RIAA Now Targets Pirates' Parents

cecil36 writes "In a follow-up to the subpoena silliness by the RIAA, the Associated Press is now reporting that the RIAA is now issuing subpoenas to family members of suspected online music swappers."

Comments

Suggestion for action...

[NanoGator]

The RIAA is demonstrating it's power, right? I think the consumers should demonstrate back. Here's what you do:

- Pick a day.

- On that day, everybody buys a CD. Doesn't matter which, though a newly released highly publiscized CD would be preferable. (Like the newest Spears album or something.)

- DO NOT OPEN THE CD.

- On the following day, return the CDs for a refund. Assuming the store will take back unopened CDs.

If a significant number of money is passed and then refunded, it'd be hard for the retailers not to take notice. I'd be surprised if that info didn't bubble up to the RIAA. If enough money moves, the RIAA will have a pretty good idea that this type of action will cause them to endure losses.

I personally have $100 I'd be willing to pump into this right now this second if I knew other people would be participating too.

Re:Of course

[DarthWiggle]

Actually, you might not be guilty of the criminal act of murder, but you might very well be civilly liable for negligent supervision or some other negligence with respect to control and operation of the firearm.

Torts primer:

All torts have five elements, a duty owed, a breach of the duty, causation between duty and harm, any harm caused, and any defenses.

A parent who owns a computer might have a duty to supervise her children to ensure that the child doesn't cause a harm (copyright infringement, harassment, etc.), in the same way that a parent who owns a gun might have a duty to superviser her children to ensure that they don't shoot someone in the face.

Now, where things get screwy is in the damages caused. If the negligently supervised kid shoots someone in the face, the survivors ("heirs", though that's not the right term) of the deceased might be able to sue for that negligence. Maybe they'd win $1,000,000 out of the negligent parent's homeowners insurance policy, or something of the sort. The problem is that even if you can show that the parent has a duty to the RIAA to ensure that the child doesn't use the instrumentality (computer) to cause harm, that the parent failed to do so, and that the failure to supervise then CAUSED (very important word) some quantifiable harm to the company/organization, it's hard for me to understand the dollar amounts attached to these lawsuits.

But that argument's been rehashed a thousand times. I just wanted to give a little primer on how the parents could be implicated in the wrongful acts of their children.

(IANAL...Y) (figure it out)

Let The Backlash Begin

[pickity]

As if music sales aren't getting worse as it is, the RIAA is only hurting itself and its artists with this move.

As the article states:

"If they end up picking on individuals who are perceived to be grandmothers or junior high students who have only downloaded in isolated incidents, they run the risk of a backlash."

Run the risk? I'm sorry, but they just created even more backlash by mearly mentioning the POSSIBILITY of going after these individuals.

How can they possibly go after the parents of children who are downloading music illegally? Most parents have no clue what P2P applications are, what they do, and what kids are using them for. If your son or daughter steals a CD from a store, you don't get fined for it, your child takes the blame. And even then, in most cases, the child involved pays a small fine and are left up to the parent's discipline. Sometimes the penalty can be community service, or juvinial court. At this point it's less risky to steal physical media than it is to steal digital work from the comfort of your own home....

Once again the RIAA is throwing their weight around, and once again the DMCA is burning people who don't deserve the law on their backs. I'm sure this type of action scares some, but it also makes many others want to buy less and share more just to stick it to "the man."