RIAA Web Site Moved To Linux

xseedit writes "The RIAA has moved their main Web site www.riaa.com from IIS on Win2003 to Apache 2.2.3 on Red Hat. It appears that the move did not go smoothly as it resulted in an 8-hour downtime starting yesterday around noon, according to Netcraft. And the RIAA is still showing a 'temporarily under construction' page. They also moved their DNS from the small company that had been hosting them for the past 4 years, Tomorrow's Solutions Today (TST Inc.), to Mindshift Technologies. One can only guess what happened here, but the move seems to have been sudden and unplanned. They still haven't moved the riaa.org, riaa.net, and musicunited.org domains — those are still pointing to the TST nameservers that no longer accept queries for those domains. TST Inc. deserves credit, however. They seem to have managed to host the RIAA quite successfully for the past 4 years. Will Mindshift do a better job hosting one of the most reviled, and therefore most attacked, Web sites in the world? I wonder if anybody at the RIAA or TST would care to comment on the reasons behind this sudden move. Could it be that the RIAA is being sued by its hosting provider? Or perhaps the sue-happy organizaiton is suing its provider?"

first post

[by Anonymous Coward]

I cannot conceive of a less interesting "story" than this one. Kudos, slashdot.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

But wait! Hold onto your nuts! there's more!
It not appears that they are at Apache version 2.2.4, and not 2.2.3 as previously claimed.

w0000000000000000000000w!

So...

[Artifice_Eternity (306661)]

It appears that the move did not go smoothly as it resulted in an 8-hour downtime starting yesterday around noon, according to Netcraft.

NETCRAFT CONFIRMS: RIAA IS DEAD!

Re:first post

[notnAP (846325)]

The journalism on /. is getting more and more questionable, to be sure.
What gets me is the rampant speculation.
Did the RIAA sue TNT? Did TNT sue the RIAA?
Or did the RIAA pull their business because the Son of Satan - still a young lad and not yet able to lead the hellish forces and kick-start the end of days - is an intern at TNT?
Who knows?
But until we do know, let's just put anything up on the board. Drudge does it. Why can't we?

Alas, sometimes I fool myself into thinking, just because they use the motto "News for Nerds..." this site actually tries to act as a news site instead of a blog (or a blog of other blogs).

Hopefully, with GPL version 4

[catbutt (469582)]

Evil organizationss won't be able to use Linux or other GPL'd software.

Re:

[jZnat (793348)]

It's too bad that goes against freedom 0. Maybe we should amend that? Hehe...

Re:

[Frankie70 (803801)]

Yes. Just like GPL3 was to prevent Tivoisation,
GPL4 will be to prevent RIAAisation - RMS.

My guess...

[spiffyman (949476)]

Could it be that the RIAA is being sued by its hosting provider? Or perhaps the sue-happy organizaiton is suing its provider?

... Or maybe they just wanted a more secure hosting platform located with a provider who has experience with member-oriented organizations [mindshift.com]. There's always that possibility.

But...

[skinfitz (564041)]

Does that mean they are violating 200+ Microsoft patents now? ...and lets not forget SCO...

Re:But...

[grasshoppa (657393)]

Sounds like it'd be fun to watch, like a train wreck.

Yeah, with a train full of lawyers and politicians.

I'll bring the hotdogs.

Re:But...

[geminidomino (614729)]

I'll bring the chainsaw.

Finally!!

[by Anonymous Coward]

I finally got to put a chalk mark in the PROs column of my RIAA scoreboard. Actually, I had to create a PROs column. Actually, it would be nice if they'd go back to M$ and I can go back to having only one column.

Uhh, okay.

[DrEldarion (114072)]

I hate to sit here and be critical, but is this really "stuff that matters"? This is one of the most meaningless stories I've seen in ages on this site. After looking at the firehose and what doesn't get accepted, it amazes me that something this dumb can be posting material.

Re:

[Necroman (61604)]

You are always welcome to startup your own Slashdot like site. You can even you Slashcode if you want to do it.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

The dupe next week will be even more meaningless.

Re:Uhh, okay.

[Wescotte (732385)]

I hate to sit here and be critical, but is this really "stuff that matters"? This is one of the most meaningless stories I've seen in ages on this site. After looking at the firehose and what doesn't get accepted, it amazes me that something this dumb can be posting material.

The RIAA is Paris Hilton for nerds where even the most pointless story that is related to it gets too much coverage.

Re:

[RealGrouchy (943109)]

The RIAA is Paris Hilton for nerds where even the most pointless story that is related to it gets too much coverage.

The difference being that with Paris Hilton, the Paris-ites* are the ones blogging about it, whereas with the RIAA, the parasites are the ones being blogged about.

*Attribution to TV's Craig Ferguson

- RG>

Re:

[TheDarkener (198348)]

Seriously - this is like the Linux enthusiasts' 'E', with the latest gossip.

Re:

[Max Littlemore (1001285)]

After looking at the firehose and what doesn't get accepted, it amazes me that something this dumb can be posting material.

This morning my train was ten minutes late and when it arrived there wasn't enough room to squeeze on. After it left the station, an announcement came over saying that the next train would be delayed by another ~20 minutes because of a fault on the overhead lines. I drove to a station on another line and got a train which itself was running ten minutes.

When I got to the city, there we

Re:Uhh, okay.

[kimvette (919543)]

Actually, it does. RIAA, for all their crying about IP rights, is moving to Linux, which Microsoft claims violates 235 patents, and even insinuate that Linux might contain Microsoft-copyrighted code. If the RIAA truly cared about IP, they would steer clear of Linux for the sake of PR, regardless of increased security risks and licensing costs they incur by continuing to host on Windows.

Re:

[jlarocco (851450)]

Or, you could take a somewhat more optimistic view, and say that even though the RIAA are IP trolls, even they don't think Linux infringes anything.

Re:

[gordgekko (574109)]

It's rather simple. RIAA stories on /., no matter how trivial they are, generate page views and therefore generate more money thanks to banner ads. We play into /.'s biased and obvious "reporting" by clicking on RIAA headlines. We're just as much to blame as the "editors" of this web site.

Re:

[jlarocco (851450)]

Slashdot has banner ads?

Re:

[xs650 (741277)]

"it amazes me that something this dumb can be posting material."

It amazes me that anyone is amazed about dumb posting material on /.

On Standing Up Targets

[bill_mcgonigle (4333)]

Amen to that. I dislike the RIAA's unjust actions as much as anyone else here. But who gives a crap what webserver or host provider they use!

Well, the posited theory is that it's one of the most attacked websites. If you take this line of reasoning further, they probably hired a security consultant to figure out the most secure method of hosting a website, to alleviate problems. Maybe he specified an SELinux-based web server, and that's why they had so much downtime (heh, I kid mercilessly - Dan Walsh doe

Re:

[BlueTrin (683373)]

I thought your story is interesting but it did not involve the :

• GPLv3
• Bill Gates
• RIAA
• MPAA
• Ubuntu
• Apple

(delete the choices which do not fit here), so I preferred to vote for this uninteresting story.

Could it be?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Could it be that the RIAA is being sued by its hosting provider? Or perhaps the sue-happy organizaiton is suing its provider?

Could it be the submitter of this article is simply engaging in random, mindless speculation?
 

Re:Could it be?

[suv4x4 (956391)]

Could it be the submitter of this article is simply engaging in random, mindless speculation?

I've been reading Slashdot for years now, this is the first time this happens.

Re:

[scwizard (941758)]

Yes that is unusual, usually its the editor's job to add random mindless speculation :)

Hrm?

[jrwr00 (1035020)]

I wonder if they can sue the provider, if some body hosts music on there servers?

I wonder

[NCTRNAL (780392)]

Maybe they discovered they were running a pirated version of Win2K3, too bad they didn't become self-aware and implode upon themselves, greedy fucks....

This is getting frustrating ....

[bizitch (546406)]

I'm trying to see their groovy new website - I can't WAIT to learn all the cool new ways I can help to fight piracy! Gee i know that website is gonna be swell ... ..... but the website still just doesn't work -

All I do is hit "refresh" over and over and over and over

but nothing happens!

I sent them my 300GB of thievery

[gelfling (6534)]

and I guess it messed up their server. My bad.

so are we supposed to...

[by Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA is using Linux...

  Control passes through the teeny tiny loops of slashbot's brain for a while
 
ERROR: CANNOT DECIDE WHETHER THIS IS GOOD NEWS OR BAD

Here's a mistery...

[Tatisimo (1061320)]

Why do they (the RIAA) have a "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" on their temporary page right now? I wonder...

as a Linux user

[by Anonymous Coward]

I suddenly feel so dirty...

This stinks of

[bky1701 (979071)]

The RIAA trying to poison the anti-copyright (GPL, BSD, etc) stew... though unless they start toting it as proof of the failure of freedom and that copyright is needed I'll take it as a coincidence.

slashdotting

[oztiks (921504)]

I'm more then sure putting their link on slashdot is not helping their downtime situation.

Test before going live

[davidwr (791652)]

Um, how hard can a server migration be?

Take snapshot of old server
Deploy snapshot on new server.
Test new server under simulated load.
Sync new server with old server. Bonus if you can keep any web boards fully functional during the transition.
Redirect DNS.
PROFIT.

Sure the details are a bit more complicated but for a single server or small farm that's the gist of it.

If you plan it right and execute it right it should go without any hiccups.

Re:Test before going live

[totally bogus dude (1040246)]

Well, they were also moving platform -- I don't know whether their old site was static HTML with only a few simple scripts or something more complicated, but that can throw a spanner in the works.

Their site currently has a message saying they're launching a new site, so I think it wasn't a simple migration. Of course, stuffing up the launch of a new site on new servers takes a special kind of ineptitude all of its own.

If you plan it right and execute it right it should go without any hiccups.

Sure, but they're a bunch of lawyers so they wouldn't have done any of the technical planning, and they're moving to different web hosts which means neither host particularly cares: one is the ex-host which doesn't want to waste time and money on a customer they've already lost, and the other already has their money and a contract which says "you can fuck us over for 6 months because it's too expensive to go somewhere else until that point"; and each is blaming the other for the fuck up, as per standard operating procedure.

I'm probably a bit jaded, but it's been a long time since I've received adequate customer service from any of our suppliers, much less good service; but I guess that's inevitable when the only real point of comparison you can make between companies before actually using them for a while is price.

Oh, well, they must be good, then!

[Anonymous Freak (16973)]

They switched to Linux, so they're good, right?

Link to Netcraft

[xseedit (901381)]

In case some people want to see for themselves the Netcraft stats can be found here [netcraft.com] and to verify who owns a domain and what the authoritative nameservers are one should use whois [whois.net].
Is this stuff that matters? Perhaps not for everybody, but some people may be interested. The P2Plawsuits [p2plawsuits.com] site to settle your case online instead of risking court was moved fast, but I wonder how many people would be willing to enter their credit card info on a site with an invalid SSL cert.

Nothing to see here

[totally bogus dude (1040246)]

The RIAA likely doesn't know -- much less care -- what OS or web server is running their web site. Unless you're actually a hosting company, or a company somehow involved in web hosting such that it's worth the time and money to run your own servers, the platform is entirely handled by whoever is doing your hosting. You decide who's doing your hosting based on price and features; "Linux" or "Windows" is not a feature in and of itself. Even the security of it isn't your concern: that's a problem for the people running the servers that host your website to deal with as they see fit. You, as a hosting customer, rely on their expertise in that regard.

So, pointless speculation about the deeper meaning aside, it seems they're launching a new site and moving to a new host at the same time. Only they don't have their new site ready (or it was ready, but then turned out to be broken so they're fixing it before trying again) before they moved. That's a bit odd, unless their old site had incorrect or damaging information on it and having no website was better than leaving that content up... but a big company mismanaging the move and relaunch of a website is hardly news.

Nooooooooo...

[jasquigl (950500)]

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of kernels suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

Re:

[sepluv (641107)]

I honestly can't believe this got posted. Everything in this description is pure speculation and the only link is to the RIAA

It was clearly posted by the RIAA's marketing department in a desperate bid for a bit of publicity for their site. Protection rackets crave publicity because it helps them extort money and they just like showing off how they can get away with stuff (cf. the Mafia). Also, the poster [slashdot.org] is quite a new account with only one previous post (and he didn't link his name in the submission).

(For the humour impaired, no, I don't really think they posted it; just trying to make the boring drivel that passes for a stor

Re:

[sepluv (641107)]

It would be great if the submitter did work for the RIAA as his only comment on a story was "I use a...media streamer, providing access to your entire music collection wherever you are. This way I don't need to fill up my laptop drive and I can access my collection from anywhere...". Hmmm....clearly an "evil theiving pirate".

Re:

[sepluv (641107)]

Since when was Sourceforge Inc. a member of the open source community?

More seriously, I don't understand how the story is detrimental to the RIAA's reputation (they moved hosting providers...so what?) so why would it be libelous.

Here's what I meant

[gcnaddict (841664)]

I'm assuming you're asking about the badpublicity tag which I slapped on there (the tag didn't exist until I put it up)

I was referring to linux, not the RIAA. Since when was it a good thing that the most hated organization in the world uses your OS?

Re:Careful...

[DamnStupidElf (649844)]

It's all in how you word it. Require negative evidence, make "educated" guesses, etc. Observe:

My best guess is that the RIAA has been feeding little children to alligators in third world countries and charging admission in order to pay for their webhosting, and their previous hosting company found out about it. I have no evidence that they have stopped the practice, but they may now be selling children on the black market as well because of the higher TCO for running Linux, as evidenced by all the non-libelous reports from Microsoft. Moreover, in my estimation the quickest way for the RIAA to migrate their pages to a Linux host involves slave labor in Chinese coding factories with 16 hour workdays, 7 days a week, paying the overworked programmers only One Pittance per month.It's also really easy to claim that any losses incurred during the switch were caused by "piracy." Now I'm not an expert on the RIAA or anything, but I would be completely surprised if it wasn't true.

Sue me for that, suckers.

Re:

[croddy (659025)]

Well, you can't blame them for the slow transition. The RIAA only has four customers, anyway.