From: Rocker <rocker_at_shaw.ca>
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 18:44:18 -0700

Geeze Louise!
Why doesn't RIAA go after Microsoft too?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Maxwell" <rockbox_at_anti-spam.org>
To: <rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se>
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 4:34 PM
Subject: RE: Archo killing open source....


> Henry Mitchell wrote:
>
> > I don't know specifically which college kid, but if we're thinking of
> > the same one, I think he just didn't have the resources/willingness to
> > fight the RIAA
>
> I don't believe that Archos has the resources, willingness, or desire to
> fight the RIAA or MPAA.
>
> > Napster did, in fact, info on copyrighted MP3s (and its traders) on
their
> > servers. This is a big reason why they went down.
>
> Napster cached info on files that users made available for download. They
> did not try to determine the copyright status of the files or act as a law
> enforcement organization.
>
> > Remember how they were "fingerprinting" those MP3s on their servers by
> filename to
> > try to block copyrighted material, then the users circumvented that by
> misspellings
> > like "Metalica?"
>
> You apparently don't remember that they did that in response to court
orders
> after the RIAA sued them. Prior to that, you could have searched for
"Free
> Lectures" or "The Beatles" and Napster's servers would not have made any
> distinction between the searches. Are you going to argue that Google is
> somehow responsible for software piracy because people search for "warez,"
> "cracks," and "serial numbers"?
>
> > You may be confusing Napster with other services like
> > Kazaa, but note that the RIAA isn't going after Kazaa or its
> > developers, in part because they don't have any servers on
> > which to store MP3s.
>
> Timeout! Napster's servers had no MP3s on them. The RIAA did sue the
> makers of Kazaa:
>
> http://news.com.com/2100-1023_3-942533.html
>
> > They are going after users who are sharing their copyrighted MP3s
> > through Kazaa (acting as servers). I haven't heard that they sued
> > anyone actually downloading copyrighted MP3s though, only making them
> > available to be downloaded - which really doesn't make sense to me.
>
> It's easy: If you use Kazaa, you can get a list of all files that a given
> user is making available. There is no way to tell what files any user has
> downloaded or is downloading.
>
> > I actually do believe David's statement - if it weren't true, Dell,
> > Compaq, etc. would be sued for providing hardware to the end
> > users who share MP3s through Kazaa, make illegal copies of DVDs, pirate
> > software, etc.
>
> Much like the RIAA sued Diamond in 1998 for selling a portable MP3 player:
>
> http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11_2-512266.html
>
> Nice try, but as a biased observer here, I'd have to give this round to
me.
> ;-)
>
> Regards,
> Fred Maxwell
>
>
Received on 2003-11-08