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RIAA To Sue Hundreds Of File Swappers
Shackleford writes "The Washington Post has an article saying that the RIAA is preparing hundreds of lawsuits against Internet users who illegally trade copyrighted music files. The lawsuits will target people who share 'substantial' amounts of copyrighted music, but anyone who shares illegal files is at risk, RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a conference call today. The first round of lawsuits will be prepared during the next eight to 10 weeks. They will ask for injunctions and monetary damages against file swappers. It seems that after a federal judge ruled in April that file-sharing services have legal uses and thus should not be shut down, the RIAA has found that it must go after individual users rather than the services that they use." palmech13 points to a similar article on Yahoo News.
It is illegal to obtain copyrighted material from sources that are not authorized to distribute it - especially knowingly, but knowledge of the illegal act is not neccassary. The buck stops there. Whether or not increased music "sharing" benefits the music industry, or if a lack of good music is to blame for falling profits, or the economy is the cause, etc, is completely irrelevant. Stop stealing.
If I still had my moderator points from yesterday, I'd have given you all of them just for the link in the sig... well referenced.
For the rest of us IANAL's:
r y ;)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=barrat
you for doing us the "favor" of posting the
Cool! At last somebody who knows that this is not the correct way to spell "favour".
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
$97.8 Billion
What is this "something" that was taken away?
The intrinsic value of the property was decreased. This is the "something" that was taken. It is not a physical item, but it is real, as it can be measured (though money) and exchanged. And if something can be measured and exchanged, just as a physical item is, then in many cases it can be considered the same as a physical item, especially when speaking in terms of the very units of measurement used to evaluate it in the first place.
For example, suppose you had a stack of US$20 bills, and I took them and replaced them with a physically identical stack of US$1 bills. Now, in strictly physical terms, nothing has been lost, because I have replaced your pile of paper with an equivalent stack of paper. But I'm sure that you would agree that there has been a theft of US$19 per piece of paper, because the value of the paper has changed, even if the physical properties have not (beyond superficial changes in writing on the surface). This is why value matters, even if it is not physically assigned to an item such as a TV.
It was because I was cheap and greedy.
This is a strange definition of "greedy." Greed involves the acquiring of wealth or material goods, not streams of bits that have no intrinsic physical value. Wanting to listen to some new music isn't "greed."
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
The RIAA's only flaw in this is they believe they rule the world.
If they were unsuccessful in ruling out spammers, which, EVERYBODY hates... what chance do thay have for illegal music, which many love.
You're still not going to stop that old 'move it offshore' problem.
Glad I don't live in the land of the free