p2p, anonymity and security

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

Jeffrey Pyne writes:
| On Thursday, March 11, 2004 9:01 AM, Mark J. Dulcey wrote:
|
| > Another site, digitalpanic.org, offers BitTorrent downloads of
| > Widespread Panic and other taper-friendly groups.
|
| Another resource for legal BitTorrent trading of concerts of
| "taper-friendly" artists is http://www.sharingthegroove.com.  People often
| post links to BitTorrent downloads of tours in progress within a couple days
| of each show, so you can hear the tour almost "as it happens."

It's interesting to see this sort of development.  And it'll be  even
more interesting to see how the RIAA et al respond to it.

The  recent  discussion  does  remind  me  of  several that I've been
involved in, where the same sort of warning  pop  up.   Someone  then
responds  "But we're talking about our own music here.  What does the
RIAA have to do with it?  They have no rights to my music."

The problem here is that there  is  a  conscious  campaign  afoot  to
convince  everyone (and especially the legal system) that online MP3s
and other recordings are always copyright infringement.  This isn't a
confusion  on  their  part; they are trying hard to prevent musicians
from putting their own music online.

The reason is that the recording industry's business model  is  based
on  their  having  complete  control  of  music distribution, so that
musicians have to sign their industry standard contracts if they want
to  be heard.  The Internet is killing that business model right now,
as musicians learn that they can in fact put their own  music  online
and (so far) nobody can stop them.

Part of the problem is that, as was pointed out here, discussing  the
sharing  of  music  via the internet may come to the attention of the
authorities, and they *will* interpret it  as  conspiracy  to  commit
copyright  infringement.  Even if you can prove in court that you are
the copyright holder for the music in question,  being  dragged  into
court  and  having to pay a lawyer to keep you out of jail can really
ruin your day.  Especially if they confiscate your computer  and  put
your web site offline for the duration.

I have some MP3s of a recording session that a few friends made  last
summer  (http://kendy.home:1742/~jc/music/cd/OivanIlo/).   There's no
question that I have the legal right to distribute this  music.   The
other  musicians not only know about it; they contributed most of the
text on the page.  They pass the URL out to like-minded friends,  and
it has produced some CD sales.

It's obvious that these recordings aren't taking any money  from  any
recording company, because no (American) recording company would have
ever signed a contract to produce such an album.  But  this  wouldn't
stop  the RIAA from using maximum FUD and legal threats to prevent us
from putting such material online.  Young musicians are  starting  to
get  the subversive idea that they don't need to sign those contracts
that give all rights and income to the corporations.

Still, it's useful to warn people that they should  be  careful  when
discussing  downloading music.  Even when it's totally legal, you can
still be in for a lot of grief if the wrong people note you.