RIAA Wants to Hack Your PC is a Wired.com article about a hacking-authorization amendment that the Recording Industry Association of America tried to tag on an anti-terrorism bill that Congress approved last week. Basically this would've allowed movie and music copyright holders to break into your PC and not be responsible for the loss of data. Even though the RIAA changed its stance on this point somewhat knowing it would not be approved, it's still looking for something similar to be approved.

"We might try and block somebody," Glazier said. "If we know someone is operating a server, a pirated music facility, we could try to take measures to try and prevent them from uploading or transmitting pirated documents."

The RIAA believes that this kind of technological "self-help" against online pirates, if done carefully, is legal under current federal law. But the RIAA is worried about the USA Act banning that practice -- and neither the Senate nor the House versions of that bill include the RIAA's suggested changes.

This will prove entertaining. Just as the RIAA managed to get Napster basically run into the ground for most average users, the MPAA is now getting ready to try and shut down Gnutella. Hey if it makes pings go down, good! :P

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has sent hundreds of letters to major Internet service providers and universities, warning them that some people on their networks are violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by trading copyrighted movies through Gnutella.

@Home is playing along too, sending out letters to their customers saying they need to quit sharing movies or they get their cablemodem turned off.

You guys are gonna love this one. As everyone knows the RIAA and all kinds of other corporations dont really like the MP3 format and have been coming up with their own audio compressed file formats for a while hoping to get people to switch. It hasnt been successful at all though. But guess what?

Microsoft and Seattle-based RealNetworks are working to subtly wean consumers away from MP3 technology, [...] plans to severely limit the quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software built into the next version of its personal-computer operating system, Windows XP, according to the report.

Uh WHAT?! Cripple your software intentionally because you dont like a particular file format? Thanks Orion

In a last effort to prevent a shutdown, Napster has offered the record companies $1 billion over 5 years to allow the continuation of the file-swapping service. This would give the five major record companies $150 million a year, and an additional $50 million would be shared by independant labels. This money would be generated by the subscription service Napster will be introducing later this year. The response from the RIAA? Negative, as you might've expected

"To the management of Napster I say again: You claim you want to be legitimate and negotiate licenses based on real business models," [RIAA Chief Executive Officer Hillary] Rosen said. "I urge you to act accordingly. Stop the infringements, stop the delay tactics in court, and redouble your efforts to build a legitimate system."

As a followup to yesterday's story about senate hearings regarding the Napster case, the Washington Post has an article describing a plan that would strip the music industry from some of the Internet copyright privileges. This plan would allow web sites to sell music online without needing permission of each individual record company, rather paying royalties to the music labels for each song or album sold. The big record companies oppose this strongly and the RIAA already is looking for support among key senators to make sure this doesn't happen. Whatever happens to Napster, it sure doesn't sound like this battle against online music is ending any time soon.

Just because we hadn't heard anything about the Napster courtcase for a while doesn't mean everything got resolved. Far from it, as Napster goes back in court on Monday when a judge decides whether or not to re-issue an injunction which would pretty much shut down the service. This injuction was first ordered in June last year but was successfully appealed by Napster and so Napster and the RIAA/record companies both offered new arguments as to the injuction shouldn't/should happen. Of course, people are looking for alternatives already.

The RIAA and Napster hearings about the preliminary injunction against Napster were today with both sides providing their argumens to the three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals. The judges have no deadline to give a verdict, so it could happen this week or next month. One interesting point is that one of the judges held a flea market operator responsible for pirated music that was being sold at its facility in 1996. Not too different from the Napster situation. The main Napster arguments focused on the fact that the RIAA wasn't willing to discuss settlement.

Napster chief executive Hank Barry says the company has offered several different financial and business proposals to the individual labels. The company has been working on business models that involve a subscription service, in which Napster users would pay a small monthly fee for access to much or all of the service. Assuming this fee was just $4.95 a month, Napster could potentially pay record companies close to $500 million in 2001, Barry says.

But the record companies haven't bit. They've cordially listened to the ideas but haven't gone so far as to offer counterproposals, Barry says.

"It's been basically me negotiating against me," he said. "I don't think this is about money. I think this is about control."

A big day for Napster on Monday, as they it's the last day to present arguments to the appeals court who will after the hearings decide what to do with the file sharing program.

Monday morning attorneys from both Napster and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which is suing the company, will get about 20 minutes to present oral arguments to the panel, followed by rebuttals and a chance to answer the judges' questions.

The panel can rule anytime after that. Traditionally, judges take anywhere from a few days to a few months to issue rulings.

According to CNet, campus police of the Oklahoma State University have seized a computer from a student who was "allegedly" distributing files. The RIAA notified the University that this was going on, after which the campus police seized the computer.

A representative for the RIAA confirmed that a letter was sent to university officials notifying them that a student appeared to be distributing copyrighted songs. The RIAA, which is embroiled in a high-profile copyright infringement case against the popular music-swapping site Napster, constantly prowls the Internet for repositories of music files.

Thanks Dognose.

Knowing that they don't have the best position in the case, Napster has filed another document explaining how they aren't doing anything wrong. They say that the RIAA's interpretation of the copyright law would create very bad results, and that a part of the law protects free downloading of songs online

The company again took shelter under earlier legal decisions that protected the right of the Sony Betamax VCR to exist even though it had the ability to duplicate copyrighted movies. That decision allows the use of new technologies if they have the capability of a substantial use that does not involve infringing copyrights, the lawyers said.

The two companies will meet in court the first week of October.

Even the White House is taking the side of the recording industry in the Napster case now, according to ZDNet. All kinds of organizations filed last-minute briefs yesterday against Napster. Besides support from the Clinton administration, the movie industry as well the NBA were offering support to the RIAA in their suit against Napster.

"Permitting Napster to shelter itself behind [the act] would defeat this basic statutory quid pro quo," the White House argued. "Napster's users would be permitted to engage in digital copying and public distribution of copyrighted works on a scale beggaring anything Congress could have imagined ... yet the music industry would receive nothing in return."

As reported a while ago, Intel was interested in starting a Napster-like service for consumers and companies. Well, now the Intel execs are talking about it and they really are going forward with their peer-to-peer service, which is more focused on the combined processor power part than any file sharing that goes on. Mainly because everyone is providing their own computer power a lot of money can be saved, Intel is even saying it has saved them half a billion dollars during the past decade by using several older computers they had to run simulations. Intel is "neutral" when it comes to Napster, but of course the RIAA will be watching any development with any Intel sharing service very closely.

As a follow up to the recent Napster events that almost led to the shut down of Napster while waiting for the trial (story 1, story 2) on Yahoo. The judge who had granted the preliminary injunction has now released the details as of why she did that. Napster has to deliver papers this week that show why the judge was wrong in her decision.

"Indeed...(Napster) has contributed to a new attitude that digitally downloaded songs ought to be free--an attitude that creates formidable hurdles for the establishment of a commercial downloading market," [judge] Patel wrote.

If Napster doesn't come up with a good reason as of why they shouldn't be shut down, they still will be and Napster will be pretty much dead as the trials with the RIAA could take a very long time.

MSNBC and CNN are reporting the last minute appeal by Napster has worked, as a federal court has decided Napster can keep operating. Napster mainly appealed because it would mean the end of their business, forcing them to lay off the 40 people that work there. They are now also calling for people to buy albums this weekend, and write record companies telling them how important Napster is. This case is definately not over yet, as the big lawsuit against them by the RIAA and artists is still on going. This was just a preliminary injunction.

You know it baby, it's Monday so there's some fresh Napster / MP3 news. On ZDNet is another story on the legal battle between Napster and the RIAA. The RIAA has changed their tone slightly, as it was "DIE NAPSTER" at first, but now they are rather looking for a similar system, but one that obviously isn't free.

"I have to acknowledge that Napster in some ways has created a movement," she [Hilary Rosen, RIAA CEO] added. "It's probably their dilemma as much as ours because it's become a movement for free music."

Also Napster is now positioning itself as a multibillion dollar company, making it harder for the judge to just do some easy judgement as if it was a '2 guys programming in a garage' kind of deal. Also, dlrty sent word of this BetaNews news item that talks about a company which has developed an advertising system for MP3s. This can be either audio or video, depending on what the client wants. They say it already works with the current mp3 players.

Asked why a music fan would want to download an MP3 file containing advertising when copies of the music can already be downloaded without the promotional content, Brewer said he "couldn't argue," that it can be done. However, he said, payload-embedded MP3 files are "artist endorsed," and that if the listener is a true fan and wants to support the artist, than that listener will choose a licensed recording.

Well, it looks like you dont even have to host MP3 files to break the law anymore. The RIAA is now going after websites that even link an MP3 file. Somehow the RIAA feels that this lawsuit isnt about linking, but something about "what they know and what they dont know" according to an RIAA Here:

"If this kind of automated hyperlinking is ruled illegal, the Internet is going to grind to a halt," said Ira Rothken, legal counsel for MP3Board.com. [snip] This is about the fact that the sources MP3Board.com are linking to are blatantly pirate sites which they are aware of." says Steve Fabrizio, for the RIAA.

This has some pretty serious implications. Basically this could be carried over to any kind of known linking of anything illegal if you want to get nice an vague. I wonder if someone who runs a MP3 messageboard could get sued because of users posting links...

No, the subject is not dead yet! ;) More news from the people at Napster on Inside Music (Thanks Marc Molinaro of Gnutella News). It seems they screwed themselves, as the RIAA got ahold of some incriminating internal memos and e-mails from the company, in which Napster executives Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker said that while they told the RIAA Napster was created for 'putting up unsigned artists' , the memos show that it was a way 'to distract the RIAA'.

In the same memo, under the heading ''Problems,'' Parker describes several different strategies designed to ''put us in a much better bargaining position with the RIAA when they see that we are not just making pirated music available but also pushing demand.'' The key, Parker says, is to use the lure of free music ''to grow our user base, and then use (this) user base coupled with advanced technology to leverage the record companies into a deal.''

Meanwhile, the BCC is reporting that the recording industry has asked a court judge for a preliminary injunction to shut down the Napster service. Thanks KHeT. Interestingly enough, MP3.com is one of the allies of the recording industry now and is saying its harmful that files are being given away through Napster. update Steve: Check out what Courtney Love has to say about Napster.

On ZDNet there's a story which looks at all the suits going on between the RIAA/artists and MP3.com and Napster, serving as a good recap to see what's been happening.

According to a CNET story on Yahoo (thanks FreshView), a study by record industry tracker SoundScan shows declining CD sales at stores near universities (4% drop in sales in the past two years). While of course it would be super convenient for the RIAA or any lawyer to use this in their cases against Napster, it's not that likely Napster is to blame. In 1998 the decrease in sales was actually bigger than in 1999, while Napster wasn't even around in 1998. Even the store owners are saying it's not really noticable, and mostly singles are involved here. Here's what the RIAA had to say though

"The findings come as no surprise and confirm our worst fears," said Amy Weiss, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which is suing Napster. "This demonstrates the importance of protecting artists' rights on the Internet."

There is an interesting article up on Wired (Thanks Goddimus) discussing the future of Napster and the company possibly striking a deal with the RIAA. It then continues with the (obvious) notion that there really is no stopping the "idea" and if they do take down Napster there are several programs waiting to take its place. With Napster recently cooperating with Metallica by banning users it looks like those guys are at least "playing ball" with them and RIAA. I dont know about "selling out" or anything though.

It's really going to be interesting to see what the reaction in the hacker community will be if Napster is forced to sign a deal with the recording industry,"  [snip] "Regardless of the future of Napster, file-trading applications will continue to exist on the Web"

Oh yeah, and -sKunK- dug up this article with a prediction of jail terms by a senior official for end users downloading MP3s.