172.174.227.122 - - [11/May/2003:01:46:34 -0700] "GET ***** HTTP/1.0" 200 4695 "-" "By Allowing Me Access You Waive All Rules Associated With It."

A unilateral, after-the-fact contract... Someone has a future with RIAA... You could probably write a script that would put the lines of a haiku or poem in successive referrers... I want to set my referrer to "All your Web are belong to us"...
Comments 10:16:57 AM    

Cyveillance, a company that is reported to be an agent of the RIAA, MPAA and dozens of large corporations with a mission to protect their copyrighted materials has downloaded more than a thousand files from my Web site in the last 5 months. Many hundreds of these files are copyrighted original essays, reports and presentations.

Responsible, law abiding publishers and corporations normally pay me from a few hundred to several thousand dollars to use the materials I have developed to formulate strategy and tactics, gauge markets, etc.

Cyveillance' Web site offers a fee-based service providing companies with information gleaned from the Web. So, since www.gulker.com is so amazingly popular with them, it is reasonable to suspect that they are providing my copyrighted materials (along with god knows how many others) to corporations for fees that are reported to be hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

True, I place some of these files on the Web site so others can read them: it is my hope that they will spur debate and commentary, and advance the cause and utility of a global network. I would be delighted if Hilary Rosen logged on, read my work, and it helped her to find a way to serve, rather than sue, her customers.

However, I do not authorize anyone to resell my copyrighted materials for a profit without my permission. It is unreasonable, unethical and illegal for others to do this. The way in which my copyrighted material is delivered to RIAA executives or anybody else is important.

No one makes this point more loudly than RIAA and its lawyers: they recently sued 4 students for billions of dollars for distributing what they claimed were their members' copyrighted materials for free on private networks. Yet, here is at least one of their agents doing exactly the same thing (Cyveillance has a private network for its clients) for profit.

Sure I can sue. That involves paying an attorney or team of attorneys several hundred dollars an hour for god knows how long - likely months or years. RIAA, while arguably just as guilty as kids in college dorms, would likely easily outlast my resources.

The 'lawyer door' to RIAA's castle is thick, heavy and defended by large and hideous brutes. However, that doesn't mean that there is no recourse. RIAA's members are publicly-traded corporations whose executives are (or should be) highly sensitive to the profitability of those companies. When RIAA uses its resources to hurt customers by way of making an example of those whose listening and viewing preferences they don't like, it is playing with fire.

So let's approach via (or, better, stay away from) the 'customer door': if angry teenagers and young people and other good customers decided that it would be very cool not to buy any CDs or DVDs or go to a movie for, say, 90 days, the same corporations would likely undergo a rapid attitude, and tactics, adjustment.

Even better if the same customers took their disposable entertainment income and invested it in supporting local musicians, Indies et al. - or sent it along to responsible charities. I have refused to buy CDs or DVDs for 2 years now: the $1000 average that I spent annually on each of those products in the past now goes elsewhere... $1000 probably doesn't make an RIAA lawyer's car payment, but if enough of us choose this path, maybe RIAA will get the message...
Comments 10:02:24 AM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures