U.S. Navy seizes cadet computers

[Jennifer]

"Academy seizes computers from nearly 100 mids"

What a ridiculous invasion of privacy. Perhaps a warning should've been issued first.

I don't even think they were this hard on those sailors who used government credit cards to buy hookers...

[Cam]

Damn kids fighting for our country how dare they steal songs from Big Business. This is an outrage hopefully all these young soldiers will face serious charges and be made examples of. We wouldn't want those that are risking there lives for our country enjoying a little free music would we

[wolf]

This may seem goofy to most of us here, but if it's determined that the copyright infringement is a violation of the Academy's Honor Code, then this is a VERY big deal ... and could result in the expulsion of a lot of these kids.

[Jennifer]

Originally posted by wolf
This may seem goofy to most of us here, but if it's determined that the copyright infringement is a violation of the Academy's Honor Code, then this is a VERY big deal ... and could result in the expulsion of a lot of these kids.

Amanda Collins, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said yesterday that the Naval Academy was among the colleges and universities around the country that were sent two letters from entertainment industry and educational associations asking them to address Internet piracy and establish policies against it.

If what you say is true, then I wonder if this would've even been an issue if the letters from the recording industry hadn't been sent to the academy.

[Nic Name]

What if they don't find illegal music but, say, gay porn?

Or ... Country Joe & The Fish recordings.

This whole thing is so post-9/11.

[russotto]

Originally posted by wolf
This may seem goofy to most of us here, but if it's determined that the copyright infringement is a violation of the Academy's Honor Code, then this is a VERY big deal ... and could result in the expulsion of a lot of these kids.

The recording industry is without any honor, ethics, morals, or substitute therefore. Thus infringing their copyrights cannot be an honor code violation. (though I doubt that argument would stand up in an Academy kangaroo court)

[Tobiasly]

This may be a breach of the honor code, but what they choose to enforce could be so arbitrary I'm sure they could pretty much throw out whomever they wanted to. I doubt this will actually come to that.

As far as the RIAA, they are desperately grasping at staws more and more. They still don't "get" what consumers want, and they probably (hopefully) won't until it's too late.

Hopefully the end state is that music costs 10% of what it does today, 98% of that money goes right to the artists (who end up making more than they do now), record companies become obsolete and crawl back under whatever rock from whence they came, legitimately buying high-quality recordings of music becomes more desirable than rolling the dice with P2P, and everyone else is happy.

[tw]

Originally posted by Tobiasly
As far as the RIAA, they are desperately grasping at staws more and more. They still don't "get" what consumers want, and they probably (hopefully) won't until it's too late.

The RIAA is grasping desperately to a business model that no longer works. It is based on hiring thousands, and spending $millions to promote THE song they want us to like. Internet makes that system irrelevant. The music industry must downsize - as all industries eventually do - in response to technological advances.

It takes maybe 10% or less people to run a larger phone system. Same applies to electric utilities. Sears gets eaten alive by Walmart because retail now takes so many less people if advantages from new technologies are utilizes. But the RIAA likes having big exectives with $multi-million promotion budgets.

In order to preserve this system, the RIAA is even promoting laws to have ISPs police and report any music that you download. Whether the law is reasonable or will even be voted on is irrelevant. The point is the RIAA is so desperate to protect their old system that they would even promote basic violations of civil rights to protect that system.

They were successful in essentially keeping DAT recorders out of America. They got Canada to give them money for every DAT sold there - regardless of the purpose of that DAT. They have a system so expensive that they might leech money from anywhere they can. The RIAA is not operating in the interests of their customers. The internet now makes that obvious.

From an Economist survery some years back on the recording industry, I listed five functions that the recording industry provides. Most of that can now be performed for much less from oustside or indepenent organizations - because technology advances. RIAA does not like losing control of any of those five functions. But then we know their original solution to the internet was to ignore it. They could not fit it into their business model so they ignored it until Napster made that impossible. So now their solution is to impeded the internet - to protect the old RIAA business model. We are suppose to call it Dinosaurs.

[Cam]

Exactly, I can't remember exact article I was reading a while ago, I think it was on Cnet but I remember these words as they were repeated over and over again "adapt or fail".

[Nic Name]

Slashdot :p

[Cam]

I thought this was another good example of copyright laws going too far. Not in the US and no RIAA involved, but it's sure to set a precedent.

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