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RIAA Settles Suits Against Students
wo1verin3 writes "Cnet's News.Com has reported that the RIAA has settled the suits with four students accused of sharing songs. The settlements will see each student making payments to the RIAA totaling between $12,000 and $17,000, split into annual installments between 2003 and 2006."
... that's fucked up.
I think the RIAA should sue all of us, and then we'll all turn to buying CDs! Brilliant!
and how much does the artists get?
they sure caught a break
...and kind of ridiculous. Having been a fulltime student, I had to work 40-60 hour weeks in the summer and part time during the academic year to make the cash for tution books and rent. And that was with help from the bank of mom and dad.
What is the logic behind these damages? Were the students in question getting rich of sharing files? Even if they were before (doubt it) they certainly aren't now.
Vote Nader in 2004.
I'm not surprised that this case didn't go to trial -- there was too much risk for both sides. Even if the students could afford to defend themselves, there is no way they could risk losing millions of dollars. On the RIAA side, they would be in trouble if the case went to trial whether they won or lost. If they lost, they would not be able to use the threat of lawsuits as effectively in the future. If they won, the bad publicity from getting such an obscene judgement might cause people to question current copyright laws. With this settlement, the RIAA maintains the status quo.
Weren't these the people who were running completely legal Google-like indexes of all files on their local networks? Why would they agree to pay $thousands to the RIAA? Was this like the Cyber Patrol case where the lawyer made an unfavourable settlement and the defendant decided to live with it?
I think they got off rather light. What those kids were doing was illegal and they knew it. They could have gotten much stiffer fines, or even time in jail.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
More seriously, the RIAA does not want this, or similar incidents, to get to court. Because then, the judge will make a ruling, which may just be against the RIAA. By attacking small targets, they are able to push for a settlement.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
1) There will be tons of lawsuits filed.
2) Million-dollar lawsuits are unpayable for the "common people," but $15,000 is well within reach. That means those sued will _have_ to pay it, and no judge will dismiss the settlement. It's feasible and doable to pay $15,000 over five years. Chump change to the RIAA, yes -- but most importantly: This will be a self-supporting business. Settlement money will fund new lawsuits. The RIAA is not after the money, they're out to threaten and terrorize anyone who uses file-swapping, and literally, the lawsuits will "pay for themselves."
This stinks... If you thought the Microsoft tax was bad, get ready for the RIAA tax!
The RIAA cannot continue prosecuting their customer base for long, lest everyone will pack up their things and stop buying CDs outright. Especially for reasons that arent even legally clear.
It appears as if these students didn't make any of the copywrited material available to anyone other then themselves. This is step one in prosecuting the individual music downloader. In addition, the practice of selective enforcement, also referred to as "making an example," is hugely detrimental to everyone involved. The few unlucky saps that get caught will be screwed to the tune of thousands of dollars while their buddies are snickering away clicking "find more sources." It just isn't right.
Also, the media HAS to cover these stories! Atrocities to students such as this should be on the front page of every newspaper. The worst thing that can happen to these kids is this story gets forgotten in a few days and they are stuck with their ass up paying three grand a year. How much are the artists getting from this settlement?
__________
Love conquers all... except CANCER
Both the students and the RIAA, actually. The RIAA is going to have to make some drastic changes if they want the music business to remain viable. The students, on the other hand, can wait for the paperwork to be finalized and immediately file for bankruptcy. It's very doubtful they have anything at all of value for the bankruptcy court to make them sell in order to pay off creditors, and it's even more doubtful that the RIAA will pay their lawyers to show up at the bankruptcy hearing for that small an amount. The students won't have to pay them a cent.
"Suppose you were an idiot..... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeate myself."
Sorry I meant Hillary Rosen, not Jack Valenti. Same shit, different gender ...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
All you'll do is make us, in the public eye, look like we believe in breaking the law.
Also, you'll create a cycle where the RIAA keeps filing cases and the settlement amounts keep getting higher, because they will be funded by warm-hearted individuals such as yourself.
...
~
If you need me, I'll be hanging my computer from the
What they should have done is not bothered hiring attorneys at all, appeared pro se, and then taken it to a jury trial and turned it into a circus. Believe me, that scenario would have the RIAA shaking in their boots. There would be massive publicity, the RIAA would have been completely trashed before it was over and no one would have cared who won in the end. This is their nightmare scenario, and if anyone else out there gets sued, don't take the easy road with settlement. Go in there and humiliate the RIAA.
IAAL
By settling with the RIAA, are the students essentially creating a precedent that spiders and search engines are responsible for filtering out copyrighted works ? This could be really bad if it were true. Well, the situation is really bad either way, because the RIAA has shown that they can crush anyone they want regardless of the law... This ruined my day.
>|<*:=
Laws can be made against anything. It doesn't mean it's actually wrong to do that thing.
I use Kazaa. I buy CDs. I've bought CDs because I've used Kazaa.
I plan to buy the new Radio Head album when it comes out, purely because of the "leaked" tracks, from "Hail To The Thief."
I've never bought a RadioHead album before in my life, and I'd never have probably heard the songs that made me want to buy the CD, in the first place, either.
It's not a black and white issue.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
dude, we're way past the point where anybody can pretend that a piece of data can be treated like a piece of plastic.
it's not possible.
how about this: everybody who can afford a CD buys it and keeps it, everybody else copies it from the other guys.
which is exactly how it's been done for the past 10-20 years...
The record corps just need to keep pushing the "legitimate" services and tolerate the "illegitimate" services. Apple's iMusic store shows that there is still value to sell.
Unfortunately, that's a severe exaggeration perpetuated by the "analog audiophile" (note the quotes) community.
Yes, sampling simplifies an analog waveform. Theoretically, analog has infinite bandwidth, whereas a digital signal has a cap at a frequency depending on the sampling rate (Nyquist frequency = 1/2 of sampling rate - thus, on a 44.1 kHz-sampled CD, the highest frequency you can possibly record is 22.05 kHz. It gets a little worse than this by the need to use filters to be 40 dB down [Redbook standard] at the Nyquist frequency, so they really start rolling off around 20 kHz or so).
So, yes, you do have to 'simplify' a recorded analog waveform to put it on a CD.
However, ask yourself this - does vinyl have infinite bandwidth? You think so? Well, say you have harmonics up at 50 kHz (which some sounds do) - do you think the mass of the needle/arm combination is able to move that fast? Nope.
Also, are you able to press vinyl with enough resolution to put a 50 kHz tone into it? Nope. Maybe possibly if you're doing your "pressing" with a laser, but other than that, no. Plus, you need those waves to be pretty damn deep (high amplitude) in that vinyl for them to move the needle. Otherwise the needle point will just skip right over 'em. And speaking of which, you need a needle sharp enough and fine enough to ride those 50 kHz grooves... which doesn't currently exist.
Then, you need pre-amps and amplifiers to reproduce a 50 kHz tone (tough, but not impossible), and speakers that can reproduce a tone that high (nearly impossible, and really freakin' expensive)... not to mention ears that can hear it.
In short, CDs have bandwidth limitations. But so do vinyl records. And a theoretical best vinyl has a lower signal-to-noise ratio than a theoretical best CD - and when you start talking about the high-res formats, SACD or DVD-A, there's no contest.
Records don't suck, they were great for their time. But they've been surpassed.
-T
It is legal to sell my used CD's to a store that takes trade in's on used cd's and then buy some more used cd's from them? Why wouldn't it be legal for me to swap used cd's among friends. "I'll give you my Abby Road for your Bat out of Hell", etc. We paid for those CD's, as long as the physical disks change hands with no copies made how the hell is it illegal? Heck used CD's are almost given away at garage sales.
I don't care how much you hate the RIAA's guts, making copies of CD's and posting them on the internet IS STEALING. You can't win an argument against that in court, don't even try. Fair use is another matter. Ripping CD's to play on your portable MP3 player is the same as making cassette copies of LP's to play in the car. The latter was never frowned on (and it took years for the record companies to wise up and start making cassette tapes, they really didn't wise up to the cassette market until Sony came out with the walkman).
First off, we do -not- buy CDs from record labels that align themselves with the RIAA. This is a no-brainer.
Second off, we do -not- download music by bands that are the larger whores of the industry - Britney Spears, Creed, Eminem, etc. (My question to you is, why do you want to? They suck and are horribly unoriginal).
Third, any music that we download that is under the mandle of the RIAA, we pay for - by mailing, paypaling or handing the musicians we like money for the downloads. You will likely get a large degree of personal grattitude from someone when you hand them 15$ and say, "I downloaded your albums online, so I wanted to pay for them, because they were good." $10, even, would speak more than buying their stuff. You paid for it because you liked it.
<b><i>More importandly still</i></b>, however, is that we must support our <a href="http://www.wipeyoureyes.com</a>local bands, or our local 'scene'. You can do this by going to shows, buying their CDs, t-shirts and other merchantdise, and just giving them a good ol' pat on the back. (Might not want to try this with some guys, they'll snap your neck if ya do... crazy hardcore drummers) If we don't do this, then all traces of good music will soon disappear, due to discouraged musicians trying to feed themselves, and there being a decreasing pool of 'indie' artists from which the larger msuic industry can choose their whores from.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
There's a big difference between alcohol prohibition and file-swapping prohibition. In the former case there was no party (other than government trying to do law enforcement) that suffered financially as a result of trying to avoid prohibition. That is, there was no corporate stake in maintaining an artificial shortage of alcohol. However, the RIAA and MPAA represent companies that have a *big* stake in seeing the prohibition of their wares continue.
Can you blame them for trying everything they can to rake in cash while their business model is in its death throes? If the members of the RIAA are eventually going to be seriously damaged (or, if they're *really* stupid, put out of business) by our society's changing view on the sanctity of copyright, then it only makes sense that they put forward every effort to attempt to keep ahold of the power they have. In fact, they probably owe it to their shareholders to do so.
Also, I wouldn't be so sure about this being a lost cause. The U.S. is now a lot different place then it was in the 1930's. I find it completely believable that we will soon find that crimes against powerful/influential corporations will be far more severely punishable by civil and criminal law than crimes against other citizens. In some areas, this is already the case. What I'm talking about is that while existing crimes and their punishments will stay the same, "crimes" which threaten power of corporations will continue to be manufactured in new laws and further take away the rights of the citizenry.
All of this does not mean that file-sharing will stop, or will even be significantly dented. But it does mean that the RIAA and the MPAA will not lose their legitimacy, and will only get bigger and bigger hammers in their possesion with which to pound on scapegoats. The current trend of treating copyright as property will continue to be upheld as the law of the land, and no legal competitors will ever be able to make a dent.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
Well, feel free to take my K5 suggestion as a starting point. We could also all bookmark each others journals, and watch for mention of good, independent music that we each discover.
BTW, Richard Cook and Brian Morton have just released the 6th edition of their popular Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. At $17.50, for over 1700 pages of small-type reviews, it's a pretty fucking terrific deal. The 5th edition was invaluable to me -- and I already knew a ton about jazz. I imagine it'd be exponentially more valuable to a newcomer.
FYI.
crib
Please don't read my journal
As much as I'd want people to help me out if I were in the same position, I don't think paying the fine for these guys is a good idea. First off, they didn't have to settle. If they had just stonewalled and let the RIAA get all puffed up, then it would have gone to trial at some point. Then maybe the RIAA could have had their asses handed to them, along with that waste of human space Hilary. Second, by paying the fine the RIAA gets their extortion money, just that much quicker. As many have pointed out here, perhaps this could really be the start of a new revenue stream for them.
I own appx. 4000 vinyl lp's, hundreds of tapes, & mostly used CD's, and I have dozens of hours of my own music to wade through. I stopped buying new CD's when I realized what it cost to produce them as compared to their ridiculous retail price. It didn't help to understand also how the artist's almost always get screwed too. OK, maybe every once in a while I just have to have the new Steve Morse, Duke Robillard or Elvis (Costello), or maybe something from an independant label but generally speaking, the 'music industry' has lost my thousands of discretionary entertainment dollars. Forever.
So if you can live without most of the crap that passes for innovative music these days, simply don't buy their product. It's that easy. Fsck them and their greedy pinhead lawyers. It's a simple war of attrition. HEY - and pick up an instrument. Learn how to make your own damn music. Why buy the milk when you can own the cow? That'd really piss em' off heh heh.
And don't listen to the radio either. Clear Channel and it's cult mentality sucks worse than rehashed disco.
that to work off their debt the RIAA would exploit these students in media campaign where they confess theirs sins against the recording industry and warn how P2P file swapping can ruin your life.
Probably wouldn't impact other kids, but scare the bejesus out of some parents who would have all the more reason to further restrict little Johnny's and Jane's Internet access.
That's what the RIAA people are saying right now. A free $15,000 bled from the people for a product that wouldn't have sold otherwise!
Sure, they spent way more than that on the lawyers, but it sets a precedent, so now it'll be easier to get others to cave in and not go to court (where they might actually win).
Can you tell me how this is different from a mafia boss sending "Vinnie" out to club people in the knees if they don't "pay up"?
Ohhhh, they were "stealing". Just like you when you drive down the street with that CD loud enough for me to hear on the sidewalk (Hey, *I* didn't buy it!). Hmmmm, get the RIAA to go after all the people with jacked-up stereos in their cars... maybe they aren't pure evil at that.