From Aaron S Michelson Sent Sat, Nov 7th 1998, 19:59
From Aaron S Michelson Sent Sat, Nov 7th 1998, 19:59
Excerpts from mail: 7-Nov-98 (idm)bleepbloop? & Detroit .. by "objet@"@mindspring.com > Anyone else wondering what went down with the Bleepbloop server? To clear up the confusion.... here's my story: About two weeks ago I did infact get busted, not by the RIAA, but by my campus computing services for bandwidth consumption. Since the RIAA put the fear of god into our campus for previous issues (regarding available MP3's from student servers) distributing MP3 files is like waving a red flag infront of a bull. Now, here's where things get complicated. I spoke with the Associate Dean of Student affairs to petition for my ethernet back (it was revoked, i.e. I currently have no high-speed internet connection) and managed to develop an interesting argument. As far as I know, the RIAA shield does not protect the music that I had on my site. I was distributing rare, deleted files... protected by copyright yes. This means that I have to give the correct artists credit, and cannot distribute commercially, right? Some stuff I had on the site included Tom Jenkinson's Stereotype EP (pressed 500, distributed to his friends) the Mask series, old Global Communication (the way/the deep is way/deep out of print) and things like that. My argument is that because there was no malicious, commercial violation involved (noncommercial, private distribution... i.e. passworded ftp site for IDM) it's okay? Eh? So, my school wants me to contact the RIAA and tell them my sob story to find out whether or not what I was doing was legal, or at least violating RIAA codes of whatever. I still don't have my ethernet back. It should be back within the next week... IF bleepbloopFTP goes back up, it'll be limited to 2-3 users, possibly with a time limit. But that's a big if. In the meantime, the RIAA by request from Carnegie Mellon University has set up a website called Soundbyting (www.soundbyting.com) for issues regarding MP3. Might be worth checking out..... Respect, Aaron