RIAA and MediaSentry...

MediaSentry is a company that specializes in the stopping on P2P networks and Copyrighted material being swapped on the internet. They are budded up with the XXAA in their plight to help save Hollywood and the Recording Industry.

Acording to the MediaSentry website:

"SafeNet offers a tightly integrated suite of anti-piracy and digital distribution solutions through its MediaSentry Services™ offering. Leveraging the MediaSentry Services platform, SafeNet helps clients detect and deter unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content and prosecute those who engage in media and software piracy online. SafeNet also offers a full suite of solutions that provide enabling infrastructure to support the successful growth of digital promotion and distribution. All of our services can be deployed as individual components or bundled together for use in an integrated solution"


According to The Wired Magazine article:
They are caught up in the counter suit that was filed by Tanya Andersen, who had been defending herself against a debilitating RIAA lawsuit for about two years before the RIAA dropped its case, has launched a big time offensive against her former accusers, filing suit today against Atlantic Recording Corporation, Priority Records, Capitol Records, UMG Recordings, and BMG Music, the RIAA, MediaSentry, and Settlement Support Center.

Andersen's Complaint (on Internet Law and Regulation ) calls out the labels, their legal prosecution/lobbying arm (the RIAA), and the oft-maligned software it uses to find alleged infringers (MediaSentry). It claims the RIAA's methods are criminal, and that their lawyers are needlessly vicious in pursuing defendants.

From Andersen's Complaint:

"Recently it has been discovered that as a part of this secret enterprise MediaSentry has for years conducted illegal, flawed and negligent investigations of many thousands of private United States citizens. These illegal investigations are then used as the sole basis for pursuit of tens of thousands of lawsuits throughout the US."

Andersen has counter-sued the RIAA before, but this seems to be more about the RIAA's alleged infringer identification tactics being illegal from the get-go. It remains to be seen whether a company posing as a user to monitor data shared by other users on a network is breaking the law, but the RIAA's cookie could be about to crumble. Andersen seems prepared to take her case as far as she can.

I say more power to her!! It is far time that someone stands up to their organization. They have used scare tactics and mob antics for long enough!

RIAA Wants to Hack Your PC

This story was on Wired Magizine several years ago by Declan McCullagh, but i thought that it needed to be retold! This just show the absurdity of their actions!!


WASHINGTON -- Look out, music pirates: The recording industry wants the right to hack into your computer and delete your stolen MP3s.

It's no joke. Lobbyists for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) tried to glue this hacking-authorization amendment onto a mammoth anti-terrorism bill that Congress approved last week.

An RIAA-drafted amendment according to a draft obtained by Wired News would immunize all copyright holders -- including the movie and e-book industry -- for any data losses caused by their hacking efforts or other computer intrusions "that are reasonably intended to impede or prevent" electronic piracy.

In an interview Friday, RIAA lobbyist Mitch Glazier said that his association has abandoned plans to insert that amendment into anti-terrorism bills -- and instead is supporting a revised amendment that takes a more modest approach."It will not be some special exception for copyright owners," Glazier said. "It will be a general fix to bring back current law." Glazier is the RIAA's senior vice president of government relations and a former House aide.


The RIAA's interest in the USA Act, an anti-terrorism bill that the Senate and the House approved last week, grew out of an obscure part of it called section 815. Called the "Deterrence and Prevention of Cyberterrorism" section, it says that anyone who breaks into computers and causes damage "aggregating at least $5,000 in value" in a one-year period would be committing a crime.


If the current version of the USA Act becomes law, the RIAA believes, it could outlaw attempts by copyright holders to break into and disable pirate FTP or websites or peer-to-peer networks. Because the bill covers aggregate damage, it could bar anti-piracy efforts that cause little harm to individual users, but meet the $5,000 threshold when combined. "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. Glazier said that the RIAA was no longer lobbying for the language provided to Wired News -- "that's completely out" -- but instead wanted to ensure that current law remains the same. But Glazier said he could not provide a copy of the revised amendment he hopes to include. Legal scholars say that the original amendment the RIAA had been shopping around to members of Congress raises privacy and security concerns.


"It could lead to some really bad outcomes, like a program purposefully intended to delete MP3s that misfunctions and erases everything on a disk -- ooops," says Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Think a repo man smashing windows and knocking down doors to pull out the 27-inch color TV when you've missed a couple of payments."
Peter Swire, a former top privacy official under President Clinton and now a professor at Ohio State University, says he hopes there would be public debate on any such proposal.


"On its face, this language would allow a deliberate hack attack by a copyright owner against the system of someone who is infringing the copyright," Swire said. The draft amendment is overly broad and poorly-written, says Orin Kerr, a former Justice Department lawyer now at George Washington University. Says Kerr: "It would deny victims their right to sue copyright owners and their agents if they engaged in vigilante justice by hacking or other means in an effort to block online music distribution."


"Another troubling thing is that they appear to be trying to limit their liability for consequential damages," says R. Polk Wagner, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's law school. "What if their efforts caused your hard disk to become fatally corrupted?" An aide on Capitol Hill who had been contacted by the RIAA was even more blunt, dubbing the amendment the "RIAA's License to Virus" proposal.


For its part, the RIAA is still trying to get a copy of its revised amendment -- that it would not provide a copy of -- included in the anti-terrorism bill called the USA Act. "It didn't make it into the Senate bill," says the RIAA's Glazier. "So the great work of the Senate staff to fix this unintentional problem didn't get through. Now we're in the House with the base language that could have these unintended consequences." On Friday, the House voted 339-79 for the USA Act, which eases limits on wiretapping and Internet monitoring. The Senate approved the bill on Thursday.


Because neither the House nor the Senate versions of the USA Act include either variant of the RIAA's amendment, the association's lobbyists will focus on a possible conference committee, which would be appointed to work out differences with the Senate. Another possibility is that the Senate could enact the USA Act when senators return this week, automatically sending the bill to President Bush for his signature.


Bush has asked Congress for the additional surveillance and detention powers as a response to the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.The text of the original RIAA amendment says that "no action may be brought under this subsection arising out of any impairment of the availability of data, a program, a system or information, resulting from measures taken by an owner of copyright in a work of authorship, or any person authorized by such owner to act on its behalf, that are intended to impede or prevent the infringement of copyright in such work by wire or electronic communication."

It also immunizes from liability actions that "are reasonably intended to impede or prevent the unauthorized transmission" of pirated materials.


What is your opinion?

Spanking of Children...TO Whip or Not To Whip?

"The bill, backed by Democrat Sally Lieber of San Francisco, a member of the state legislature, would outlaw spanking children three years old or younger and carry a possible penalty of jail time or a 1,000-dollar fine."

""I think it's pretty hard to argue you need to beat a child three years old or younger," said Lieber, who plans to introduce the bill next week."

here is a link to the whole story.

In my opinion, this bleeding heart liberal Demoncrat should be taken out and whipped with a belt!! and it would come from someone from California...

I was whipped as a child and i do not think that i was scarred for life from it. I know it was a different time and that was discipline, but we got whipped and then grounded. I think that is a Major problem with our children today. They are not disciplined and as such do not know or respect authority. I got whipped in school and i did not make the same mistake again. I remember the few times that i got whipped and i needed it because i was acting like a smart ass and my grandfather busted my but. I never made that same mistake again. i learned from it.

I see nothing wrong with having to whip my child. They make it as if everyone is out there beating their kids, that is not the case. A quick swat on the fanny or hand will make anyone take notice especially if they are 3-4 years old. But to make it a crime?? Come on!! IF we pass this, then the government can pass outer suck laws like when we can watch TV or read a book or mandatory attending of niceness classes. We do not need the government getting into the personal lives with laws...




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