SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Aurous, a recently-launched music player application created by developer Andrew Sampson in Florida, has been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The application sources pirated music from Russian site Pleer and may include BitTorrent integration in the future, should the developer prevail against legal challenges:
The RIAA also references several comments the developer made in the media before the official launch, confirming that Aurous will be used to pirate music. After the debut of the alpha release, Aurous allegedly provided technical assistance to pirate specific tracks.
In addition, the complaint also mentions Sampson's torrent search engine Strike, which he released earlier this year. "As a stand-alone search engine, Strike Search finds infringing content on BitTorrent but needs to be used with other software and services in order to download the content onto users' computers," the RIAA notes.
The complaint lists a total 20 popular tracks that are freely available through Aurous. This means that Sampson faces up to $3 million in statutory damages if the case goes to trial.
Finally, the RIAA requests a broad preliminary injunction which would prevent domain registrars, domain registries, hosting companies, advertisers and other third-party outfits from doing business with the site.
However, in comments posted to Twitter tonight, Sampson seems unfazed. "Don't worry, we're not going anywhere, empty lawsuits aren't going to stop the innovation of the next best media player," he said. "Hey @RIAA @UMG and everyone else, we challenge every CEO to an arm wrestling competition, we win you drop your empty suit."
Popcorn Time is/was a streaming BitTorrent client that has been the latest and most-discussed bane to the film and television industries.
Complaint [PDF]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday October 15 2015, @04:36AM
RIAA, the business model of selling copies is dead, dead, dead.
Been 20 years since I bought music regularly. Even if I was willing to pay these thieves who screw over real musicians all the time, I sure don't want a plastic disc. It's thanks to the Internet, and services that search lyrics, or listen to a few notes and identify the song, Napster, and Radio Data System (before it was corrupted into another vehicle to carry ads) that I am at last able to identify the songs and see the music videos I could never get when I was a teen. I listened to the radio, but there was no RDS in those days, and the low fidelity and noisy environments, not to mention the singing styles, made it difficult to hear what the words were. We did not have cable TV, still don't, so I never got to see MTV. Didn't miss much, no doubt, but still, it was a barrier that kept me from being as informed about current culture, and definitely kept me from buying as much music.
Now I can find all kinds of things, even very obscure things, on Youtube and pirate sites, no thanks to the RIAA.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Thursday October 15 2015, @11:14AM
RIAA, the business model of selling copies is dead, dead, dead.
Yes but their new model of "rent them digital copies" has not yet taken hold! I know it's light-years more outrageous.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 15 2015, @11:16AM
I still miss Napster. What a great thing. I discovered the Plastic People of the Universe, an obscure Czech band from the 60's, through them. Also Vladimir Vysotsky.
When Metallica and the RIAA took them down I never bought another CD again.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SecurityGuy on Thursday October 15 2015, @02:35PM
I don't think that means what you think it means.
Ah, that's it. Their business model is alive and kicking because there are still lots of people who do. The last time I bought music was about a week ago. I just don't mind (at all) paying a buck for a song I'll enjoy for a while. That said, I'd rather pay that buck to the artist than the distribution chain, but mostly I just wanted that song more than I wanted the dollar it cost.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Sir Finkus on Thursday October 15 2015, @05:18AM
I gave Aurous a try (with public domain music of course) and it's a bit of a mess. Think limewire, except the songs play nearly instantly (think 2-3 seconds) and search is limited to 20 results. The UI is complete garbage. Attempting to resize the window causes the entire program to hang and the volume slider has a a tenuous relationship with the speaker output. I attempted to add some of my own files to see if it would work as a local media player, and the entire interface froze for about a minute.
Maybe they'll fix all this stuff later, but it's super shakey for a public release, even an alpha. Normals won't use it in its current state.
The reason popcorn time was so successful is because it worked, and presented a good UI to the user that basically worked like netflix.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 15 2015, @04:59PM
The RIAA has mastered the Streisand effect. People will try Aurous now, discover it's crappy, and its brand will be ruined no matter who prevails in court.
(Score: 2) by spamdog on Thursday October 15 2015, @05:23AM
I know the music is free....but were they attempting to make money out of the program in some other way?
Seems like that puts you on the radar real quick.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday October 15 2015, @05:35AM
Well they haven't made any money yet, right? So Pre-Crime preemptive lawsuit?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday October 15 2015, @02:27PM
I think the way the law is structured that even if you are not making money it is still illegal.
Though Grooveshark was around for years before they finally got the axe.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 15 2015, @06:28AM
Actually, they do waste plenty of time instead of adapting to the present day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 15 2015, @11:23PM
I must be blind or something, but I can't find the link to the source code....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @05:14AM
My gues is Aurous has a plan to take down the RIAA or an air-tight argument they fully believe can overturn flawed copyright law. There is no way anyone would be this provocative unless they were extremely confident of a win. (Or they could just be stupid, but my bet is that we've got a rather entertaining case coming up)