caucus room , staging an expo aimed at playing up the legal
protections' importance to their livelihood. The event was put on by the
Copyright Alliance, which formed earlier this year to promote the "vital
role" of copyright in the U.S. economy and job market, encourage inclusion
of copyright protection requirements in trade agreements, urge tougher civil
and criminal penalties for piracy, and dissuade any weakening of copyright
law.
Most of the major players had booths at Thursday's shindig, and some of
their messages were hardly subtle. The RIAA hung wrinkled T-shirts that read
in bold print: "feed a musician, download legally."
The Entertainment Software Association, which represents video game and
console makers, had a Nintendo Wii on hand for passers-by to test and
decorated its booth with a huge poster that screamed in menacing capital
letters: "Game Over Pirates Game Over."
While not being educated about copyrights, politicians debated whether
telecommunications companies that may have illegally opened their networks
to intelligence agencies should be immunized from lawsuits. A new proposal
from House Democrats would impose some additional privacy safeguards and
oversight on a shadowy court that meets behind closed doors to approve
foreign surveillance requests. The current version of the Restore Act does
not immunize either telephone or Internet providers.
In remarks to reporters at the White House, President Bush stressed that the
immunization requirement was non-negotiable. "It must grant liability
protection," he said, "to companies who are facing multibillion-dollar
lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to
defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks."
Without that requirement, Bush said, he would not sign a bill into law.
After news reports said AT&T and other major telecommunications carriers
opened their networks to the National Security Agency after September 11,
2001, dozens of civil lawsuits have been filed against them.
Meanwhile, a key U.S. House of Representatives panel unanimously agreed to
extend a ban on Internet access taxes for another four years --but not
before rejecting proposals to make the tax permanent or extend it for a
lengthier stretch of time. The committee almost approved an amendment
proposing an eight-year extension. But after several minutes of political
gymnastics, all that changed.
At issue is a law dating back to 1998 that generally prohibits state and
local governments from taxing Internet access, including DSL (digital
subscriber line), cable modem and BlackBerry-type wireless transmission
services. It also prohibits "discriminatory" taxes that treat products sold
on the Internet differently than those in brick-and-mortar stores, but it
does not deal with the separate issue of imposing sales taxes on goods
bought online.
The current law is set to expire November 1, and Republicans have complained
that their Democratic colleagues are moving too sluggishly to renew the
expiring rules.
Sprint's trouble on the line
Sprint Nextel said CEO Gary Forsee has stepped down as chairman and chief
executive officer , effective immediately. Forsee's departure comes as
investors, upset over the company's poor performance, have put pressure on
the board of directors to make a change at the top.
Pressure has been building for months to replace Forsee as investors are
becoming increasingly more agitated at Sprint's poor performance. Since
Sprint acquired Nextel in 2005, making it the third largest cell phone
provider in the U.S., the company's stock has declined roughly 27 percent.
And if Wall Street pundits get their way, Sprint Nextel's next CEO will put
the brakes on plans for a new, high-speed wireless network. But such a move,
while no doubt cutting costs, could condemn the struggling company to
also-ran status.
Among investors' biggest concerns is Sprint's plan to build a
next-generation wireless network using a technology called WiMax. The
company has committed itself to spending $5 billion in the next three years
to build the network, with about $2 billion of that money earmarked to be
spent in the next year to get WiMax coverage to about 100 million people by
the end of 2008.
Wall Street analysts and investors say Sprint's WiMax dreams are an
unnecessary and dangerous diversion for the company, which is still
struggling two years after the $36 billion Nextel merger to realize any of
the cost savings that had been promised when the merger was announced.
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Meanwhile, Internet telephony provider Vonage settled its patent dispute
with Sprint Nextel . The two companies have entered into a licensing
arrangement that allows Vonage to use patents for voice over Internet
Protocol, or VoIP, technology that are held by Sprint.
Vonage has agreed to pay Sprint a total of $80 million, according to the
company. This includes $35 million for past use of the license, $40 million
for a fully paid future license and $5 million in prepayment for services.
In September, a Kansas jury found that Vonage had infringed six Sprint
patents. And it ordered Vonage to pay $69.5 million in damages, plus 5
percent for future damages.
Also of note
Electronic Arts has agreed to acquire VG Holdings , the parent company of
two game development companies, BioWare and Pandemic Studios, for $860
million...Google is expanding its AdSense program so that Web site
publishers can display and make money off embedded video clips from YouTube
content partners that have targeted banner or text ads, in addition to the
traditional text ads that Google offers...Internet2 has boosted its network
speeds to 100 gigabits per second.
______________
I'm glad you're back posting here. It's always a great help for people when
you're around, and I continue to learn from you.
CH
I made it pretty clear. As far as what you ***can do, you ***can download
anything that MSFT or most third parties make as you know if you use
torrents or file shares, and they work although sometimes WGA and its
sequels won't let you update or get some of the elective downloads. That
certainly includes any current Windows operating system XP or Vista, and any
of the Office applications and many of the popular server softwares, and any
Beta Microsoft has going now. I qualified this carefully and said you
cannot download legit, and if by retail you mean legit fine but you sure
can get the software free. I at no time condoned it; I stated a fact. And
as to the warnings about viruses, anyone with a minimal knowledge of how to
use antivirus software and spyware could pretty much immunize themselves
from those desultory warnings that are always "grandfathered in" to the
caveats on getting free software.
Right now, the percentage of people enrolled in American universities who
steal music and movies is in the high double digits but they would draw the
line at driving mom and dad's car through the doors and windows of Best Buys
or some other store at 3AM to steal that same music physically or software.
These are the federal judges and state court judges throughout the US of
tomorrow and their kids.
A lot of schools are cooperating through their school ISPs and allowing the
RIAA to trace the thiefs and haul them into court and cost them 3 grand or
more accurately their already overburdened parents. It's happening every
day.
As in this scenario in last week's New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/education/10students.html
October 10, 2007 NEW YORK TIMES
File-Sharing Students Fight Copyright Constraints
By RACHEL AVIV
When Zachary McCune, a student at Brown, received an e-mail message from the
university telling him he might have broken the law by downloading
copyrighted songs, his eyes glazed over the warning and he quickly forgot
about it. “I already knew what they’d say about file-sharing,” he said. “It’s
become a campus cliché.”
But the next day, he realized the message had an attachment from the
Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that is
coordinating legal efforts by record companies to crack down on Internet
piracy. The attachment told Mr. McCune he faced a lawsuit with potential
fines of $750 to $150,000 for every illegally downloaded song.
“I was stunned by the extremity of the punishment for taking songs I could
have bought for a few cents,” he said. “It seemed grossly out of
proportion.”
Twelve Brown students received these letters; Mr. McCune ended up paying
$3,000 to settle the claim. But the experience made him interested in
changing intellectual property regulations. Last spring he co-founded Brown’s
chapter of Students for Free Culture, a national organization sprouting up
on college campuses that advocates loosening the restrictions of copyright
law so that information — from software to music to research to art — can be
freely shared.
“The technology has outpaced the law,” said Mr. McCune, who is now a
sophomore.
Established at Swarthmore College in 2004, the group has chapters at more
than 35 universities across the country. “We will listen to free music, look
at free art, watch free film and read free books,” reads its manifesto,
posted on its Web site, freeculture.org. “We refuse to accept a future of
digital feudalism.”
Members assert that the Internet has made it necessary to rethink copyright
law, and they talk about the group’s goals with something like the reverence
that earlier generations displayed in talking about social or racial
equality.
“People wonder why college students aren’t rallying more around the Iraq
war,” Mr. McCune said. “If there were a draft, we probably would be.
Students are so quick to fight for this cause because we’re the ones bearing
the burden.”
Cory Doctorow, co-editor of the popular technology blog Boing Boing, said
the recording industry lawsuits were not “scaring students away from
file-sharing, but scaring them into political consciousness.” Last year, Mr.
Doctorow was an adviser to the Students for Free Culture chapter at the
University of Southern California while teaching a course on the history of
copyright law.
Opposition to the music industry and its efforts to protect copyrights often
dominates discussions on campuses. Chapters have organized demonstrations in
front of major record stores and held “iPod liberation” parties where
students have downloaded software together that makes it possible to swap
songs.
Many chapters have held forums to discuss legal decisions and developments
in copyright, frequently debating what it means to “steal” something as
amorphous as a digital file.
But in recent months, the group has made a point of branching out beyond
music copyrights. At its first national conference, held at Harvard in May
and attended by more than 130 people, speakers gave presentations on topics
like enhancing Internet access in impoverished countries, and loosening
patent regulations for pharmaceutical drugs.
“File-sharing may have brought these issues to public consciousness, but it’s
not our only inspiration,” said Elizabeth Stark, founder of Harvard’s Free
Culture group.
Some chapters have rallied around the Federal Research Public Access Act, a
bill that would make it mandatory for government-financed research to be
published in online journals, free to the public.
The movement is not without its critics. Early on, Ethan Zuckerman, a
research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard
Law School, said the group should pick more consequential problems to rally
around than access to music.
“Part of what’s so tricky about this movement is trying to pry apart access
to entertainment from some of the more serious issues, like access to
medicine,” he said. “The movement does itself a disservice by blending all
the issues together.”
There are student dissenters, too. At Brown, David Harrington, a senior who
did not join the new chapter, said he sometimes felt like the “grumpiest,
curmudgeonliest old man in the conversation” for understanding the position
of the recording industry.
“I’m a musician, so I’m thinking, how are these artists going to earn a
living?” he said.
“The technology makes stealing so easy that it’s hard to tell whether this
debate is about ethics or just convenience.”
Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the recording industry group, said he had
never heard of Students for Free Culture. But he said his group did not plan
to let up on its efforts to protect music copyrights.
“Some say illegal downloading couldn’t possibly hurt successful artists,
which may very well be true,” he said. “But we rely on a few successful
artists to compensate for all the new, risky ones who don’t recoup what’s
invested in them.”
The movement has its roots in an incident at Swarthmore, when two sophomores
posted online internal e-mail messages from Diebold Election Systems, which
makes electronic voting machines. The company ordered the students to remove
the documents, asserting that the messages were its own intellectual
property, and threatening a lawsuit. Instead, the students won a lawsuit
against Diebold for abusing copyright law.
Propelled by their victory, the students started the group, which they named
after the 2004 book “Free Culture” by Lawrence Lessig, a professor at
Stanford Law School. The book applies principles from the so-called free
software movement — the idea that computer users should have the liberty to
copy, distribute and modify software as they wish — to all aspects of
culture. Too many copyright restrictions, Mr. Lessig argued, dampen
creativity.
“Copyright should be a boring subject, but more and more people are
realizing how big this is,” said Cameron Parkins, 21, a member of Students
for Free Culture at the University of Southern California. “You mention the
name Lawrence Lessig to the right people, and they’ll just go bananas.”
Before beginning their meetings, the members of New York University’s
chapter place a copy of “Free Culture” at the center of their conference
table.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a bible, but we do often reference it,” said Fred
Benenson, 23, president of the group and a master’s student in N.Y.U.’s
Interactive Telecommunications Program. His group has held lectures,
protests and an art exhibition, with all work licensed under Creative
Commons, a nonprofit organization that allows authors to change copyright
terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved” or “No Rights
Reserved.”
There are around 15 regular members in N.Y.U.’s chapter, Mr. Benenson said,
and the mailing list includes more than 600 people. He said he and others
were working on composing a list of the top 10 universities with the most
restrictive policies for licensing scholarly research, software and student
work.
“Students want to know which universities are going to take away their
freedom on the Internet,” he said. “The academy is meant to be this
wonderful, separate part of the world that exists for the sharing and
reusing of culture.”
http://www.news.com/Rights-and-wrongs-in-the-antipiracy-struggle/2010-1027_3-6213649.html?tag=item
Rights and wrongs in the antipiracy struggle
By Cary Sherman
http://www.news.com/Rights-and-wrongs-in-the-antipiracy-struggle/2010-1027_3-6213649.html
Story last modified Tue Oct 16 04:00:03 PDT 2007
Why Jammie Thomas?
That question was posed in a CNET News.com story last week, as well as in
other commentaries regarding a copyright lawsuit won by the RIAA. It's worth
revisiting why we, the Recording Industry Association of America, do what we
do and how we got to this place.
From the moment we announced in June 2003 that we would be gathering
evidence for the purpose of bringing lawsuits against end users, the program
has generated attention and debate. We welcome that national conversation.
This was never a step we wanted to take, and we recognized that it would
generate criticism in some quarters. It's tough love--for the first time,
despite years of educational efforts and the availability of plentiful legal
alternatives, we are holding people personally and financially accountable
for the theft of creative works.
But the backdrop was a community hemorrhaging jobs, careers and investment
in new music, amid a pervasive culture of looting in which there was little
understanding of the law or the negative consequences of breaking it.
What have our antipiracy efforts yielded? A legal marketplace that is far
better because of what we've done. The process of bringing lawsuits has
changed slightly since the program's inception, but one constant has been
the process of identifying people who are stealing music online.
When we target an infringer, we do not know who that person is or any
demographic information about the computer user. We know the songs that are
being illegally "shared" (with millions of anonymous people) and the time
and date of that copyright violation, nothing more. We do not have the
ability to screen defendants based on their perceived sympathy or anything
else.
No doubt, if we selectively enforced our rights against those deemed less
sympathetic, the fringe copyright critics would call us arbitrary and
capricious. We target theft. Period.
What have our antipiracy efforts yielded? A legal marketplace that is far
better because of what we've done: Digital revenues doubled as a percentage
of the market in 2006, from 8 percent in 2005 to more than 16 percent. An
illegal marketplace which, prior to the initiation of our deterrence
program, experienced exponential illicit P2P use has now mostly
stabilized--the average number of households downloading music illegally on
a monthly basis was roughly 7 million in 2003 and is now 7.8 million.
Compare that with the growth in broadband access to the Internet, which grew
from 38 million home users in 2003 to at least 80 million today.
Can there be any doubt that a whole lot more of those broadband subscribers
would be illegally downloading but for the lawsuits? Surveys confirm that
fact: People who have stopped illegal downloading cite the fear of being
sued as the first or second reason for changing their behavior. And, lastly,
there is a fundamentally different understanding of what you can and can't
do on the Internet--37 percent of those surveyed in 2003 thought it was
illegal to distribute music for free over the Internet; now that number has
grown to 73 percent.
Think about it. What would the online music world look like had we done
nothing? It's not a pretty picture: skyrocketing illegal peer-to-peer
downloading without even a second thought about its legality or morality,
and a small handful of legitimate businesses struggling to gain traction in
a marketplace overwhelmingly dominated by piracy.
Four years into this program, the first trial of our end-user lawsuits
finally happened. The fact that it took so long speaks to the clarity of the
law and the clarity of the courts' various rulings on our legal program.
Even the Supreme Court called illegal downloading "garden-variety theft."
Some defense lawyers, with an ax to grind and an agenda to advance, have
posited a variety of bizarre legal theories about our cases. Yes, there have
been a handful of procedural motions where the courts have asked us to
proceed in a different manner.
But the underlying facts and the overwhelming court affirmations are
irrefutable. The legal process we follow has been consistently upheld. And
creative counterclaims on such theories as invasion of privacy, trespass and
intentional infliction of emotional distress have been regularly dismissed
by courts as improper.
Which brings us to the case of Ms. Thomas . Let's be clear. We did not
choose Ms. Thomas to be the defendant in the first end-user lawsuit to go to
trial. We repeatedly extended a generous settlement offer, a tiny fraction
of which a jury later imposed upon her, but for whatever reason, Ms. Thomas
turned us down. She and her lawyer chose this fight, not us.
That said, we will not--and cannot--hesitate to defend our rights. What's
the alternative? Are we supposed to say "never mind" and concede the rights
of artists, songwriters, producers, publishers and labels every time a
defendant who may be sympathetic to some refuses to accept responsibility?
What kind of deterrence message would that send?
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A jury of Ms. Thomas' peers--12 ordinary Americans from the defendant's home
state--found her liable for copyright theft. In fact, some wanted to assign
even a harsher penalty, according to news reports. We purposefully did not
ask for any specific amount in damages. We asked the jury to decide what was
appropriate--and after carefully reviewing all the evidence, they determined
that $222,000 was the appropriate amount .
None of this, though, is about being in court or winning monetary judgments.
We would rather be in the record studios helping artists make great music
that we can distribute in lots of exciting new ways that music fans want.
Because that's what this program is ultimately about--creating a marketplace
that rewards investment in creativity and compensates those who make the
best music in the world.
http://www.news.com/For-RIAA,-a-black-eye-comes-with-the-job/2100-1027_3-6212374.html?tag=item
For RIAA, a black eye comes with the job
By Greg Sandoval
http://www.news.com/For-RIAA,-a-black-eye-comes-with-the-job/2100-1027_3-6212374.html
Story last modified Tue Oct 09 08:16:23 PDT 2007
Almost everybody agrees Jammie Thomas is thumping the recording industry in
a battle for hearts and minds.
The single mother of two who makes $36,000 a year was ordered by a jury last
week to pay the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) $220,000.
She was not accused of stealing music, but the jury found that she made 24
songs available online--allegedly for others to download. On Monday, Thomas
announced that she has decided to file an appeal.
The image of a rich and gargantuan corporate entity steamrolling a woman
with limited resources is etched into the minds of many onlookers, say
public relations experts. So why, then, if the RIAA is taking a PR beating,
is the group continuing to pursue Thomas? Why not target people who tug a
little less on the public's heartstrings?
"It's usually inadvisable to turn someone into a martyr," said Jonathan
Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management, a Los Angeles-based
public relations firm. "I would think they could have pursued someone that
drew a little less empathy. What they risk is creating a long-lasting image.
On the Internet, it's simple to create martyrdom (all over the world) and
this is particularly damaging thing to do. It can be very harmful to a
company's reputation."
Jammie Thomas
But according to industry insiders and the RIAA itself, the group has little
choice but to continue to file civil complaints against file sharers--bad PR
or not.
"Yes, this is a form of tough love but it is a necessary one to protect the
rights of artists," said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman. "Look at the
extensiveness of the coverage on Friday. Every single newspaper and TV
station carried the story that a jury of Thomas' peers found her guilty of
copyright violations. This sends a very clear message that if you steal
music online there can be real consequences. There is a lot of deterrent
value to that message becoming public."
Thomas, 30, denies file sharing. She said that she doesn't use Kazaa, the
peer-to-peer service she is accused of using to make more than 1,700 songs
available. In a phone interview on Monday, she said that her IP address
could have been hijacked by a music pirate.
The case is quickly becoming a rallying point for the file-sharing
community. Already, a site has cropped up called Freejammie.com, started by
a supporter who has never met Thomas. More than $2,500 has been raised by
the site. Others have sent donations to Thomas' lawyer.
'No longer my fight'
In a phone interview with CNET News.com, Thomas said that she never meant to
become a standard bearer for the file-sharing community.
"But at this point, I really don't think I have much of a choice," Thomas
said. "As soon as this case went public, it was no longer my fight. It
became everyone's fight. Just because it's my name on the case, doesn't mean
I'm alone. There are so many other people who have taken up the case with
me."
It's hard not to be struck by just how ham-handed the RIAA's legal
maneuverings have been. While old RIAA foes such as file-sharing companies
Napster and Grokster may not have gained a lot of sympathy in the heartland,
people like Thomas do. Even college kids running file-sharing networks on
the sly in dorm rooms can look sympathetic compared with giant corporations
with a reputation for overcharging customers and not sharing profits with
the artists.
The RIAA's antipiracy efforts have sometimes been vilified and other times
ridiculed. Even members of Congress poked fun at the RIAA's attempts to take
legal action in 2003 against Brianna LaHara, a then 12-year-old honors
student from New York.
"Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" Sen.
Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked an RIAA executive during a senate hearing.
The image of a sweet-faced LaHara appeared in scores of media outlets with
many publications asking how the RIAA, with its seemingly bottomless war
chest and army of attorneys, could really be threatened by the likes of
LaHara. The RIAA moved fast to settle the case with LaHara's mother agreeing
to pay the RIAA $2,000.
But if the RIAA isn't going to stand up for its rights, who will, asks Chris
Castle, a copyright lawyer and former executive with A&M Records and Sony
Entertainment.
The music industry can't rely on the federal government. He points out that
the Copyright Office has far less power than other regulatory bodies, such
as the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission.
"The copyright office has virtually no enforcement powers," Castle said.
"That's left up to the Department of Justice and they haven't done much
about this problem. If the RIAA didn't do anything about piracy, then
nothing would get done."
The other thing to consider is what would happen if the RIAA halted the
lawsuits. Some critics say that the litigation is hardly any deterrent. They
point to studies that indicate that file sharing continues to grow even
though the RIAA has sued more than 26,000 people.
While it remains highly unpopular, the RIAA has a fiduciary duty to track
down file sharers, whoever they might be, said Eric Garland, CEO of
BigChampagne, a company that monitors traffic to entertainment sites. He
said that he's talked to many people in the industry that believe the RIAA
could potentially face lawsuits from artists if they failed to protect their
rights.
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"They have to do everything they can to prevent piracy," Garland said. "Or
else how long will it be before the estate of Cole Porter or The Beatles
file suit against you. The RIAA acts as agents for hundreds of thousands of
artists and for millions of songs. They have to demonstrate to the artists
and also to Wall Street that they are doing everything that they can to
fight piracy. You can't just say we gave up protecting their work. I don't
think they have the option to do that."
In all the talk about the RIAA beating up on Thomas, Lamy wanted people to
know that the RIAA doesn't choose any of the people it files suits against.
There is no way for the RIAA to know anything about the people it files
lawsuits against, Lamy said.
"We know someone was using a computer and IP address to distribute songs. We
know information like the time they used it but we don't know anything about
that person.
"We would undoubtedly be criticized if we were selective in enforcing our
rights," Lamy continued. "We're not. We target theft, period."
_________________________________________
Podcast
How RIAA Won $222,000
http://www.news.com/Podcast-How-the...ared-songs/2324-11424_3-6211990.html?tag=item
RIAA Verdict Playback: RIAA Wins $22,000 from Minessota Woman ()and Several
Links
http://www.news.com/RIAA-verdict-playback/2009-1027_3-6212050.html?tag=item
Week in Review: Download Dilemma
http://www.news.com/Week-in-review-Download-dilemma/2100-1083_3-6213156.html?tag=item
Week in review: Download dilemma
By Steven Musil
http://www.news.com/Week-in-review-Download-dilemma/2100-1083_3-6213156.html
Story last modified Fri Oct 12 12:06:27 PDT 2007
The landmark music copyright verdict refocused attention on file sharing,
including the record industry's efforts to quell it.
Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota woman who last week was ordered to pay the
recording industry $222,000 for copyright violations related to sharing
songs, has decided to appeal the verdict. Thomas announced her decision on
cable news channel CNN and on her MySpace.com page, saying that the appeal
would be based on the federal jury's finding that making songs available
online violates copyright .
"This would stop the RIAA dead in their tracks," Thomas wrote on her blog.
"Every single suit they have brought has been based on this making-available
theory, and if we can win this appeal, they would actually have to prove a
file was shared."
But can she actually win against the Recording Industry Association of
America? CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh says there's probably a 50-50
chance . On one hand, the RIAA has won some minor victories in the last few
years with its "making available" arguments to expand copyright law beyond
what it actually seems to say. Now that there's finally going to be some
serious public and judicial scrutiny, however, the odds are closer to even.
"For decades the industry has run roughshod over the artists and now it
wants to play the 'we're protecting' card?"
-- CNET News.com reader
Some are suggesting that someone may have steered her into taking on the
recording industry . Why would a 30-year-old mother of two, who makes
$36,000 a year, want to go toe-to-toe with the recording industry, asks
Chris Castle, an attorney, former music executive and owner of a small
record label. Last week, Castle accused the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
a group that advocates for the rights of Internet users, of trying to turn
Thomas into the "Joan of Arc of illegal downloading."
Thomas responded by saying "my comment to him is that this was all my
decision," she said. "From the get go, my attorney has pointed out to me
what could happen. We knew (losing the copyright trial) was a possibility. I
am no puppet."
She also got some criticism from one of the jurors in her trial who said the
jury did not believe her story that someone spoofed her IP address. In an
article on Wired.com, the juror said he had never been on the Internet.
"She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars," the juror
told Wired.com. "Spoofing? We're thinking, 'Oh my God, you got to be
kidding.' She's a liar."
That didn't sit well with Thomas.
"I don't need to say too much, obviously," Thomas told CNET News.com. "They
admit that they are computer illiterate. This person has never been on the
Internet, so how can he say whether my story is possible?"
Meanwhile, the image of a rich and gargantuan corporate entity steamrolling
a woman with limited resources is etched into the minds of many onlookers,
say public relations experts. So why, then, if the RIAA is taking a PR
beating, is the group continuing to pursue Thomas? Why not target people who
tug a little less on the public's heartstrings?
But, according to industry insiders and the RIAA itself, the group has
little choice but to continue to file civil complaints against file
sharers--bad PR or not.
However, many CNET News.com readers rejected that argument.
"The industry association is not charged with protecting artists. Its goal
is to protect the industry and its members," wrote one reader to the
News.com TalkBack forum. "For decades the industry has run roughshod over
the artists and now it wants to play the 'we're protecting' card?"
Oracle bids for BEA
Oracle grabbed headlines late in the week with its offer to acquire Silicon
Valley rival BEA Systems for $17 per share, a total of about $6.67 billion
in cash. If consummated, the acquisition could eliminate issues about what
BEA will do for future growth while furthering Oracle's years-long effort to
consolidate as much of the software industry under its own roof.
Oracle's offer, made in a Tuesday letter to BEA's board of directors, is a
25 percent premium over BEA's closing price Thursday of $13.62. BEA's shares
surged 33 percent, or $4.49, to $18.10 in morning trading Friday.
BEA has been under pressure from rivals including IBM, Oracle and a variety
of open-source software projects. Despite introducing new product lines, new
license revenue has been tepid or declined over the past two years. And
investor Carl Icahn, who earlier this month acquired a 13.2 percent stake in
the San Jose, Calif.-based company, has been urging the company to put
itself up for sale.
BEA rejected the offer Thursday. "It is apparent to our board...that BEA is
worth substantially more to Oracle, to others and, importantly, to our
shareholders than the price indicated in your letter," William Klein, BEA's
vice president of business planning and development, said in a letter to
Oracle that BEA made public on Friday.
Around the Hill
In addition to weighing in on the Jammie Thomas case, prominent champions of
tougher copyright enforcement also took their fight this week to a stately
Capitol Hill caucus room , staging an expo aimed at playing up the legal
protections' importance to their livelihood. The event was put on by the
Copyright Alliance, which formed earlier this year to promote the "vital
role" of copyright in the U.S. economy and job market, encourage inclusion
of copyright protection requirements in trade agreements, urge tougher civil
and criminal penalties for piracy, and dissuade any weakening of copyright
law.
Most of the major players had booths at Thursday's shindig, and some of
their messages were hardly subtle. The RIAA hung wrinkled T-shirts that read
in bold print: "feed a musician, download legally."
The Entertainment Software Association, which represents video game and
console makers, had a Nintendo Wii on hand for passers-by to test and
decorated its booth with a huge poster that screamed in menacing capital
letters: "Game Over Pirates Game Over."
While not being educated about copyrights, politicians debated whether
telecommunications companies that may have illegally opened their networks
to intelligence agencies should be immunized from lawsuits. A new proposal
from House Democrats would impose some additional privacy safeguards and
oversight on a shadowy court that meets behind closed doors to approve
foreign surveillance requests. The current version of the Restore Act does
not immunize either telephone or Internet providers.
In remarks to reporters at the White House, President Bush stressed that the
immunization requirement was non-negotiable. "It must grant liability
protection," he said, "to companies who are facing multibillion-dollar
lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to
defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks."
Without that requirement, Bush said, he would not sign a bill into law.
After news reports said AT&T and other major telecommunications carriers
opened their networks to the National Security Agency after September 11,
2001, dozens of civil lawsuits have been filed against them.
Meanwhile, a key U.S. House of Representatives panel unanimously agreed to
extend a ban on Internet access taxes for another four years --but not
before rejecting proposals to make the tax permanent or extend it for a
lengthier stretch of time. The committee almost approved an amendment
proposing an eight-year extension. But after several minutes of political
gymnastics, all that changed.
At issue is a law dating back to 1998 that generally prohibits state and
local governments from taxing Internet access, including DSL (digital
subscriber line), cable modem and BlackBerry-type wireless transmission
services. It also prohibits "discriminatory" taxes that treat products sold
on the Internet differently than those in brick-and-mortar stores, but it
does not deal with the separate issue of imposing sales taxes on goods
bought online.
The current law is set to expire November 1, and Republicans have complained
that their Democratic colleagues are moving too sluggishly to renew the
expiring rules.
Sprint's trouble on the line
Sprint Nextel said CEO Gary Forsee has stepped down as chairman and chief
executive officer , effective immediately. Forsee's departure comes as
investors, upset over the company's poor performance, have put pressure on
the board of directors to make a change at the top.
Pressure has been building for months to replace Forsee as investors are
becoming increasingly more agitated at Sprint's poor performance. Since
Sprint acquired Nextel in 2005, making it the third largest cell phone
provider in the U.S., the company's stock has declined roughly 27 percent.
And if Wall Street pundits get their way, Sprint Nextel's next CEO will put
the brakes on plans for a new, high-speed wireless network. But such a move,
while no doubt cutting costs, could condemn the struggling company to
also-ran status.
Among investors' biggest concerns is Sprint's plan to build a
next-generation wireless network using a technology called WiMax. The
company has committed itself to spending $5 billion in the next three years
to build the network, with about $2 billion of that money earmarked to be
spent in the next year to get WiMax coverage to about 100 million people by
the end of 2008.
Wall Street analysts and investors say Sprint's WiMax dreams are an
unnecessary and dangerous diversion for the company, which is still
struggling two years after the $36 billion Nextel merger to realize any of
the cost savings that had been promised when the merger was announced.
Now on News.com
Microsoft dials up phone ambitions Silicon, silicone and saving salmon
Photos: Ubuntu gets gutsy Extra: Yahoo: Bringing geeky back?
Meanwhile, Internet telephony provider Vonage settled its patent dispute
with Sprint Nextel . The two companies have entered into a licensing
arrangement that allows Vonage to use patents for voice over Internet
Protocol, or VoIP, technology that are held by Sprint.
Vonage has agreed to pay Sprint a total of $80 million, according to the
company. This includes $35 million for past use of the license, $40 million
for a fully paid future license and $5 million in prepayment for services.
In September, a Kansas jury found that Vonage had infringed six Sprint
patents. And it ordered Vonage to pay $69.5 million in damages, plus 5
percent for future damages.
Also of note
Electronic Arts has agreed to acquire VG Holdings , the parent company of
two game development companies, BioWare and Pandemic Studios, for $860
million...Google is expanding its AdSense program so that Web site
publishers can display and make money off embedded video clips from YouTube
content partners that have targeted banner or text ads, in addition to the
traditional text ads that Google offers...Internet2 has boosted its network
speeds to 100 gigabits per second.
______________
I'm glad you're back posting here. It's always a great help for people when
you're around, and I continue to learn from you.
CH
C
Chad Harris
Often, you can install XP after Vista without even having to fix the boot
manager, but absolutely you can steer clear of complications or problems by
installing the older Windows OS first always.
http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vista
CH
manager, but absolutely you can steer clear of complications or problems by
installing the older Windows OS first always.
http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vista
CH
A
Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]
You think I'm really going read all that???
M
MICHAEL
* Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]:
Chad did say this at the very end,
in case you missed it. ;-)
<quote>
I'm glad you're back posting here. It's always a great help for people when
you're around, and I continue to learn from you.
CH
</quote>
-Michael
Chad did say this at the very end,
in case you missed it. ;-)
<quote>
I'm glad you're back posting here. It's always a great help for people when
you're around, and I continue to learn from you.
CH
</quote>
-Michael