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Interview with Student Sued by RIAA
TinoMNYY24 writes "Jesse Jordan, owner of chewplastic.com, was on CNN this morning discussing the RIAA settlement. You can read a poorly spelled transcript of the interview. Jesse is one of the two students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that were sued by the RIAA."
One of the big problems with our legal system is that it is easy to bully someone with a frivolous lawsuit when they can't afford the time or money to defend themselves. As the defendant pointed out, a lawsuit against AltaVista would have just as much justification behind it (little to none) but they didn't go after them because AltaVista can afford to defend themselves.
lysergically yours
Daniel Peng, one of the defendants at Princeton, may think that the lawsuit was "settled amicably", but I do not think that this is an "amicable" settlement. In fact, I am outraged. They will pay for what they've done.
Hey RIAA, if you see a nerd dressed in all black wearing a trenchcoat, ala "the Matrix", coming into your building...DUCK!
ANCHOR: Hey, Jesse, why do you think the government came after you?
JESSE JORDAN, SETTLED LAWSUIT WITH RECORDING INDUSTRY: Well, actually it was the recording industry association.
Kind of hard to tell these days, isn't it?
Cheers,
-- RLJ
The government came after you...
Twice (although corrected the second time). Glad Jessie had the mind to correct the interviewer - it's not easy to think on national television - watching the news "professionals" should be evidence enough, think about when you're just a college student.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Smooth move, RIAA; this really endears your customers to you.. Talk about cutting your own throat.
Trolling is a art,
The scariest and best part is when the INTERVIEWER actually confused the RIAA with the Government. That sure gives the RIAA some big clankin' balls.
Next... RIAA orders bombing of Canada, because its acutally legal to download music here!
Ratboy666.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
No wonder you posted this as anonymous. You're ignorant. If you followed this story the last 5 times it was posted on slashdot, you would have realized that these students only created search engines, nothing more. The people who are "depriving" millionaires of money are the people who willingly use search engines to steal things. If a whorehouse uses the phone book to advertise, is the phone book to blame when people visit the whorehouse? I don't think so. You also need to see through the RIAA propaganda. They say that music sales are down by some percent (I want to say 25% but the numbers aren't in front of me). The truth is, music releases are down more than that. They release less music, then blame computer users when sales go down. Anyway, you're ignorant of the laws and the actual technology used in this case. Also, your post makes no sense. No one is complaining about copyright infringement except the RIAA, even though they have stolen music.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
How does the RIAA decide which students to sue? I mean, do they do careful research on who's most likely to settle, rather than contest it, or counter-sue for harrassment? Of all the piracy that goes on college campuses, how do they pick which people?
Oh well. Pity that the record industry has had to resort to extorting $12,000 out of people who can't defend themselves who probably aren't doing anything illegal.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
They clearly stated why they agreed to pay instead of fight - it would cost a lot more time and money than either the father or son could spare.
I disagree with their decision on principle, but I don't have the kind of money it would take to defend against the RIAA either. It's extortion, really, and while I wish they would defend themselves, it's hard to say what I'd do in their position.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
RPI's other search engine, run by a school-funded computer club, was taken by the school's request.
...because the traffic exceeds the low BW limit put in place by his school to stop campus filesharing.
No you missed the point, along with the rest of the crowd here posting same as you.
Notice how he said he's bringing the server back online when he gets back? He didn't settle due to the search engine, he settled due to his collection of mp3s, which he was clearly infringing on and there was no defense for that.
The settlement had nothing to do with the fact that they created a search engine, because they clearly cannot go after such services.
Posting useless rant since 2003.
that's a mighty convienent mistake considering the media attention this has gotten.
I'd have to agree with the father, this was just a big PR trick for the RIAA and its a shame they aren't suing someone with the $$$$ to fight back.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Consider spending months and months, and 100s of thousands of dollars to defend yourself.
Yes you could countersue, and you might get your court costs covered. But where do you get the money you need to fight with (not even considering you might never get it back, even if you win)?
The US justice system is a tool for people/companies with money. If you can't afford to fight a suit brought against you, then you have to settle (which despite not admitting wrongdoing, always makes you look guilty.)
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Really, a more applicable analogy would be "if people use Google to find child porn, is it Google's fault?"
In 2000, the RIAA claimed that sales dropped 4.1%. Meanwhile, they cut their album inventory by about 25%. They are making more money per release in the past three years than in the history of CDs.
How, exactly, have the RIAA stolen music? If they have, then that's quite interesting, but if you're just talking about paying the artists next-to-nothing, then that's not stealing. The artists signed the contracts. If they didn't hire all sorts of lawyers to go over them and make sure that there weren't loopholes, then that's their problem.
I actually met a contract lawyer once. He said that out of all of the recording industry contracts that he had reviewed, not one had been payed correctly. The artists were almost always owed significantly more than they had been payed.
REPORTER: Hey, Jesse, why do you think the government came after you?
JESSE: Well, actually it was the recording industry association.
REPORTER: Yeah, that's what I said. The government.
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." - Douglas Adams
And twice the interviewer thought the student was being sued by a government body. Has the RIAA so ingrained themselves in the collective unconscious that reporters now think them part of the US govt?
The kid set up a paypal link on his site (chewplastic.com) so help him pay the rediculous extortion by the RIAA. I threw the kid $20 to help.
These people look deep into my soul and assign me a number based on the order I joined.