RIAA Says Copyright Filters Could Be Put In Anti-Virus Software
from the anyone-else-have-to-save-the-industry? dept
It's been fairly amazing to watch the entertainment industry act as if every other industry is responsible for protecting its obsolete business model. Amazingly, it's been successful in convincing AT&T that this makes sense, despite the fact that doing so will almost certainly do more harm to AT&T. However, to its credit, Cary Sherman of the RIAA has said he doesn't think that ISPs should be forced by law to provide these filters. Instead, however, it looks like he's trying to convince other industries to step up and help the entertainment industry as well. His latest, as pointed out by Broadband Reports, is that one possibility would be for anti-spyware/anti-malware applications to also watch for the transfer of unauthorized copyright material. Sherman suggests that this would be one way to get around the question of people simply encrypting traffic to avoid ISP filters. What's not entirely clear, however, is why security firms would ever want to do such a thing, as it would almost certainly annoy their customers to no end.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: anti-virus, filters, riaa
Companies: riaa
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Ha!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Working for the RIAA...
How do you look yourself in the mirror each morning knowing that you have to lie to yourself and the rest of the world for a living.
It can't pay nearly enough to compensate for the erosion of your self-respect, can it?
Does you Mother know you work for the RIAA?
Have you told your kids about where you work and how they make you lie everyday to the whole world?
Sad, actually. Very sad indeed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
How can you look at yourself in the mirror each morning knowing that you have to lie to justify your law breaking to yourself and the rest of the world?
Does your mother know you break the law and violate copyright law?
If your kids see you doing this, what do you think you are teaching them?
Sad, actually. Very sad indeed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Working for the RIAA...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
All innovation has come from people breaking the law or doing things that are socially unforgivable and forbidden. If that didn't happen we'd all still think the Earth was the center of the universe and you'd get your head chopped off for saying an apple fell from the tree because of gravity instead of because of God's will.
People that drag there feet and deny everything because it's "wrong" or different or "illegal" are going to be left in the dust. Piracy WONT be stopped. It just wont. Whether you sad, very sad indeed, people like it or not.
People it's wrong, maybe it's not, I sure as hell don't have the authority to say one way or the other, but it's here to stay. It has to be made to work. Otherwise idiots at the RIAA are going to keep fear-mongering and spewing out crap and generally getting nothing done.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Working for the RIAA...
I told her I was a piano player in a whorehouse.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
You hear it ev'ry day
They say they're gonna stop it
But it doesn't go away
They move it through Miami
Sell it in L.A.
They hide it up in Telluride
I mean it's here to stay
It's propping up the governments
Of Columbia and Peru
You ask any D.E.A. man
He'll say there's nothin we can do
From the office of the President
Right down to me and you
Me and you
It's a losing proposition
But one you can't refuse
It's the politics of contraband
It's the smuggler's blues
Smuggler's blues
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Poor Anonymous (RIAA TROLL) Coward...
Copyright has been twisted and manipulated since Mark Twain's time by corporate and commercial interests in this nation into something that the framers of the Constitution would not recognize.
Copyright law needs to be reformed and reshaped into something workable for the 21st century.
It needs to recognize that turning your average teen age girl into a criminal because she turns on a video camera and records herself singing along to the latest pop tune is just plain wrong and a fundamental mis-extension of imaginary propery rights.
It needs to have very short, limited and realistic copyright terms to allow derivative works to be created WITHIN THE SPAN OF A SINGLE HUMAN LIFETIME.
It needs to recognize that short, limited copyright terms encourage artists to create more, thereby enriching our whole culture.
It needs to restore the fundamental balance that was originally intended for copyright, with the majority benefit going to the PEOPLE and not to the ARTIST.
Employees of the RIAA are part of a corruption of the intent and spirit of copyright. Today's copyright law is twisted and wrong, and if RIAA employess were truly good and honest citizens, they would see what they are doing is fundamentally immoral and would stop the lawsuits and would instead use their budgets to lobby for realistic, workable and honorable copyright reform. At a very minimum, they would tender their resignations and no longer work for such a wrong thinking employer.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
I'll see your Glenn Frey and raise you one John Fogerty:
The little pig knows what to do,
He's silent and quick, just like Oliver Twist;
Before it's over, your pocket is clean,
A four-legged thief done paid a visit on you.
Vanz can't dance
But he'll steal your money
Watch him or he'll rob you blind.
That'd be Mr. Fogerty, in Vanz Kant Danz, writing about his own record company, who ripped him off far worse than the entire 'net could if we worked at it for the next decade.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
New business models and business culture change
In short, the business models to be successful are available.
The problem is that all of the business models will require huge business cultural changes. As anyone familiar with business process re-engineering knows, this is the most difficult task to undertake.
Some of the business cultural changes that need to occur (IMHO) are:
1. Artists are not manufactured, they are nurtured
2. Marketeers and pollsters do not drive culture, they report about and communicate to culture.
3. The business must focus on the scarce resource, which is the artist.
4. People get into the music business because they have a passion/compulsion about music, not because they want to get rich.
These are the major business cultural changes that need to take place in order for the music industry to be successful and vibrant. The business models requiring these changes are left as an exercise for the reader.
Will various people make as much money as they did with the old model? Probably not. Will they make a comfortable living (as defined by Lieh-Tzu)? Probably.
Will any of these changes take place? It's doubtful. Programs like American Idol brainwash the consumers at one end, while the deep pockets of the current entertainment industry structure buy the politicians and technologists at the other end.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Drop the copyright act and lets get on with the sh
While the intention of copyrights as protecting an individual's private works seems worthy to some people, it is important to point out this is rarely the case with modern copyright practices. The real truth is corporations hold pieces of our own culture as ransom against us.
Just think about something as simple as Happy Birthday to you which was originally adapted from Good Morning to you (made before the 1900's). It is owned by a corporation. They charge for people to sing what can only be consider a custom in the United States.
That is the reality of the copyrighting system. It is privatizing our culture for profit.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Does your mother know you break the law?
And anyone who thinks groups like the RIAA have any moral ground to stand on are demented.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Actually
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Given that if I create an image, a short story, or a midi file, there all copyrighted right then and there.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Cold day in hell.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: New business models and business culture chang
You know that is probably the worst part of it all. Not only do the idiots at the RIAA not understand the impossible battle they are fighting but they go out of their way to prevent those who do from doing the things that would actually help the RIAA and it's members the most. I would love to get in on some of the ideas I have come up with for a free content distribution system. However, I would have to license the music from the RIAA's members and would ether have to cripple the whole thing with DRM or other forms of unacceptable limitations, thus dooming the whole endeavor to failure, or I would have to pay such huge licensing fees that the profit margin would be a negative number.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Cold day in hell.
I promise to only copy and use and spread your idea, and not the expression of your idea....mmmmm-kay?
My brain hurts.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
downloading music is not 'illegal' or 'stealing'. but it's nice to see that media manipulation/scare tactics still work on more primitive humans.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Vancover weed?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
My two cents
"For everypaid cryptographer/analyst/security employee,etc working hard for an hourly rate to protect data rights, there is a smarter 15 year old laughing while he breaks past his protection for free." There will NEVER be better encryption/filtering/scanning than there are those intent on avoiding it."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Over going it
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I would rather have no antivirus then one which censors what I do...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Never broke the speed limit?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Yeah this will work...
Or better yet, the RIAA thinks people pirate music that has DRM which antivirus software could block... Yes, pirates pirate content that they have to crack file by file...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Step 2: Never worry about anti-virus, anti-spyware programs
Step 3: Profit.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
friggin ridiculous
[ link to this | view in thread ]
RE:
My mother is currently using her computer to watch the second season of house. I hooked it up for her. She understands the legal ramifications.
I don't have children. If I did, I would want them to be resourceful and computer literate. And I wouldn't let them know where the videos of their favorite shows were coming from...if they think it is magic they are so much easier to control.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: AC / RIAA Employee
They shouldn't, when the law is an unjust one they purchased using the funds they legally stole from the deserving artists by means of the last generation's set of laws that they also purchased.
> How can you look at yourself in the mirror each morning
> knowing that you have to lie to justify your law breaking
> to yourself and the rest of the world?
I don't lie. I admit I break unjust laws, and I also consider it self-evident that there is no need to justify defying that which is unjust.
> Does your mother know you break the law and violate
> copyright law?
Yes. She is one of the many people I was referring to when I just mentioned that I admit that I break this particular unjust law.
> If your kids see you doing this, what do you think you are
> teaching them?
That unjust laws are made to be, and SHOULD be, broken.
> Sad, actually. Very sad indeed.
Indeed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Surely they must realise that they cannot hope to stop piracy this way - It simply will not work. The sooner they realise that a drastic business model change is the only solution, the better.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Then you have the challenges of deciding what is allowable by the program. Does a mp3 ripped from a legitimately bought cd count as a pirated file. Does that same file copied from one household computer to another count. Does that same legitamate file count if its played through remote desktop at work from your home computer.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: RE:
mkam
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Just because the RIAA wants to implement this system does not mean any AV firm will touch it. And indeed it's highly doubtful any AV firm would touch it, what real world benefit would there be in censoring copyright material?
The record labels would have to pay them millions to even make it worth their while.
Even if they did, all they would end up with is an RIAA AV software that no one used.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
All your execuses are just your way of justifying your illegal behavior.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Seriously - why should anyone continue to expect to receive money for work they did decades ago?
Copyright is a reward not a bloody pension system
[ link to this | view in thread ]
If you enjoy it, then you should pay for it. If not, you wouldn't be listening to it anyway.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The government wants to close them down
But we want them to stay
There playing songs that we all like
So please dont take them away
chorus
We love the pirates
repeated
(track released 1966)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Also, I would have never taken a bunch of my friends out to see transformers without being able to download it first. They would not have gone unless I told them I had seen it and it was good. That's 10 people who would not have payed for it in theaters nor would they have got it on DVD without me downloading it. So I payed for that movie 20 times over. (Same thing happened with the Simpsons)
I also download because ripping a DVD is damn near impossible now. F'n DRM not letting me pull Futurama videos off of the DVD's that I payed $40 for on release day. Why the hell would you release a DVD of a TV show that doesn't have a play all function? It's also a hell of a lot easier with my media center extender (AKA modded xbox).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
1) All antivirus providers say "No way, we don't call out customers criminals."
2) Some antivirus providers do what the RIAA asks and lose massive market share.
2a) Some antivirus providers do what RIAA wants, make their software perfect so it gives no false positives, and everyone sharing media turns their antivirus off and gets infected.
2b) Some antivirus providers do what RIAA wants and people doing legal file transfers hit so many false positives that they have to turn off their antivirus, and get infected.
Of course, if everyone turns off their antivirus, no one will notice the return of DRM rootkits on CDs and DVDs.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Working for the RIAA...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Hypothesis: The recording industry probably will
Fact: DRM was put in place because the RIAA has no idea how pirating works
Fact: ALL pirated music/movies/programs come without DRM.
Fact: DRM is useless and will never work
Fact: DRM is just a wast of money
Fact: The RIAA/MPAA could work with pirating and make a boat load more money
Fact: The RIAA/MPAA is far to stupid to realise the previous fact.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Why these idiots since then did not lower the cost, by using less staff?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I'll repeat Enrico Suarve's excellent point here..
STOP trying to morph copyright into something it is not. If you keep this crap up, you will very likely find that the citizens of this great nation will become fed up enough with you and the issue that they will leap PAST Copyright Reform and seek Copyright Abolishment!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
rotfl
U simply change for a good free anti-virus or even an open source one where RIAA have no *** power...
And please, put in that anti-virus an anti-RIAA software filter... :D
This guys don't learn ever!
[ link to this | view in thread ]