Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the thats-a-lotta-legal-fees dept.
este writes "According to an article in the Inquirer, if the RIAA maintains its rate of lawsuit issuance, it will take more than two millenia for them to sue evey P2P file trader. The author accounts for many additional difficulties facing the RIAA in this daunting task."
When am I gonna get served?
by
JDark
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Great.. with my luck I'll be served in the first 200 years.
It's the deterrent, stupid.
by
LazloToth
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It's not about getting them all - - it's about nailing a few and scaring the rest. State highway patrolmen are effective pulling over maybe one of every several thousand cars that pass. Ditto, in principle, for the RIAA.
--
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.
by
darien
·
· Score: 5, Funny
It's not about getting them all - - it's about nailing a few and scaring the rest
Reminds me of my days in that co-ed dorm.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.
by
Dutchmaan
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It's not about getting them all - - it's about nailing a few and scaring the rest. State highway patrolmen are effective pulling over maybe one of every several thousand cars that pass. Ditto, in principle, for the RIAA.
...and yet people still speed regularly.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.
by
garcia
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
and amazingly enough it doesn't deter anyone. Have you been on a highway recently? Average speeds are in the low 80s.
Fines are usually in the $150 range for speeding (which could possibly kill someone).
Fines for downloading music are $750 to $150k PER OFFENSE.
That's just wrong.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.
by
91degrees
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
...and yet people still speed regularly.
Whereas if they didn't pull anyone over for speeding, even mnore people would speed, and probably speed a lot more. I know I stick to the speed limit because I don't want a ticket. I don't think I'm the only one.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.
by
dlur
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The fines aren't between $750 and $150,000 per offense. These people are being sued for that amount in civil court cases. The vast, vast majority of these cases aren't criminal cases, they're civil. Huge difference. If they were criminal cases you'd pay a fine and go to jail for a while, but you'd also get a court appointed lawyer if you couldn't afford one and have the option of a jury trial.
In a civil case there's not much for a limit on damages and no governmental checks and balances on what those limits are. So basically the RIAA can almost literally sue the pants off you for doing something that doesn't physically hurt anyone and just has minor monetary effects on their being. Isn't America great?
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.
by
dasmegabyte
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Actually, there seems to be a lot of evidence that speed limits are not effective in reducing average motorist speed or in reducing accidents. Reduced speed increases survivability but not the likelihood of a crash, so it's a noble goal. But speed limits aren't the way to do it (http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html).
The most effective method of reducing speed is a visible patrol car. People are guaranteed to slow down when being watched. Which is interesting, because many state policeman seem to think that sneaking around is going to slow people down -- around here, they love parking in the shadow of underpasses and the like. Which is silly, because here in NY people flash their beams to indicate "hey, hidden cop ahead." The fastest guys slow down, while the rest of us play it cool.
Average traffic speed around here is 70 MPH. I mean, all three lanes are doing at least 15 MPH over at all times during the day. Only bluehairs drive the limit, and that's not hyperbole -- I bought a beetle with a max speed of about 63 and I get passed by people on the damn offramp. HOWEVER -- when a cop is visible in the U-turn lane, speed drops to about 60 MPH average for at least a mile before and after. Which is good, because during rush hour they lurk in the most dangerous parts of the throughway.
The parable here is this: the RIAA could save a LOT of money by simply sending a letter to people "caught" file sharing that says "Cut it out, or we'll sue you." I think most of us would be sufficiently scared to curb out practices. And those of us sharing legal files (there's got to be somebody else besides me sharing Proj. Gutenberg texts on KaZaa) wouldn't have to worry about some fool legislature BANNING peer to peer.
That's a totally boneheaded analysis if ever I saw one. The RIAA does not have to sue every file trader, they just have to sue that ones with large caches of files (because they can get the biggest bang for the buck there... more files, more damages) and then they have to make a noise about what they are doing.
By suing a few, they'll scare the many and reduce file sharing to a background noise nuisance... at least that's what they hope. Their point is to be very public about the fact that they are willing to go after individuals so that many individuals will simply stop file sharing because they are afraid.
John.
The real reason CD sales are down!
by
Wacky_Wookie
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It turns out that it's the Record Companies themselves. It's not loss of profit that the RIAA is worried about anyway, it's always been about loss of controll. If the RIAA can't force the public to think the artists it hand picks are cool, then they can't be sure of profits from manufactured bands.
My.5 pence;)
But won't most of the copyrights expire by then?
by
EvilTwinSkippy
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Last I checked the copyright termes were 90 years after the death of the artist. Oh god, they must be planning on keeping the Backstreet Boys in suspended animation.
Should have read THAT on the contract before signing.
-- "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
A Different Approach...
by
mgcsinc
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I'm gonna be the first to make some crazy numerical speculations to bring this number down to a more sensible time in which the RIAA can disable national file sharing. Please, these numbers are meant as argument-starters, so by all means, argue against them. Let's say of 75 people a day who are subpoenaed, 25 are scared shitless and settle. They each have 15 close friends each, who they also scare shitless, and who stop sharing (I say sharing, because it is those who are sharing who get subpoenaed, and they keep the networks alive). Also, publicity from the settlements brings 50 sharers down per settlement. That's 1650 sharers gone, per day. Then let's say 25 of those who are subpoenaed battle it out in court, and lose. A loss will have much larger publicity, so let's say we lose 200 sharers per loss, and the friend effect should bring down another 50 people a piece (think about seeing your friends lose thousands of dollars to the music industry after a court ordeal). That's 6275 sharers down per day. Finally let's say 25 people never see continued legal battle, or just win. That inspires 100 sharers to get back online, apiece. This all makes for 5425 sharers lost per day, net. Finally, there is an effect whereby sharers will be generally afraid of being subpoenaed in general. We can probably safely bet that for every 10% of the current sharing community which is subpoenaed, 2% of other sharers will be scared out of sharing, and that proportion would probably grow exponentially as the RIAA gains monster effect. Finally, consider that once the community loses more and more sharers, sharers are able to download less and less music in return for their contribution, and will share less and less. With all these effect coupled, I dare say that two millennia is a bit of a longshot...
Re:Why even try?
by
KReilly
·
· Score: 5, Informative
This is assuming that A) They actually maintain this level of lawsuits, they could easily step up the amount. B) All file sharers remain online, I read a while back that their has been a dip in kazaa usage since the start of the lawsuits.
They never intended to sue everyone that uses p2p, they are intending to scare everyone out of using p2p. Put simply, if they sued half, I could almost guarentee the other half would stop. Thus cutting their time to 1 millenia
RIAA is turning me pirate.. arrr
by
KrancHammer
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I am a strong supporter of property rights, intellectual and otherwise (yes I know the IP rights situation is a bit more complicated). However, the RIAA's strongarm, bullying tactics are pissing me off. I would not vote for any politician who supported that organization. Yes, people have a right to make a dollar or thousand for their intellectual contributions, but people also have a right to such as "innocent until proven guilty," and "freedom from unwarranted search and seizure" and a dozen other rights the RIAA, MPAA, and their highly funded Washington lawmakers would trample on in the rush to stamp out music piracy. I used to have sympathy for the RIAA's viewpoint. No longer.
-- Trolls: The high-tech version of those morons that scrawl obscenities in public bathrooms.
Re:Sounds like a profit model to me...
by
EvilTwinSkippy
·
· Score: 5, Funny
On the contrary. Humans expire just like copyrights. What are they going to sue, the person's heirs?
No wait, don't answer that...
-- "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Re:Sounds like a profit model to me...
by
Rhubarb+Crumble
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Thus the cases RiAA has would to deal with would grow exponentially every year.
And so would the amount of damages they could (potentially) claim.
Which basically means that the RIAA can stop publishing music altogether and just turn itself into a consortium of lawyers. After all, with infinite future income (from damages) guaranteed by Congress and Disney Corp., how can they lose!
Let A Man Do The Calculations
by
tds67
·
· Score: 5, Funny
She said: "I pulled out my calculator to see just how long it would take the RIAA to sue all 60 million P2P music file traders at a rate of 75 a day. 60,000,000/75 = 800,000 days to subpoena each person or 800,000 days/365 days in a year = 2191.78 years to subpoena each person".
Hey babe, let me show you how a man calculates all this: After whipping out my sliderule and factoring in the size of the aforementioned subpoenis', I come up with 2200.25, a much bigger number.
Lawyer's Job Security
by
LoneStarGeek
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Well at least the RIAA lawyers will have work the the the next 2,000 years.
In my opinion there is no logical way they can sue everyone file sharing songs around the world. The courts would be so blocked up from these frivilous lawsuits that no real trials could be heard. To be fair they would have to raid everone's cassette tape collection from the 70's/80's and sue people that made taped copies of albums and CDs then gave them away to friends.
The RIAA and it's fleet of lawyers are insanely greedy. If only the artist got their fair share of what a song grosses then maybe they would get more sympathy.
I suggest an opt-out model...
by
jkrise
·
· Score: 5, Funny
RIAA says: We sue the whole world for P2P misuse. Those who think they've been sued wronly, please opt-out by visiting the nearest court, depositing $5 towards opt-out costs and inform us over Kazaa er.. e-mail.
Failure to opt-out would mean that you plead guilty, the penalty for which is 95% of all earnings, including future earnings, over the next 2191.78 years...
PS: If you have paid our associate SCO, you have been automatically opted-out.
Done.
-
-- If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
You'd be more believable
by
Microsift
·
· Score: 5, Funny
If you weren't bragging about your past sexual conquests on a site whose subtitle includes the words "News for Nerds"
-- My other sig is extremely clever...
Re:Why even try?
by
Kneo24
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The dip that was reported was done over the fourth of july weekend. Of course there's going to be less people online during that time. Just more propaganda to fuel their machine, that's all it was.
File Sharing will Evolve
by
merkel
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Like everyone else, I first thought all this legal hoopla by the RIAA and other private, quasi-governmental and the U.S. Congress would eventually put an end to file sharing, but thinking about it more I realized that file sharing will just evolve. It is simply becoming too easy to transfer bits of data for file sharing to stop.
What are some of the likely outcomes?
1. Anonymous file sharing. I think the technical challenges to this are pretty huge. There are legitimate reasons to allow anonymous information exchange, and even the US government seems to desire this to promote favored political dissidents. If someone can geninuinely overcome the challenges, I imagine peer-to-peer networks will survive, but I'm not very sanguine about this.
2. Private networks. Rather than letting just any yahoo search the files on your computer and suck down your precious bandwidth, I forsee private networks where friends and family can share files, but strangers can't. As long as you keep your list of buddies under reasonable control, it's going to be difficult for anyone to track file back to you.
3. Local exchanges. Even more extreme than a private network, people might make direct device-to-device copies. Go over to a friend's house and download their entire music collection to your laptop. Meet someone at the library and sync up your iPod. Whatever - by cutting out the middleman, there are no sticky subpoena issues with your ISP. Think about it - as data storage and data transfer rates improve, it'll be feasible to exchange files with any person you casually meet. Instead of meeting for the coupon swap, you can bring your PDA/iPod/laptop/hard drive and swap with your friends.
I really don't see how encryption, watermarking, or stronger enforcement of IP laws is going to put this genie back in the bottle.
The music industry, just like every other content provider, is going to have to adapt their business model, by providing a reasonably priced service that provides consumers what they want.
I think the only viable business model is subscription based access to a music catalog. For something like $10 or $20/mo., subscribers will have access to the entire catalog - and maybe special features like "webcasts", web radio, etc. But the current distribution system is done.
That and the music indutry needs to turn out something better. Honestly - I haven't downloaded ANY music and I've still only bought about 2 CD's in the past year. It's all crap.
Slashdot Mirror
Great.. with my luck I'll be served in the first 200 years.
It's not about getting them all - - it's about nailing a few and scaring the rest. State highway patrolmen are effective pulling over maybe one of every several thousand cars that pass. Ditto, in principle, for the RIAA.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
Jason Fox has them flummoxed.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That means that everyone that their last name starts with a letter greater than B has absolutely nothing to worry about!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That's a totally boneheaded analysis if ever I saw one. The RIAA does not have to sue every file trader, they just have to sue that ones with large caches of files (because they can get the biggest bang for the buck there... more files, more damages) and then they have to make a noise about what they are doing.
By suing a few, they'll scare the many and reduce file sharing to a background noise nuisance... at least that's what they hope. Their point is to be very public about the fact that they are willing to go after individuals so that many individuals will simply stop file sharing because they are afraid.
John.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=3654 4&rel
.5 pence ;)
It turns out that it's the Record Companies themselves. It's not loss of profit that the RIAA is worried about anyway, it's always been about loss of controll. If the RIAA can't force the public to think the artists it hand picks are cool, then they can't be sure of profits from manufactured bands.
My
Should have read THAT on the contract before signing.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I'm gonna be the first to make some crazy numerical speculations to bring this number down to a more sensible time in which the RIAA can disable national file sharing. Please, these numbers are meant as argument-starters, so by all means, argue against them. Let's say of 75 people a day who are subpoenaed, 25 are scared shitless and settle. They each have 15 close friends each, who they also scare shitless, and who stop sharing (I say sharing, because it is those who are sharing who get subpoenaed, and they keep the networks alive). Also, publicity from the settlements brings 50 sharers down per settlement. That's 1650 sharers gone, per day. Then let's say 25 of those who are subpoenaed battle it out in court, and lose. A loss will have much larger publicity, so let's say we lose 200 sharers per loss, and the friend effect should bring down another 50 people a piece (think about seeing your friends lose thousands of dollars to the music industry after a court ordeal). That's 6275 sharers down per day. Finally let's say 25 people never see continued legal battle, or just win. That inspires 100 sharers to get back online, apiece. This all makes for 5425 sharers lost per day, net. Finally, there is an effect whereby sharers will be generally afraid of being subpoenaed in general. We can probably safely bet that for every 10% of the current sharing community which is subpoenaed, 2% of other sharers will be scared out of sharing, and that proportion would probably grow exponentially as the RIAA gains monster effect. Finally, consider that once the community loses more and more sharers, sharers are able to download less and less music in return for their contribution, and will share less and less. With all these effect coupled, I dare say that two millennia is a bit of a longshot...
This is assuming that
A) They actually maintain this level of lawsuits, they could easily step up the amount.
B) All file sharers remain online, I read a while back that their has been a dip in kazaa usage since the start of the lawsuits.
They never intended to sue everyone that uses p2p, they are intending to scare everyone out of using p2p.
Put simply, if they sued half, I could almost guarentee the other half would stop. Thus cutting their time to 1 millenia
I am a strong supporter of property rights, intellectual and otherwise (yes I know the IP rights situation is a bit more complicated). However, the RIAA's strongarm, bullying tactics are pissing me off. I would not vote for any politician who supported that organization. Yes, people have a right to make a dollar or thousand for their intellectual contributions, but people also have a right to such as "innocent until proven guilty," and "freedom from unwarranted search and seizure" and a dozen other rights the RIAA, MPAA, and their highly funded Washington lawmakers would trample on in the rush to stamp out music piracy. I used to have sympathy for the RIAA's viewpoint. No longer.
Trolls: The high-tech version of those morons that scrawl obscenities in public bathrooms.
No wait, don't answer that...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
And so would the amount of damages they could (potentially) claim.
Which basically means that the RIAA can stop publishing music altogether and just turn itself into a consortium of lawyers. After all, with infinite future income (from damages) guaranteed by Congress and Disney Corp., how can they lose!
Hey babe, let me show you how a man calculates all this: After whipping out my sliderule and factoring in the size of the aforementioned subpoenis', I come up with 2200.25, a much bigger number.
Well at least the RIAA lawyers will have work the the the next 2,000 years.
In my opinion there is no logical way they can sue everyone file sharing songs around the world. The courts would be so blocked up from these frivilous lawsuits that no real trials could be heard. To be fair they would have to raid everone's cassette tape collection from the 70's/80's and sue people that made taped copies of albums and CDs then gave them away to friends.
The RIAA and it's fleet of lawyers are insanely greedy. If only the artist got their fair share of what a song grosses then maybe they would get more sympathy.
RIAA says: We sue the whole world for P2P misuse. Those who think they've been sued wronly, please opt-out by visiting the nearest court, depositing $5 towards opt-out costs and inform us over Kazaa er.. e-mail.
Failure to opt-out would mean that you plead guilty, the penalty for which is 95% of all earnings, including future earnings, over the next 2191.78 years...
PS: If you have paid our associate SCO, you have been automatically opted-out.
Done.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
If you weren't bragging about your past sexual conquests on a site whose subtitle includes the words "News for Nerds"
My other sig is extremely clever...
The dip that was reported was done over the fourth of july weekend. Of course there's going to be less people online during that time. Just more propaganda to fuel their machine, that's all it was.
Like everyone else, I first thought all this legal hoopla by the RIAA and other private, quasi-governmental and the U.S. Congress would eventually put an end to file sharing, but thinking about it more I realized that file sharing will just evolve. It is simply becoming too easy to transfer bits of data for file sharing to stop.
What are some of the likely outcomes?
1. Anonymous file sharing. I think the technical challenges to this are pretty huge. There are legitimate reasons to allow anonymous information exchange, and even the US government seems to desire this to promote favored political dissidents. If someone can geninuinely overcome the challenges, I imagine peer-to-peer networks will survive, but I'm not very sanguine about this.
2. Private networks. Rather than letting just any yahoo search the files on your computer and suck down your precious bandwidth, I forsee private networks where friends and family can share files, but strangers can't. As long as you keep your list of buddies under reasonable control, it's going to be difficult for anyone to track file back to you.
3. Local exchanges. Even more extreme than a private network, people might make direct device-to-device copies. Go over to a friend's house and download their entire music collection to your laptop. Meet someone at the library and sync up your iPod. Whatever - by cutting out the middleman, there are no sticky subpoena issues with your ISP. Think about it - as data storage and data transfer rates improve, it'll be feasible to exchange files with any person you casually meet. Instead of meeting for the coupon swap, you can bring your PDA/iPod/laptop/hard drive and swap with your friends.
I really don't see how encryption, watermarking, or stronger enforcement of IP laws is going to put this genie back in the bottle.
The music industry, just like every other content provider, is going to have to adapt their business model, by providing a reasonably priced service that provides consumers what they want.
I think the only viable business model is subscription based access to a music catalog. For something like $10 or $20/mo., subscribers will have access to the entire catalog - and maybe special features like "webcasts", web radio, etc. But the current distribution system is done.
That and the music indutry needs to turn out something better. Honestly - I haven't downloaded ANY music and I've still only bought about 2 CD's in the past year. It's all crap.