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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."
Since they know they can't stop downloaders, they figure if they make it a point to go after the biggest file sharers people will become paranoid and turn file sharing off. They'll become leachers.
Of course we know what happens to a P2P system with all leachers and no sharers...
"...and vow in a legally binding, notarized document, never to do it again."
If P2P trading of Copyrighted music is illegal (and we know that it is), why require this? Is it purely a move to allow easy prosecution should they offend again? Or do they think that prosecuting under copyright law might not work in some cases?
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 myself just got back into my dorm and seeing this article made me think. Many thousands if not millions of students are going off their dialup/cable/dsl home connections and back to the fat pipes the universities have. As much, I would expect P2P usage to rise again, but how much more with RIAA lawsuits?
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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...
261 Major P2P Offenders
So, is that the equivalent of 50 file swappers, downloading really fast?
And next, "ENLARE your subPOENA 4+++ inches! MAXXimus V fomular!"
...
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
In short, a levy is paid on blank "audio" media (how they tell the different between blank "data" CDs and blank "audio" CDs is a bit beyond me). This levy gets dispersed to copyright holders in some magic way; in exchange Canadians are expressly allowed private copying, including peer-to-peer file sharing.
Blame Canada.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Boo Hoo! The artists are getting ripped off! Can we keep it real for a moment?
The "Artist" doesn't deserve squat.
There. I said it. You can go mod me down, call me Satan, whatever it is you do to those with opinions different than your own. Or you can grit your teeth and read on:
Most "pop" media (music, movies, even books) churned out today is more a product of the producer/publisher than it is a work of art. Except in rare circumstances, the writers, musicians and actors are merely useful brand names, interchangable and of no consequence to the studio's bottom line. Listen to two supposedly different albums with similar production credits. You'll see! Those identical drum beats and background orchestras aren't coincidences. This canned art is inserted as production's way of applying a dose tried-and-true to that brand new artist. "Artists" rarely exert any creative control over the work that will eventually bear their names.
Brittney Spears is hired for her ability to excite teenage boys (and some adult men) and her ability to sell Pepsi, and she is paid handsomely for it. Like most pop "artists" she is barely a part of the product upon which her brand name is stamped, and deserves little, if any, of the proceeds from record sales.
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?
If the Dean campaign tells you that they are going to do something about the RIAA then I can tell you they are lying. The Executive branch does not make laws and it does not try cases based on those laws. It is up to the Legislative branch (your senators and representatives) to change the laws or the Judicial branch to declare them unconstitutional. For that to happen it would have to bounce to the top (Supreme Court) which won't happen because nobody has deep enough pockets to fight it that far.
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.
The executive branch has a lot of influence on the legislative branch, due to the fact that the executive has veto power. (You insert and pass this anti-RIAA bill, and I'll rubber-stamp the next "homeland security" bill you want). If you don't think this kind of stuff happens all the time, you're stupid and/or high.
Another thing to keep in mind, the Executive appoints the members of the Supreme court.
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
But I'm not entirely sure that bankrupting someone is a reasonable punishment in all instances.
I'm fed up with the pro-infringement people who will make any excuses they can to avoid paying artists for the work they've done, work the artists have done believing that, as the law says, people will pay in some way for using that work. Part of me is glad they're finally getting slapped.
But at the same time, it's undeniable that current copyright law is extreme, and needs to be liberalised with specific rights given to content users; that it is extreme in certain areas (I can't watch a DVD *I* bought under Linux? I can't convert it to a different format? I can't back it up?) unfortunately goes some way to discrediting copyright in others, to the point that people seem to be more willing to engage in the blatent ripping off of artists.
Thousands of dollars in fines per download is also doing nothing to improve the credibility of copyright law. It just promotes an "us vs them" attitude, which is very obvious in the average Slashdotter's blind, uncompromising, irrational, hatred of content producers.
Things have to change.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
Democrat (n): Someone who thinks the group you belong to is more important than who you are.
Republican (n): Someone who thinks the amount of money you have is more important than who you are.
You're oversimplifying the situation. I'm about 40 and stopped buying music in about 1993. Ironically once alternative music broke into the mainstream, it became impossible to hear new good music.
/. mentioned the Japanese duo Puffy in their signature. I downloaded some songs, fell in love, and bought one of their CDs that night. Here's another example, I hear some Junior Brown in a Spongebob episode, download some of his stuff, and buy his first CD about a week later.
However, I started buying music again after Napster came out. Suddenly, I was exposed to tons of music that never made its way to radio.
Whenever I hear about new music, I download a few samples, and buy what I like. I went from buying no music to about three CDs a month. Here's a great example, someone at
Exactly how does me buying MORE music justify me also paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in civil fees and being placed in jail with murders?! Either I'm crazy or the law needs to be changed.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
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.
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.
Former presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton each saw most of their circuit court nominees confirmed -- 100 percent, 95 percent, 96 percent and 86 percent, respectively. For George W. Bush, that number is a paltry 53 percent and, unlike his predecessors, he has had many of his initial nominees ignored completely.
I'm sure Miguel Estrada, who was stonewalled because he was a Hispanic judge that didn't toe the Democratic Party line, might disagree with you on whether delays are going on.
Finally, the Senate Democrats themselves announced they would delay appointments. They issue a fscking statement to the media saying exactly that. Proof enough for you? Do I have to get Tom Daschle to call you and tell you exactly the same thing?
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
There are some additional definitions as well:
Democrat (n): Some one who thinks you are too stupid to make decisions for your self, so the government should make them for you by taxing the living shite out of everyone and creating a vast gigantic pig such that Americans will need to suckle at the teat in order to survive.
Republican (n): Some one who thinks you are too stupid to make decisions for your self, so the government should not tax the rich and powerful top 1% cause they really have everyone's best interest at heart, including bending us all over and giving us what we need, the way they want to.
Shameless self promotion : The Misadvetures of the in