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RIAA Sues 261 Major P2P Offenders
circletimessquare writes "Yahoo!/Washington Post is reporting that the RIAA is suing 261 fileswappers whom they consider to be 'major offenders' in illegally trading music online. Remember to visit the EFF when full lawsuit details are released, and see if you're one of the unlucky few." Details of the amnesty program reported last week were also released, with the RIAA announcing it "...would require file sharers to admit in writing that they illegally traded music online and vow in a legally binding, notarized document, never to do it again."
Last count 4+ million users on Kazaa. It looks like the RIAA is having an effect. Too bad it's the opposite effect they want. M
A demand to sign a notarized admission of guilt is just _not_ an amnesty (literally -- a forgetting). Is there no limit to the way in which these people will twist words so that they are not saying what they appear to be saying?
I'm not sure how justice works in the USA, but here in the UK you are notified if someone initiates legal action against you...
Alternately, you'll end up with sharers in countries where the RIAA doesn't have a legal way to mess with 'em. The US will likely become 100% leech on the public P2P networks, sadly--but you can't really blame leechers when legal threats are flying, right?
Go one better--stop downloading and stop buying. Let 'em sue themselves right into the dirt.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
Even if you won't donate, at least go to the action center and send some angry letters to your senator.
EFF Action Center
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
PR. Offering the "amnesty" looks like they're willing to work with consumers. They'll still screw them but they hold up the amnesty as a concession.
Giving someone a temporary break from extortion is hardly amnesty.
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
"Is it purely a move to allow easy prosecution should they offend again?"
Yes. If you sign the aggrement they no longer have to rely on copyright law. They have a binding contract with you to abide their terms.
Debt collectors who buy up bad paper and then seek to recover use this trick too. The law has very carefully prescribed limits to the actions that can be taken to collect a debt, even in cases where judgement has been found against the debtor.
If they can get you to sign a contract expanding their rights to collect, by your own volition, than they can hold you to that contract.
Then you are, as they say, "hosed."
KFG
Unfortunately, the output remaining tends not to be compelling, their target audience has a number of other venues for their spending (video games, DVDs, online activities) and the economy goes south.
So which Business school teaches that the best way of addressing these sorts of problems is to spread fear/resentment/anger amongst the audience you are attempting to win back?
And as a side note, if getting the music listened to by potential buyers is such a bad activity, then why to record promotion people give away free singles and CDs at events? Why do companies allow songs to be played on the radio? And if pirating is such a depresser of CD sales, why was one of the most pirated CDs around, The Eminem Show, such a sales success? Could it be that people liked what they heard and were willing to pay for it?
Yes, the obligatory +5 interesting spiel for donating to the EFF. And, of course, it is +5 Incorrect. Yes, the DMCA allows copyright holders to supboena the names of people from ISP's without bringing a case first, or getting it signed by a real judge, but that doesn't mean that the system of innocent until proven guilty is out the window. These people, if it goes to court, will have the same rights afforded to them as in any other legal case.
There are problems with the DMCA, but can we cut out the FUD please?
Forget the whales - save the babies.
OK, fine. Then I want my money back for all of the piece-of-shit CD's I purchased because I had no means of sampling the music first due to them prohibiting me from listing before buying.
After that, I want my money back from the illegal price fixing that has gone on for years. Then throw those execs in jail because after all, if you are willing to do the crime you should be willing to do the time.
Additionally I want my money back on crap CD's I bought that had noise added in to the songs to make MP3's I burned useless. I wanted to listen to those in my MP3 player while I excersised but apparently they knew better.
Finally, I want an apology from the execs themselves for all of the misery I have to endure when flipping through the radio channels and I hear the SAME music for the past 5 years with an occasional new tune thrown in for a little spice.
we should be screaming. They can take our money, pull us into court, and wreck our lives witn no proof.
A corporation should never have the ability to do criminal investigations. ever. It totally circumvents the constitution.
These people are running amok, with no checks and balances. All this for possible copyright infringment. Copyright is the will of the people, enacted through congress, perhaps these people had better remember?
distributing music, in and of itself, is not always infringement. Used music stores come to mind.
The real problem for them is that the same music can be redistrbuted over and over again, easily. This is no different then any other advances where information can be spread more easily. There model needs to change, and it will. Unfortunatly lives will be dis-perportionaly destroyed in the process.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
..remeber that these people, however you feel about RIAA and their bussiness, have actually distributed music that they don't have the rights to. If you do the crime; you should be willing to do the time.
That's right. Copyright infringement is the biggest threat to the free world as we know it today. These evil villians must be put away for a long time and/or made to work in toil the rest of their natural lives to repay the enormous damage they have done to the recording industry. For such a heinous crime, it is fitting that their entire lives and even careers should be completely destroyed.
While I'm at it, let me propose some changes to our lovely mandatory sentencing guidelines. How about $10,000 per incident for jaywalking, which is much less serious than copyright infringement ($150,000 per incident). What should be the penalty for smoking in the non somking area?
For all of you who were hoping to get rich through the wonders of P2P file sharing, may I merely point out that it is much more profitable for those who simply rob convenience stores. And the penalties are far less severe.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Where's the crime? This is copyright violation, not a crime. It's a civil offense, not criminal (since even the RIAA hasn't found a way to invoke the criminal parts of the DMCA). Since it's a civil law violoation, you cannot go to jail. It's not piracy (no ships are involved) and not theft. Words have meanings, you know, and legal words have very precise meanings.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
And not legal to *distribute those copies*. How difficult is it to understand this concept? If you're using P2P software and making your 3000 MP3 collection freely available to the masses, you are BREAKING THE LAW.
Ah, we're young and innocent, aren't we?
Here are some quotes by judges I've actually witnessed in court:
"Lady, what do you expect here, justice? This isn't about justice, it's about procedure."
"Yes, you can have some time to get a lawyer, but I'm not going to allow him to examine the plaintiff."
And directly relevant to the issue under consideration in a case where defendant requested that the judge dismiss a complaint because plaintiff had offered absolutly no evidence in support:
"It isn't the job of the plaintiff to prove their case. You are the defendant. It's you job to defend yourself."
The judge then denied the defendant's request for the plaintiff to produce financial documents relevant to the case.
Not do you, in practice, have to prove your innocence, but it isn't at all uncommon to be denied the basic rights and tools to do so.
I guess that's why they call it the legal system now, rather than the justice system.
KFG
Thanks for providing me with the best laugh I have had all day. I don't know what exactly possesses people to compare downloaded music to the US war of independence, but it never fails to amuse me. Then again, perhaps IHBT.
Casting this as a fight between rightousness [sic] and corruption, and of escaping a cultural stranglehold, is dubious at best. There are good reasons for copyright law to exist (remember, without copyright law, there can be no GPL). Most downloaders' motivation is to avoid paying for music, not to bring down a music empire. And most of the songs that are downloaded are the same cultural pap that is marketed by the RIAA.
If you're looking to feed your revolutionary tendencies with a bad law having actual, serious consequences, how about the Patriot act? Or the federal budget, which will lead to a trillion dollar increase in the federal debt over the next ten years? Everyone in the world -- American or not -- should be concerned by that, since if the US pulls an Argentina, nobody is safe. By comparison, the fight over file downloading is a childish spat between spoiled children.
The line of reasoning: "the founding fathers rebelled against laws they disagreed with; I am rebelling against laws I disagree with; therefire, my struggle is as noble as theirs" is as absurd as "they laughed at Einstein; they laughed at me; therefore, my ideas are as important as Einstein's".
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
If the headline of this article read "FSF sues 261 major corporations for GPL violations" I wonder how the comments might differ.
Enforcing copyright is enforcing copyright and if you want the GPL to be enforcable then you better learn to deal with RIAA's copyrights being enforcable too.
Yes, I think international terrorism is an appropriate response to the effort to stop illegal filesharing.
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Isn't copyright infringement a criminal activity?
no. it is not.
See, even you bought into the lies that they have spread and now people are starting to understand this.
Copyright Infringement is NOT A CRIMINAL ACTIVITY that is why they are bringing up lawsuits as that is the only way to defend a copyright.
the cops are NOT SUPPOSED to bash down your door kill your cat and trample your petunias and then drag you naked in the street for copyright infringement.. (Contrary to the BSA's belief's)
all they can do is sue you and have a judge tell you to stop and order you to pay a restitution.
Got the idea yet?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
there's no evidence that p2p has had a negative effect on record sales. in fact, sharing your competition's music might increase interest in that very music. just as radio play would. the effect would be to stimulate music sales for your competition and degrade your own music sales.
of course, you also are making the assumption that there's any sort of competition at all. there's plenty to suggest that the members of RIAA are collaborating to gouge the consumer and keep out alternatives.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Breaking the law, breaking an immoral law.
Any law prohibiting the sharing of information between people, IMO, is immoral and MUST be ignored.
Would you say that the Baath party members, abiding by Saddam Husseins laws torturing law breakers were right?
Any law is always subjected to general human values. And any law that limits the right to exchange information is a crime itself.
You may find my opinion radical, and alas it is not yet very generally accepted. But I am convinced that, once people see what the disastrous results of current "intellectual property" laws are, more and more opposition will come and one day we shall return to the situation like the 17th century where the concepts "patent", trade mark, copyright did not or hardly exist.
Without them our civilization rose, building on ideas of others the renaissance and rationalism got us out of the middle ages (when other monopolies on information existed). Now because of such laws we threaten to slide back into a new era of dark ages, where individuals have no rights and no knowledge, and a few entities can corrupt society, control politics (which merely in name is democratic).
We have been brainwashed that todays knowledge economy needs protection of intellectual property to exist and prosper, but have we seen any prove that it won't work without? I do not buy it any longer. I won't rest until all those who want to implement such laws ara safely locked away themselves, for they are the THIEVES themselves, of democracy and human rights.