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http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php

Quite a laugh, have a read.

Q: Should devices such as CD burners be outlawed since they are an easy way of making illegal copies of others creative efforts?

Devices and technology are not the problem. It's when people use technology to break the law that we take issue.

Again and again, we have embraced the technological advances that have allowed millions upon millions of people around the world to enjoy the music we create. We want fans to enjoy their iPods, CD burners, and other devices, but we want them to do so responsibly, respectfully, and within the law.

http://www.riaa.com/faq.php

Piracy Tips for Consumers, I was reading the "royalty rates" link and saw that the RIAA was behind it, so I went to their website and found this jewel.

Of note: Watch for Compilations that are "Too Good to Be True". Why are they too good to be true? If customers would want that compilation why haven't you sold it to them?

Even better: Trust your ear: The sound quality of pirate CDs is often poor or inconsistent. It is a freaking digital copy, it is the exact same quality! Does anyone actually believe this stuff?

Regardless of my hate on the RIAA, "Trust your ear: The sound quality of pirate CDs is often poor or inconsistent," is actually true. There are lots of bad rips all over the place.

I really have to stop reading this it is making me sick.

Here is something even non-pirates have done at least once in there life:
You have a computer with a CD burner, which you use to burn copies of music you have downloaded onto writable CDs for all of your friends.

So you mean that since the days of cassette tapes every person who has made their girlfriend/boyfriend a mix tape or mix CD is in violation of the law? It must be true, the RIAA says so.

Piracy Tips for Consumers, I was reading the "royalty rates" link and saw that the RIAA was behind it, so I went to their website and found this jewel.
Of note: Watch for Compilations that are "Too Good to Be True". Why are they too good to be true? If customers would want that compilation why haven't you sold it to them?
Even better: Trust your ear: The sound quality of pirate CDs is often poor or inconsistent. It is a freaking digital copy, it is the exact same quality! Does anyone actually believe this stuff?

Here is Bainwol's bio; he's not a lawyer.

IMO hiding in a crowd of thousands is much better than trusting anybody, sure they can sue one person but they can't sue all of us. i take my chances of being the one in 1.3 billion sued, even thier own site puts the chance of getting caught at >0.4%, that number is only going to get smaller as more people use torrents.

At first I thought that link was freeriaatools.adobe.com ;-)

Nope

Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

I listen to white noise for two hours every night in an effort to purge the all the illegal copyrighted content my brain has duplicated internally over the course of the day.

Internet. If he had he'd be facing ten years and a half million dollar fine.

MAFIAA

There, fixed it for ya.

Avoid buying from those companies.

Are Slashdotters aware of other examples of other such blatant astroturfing on behalf of a large tech company like Belkin?

Yes.

Why should the population of the US prop up an industry which has had many many decades to compete on the world market.

I really don't know

Because one of the As in RIAA stands for America and America is the colloquial term for the U.S.A. because it's the only country on both American continents to use the word America in its name.

http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php

Don't you think that if that could find a way to expand their money grubbing, they would?

It isn't a viable business model, it doesn't need to be, because the RIAA isn't a business. It's a business association made up of record labels, such as Sony, Warner et al - see Link, and it does the bidding of the member companies.

http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=aboutus_members

It's funded through dues, which all the member companies pay. It doesn't need to make a profit because it's not a business.

They have published a member list.
http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=aboutus_members

These ones.

Wrong, they claim that it is criminal copyright violation under Title 17 Sections 501 and 506.

source: http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law

It's a Criminal Act
Copyright law protects the value of creative work
When you make illegal copies of someone's creative work, you are stealing and breaking the law.

Most likely, you've seen the FBI warning on a movie DVD or VHS cassette--well, the same applies, with equal force, to music. If you have been illegally reproducing or distributing copyrighted music, maybe you should give it a closer read.

Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, rental or digital transmission of copyrighted sound recordings. (Title 17, United States Code, Sections 501 and 506). The FBI investigates allegations of criminal copyright infringement and violators will be prosecuted.

You won't find these messages on music you've downloaded illegally, but the full weight of the law applies just the same.

So you really should find out:

* What the law says and what it means.
* How you could be breaking the law.
* How severe the penalties can be.
* What The Courts say.
* What's Okay ... And What's Not.

What the Law Says and What it Means
If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law, and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages.

That's pretty important information to have, considering how serious it would be if you were caught and prosecuted by the authorities or sued in civil court. It's even more important that you understand that when you illicitly make or distribute recordings, you are taking something of value from the owner without his or her permission.

You may find this surprising. After all, when you're on the Internet, digital information can seem to be as free as air. But the fact is that U. S. copyright law prohibits the unauthorized duplication, performance or distribution of a creative work.

That means you need the permission of the copyright holder before you copy and/or distribute a copyrighted music recording.

What the Courts Have to Say
For all the public confusion, a long series of court rulings has made it very clear that it's against the law both to upload and download copyrighted music without permission.

It doesn't matter whether you're dealing with sound recordings, pictures, software or written text. The courts have consistently ruled that P2P and other unauthorized uploading and downloading inherently amount to copyright infringement and therefore constitute a crime.

Don't you have a better way to spend five years and $250,000?

Examples of easy ways you could violate the law:

* Somebody you don't even know e-mails you a copy of a copyrighted song and then you turn around and e-mail copies to all of your friends.
* You make an MP3 copy of a song because the CD you bought expressly permits you to do so. But then you put your MP3 copy on the Internet, using a file-sharing network, so that millions of other people can download it.
* Even if you don't illegally offer recordings to others, you join a file-sharing network and download unauthorized copies of all the copyrighted music you want for free from the computers of other network members.
* In order to gain access to copyrighted music on the computers of other network members, you pay a fee to join a file-sharing network tha

I'm never buying music from an RIAA member again.

http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=aboutus_members

The internet appears to have issues with laws.

As seemingly does the rest of society.

My point is that just because there's a law, doesn't mean it's followed or enforced. My solution is to just release enough security threats (redirects in this case) that people are simply forced to switch. In basic terms, money is the only reason why people change. Take the American government, for my obligatory Obama plug. /zing!

What country do you in where students have to drop out of college in order to pay a speeding fine?

Indeed, what an excellent (car) analogy: If you speed in a car, something that risks putting lives at danger, you might have to pay $150 (e.g., http://www.speedingticketkiller.com/ - and that's a site that is saying how high it is). But if you make a single mp3 available that might, oh I don't know, cause a few lost sales, resulting in a few dollars less profit (remember how the RIAA tell us most of the cost of a CD is costs, and only a tiny amount is profit, right?), they're after $750.

Glad to see they have their priorities straight.

Note also that the RIAA openly brag about going after college students.

they wouldn't pursue action against individual downloaders if it wasn't somehow in their interests.

I agree, and I believe that's exactly the problem here. IMHO the RIAA abuses the legal system, but I'm not aware of any compelling reason for them not to abuse it (e.g. heavy fines). Sure, it's bad for the RIAA's image, but does the average person really know who the members are? Plus, there's nothing stopping the members from tossing out the RIAA and creating another name to hide behind.

They would have bought the CD or whatever

[citation needed]

My first thought was to DDoS the hell out of http://riaa.com/ but I'm sure that wouldn't be very productive. I'll try to come up with something more mature. Maybe it will involve dog-doo on a stick...

RIAA Celebrates 50 Years Of Gold


Records
(copy-paste from: http://www.riaa.com/)

Yes! We need this. And we should post all their email addresses. And we should email them. Perhaps I'll go to the trouble of finding all the email addresses, or better... US Mail addresses.

RIAA Board of Directors: http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=who_we_are_board

Mitch Bainwol Recording Industry Association of America
Victoria Bassetti EMI Recorded Music
Jason Flom Virgin Records America
Bill Hearn EMI Christian Music Group
Deirdre McDonald SonyBMG
Joe Galante SonyBMG
Kevin Kelleher SonyBMG
Rob Stringer SonyBMG
Jeff Harleston Geffen Records
Steve Bartels Island Records
Lawrence Kenswil Universal Music Group
Mel Lewinter Universal Music Group
Zach Horowitz Universal Music Group
Craig Kallman The Atlantic Group
Tom Whalley Warner Bros Records
Michael Fleisher Warner Music Group
Kevin Liles Warner Music Group
Bob Cavallo Buena Vista Music
Glen Barros Concord Records
Mike Curb Curb Records
Michael Koch Koch Entertainment
Tom Silverman Tommy Boy Entertainment
Jose Behar Univision
Alan Meltzer Wind Up Records

MPAA Members: http://www.mpaa.org/AboutUsMembers.asp

Paramount Pictures Corporation;
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.;
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation;
Universal City Studios LLLP;
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; and
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Obama's not taking money from PACs just individuals.
If that's corrupted, its too bad but at least it's a step in the right direction.

After looking into the text of the bill itself, I found this under the list of duties on the IP czar:
(8) adopt an official seal, which shall be judicially noticed; and

Maybe it should be this: http://www.riaa.com/images/ico_RIAA-over.gif
or this: http://www.mpaa.org/_images/logo_main_header-original.gif

Cheers
Ben

a bold plan, and i see the sense in it. but what about all the other 'RIAA members'?

The RIAA is a record label trade association that represents the labels but, it is the individual labels (see link below) that represent artists -- not the RIAA. The RIAA is a house of lawyers that serve the RIAA to insure the RIAA's survival. There are many (read: most) domestic record labels that are members of the RIAA - more than just the "Big 4" labels. This is why the law suits are NOT the RIAA v. some_innocent_person. It is the individual labels named as plaintiffs in the suits (EMI, Sony, Warner, Artista, etc.)

The RIAA is also not a royalty collection agency like ASCAP & BMI, Harry Fox Agency, SoundExchange, SoundScan, ... so, the money they make doesn't really have a pot to be put into and then distributed. If it did, the money would be distributed between all the record labels they represent and it would then be up to the labels to divvy the pot.

You are correct in assuming that the RIAA is not interested in the artists. They are not. It isn't their purpose or charter. They are a bureaucracy that breeds upon itself. This is why they want to actually reduce the royalties that artists make. This is why they never get involved directly with the artists. It isn't their business.

So, this shouldn't be surprising that the RIAA is keeping all the money they extort. If the labels touched it, they could be accused of "unclean hands".

Actually, there is a website that ties the RIAA to recordings you may be considering purchasing. They also give a detailed structure of record label ownership and reasons justifying inclusion / exclusion of controversial labels from their index.

I prefer the convenience of a search engine like RIAA radar, but if you don't trust it, you could always go straight to the source.

The RIAA represents the big four and many smaller record companies. You shouldn't direct any special malice against Sony BMG... but identify songs by RIAA artists and then use your own judgment.

I actually prefer searching for songs that are distributed under Creative Commons-style licenses, as these are often pretty high quality and always free-and-clear of all litigation worries.

Gun -> List -> Work your way down. The sellout congress can be next...

http://riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=tblDiamond&resultpage=1&action=%22%3E%3Ch1%3ERIAA%20SUCKS%20COCK%3C/h1%3E%22

Who we are.
It appears that the article you requested has been temporarily removed.

Press releases and Statements
ThePirateBay.org - Get free music and movies!

Error
The page at http://riaa.com/ says:
RIAA sucks ... XSS ftw?

RIAA says, Copying CDs... transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won't usually raise concerns so long as:

        * The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
        * The copy is just for your personal use.

They themselves say you can do it, and they're now going after people who do this? Any judge who reads this should throw out any such personal use cases since the RIAA themselves are essentially giving legal advice and stating is it ok to do so.

Madonna recently left Warner for Live Nation apparently for the cash. Interestingly, Live Nation does not appear in the members list of the RIAA. Coincidence?

From http://www.riaa.com/faq.php:

11. How is downloading music different from copying a personal CD?
Record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use. We want fans to enjoy the music they bought legally.

and so on and so forth. Yes, they can protect the CD with some minimal copy protection and then the DMCA applies. That's their prerogative and I don't see them taking it as often as they used to.

TFA barley mentions that this innocent victim was indeed sharing the resulting files out via kazaa. I would have hoped that the RIAA lawyers would think before they spoke and frame better sentences than those that the media picked up. Rolling the act of distribution (illegal) together with the act of copying (usually allowed for personal use) in a court case is hurtful to the consumers and the music industry.

More reading material from the evil industry http://www.musicunited.org/2_thelaw.html

Copying CDs
* It's okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.
* It's also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R's, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) - but, again, not for commercial purposes.
* Beyond that, there's no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won't usually raise concerns so long as:
* The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
* The copy is just for your personal use. It's not a personal use - in fact, it's illegal - to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.
* The owners of copyrighted music have the right to use protection technology to allow or prevent copying.
* Remember, it's never okay to sell or make commercial use of a copy that you make.

I don't like corporations suing little people - there needs to be a better way. The "little people" need to stop violating copyright laws, especially since the music industry is starting to bend a little by offering DRM-free MP3s.

That being said, I think the music industry has failed to produce compelling art for too many years now. They need to crushed into a cube and shot into the sun. Just like all those bastards that post things AC because they are too lazy to login.

Record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use."

Doesn't this directly contradict what this lawsuit is about?

At RIAA prices of $100,000 per song, that 21 million is a whopping 210 songs, not even enough to fill a 1GB Ipod Nano.

they will never "get it", will they?

I like eMusic and all but not everything on eMusic is unaffiliated with the RIAA. Razor & Tie is one example I'm familiar with.

Right. They're no longer using Sanctuary as their label. Their newest album, A Matter of Life and Death, was released instead by EMI.

...and while EMI was one of the first RIAA members to offer DRM-free music earlier this year, the fact remains that EMI is still a RIAA member...

Perhaps you should bitch to Amazon as well, because they also list Sony as the label. That's an even better reason to never listen to an Iron Maiden CD: Sony is the company best known here for illegally installing rootkits on user's PCs via audio CDs. I wouldn't play a damned Iron Maiden CD if you gave it to me. Who knows what other virus/trojan/rootkit Sony might have quietly slipped into the production line.

Label formerly known as Sanctuary? Wow, look at that: Sanctuary is on the RIAA member list. How odd...

Sorry sport, but the money comes from the buyer, not the website. By your logic, I should never use Google because they advertise the RIAA's music to those who search for it. I can't stop people that actively seek out and knowingly support the RIAA with *MY* purchasing habits. I can use tools like the RIAA Radar to prevent the RIAA from receiving any money from ME.

RIAA Radar has prevented hundreds of my dollars from going to RIAA affiliates. It quickly identifies bands that have any sort of affiliation with the RIAA.... like Iron Maiden.

Bands can come clean. I'll buy an album from an artist as long as that album is RIAA free, even if other albums from the same artist are not. I suggest if Iron Maiden wants my money, their next album should be 100% RIAA free.

I said "statistics" because neither could I find any RIAA-led study - but for a starter look at their attitude and "reasoning", you need only go here. Google does the rest. Cheers.

Well, that should come as a big fucking DUHHH!!! to anyone with half a brain. People who are into music in a big way will still be into music in a big way regardless of the format it comes in. Why can I come up with that little bit of common sense, be the RIAA/metallica, with their million-dollar marketing types and focus groups can't???

Throw in the instant-gratification culture in modern America and it's easy to see when the album didn't come with the extended trance remix you heard at the party the other weekend, people who HAVE the CD won't hesitate to hop on Limewire and download the exact version the DJ played. OTOH, since it's well-nigh impossible to get a complete album off p2p (And most of the records I listen to, for example, are continuous DJ mixes.) those very same people aren't shy about going down to the record store and actually buying the CD. At the end of the day, if you like and consume music, you like and consume music.

In my own defense though, I haven't bought a *NEW* CD since the RIAA/metallica crusade against Napster and the tech industry. San Francisco is blessed with a wonderful, huge, comprehensive, and INDEPENDENT record store called Amoeba. I haunt it's aisles pretty regularly, and if the CD I want if from an RIAA/metallica label (They kindly provide a list, a copy of which I leave in my car for when I go music shopping.) I buy used or do without until what I want IS available with that yellow tag.

So I get to have my cake and eat it too; with the added bonus that the store actually makes a higher margin off used CDs, so I'm supporting a local independent business that much more as well!

cya,
john

"Eligibility for corporate membership in the Recording Industry Association of America, as described in the association's bylaws, is open to legitimate record companies with main offices in the United States that are engaged in the production and sale, under their own brand label, of recordings of performances for home use. Eligibility is not extended to companies that are currently engaged in, have within five years of application been engaged in, or are controlled by any person, firm or corporation which has within 5 years of application been engaged in the unauthorized creation, duplication, sale, importation, or other use of sound recordings in violation of state or federal law."
http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=aboutus_members

Hey wow this is cool, they even offer a report piracy servicehttp://www.riaa.com/reportpiracy.php. So if anybody finds any KC on a commercial music website they know who tell. Wonder what would happen if they got a couple hundred reports, can the RIAA actually sue it's own board for infringement?

You might want to check this link. Unless, of course, you know of another company that goes by the name of "EMI Records."

a-HEM! http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/Examples/FileLibrary/ http://www.riaa.com/reportpiracy.php