Jolt Country

On April 3, 19-year-old Jesse Jordan received a call that changed his life.

The freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., learned he was being sued by one of the most powerful trade groups in the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America.

Jordan, an information technology major, created ChewPlastic.com, the second most popular search directory on the RPI campus.

"You go to the site, you type in a search term, and it finds files on the network," Jordan said. Jordan compares his site to Google, the popular Internet search engine.

But the RIAA likens Jordan's site to Napster, the now defunct song-swap service that revolutionized the distribution of music.

"The service was no different than Napster," said Amy Weiss, senior vice president of communications for the RIAA. "With one click of a mouse, you can get music, you can get anything you wanted."

"The people who run these Napster networks know full well what they are doing: Operating a sophisticated network designed to enable widespread music thievery," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement issued April 3.

"The lawsuits we've filed represent an appropriate step given the seriousness of the offense," Sherman added.

The entire article can be found here. But don't miss the best part:

But Jordan did agree to pony up $12,000, his entire savings account, to the RIAA. Jordan and his father, Andy Jordan, felt the settlement was their best option.

"They agreed to allow Jesse to deny their allegations. They agreed to dismiss the case and all allegations against him," the father said. "Basically they agreed that he didn't do anything wrong, but [they're] taking his 12 grand."

Kali's tits, recording industry, what's next? Shaking down twelve year olds with MP3 players for their lunch money?

Debaser wrote: Kali's tits, recording industry, what's next? Shaking down twelve year olds with MP3 players for their lunch money?

Thanx 4 tha tip! M4d Pr0pz!1!

RIAA GOON

Yeah, really. Writing a network sniffer now fucking COSTS twelve grand?

It's a shitty economy out there. Writing a program like the one that kid did puts him ahead of every other college applicant. So having his name on the thing is a good thing. For the RIAA to then rifle through his possession because the thing might be used for OMG PIRACY -- that cannot be legal. Isn't taking his money the same as blackmail?

It's officially become more trouble than it's worth to write software in this country. This civilization of ours is going to crumble when all the technology gets developed outside of it, and frankly discouraging software engineering (like the government discourages cloning research) is about as laughably anti-American an idea as bukkaking the Statue of Liberty.

I can't believe the RIAA is going to get away with this.

But, Debaser, if you're here battling the RIAA... who's curing cancer?

Only the Sweetest,

Molly Muffsweet

Ages ago, I bought what I thought were first printings many a time with my lunch money, only to get home and find a little "second printing" blurb on the inside cover. And then I cry.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:as laughably anti-American an idea as bukkaking the Statue of Liberty.

:)

Debaser wrote:
Kali's tits, recording industry, what's next? Shaking down twelve year olds with MP3 players for their lunch money?

Good call!

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/intern ... index.html

Bruce

I have a list of IP addresses that apparently the RIAA was searching from when they went on their previous sting. I guess this weekend I'll configure my router to block any attempted communications between myself and those IP addresses. If I can get it to work, I'll upload the list.

Fight the power, Jonsey!

Or, here's another idea: How about paying for the goddamn music you listen to?

Eh? I do. There is an "MP3" tax added to all blank CDs. I buy a lot of blank CDs. If I am paying the tax, you can be damn sure that I am going to get my money's worth.

Annnnnnnnnnd, oh, BY THE WAY in case you took a breather from the Internet a while back, the RIAA settled a price-fixing lawsuit. Those of us who signed up are supposed to get a check for $12.50, in fact. When they settled, they lost the right to have an opinion about anything as far as I am concerned.

RIAA: Quit pirating our shit.
ICJ: You price-fixed.
RIAA: Serious, we're going to get you.
ICJ: You price-fixed.
RIAA: Hey, Lars has something he wants to --
ICJ: You price-fixed.

I hate communists. I think that, over the years that we have communicated on-line, I have made that quite clear. If you, Ben, were to list the top five facts about Ice Cream Jonsey, at #4 or #5 -- easily -- is a comment as to how I pretty much have nothing but contempt for all forms of government and philosophy except for the republic and capitalism. Price fixing isn't capitalism. Having a monopoly isn't capitalism. I have a very real and a very strong hatred for those people in those corporations (or cartel, in this case) who realize that on some level they're so fucking incompetent and ignorant that they can't complete fairly in the future and must therefore cheat the marketplace.

Fuck 'em. They broke the law, they should be broken up like Bell was broken up and those responsible should be shot or sent to the gas chamber.

At any rate. I'm not attempting to "justify" shit here. I have several hundred store-purchased and completely legitimate compact discs at my house. After the MP3 tax added to media that, frankly, is often used for everything but storing MP3s and after the price-fixing scandal which was severely undercovered and under-publicized, I no longer care about the RIAA, their desires to put men, women, kids and programmers in jail and I truly hope everyone involved in that "association" develops a painful, untreatable form of cancer. I'm not going to be buying CDs at my previous levels and I honestly do hope that it impacts their bottom line in my own small way.

95% of the games I own and 99% of the movies I own are legitimately purchased, either at retail, a DVD club, or through eBay. (What can I say, I confess that when I was a kid ten years ago I used to pirate the shit out of things -- this hardly ever now happens these days.) But I'm not going to willfully give any money to the RIAA, nor will I respect the effective monopoly they have in signing bands.

Whew! Good thing this isn't HAPPY DAY, or you'd have to ban yourself!!

I would like you more if you agreed with me.

I agree with you!

I was wrong. I still don't like you.

:(

You are a double not good citizen Mr. Jonesy.
We may have to abandon our incrementalism plan for making life a living hell for you and your band and turn it up a notch.
Though your debit card/checking account statements back up your confession of purchasing legitimate products, your blank CD stash (which we know about because of the RFID tracker in it) says otherwise.
Please report to the nearest FEMA detenti...er Facility, ie. WalMart to be tortur... er billed accordingly.

Big Brother

pinback wrote::(

"I... was only kidding." -- Jaromir Jagr

I am only kidding. You have been bumped so far down the list due to the shenanigans going on in the AG that, if I process the numbers correctly, I think you've reached that coveted "can almost stand the sight of" / "practically look forward to posts from" category.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:can almost stand the sight of

:|

Robb, that's interesting that you relate the RIAA to communism when I just basically see it as unrestrained capitalism. The companies that make up near-monopolies in the last 150 years have just gotten that much better at playing the game, and it'll always be more about profit margins than idealized attitudes towards the consumer.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Robb, that's interesting that you relate the RIAA to communism when I just basically see it as unrestrained capitalism. The companies that make up near-monopolies in the last 150 years have just gotten that much better at playing the game, and it'll always be more about profit margins than idealized attitudes towards the consumer.

You're absolutely right, of course. I was trying to head down one comedic stream by working in a mention of communism and socialism and then mid-river I realized that alternative governments really had nothing to do with what I wanted to ultimately talk about, which was monopolies and playing capitalism "unfairly." Having abandoned the communism and socialism angle, I never did get round to making a joke about them or anything.

That leads to a post which, on the surface appears to be written by a mindless trog or animated gonad.

(And actually, pretty far beneath the surface as well.)

Let me re-phrase what I intended to say:

I see capitalism working best when it models itself after football rather than baseball. In American football, all teams have set up economic "rules" so that the end user (or consumer) will see the most benefit. Baseball has no such rules. Similarly, capitalism works best for the consumer when monopolies, cartels, mobs and trusts are not around. We've got rules in place to stop those things, and even made Taft a mythic hero for being the "Trustbuster," but corporations today are able to throw an enormous amount of money at politicians who therefore stop caring about their unfair and illegal practices. I am working on a reagent to hopefully imbibue life into Taft o how i wish he would return they laffed at me at mistkatonic universit but they will not be laffing any longer trusss me i have a very good head on my shoulders ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah taft will live again ah ah ah ah ah ah ah