Universal Music Group , Sony Music Entertainment and other record labels on Friday sued the nonprofit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over its streaming collection of digitized music from vintage records.
Remember the time Sony Music installed a rootkit on peoples' computers via commercially purchased CDs because hacking paying customers' computers seemed like a good way to combat piracy?
Sony BMG initially denied that the rootkits were harmful. It then released an uninstaller for one of the programs that merely made the program's files invisible while also installing additional software that could not be easily removed.
And then they just paid some settlements, recalled some CDs, and continued to operate as if nothing has happened. Bloody hell.
I remembered there was a Part II to the story that made it even worse, but did not remember those details. Should have read my own link! Thanks for highlighting that because it truly is the icing on the cake.
I worked for a startup that had as main investor a company called InterTrust. Our office was inside their building.
InterTrust was a patent portfolio that belonged to Sony and Philips. All they did was sue people. One day they were able to sue Apple on some stupid patent, and there was much rejoicing at the office.
I hate when you need to install different software for whatever camera, music player, whatever that you had. Luckily that is pretty rare that proprietary software is required nowadays.
Yes, and please back up as much as possible while you're there. If they take it from us, we build our own Internet Archive, with blackjack and hookers.
Yeah, there aren't many Pumpkins fans left these days, but the Internet Archive still manages to have a collection that beats the Smashing Pumpkins Audio Archive from the early 2000s.
Just something funny: First time I donated to archive.org my bank blocked my card due to being a "suspicious payment".
I had to physically go to the bank because due to security reasons I couldn't unblock it in internet banking.
The high security looked like this:
"Hello. You blocked my card due to suspicious payment."
"OK, what's your name"
"[name]"
"I see. Did you make that payment?"
"Yes."
"OK, I'll send an e-mail to management. It should be unblocked in a few hours. Have a nice day."
"Bye."
They didn't want to see my ID card, not even the debit card. Nor sign anything. Just and only hear my name. "Security".
I had my insurance company ask me for my phone number for security purposes. It was an old one I had since replaced and forgotten, so they read it out to me and asked me to confirm it.
This has happened to me with my own bank sometimes, though thankfully all I have to do is call them, report the blocked payment, and answer the same useless questions that don't really prove anything security-wise, and that's it. I'm not sure why they insist on doing this song and dance, but at least I don't have to drive all the way to one of their locations to get it resolved, lol.
I mean it'd be a terrible shame if Frank Sinatra and Billy Holiday went broke and had to come out of retirement because of the internet archive's actions, maybe the labels a have a point here...
The labels' lawsuit filed in a federal court in Manhattan said the Archive's "Great 78 Project" functions as an "illegal record store" for songs by musicians including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.
Representatives for the Internet Archive did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint.
The Internet Archive is already facing another federal lawsuit in Manhattan from leading book publishers who said its digital-book lending program launched in the pandemic violates their copyrights.
A judge ruled for the publishers in March, in a decision that the Archive plans to appeal.
The labels' lawsuit said the project includes thousands of their copyright-protected recordings, including Bing Crosby's "White Christmas," Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" and Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)".
The lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and "face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed."
Sony Music responsible for recently threatening to take radio streaming apps to court for streaming radio stations outside the UK under some false pretence.
They also couldnt give a crap about vinyl quality for their artists and have had entire reissues that were faulty and never repressed. They're seriously starting to piss me off recently. Going to donate to Archive.
I feel so hopeless, so pissed, all these news and how these corporations are destroying open web. I really had hope with new generations being more tech savvy and more online would push for openness of web, instead I've come to realize that new generations are really into apps and not going beyond that, not interested in deeper look into software and tech - as long as the gadget works and no matter any subscription cost or microtransactions or surveillance.
I try to be hopeful, but damn it is hard to stay optimistic. I've been trying little by little to push friends and family in a nice way into using Firefox, alternatives to big corporate software and so on, but I understand it takes too much effort for someone who is not really interested in these things. But I will be advocate of open web forever myself.
Edit: okay unfair to expect anything from new generations, and of course there are more tech savvy people than there probably use to be, but had hoped for a huge change in that demographic.