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Upsetting
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Encouraging Copyright infringement?
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Like every other law, it's based on intentions
so the answer is yes, in a case such as limewire (who is being sued anyway) they're untouchable. with Kazaa, they made the critical mistake of doing nothing what-so-ever to stop this piracy and (in various ads around the net aswell as several places on their own site) made half-vague references to copyrighted material (such as "download MP3s 5 times faster" etc where it was implied they weren't telling you to download a file like maybe a PDF that isn't copyrighted). Basically, Kazaa got too close to the edge, and they didn't cross the line, but they got close enough that the RIAA and a lucky pick of a judge could make them appear to be over the line. Limewire, on the other hand, has put so much distance between them and the line that the only way that the RIAA can do much about limewire is just to swamp them with legal stuff and hope that either limewire screws up (i.e. inadvertently admits something) or limewire gets bankrupted solely off attorney fees, basically playing the oldest trick in the book of "I have more money than you so either give me a little now or you won't have any at all later."
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lawsuits
Back in the old vinyl days, there was no problem taking your records over to another's house and listening together. With the advent of cassette tape decks, the thing to do was make a copy of the album so that it would last longer. There wasn't much to making another copy for a friend and people I hung around with, swapped albums and tapes all the time.
Now the record labels, et al, are trying to put a cap on who gets their music. "Buy it or I'll sue." I understand why they're doing it: a) they're losing money because only a few have to get a hold of it for many to have and b) property rights. But what happens to music that was created before anyone thought this crap up? Wagner, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Rossini, Rachmaninoff... has someone gotten a hold of their "copyrights?" If I have these works on disc, can't I lend them to someone else? If I've copied it to my system, I suppose I can send it to someone...
Perhaps they should hire themselves really good hackers to help increase the security on their hardcopies. Hire people who know how to break their existing codes. Or licence particular sites to carry their music for the same cost as in a retail store. And install better security at the movies.
All these lawsuits are based on the thinking that somebody's got to pay (the principle of the thing) so they're starting with the obvious people in an attempt to take a stand. It isn't going to make much of a dent. Where there's a will, there's a way to get almost anything you want off the internet.
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to Moucepaw
Yes I agree with you about the lawsuits. But if you look at your history you will see the same problem when cassettes came out it was the same thing. With record labels trying to make cassettes illegal because too many people used them to copy there music. Same with CD's and now MP3's. The only differences are the massive amounts of media there getting and the screwed up laws we have that still allow them to do this.
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