RIAA sues Usenet: Wait, you can do that?

Correct me if I am wrong or please excuse my ignorance. I don’t’s know all that much about Usenet.

But it is from my understanding. That Usenet is just out there. No one really ones runs it or operates it. The information out there is like free air. It’s just there!

Now the greedy music industry is going after Usenet.com? My question is why and how?

If they succeed what is next? Why not sue Microsoft or Linux for providing and operating system that people use to run their news readers?

This is just silly!

What we need are lawyers and judges that actually know something about the internet. Then outrages lawsuits like this would be laughed out of court.

I guess they got tired of suing 12 yr old girls and senior citizens and financially strapped college kids!

I think we the people should all get together and sue the music biz for the air pollution they call music for the last 10 yrs!!!

brings new meaning to the term "older than the internet"

Hi!

The best analogy I can come up with is that this is like suing Google because the web has copyrighted material.

Usenet.com, however, just like any other Usenet server operator, stores all of the content they're serving on their own servers. Which is why I suppose RIAA has a problem with it. Then again RIAA has a problem with anyone who even looks at copyrighted material without having paid for the right of doing so per each glimpse.

I would like to sue the RIAA for the time I've lost reading about who they are suing. Seriously.

I don't listen to any radio stations anymore. I don't buy music in any form or do i even download it!

I know some of you may dislike the names i use. but i use them to make a point!

between 2000 and now?

Where are the new Michael Jackson’s?
Where are the new Elvis Presley's
Where is the new Led Zeppelins?

Every Decade had at least 1 singer or power group that stood out amongst everyone else?

The 50’s had Elvis!
The 60’s had Jimi Hendrix!
The 70’s had Led Zeppelin.
The 80’s had Michael Jackson
And so on…..

What dose the new millennium have?
Britney and Paris!

How sad is this comment on the music industry?

Even the oldies station can’t even get it right! It’s the same songs every hour!

Instead of blaming the internet for the loss of their ill gotten gains!

The should blame themselves.

Now let’s not rely on our favorite music artist to actually speak out! How many of you would buck up against your boss? Not many I am sure.

Madonna and N.I.N. can get away with breaking off their relationship with their labels. That can survive. But what about those bands that don’t even yet have the drawing power.

This is a war between the fans and the music industry. It’s the music fans who need to voice their opinions and complaints to the music industry.

And of course the media is going to be on the side of the Movie and Music Industry. most of them are their employees.

And forget about the news. Every time I see on the news about the R.I.A.A suing another file sharer. They make the file sharer sound like a low life back alley drug dealer who just shot a baby!

So what do people do? They come on the internet to complain. Instead of picketing record stores and label headquarters and drawing attention from the media.

How come no ones starting any charities to help the victims of the music industry? Like that 12 year old girl who was a victim a few years ago or that old man who got sued.
How come no one voices their opinions by e-mailing major news networks and local papers.

Because we live in a time where people blog their complaints to one another and no one see these complaints but the people who read the blog regularly. Sometimes we must take our battle to the streets.

There are a lot of people who are ignorant to the other side of the story. You never see CNN doing any news on the victims of the R.I.A.A do you? Maybe the best way to defend our internet way of life is to defend it offline?

It’ just an opinion. I don’t want to stir up anything!

You were doing SO well and then you put this:

It’ just an opinion. I don’t want to stir up anything!

which is EXACTLY what you are complaining about .. no one is stirring up anything, you get angry, but then... you don't want to stir up anything.

As stupid as it sounds, at least the RIAA is DOING something. They complain as much as we do, but then they decided to up and sue any and everything. All the pissed off music vans are still in the complaining mode. We can't beat them by suing but I am pretty sure a rally of a large portion of us to have a one or two month boycott of buying music in any form would send a decent message.

:) It's the easiest form of DOING something .. not doing anything..

> As stupid as it sounds, at least the RIAA is DOING something.
>
Of course, they have the advantage of having large reserves of your cash sat in their pockets, ready to use against you in frivolous law-suits.

People with limited access to cash have limited access to 'justice'. Hence, a single company can bully the people of the world.

Not entirely true. History is littered with the "underdog" being able to topple larger institutions in ways that don't require large amounts of cash. Like I said, We can't go off and sue them back, but say there was a large enough movement where people just boycotted buying any type of media (movies, music, concert tickets) that would benefit the companies advocating to sue. You get a large enough boycott and no matter what they win in a lawsuit, you get a damaging year. Heck you get a couple of million people to just do it for ONE month and it will send a very very clear message.

All that requires is a bit of blogging and internet virus campaigning, something this generation seems good with putting to silly uses, but could actually be put to some real use as well. All that is free... I am sure there are other free methods.

This post and entire thread violate the first rule of Usenet: don't talk about Usenet.

It’ just an opinion. I don’t want to stir up anything!

I was pretty much being sarcastic. I guess I should of put it another way?

As i said before, When dose it stop? Who’s next? ISP’s? Bill gates and Steve jobs?

How about apple? For giving people the ability to store mp3’s on their Ipods?

How about Microsoft? For creating operating systems that people use to run apps to get mp3’s?

Hey I got it! Why not just go for the gusto and sue the guy who created DOS?

Let’s not just stop there. Let’s sue computer factory’s for creating machines that the DOS is used to run operating systems which can be used to access the internet to get MP3’s and movie files?

The question here is? When dose the madness stop?

At my job. In my department alone we have 8 people. including myself. Out of us 8. Only 3 people have computers. Now my big non sarcastic question is?

Where are those 5 people getting their tunes from?

From the radio of course! Very little people even buy CD’s anymore. The older the person the less likely you will see them buying any music. Why? The selection for older music listeners are perhaps very thin or nothing at all.

And who Dose the R.I.A.A go after? 12 yr olds, old men and women and college kids/ why? Easy targets. They can’t afford high paid lawyers to find all of the loop holes in the law.

I am sure before they decide to serve a person they do a background check on them to make sure they can’t afford a decent attorney. easy marks!

What we need are decent lawyers and judges who actually know something about the internet. If we did most of these cases would be thrown out before they are started.

Just having your lawyer ask these simple questions. The case should be dropped.

1) What did I download?
2) When did I download those items?
3) Can you show me proof that it was I that downloaded these items? Was I physically controlling my computer to download these files?

I have 7 people in my house. You better bet these are the questions I would ask if this happened to me!

This is a war between the fans and the music industry. It’s the music fans who need to voice their opinions and complaints to the music industry.

http://www.spymac.com/details?2286732