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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?
...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.
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.
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.
I think the RIAA is getting off rather light. What they're doing is illegal and they know it. Why else would they resort to suing college students, spamming kazaa... its all desperate measures. they deserve whatever comes their way. i dunno about you, but i'll keep on trading till cds are 5 bucks each...
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
Exactly. Why the constant use of the word 'sharing' when 'illegally distributing' would be more accurate? I'd love to see someone create a system that actually allowed true borrowing of other people's music/movies. Something that makes sure only one person at a time can play it. See how popular that is with the college students...
Oh really! People I know who were caught with illegal drugs in college weren't fined anywhere near this much. That is, the very few that were stupid and obvious enough to get caught.
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!
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."
Or why not call it a Black Market? I mean, that's what it is. The RIAA price fixed CD's and now they have a black market. Econ 101.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
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.
...
>>Nobody gets jail time for copyright violations.
>Under the DMCA you can get jail-time.
That's exactly why the DCMA should be repealed. It lets the RIAA, the MPAA, Adobe, etc. shift the cost of enforcing their copyrights onto the taxpayers.
Copyright violations are normally a civil offence, meaning if you violate my copyright I can sue you. But under DCMA, if the material is in digital format violating my copyright suddenly becomes a criminal offence. Why?
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
Actually, one of these guys was running a search engine. Since when is that illegal!?
I'd love to see someone create a system that actually allowed true borrowing of other people's music/movies
You may have heard of this - it's called a library.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
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
Or you can call the RIAA a cartel, which is exactly what they are.
Kazaa won't "bring down copyright". It will just undermine the value of one particular type of commodity that had to be made ARTIFICIALLY SCARCE to begin with.
Rampant piracy is, infact, capitalism at work.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What are you talking about? Copyright means the right to control distribution (i.e. "copy" + "right"), not the right to control reception. If you are distributing copyright works, that is the violation. Otherwise every time I buy any copyrighted work anywhere I'd have to go through a lengthy process of verifying that the seller had the right to sell that work in order to protect myself from liability.
If I'm listening to web radio, am I going to be liable because the "broadcaster" didn't pay his/her ASCAP/BMI fees? I sure as hell hope not. Ditto if I download any other file. Maybe if I am knowingly involved in receiving illegal copies I can be held liable for contributory infringement of some sort, but how am I to know that it's not the record company sharing those files on Kazaa? (just an example... I don't actually use Kazaa)
I do not have a signature
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
You're right. It will absolutely destroy capitalism. I mean, yesterday, there I was, driving around town in the Porsche I downloaded through Kazaa. Then I went home just in time to eat the steak dinner that had finished downloading.
Get real. The only part of "capitalism" this hurts is the music industry and the movie industry. (And I daresay it hurts the music industry a lot more, as it's still easier to go out and buy the DVD rather then wait 196 hours to download one.) And if the music industry insists on ignoring that basic tenet of capitalism, supply and demand, then they deserve to get the shaft.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
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
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.