RIAA reveals how it tracks downloaders
Spinner
Birmingham, UK
The RIAA has provided a glimpse into some of its detective techniques used to track down online music swappers.
Source - CNNThe disclosures were included in court papers filed against a Brooklyn woman fighting efforts to identify her for allegedly sharing nearly 1,000 songs over the Internet. The recording industry disputed her defense that songs on her family's computer were from compact discs she had legally purchased.
According to the documents, the Recording Industry Association of America examined song files on the woman's computer and traced their digital fingerprints back to the former Napster file-sharing service, which shut down in 2001 after a court ruled it violated copyright laws.
Compared to shoplifting
The RIAA, the trade group for the largest record labels, said it also found other evidence inside the woman's music files suggesting the songs were recorded by other people and distributed across the Internet.
Comparing the Brooklyn woman to a shoplifter, the RIAA told U.S. Magistrate John M. Facciola that she was "not an innocent or accidental infringer" and described her lawyer's claims otherwise as "shockingly misleading."
The RIAA papers were filed Tuesday night in Washington and made available by the court Wednesday.
The woman's lawyer, Daniel N. Ballard, of Sacramento, California, said the music industry's latest argument was "merely a smokescreen to divert attention" from the related issue of whether her Internet provider, Verizon Internet Services Inc., must turn over her identity under a copyright subpoena.
"You cannot bypass people's constitutional rights to privacy, due process and anonymous association to identify an alleged infringer," Ballard said.
Using forensics
Ballard has asked the court to delay any ruling for two weeks while he prepares his arguments, and he noted that his client identified only as "nycfashiongirl" -- has already removed the file-sharing software from her family's computer.
The RIAA accused "nycfashiongirl" of offering more than 900 songs by the Rolling Stones, U2, Michael Jackson and others for illegal download, along with 200 other computer files that included at least one full-length movie, "Pretty Woman."
The RIAA's latest court papers describe in unprecedented detail some sophisticated forensic techniques used by its investigators.
For example, the industry disclosed its use of a library of digital fingerprints, called "hashes," that it said can uniquely identify MP3 music files that had been traded on the Napster service as far back as May 2000. Examining hashes is commonly used by the FBI and other computer investigators in hacker cases.
You cannot bypass people's constitutional rights to privacy, due process and anonymous association to identify an alleged infringer.
-- Daniel N. Ballard, lawyer for accused file sharer
By comparing the fingerprints of music files on a person's computer against its library, the RIAA believes it can determine in some cases whether someone recorded a song from a legally purchased CD or downloaded it from someone else over the Internet.
Copyright lawyers said it remains unresolved whether consumers can legally download copies of songs on a CD they purchased rather than making digital copies themselves. But finding MP3 music files that precisely match copies that have been traded online could be evidence a person participated in file-sharing services.
"The source for nycfashiongirl's sound recordings was not her own personal CDs," the RIAA's lawyers wrote.
The recording industry also disclosed that it is examining so-called "metadata" tags, hidden snippets of information embedded within many MP3 music files. In this case, lawyers wrote, they found evidence that others had recorded the music files and that some songs had been downloaded from known pirate Web sites.
Congressional hearings promised
The industry has won approval for more than 1,300 subpoenas compelling Internet providers to identify computer users suspected of illegally sharing music files on the Internet.
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has promised hearings on the industry's use of copyright subpoenas to track downloaders.
The RIAA has said it expects to file at least several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages as early as next month. U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person's computer, but the RIAA has said it would be open to settlement proposals from defendants.
The campaign comes just weeks after U.S. appeals court rulings requiring Internet providers to readily identify subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music and movie files.
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Comments
Since large scale sharing follows the same principles of peer to peer distribution in the past, the courts will have a hell of a time arguing that the same thing that was legal for so many years is now wrong.
Thom York of radiohead said that even with the crap his band has been through with the early distribution of "hail to the thief" tracks, the overall results of p2p networks are beneficial.
People may stop buying CD's, but they'll never quit supporting the artists. The RIAA needs to realize that, just as the studio system died in hollywood, so will the major lable record industry. Artists get tired of getting .1% of the profits from their releases, (They make more money on tour than they ever do on CD sales) and consumers hate the crazy high prices of CDs.
Just cuz you cut a record doesn't mean you are entitled to millions of dollars. Just cuz you sing a song doesn't mean you deserve a mansion. The market is experiencing democratization and the RIAA is getting pissy. The same thing happened when the printing press was invented. The king controlled it, and when he didn't like what people printed, he killed the printers. Still, eventually, the people and authors got control and thats how we got a free press.
When they say digital media revolution, they mean a revolution in the truest sense of the word.
They're fools, technology makes the world go round and its bound to change the face of industry in the process. You wanna cling to the past yer just gonna get burned by it. They deserve every bit of whats coming to them.
Oh man! I just knew my collection of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood songs was risky. Looks like a complete hard drive format to me. I tell you, it's not "a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" for me.
make sure you use the option that writes all 0's then 1's, then 0's to the drive in case they com after you!!:eek3:
under the copyright laws you are allowed to make one backup of the original for your own personal use, and if you no longer have the original, you must delete it in 24 hours.
now thats the law sites such as GameCopyWorld use to get around hosting cracks. and they havent been sued yet. surely the same law applies to all media including music.
in which case RIAA is standing on shaky ground, as even if you did download the "backup" from somewhere else such as kazaa, if you own the original it still falls in as a backup of your original.
so in other words, they cant prove your commiting a crime unless they get a warrant to search your house. and for that they need evidence you're breaking the law. which you're not
now last time i checked RIAA couldnt check your CD rack to see if you own the original, well, unless they're suddenly omnipresent beings
just a thought
-KrK
Its a valid point and yer 100% correct. They try to bust you, tell em you own all the CDs that the songs appear on. Now they need a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate to come search your home for the CD's. Better yet, tell them you own them all, but some are at your house, some at yer dads, some at yer GF's...etc.
Now they need multiple warrants to prove it.
...yet
-KrK
RIAA has already claimed at least a <i>trillion</i> dollars or more in damages from filesharing.
If they do this, what would they do with me, since I share a few Anime Music Videos that those who created them freely share. They also use music from the Dance Dance Revolution game series.
http://utena.otakuvideo.com/~ddr/index.html
As a side note, you can buy these AMV's compiled as one non-stop music video on VCD or DVD.
41 are in DDR Project 1 3rd Mix
29 are in DDR Project 2 2nd Mix
51 are in DDR Project 3 4th Mix, still in production for Anime Weekend Atlanta 9 in September, 2003