Comments from Decius: The RIAA's Clean Slate program. This website is positively creepy. I guess they are holding it under a different domain name so that people who are basically not very bright won't get that these are the same people that are filing the lawsuits. Having said that, reading explanations of "what your liability might be" knowing that the writer is the person filing the suit feels like listening to the mafia explain in a concerned and polite tone that you wouldn't want anything bad to happen to your family and the best way to avoid that is to pay the protection money. I realize thats been said before, but I can't think of a better way to explain it. Typical corrupt logic abounds: Upfront on the site is says that copying music is just as illegal as stealing CDs, which is correct. Its also just as illegal as running a red light, or on the other hand, committing international terrorism. This analogy is chosen for another reason, which they shore up deeper in the content by saying that copying music is just as "wrong" as stealing CDs... The typical obligatory and incorrect analogy between theft and information crimes. Later the site says that theft of physical CDs is "legally no different" then copying music. In reality, the penalty for copying music is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more severe. Parents are literally set against their children through the use of fear. "You could be liable for your child's actions, so start monitoring their computer use..." "Tell that to the struggling young musicians in a garage band who cant get signed because record sales are down." Sure... Your friend's band isn't getting signed because of Gnutella... Right... Their list of places to "legally download music on the web" is mostly (although not entirely) a list of internet CD stores. "Copyrights dont last forever." No, they DO last forever. Limited copyright is a legal fiction in the United States. The definition of fiction is something written on paper that doesn't actually happen in the real world. I am 27. No copyrighted material has entered the public domain during my lifetime. Repeat after me: If it doesn't actually happen, then it is not real. "We are not against P2P services." Really, you could have fooled me at the P2P "porno" hearings last week!! From NYT: "P2P stands for piracy to pornography," quipped Mr. Lack. (That's "Andrew Lack, the chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment.") "We think MP3 technology is a great thingas long as its used legally and properly." REALLY!? Then why did you sue to ban the sale of portable mp3 players in 1998??
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,15535,00.html musicunited.org | 
