By Jose Vilches, TechSpot.com
Published: February 29, 2008, 7:23 PM EST
Despite collecting millions in P2P related settlements from the likes of Napster ($270 million), Bolt ($30 million), Kazaa ($130 million), and other companies, those who are supposed to benefit from it – the artists whose rights had been allegedly infringed – are apparently not being compensated with the proceeds from the lawsuits.
Now, according this article, the managers of some major artists are starting to get very impatient to the point of threatening to file lawsuits against the RIAA if they don’t get paid soon. Of course, comments from the labels all claim that the money is on its way, and that it is simply taking longer due to difficulties calculating how to split the canada pharmacy viagra money with regard to the level of copyright infringement for each artist.
Not only that, but sources claim there may not even be much left to pay out after the outrageous legal fees are taken care of. If that’s the case, why sue in the first place then? Clearly this is just RIAA’s way of protecting an aging business model rather than finding a way to embrace the technologies that will eventually prove essential to the industry’s survival.
February 11th, 2008
File Sharing issue overview, blog postsPosted by Richard Esguerra
The House passed the College Opportunity and Affordability Act (COAA) last week, leaving the troubling "Campus Digital Theft Prevention" requirements intact despite recent revelations that fears over unauthorized campus-based filesharing were drastically overblown by the motion picture industry.
The provision requires universities to combat unauthorized file sharing in two particular ways: by planning to engage entertainment industry-blessed downloading services and planning to use filters or other network tools to interdict infringing activity. It's unfortunate that a bill about college funding is being used as a vehicle for the entertainment industry, which has been making a concerted effort to target the youth and the higher education community with corny videos, invasive technology, and bad law.
The passage of this provision is particularly shocking in light of the recent revelation that the 2005 study that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) relied upon in lobbying Congress was tainted by a "human error." The secret, not-peer-reviewed MPAA study, which originally accused college students of being responsible for 44% of domestic revenue losses due to unauthorized downloading, was corrected to say that only college students were responsible for only 15%. And because only 20% of college students live on campus, then campus networks themselves are responsible for only a fraction of piracy-related losses. More importantly however, the MPAA is still hiding the study's methodology from the public — they state only that "the MPAA will retain a third party to validate LEK's updated numbers."
What's next? The House and the Senate must meet "in conference" to reconcile differences in their respective versions of the same college funding bill, and the Senate's version of the COAA does not contain the mandate for exploring alternative downloading services and network filters. There's still a chance that members of Congress involved in the conference process will see through the smoke and mirrors to stand up for students and universities in rejecting this unnecessary and dangerous mandate.
As we've said before, there are more sensible ways to get creators compensated while respecting buy viagra without prescription the privacy of students and faculty on university campuses.
