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RIAA Sues 12-Year Old Girl
tcp100 noted an article running at fox about
The RIAA suing a 12 Year Old girl: "'I got really scared. My stomach is all turning,' Brianna said last night at the city Housing Authority apartment where she lives with her mom and her 9-year-old brother."
Owwww !!! My foot !!! My foot !!! Owwww !!!
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Super move RIAA: attack children. This will certainly endear you to the masses. They must be millipedes to have all these feet they keep shooting themselves in.
OK, cheap shots aside; what will this lawsuit serve? They obviously know they won't get much money, if any, from a girl living in a city's subsidized housing system. This is nothing more than a tactic designed to instill fear into file-sharers, call it an attempt at Social Engineering.
Trolling is a art,
More nonsense from the media to generate hyped headlines so that retards buy their newspaper. They're not suing the 12 yr old.. they're suing the person responsible for the internet connection. The headline is entirely misleading.
Even funnier is the fact they paid $30 for KaZaA instead of just downloading it from somewhere.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
see, downloading files is just a gateway crime... by the time this girl is 17, she'll be knocking off liquor stores, and in her early 20's she'll be doing banks!
nip it in the bud!
Damn! and I'd nearly completed the whole Barney catalogue in mp3. Anyone got a copy of barney_and_the_squirrel.mp3?
PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
"When reporters visited teh apartment last night, Brianna..."
WILDCAT?!? Is that yuo?!?
You can tell a lot about the RIAA based on the fact that they are willing to pick on a 12 year old girl!
At least pick a fight with someone CLOSE to your own size.
That's just one more would-have-been future customer that how hates the RIAA and won't be buying their CDs when she has money.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Suing children!?!?! This one will really make everyone so much more likely to buy new CDs, won't it.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Suing a 12-year old? If this is not ridiculous I don't know what is. It's not even funny anymore; we should all just boycott the RIAA and their crap.
I've stopped buying CDs, and even ripping those that I own. This lunacy has got to stop. Let's hit them where it hurts most: their wallets.
Never underestimate the predictability of human stupidity...
She's stealing music. She deserves everyting she gets. She should be tried as an adult and the death penalty shuld not be ruled out.
If the piracy continues the recording industry may we wiped out, then would would all those poor executives do? The can't all join SCO.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
I am wondering why they are suing a kid living in city housing. It not like she has any money. Her parents might have some, but she doesn't.
Maybe the can take a cut of the income from her paper-route.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
The New York City papers are all over this -- it's on the cover of both the Post and the Daily News. They skew really sympathetically towards the girl and her family, who apparently were paying $29.95 a month for Kazaa "service", and apparently thought there were thereby legit.
This is really going to help the cause against the RIAA's draconian retributive lawsuits, as it will appeal to the hearts of the populace at large. Bad PR, RIAA, baaaaad PR.
:wq
This would be laugh out loud hilarious if it weren't so horribly tragic...
And in further news, the RIAA and SCO have teamed up to kick a 6 year old's puppy. Film at 11!
"I got really scared. My stomach is all turning," Brianna said last night at the city Housing Authority apartment where she lives with her mom and her 9-year-old brother.
This is precious, just the kind of screw-up the RIAA didn't need. They sued frickin' Tiny Tim. That's about one degree shy of suing the burlap sack boy. Way to go RIAA, we couldn't buy better press.
Your grain of salt for the article:
Fox is one of the four motion picture studios in the MPAA that do not share revenue with a major U.S. record label. (The others are Disney, MGM, and Paramount.) Anything that makes the RIAA look like the bad guy benefits Fox indirectly, as every dollar spent on recorded music is a dollar not spent on a Fox movie.
Will I retire or break 10K?
And the amazing things are:
1. The RIAA honestly believes this is justified.
2. This is an accepted part of the RIAA business model.
Now I wonder how much music this girl will actually buy (and influence her friends to buy) as she enters her prime music consumer years. What about all those magazines, posters and concerts she will never buy because of this? Who is really getting hurt?
Okay, this is not only a 12-year-old girl, but a 12-year-old girl LIVING IN THE PROJECTS. Her family is dirt poor. How exactly do you think this is going to play on the evening news? The American public will be OUTRAGED at the RIAA and this is going to be over soon. There will be a demand that Congress intervene and stop the RIAA from this course of action. The cries will be "will someone PLEASE think about the CHILDREN!" You watch.
My journal has hot
This is the legal equivalent of a spanking. Anyone remember the good old adage about sparing the rod...
While this is a PR blunder (and who said they were trying to score brownie points anyways...) this is going to enforce the message to parents -- watch what your kids are doing online.
Let the courts sort this one out, looks like one heck of a legal mess.
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal," said Torres. "This is a 12-year-old girl, for crying out loud."
Public perception is that file sharing is NOT illegal. When there's a gap bewteen public perception and law, public perception usually wins. Public perception was that alcohol was not worthy of being banned. We no longer have prohibition. Public perception of drugs is that 'Drugs are bad, M'Kay?'. The negative effects of the drug war are felt more by non-voting minorities than the white majority, so the horrific drug crime laws we have in this country are allowed to continue.
The RIAA and other **AAs aren't convincing anyone. Young mothers and children beleive that file sharing is an OK thing to do. Therefore, it is and will continue to be. Law or no, public perception is going to win this one.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
12 year old kid: Mommmmeeee come quick! There's a big bad slobbering RIAA-man under my bed! *sob*
Mommy: Don't worry sweetheart, we will make the big nasty RIAA-man go away. Take that *biff* *bash*. There you go honey, go to sleep now, he's dead.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Super move RIAA: attack children. This will certainly endear you to the masses.
It's almost as though it was a setup. The only thing that was missing was the fact that she wasn't in a wheelchair.
Ok so this girl could now get sued for $150000 a song. In reallity unlikely, but just who is going to get the benefits of this cash windfall.
Will it be the artist that has been "ripped off"?
will it bollocks, bet your ass that all the money goes right back into RIAA profits, to push the next clone boy band through their one hit of fame and (RIAA's) fortune.
CJC
From the article:
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal," said Torres. "This is a 12-year-old girl, for crying out loud."
I disagree with the RIAA's ability to serve its own subpoenas, and this article might throw a little sympathy Brianna's way, but let's be totally honest here. Yes, Mrs. Torres, your daughter was doing something illegal. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.
Well, even though they say the girl was targeted, it'll be the parents that are sued.
My first reaction was "they won't pursue this". But consider the reason behind these lawsuits: to make an example of people. Now they can also show that parents are responsible for their kids' downloading. Obviously the family can't pay out too much, but don't expect them to be let off the hook.
Not sayin' I agree with it... I'm just sayin'
My sig sucks.
This was a really cheesy move on their part, but it seems almost as traumatizing to single this poor girl out as the poster-child for RIAA abuse...
The article says: The family signed up for the Kazaa (search) music-swapping service three months ago, and paid a $29.99 service charge. So why isn't the family (read: the parents) sued? In the end, they are responsible for their children's doings anyway. Besides, does anybody still truly think trading copyrighted material is legal? It may be a nice (if weak) defense, but I have my doubts believing that, with all those 'awareness campaigns' the **AAs are running.
I was thinking about the possiblity of something like this last night when I was listening to NPR's report on the RIAA. All these lawsuits and going after downloaders have already created a bad identity for record labels. Before all this, most people didn't know about the labels, they primarily knew the about the artists. Now there are major negative connotations with the labels.
So, now the primary demographic they need to spend money, teens and college students, will now associate labels with persecuting them, asking colleges to violate their privacy, suing a 12-year old, and going after grandpa. Grandparents, a large part of the senior citizen voting group, will start to see themselves as potential victims.
If the studios want to make money from selling CDs again, they need to both drop the price and start really creating albums again. I remember albums that were created very well that the flow from song to song made listening to the album a joy, but now with pushing the crap they are now, they make an album just a collection of tracks of which one or two might be neat to listen to for a few months.
The RIAA needs to sack the lawyers and send their marketing people back to school for the fundamentals.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
The RIAA fully realize that they are the 'bad guy' and that they are seen as such by the eyes of the world. They have one goal in mind, and one goal only--protect their way of business and revenue stream at any cost.
I agree this looks really bad on the RIAA (I don't remember minors being targetted before), but those who think this spate of publicity is going to stop them are dead wrong. They've already shown that they're willing to go to any length to kill the file-sharing phenomenon.
I can see the outcome of this case right now: The RIAA will probably have to respond to the negative publicity and probably drop the suit against the twelve-year-old girl. The rest of the cases will go on as planned. One poor target isn't going to be the downfall of their enforcement operations.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
1. "ignorance of the law" is no excuse
2. I suppose the girl might have been lying about not beiing aware of breaking of the law.
Ignoring points 1. and 2. for the moment, one of the main issues with file sharing is concern that people are losing track of what "intellectual property" is. I don't mean this as a "KaZaA is evil" or "Damn the RIAA!" rant, just that this seems like very concrete proof that we have reached the stage of the game where some people who are trading the files are unaware that they are doing anything wrong. (And please don't respond "I'm only hurting an evil corporation so it's okay." I mean entirely unaware of violation.)
So if you are totally, totally aware of wrongdoing, does 2. apply?
Pfah. I was trying to come up with some grand conclusion for my brilliant point above, but I really can't. At best, it's proof a sea-change in the concept of intellectual property, but it would sound a tad pretentious to make such a claim. And filesharing advocates have already been making it for years.
It wasn't me, it was the one-armed
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal," said Torres. "This is a 12-year-old girl, for crying out loud."
I won't be the popular one around here, but I thought this quote was the dumbest thing I have ever heard. The mother thinks the daughter's age allows her (the daughter) to do whatever she wishes! Hey, she's 12, give her a gun and tell her to shoot the number - it's not like she's doing anything illegal, she's a 12-year-old girl, for crying out loud!
As the law stands, she IS doing something illegal and the law is (pseudo) blind to age.
This has been all over the NYC radio news this morning, and yes, they are slanting it towards Brianna being the victim.
(Don't mod me a Troll, just because I have a slightly different opinion...)
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
Anyone remember the burning times? Nothing like staking out 12 year old girls. RIAA is showing their true colors, who would have ever figured they were so petty and money-hungry as to go after little people who really don't even hurt the industry??
"Sheep just follow the easiest path and run from scary noises and intimidating creatures." - Me
This is like an early Christmas present for RIAA detractors. Their lawsuit-by-scattergun approach has caught the worst target possible: A 12-year-old honor student who had no idea she was doing anything wrong ("But we were paying for it!"). What a PR nightmare.
Too bad it won't last. This particular case will get resolved as quickly and quietly as possible. You'll be able to feel the breeze from the RIAA quickly brushing it under the rug. Or, worse, if they're smart they will dismiss all charges (and give little Brianna lots of free music) in exchange for her too-cute 200-word essay on "Why Filesharing Is Wrong".
The EFF and other RIAA opponents could get heavy mileage out of this case if they tried, but I fear they just aren't coordinated enough to counter the RIAA's spin.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
Now, first off, this probably just is a screw-up, an unintended hit by the shotgun scatterblast of lawsuits, BUT:
The RIAA could still be in a good strategic place if this girl is found not liable for her actions. Think about it: if it's assumed that there IS an illegal action here, but the girl is not liable due to her age (among other factors, maybe, too), then that liability may lie with the provider of the materials that made it transparently easy for a *little girl* to engage in criminal activity.
The provider, in this case, would of course be Kazaa. It seems to me that if the little girl is found not culpable for this, that it could give the RIAA a new angle to attack Kazaa et al on.
To the extent that making and enforcing laws is "social engineering," you're right. The whole concept of private property is social engineering (see Locke's Two Treatises of Government for a detailed explanation). Most of us approve the sort of social engineering that gives us government, laws, and property. Under this system, "instilling fear" into lawbreakers is exactly what lawsuits and criminal prosecutions are about. It's called deterrence. This is one of the principal purposes of the law.
As this drags on, I expect the RIAA to actually drag very few individuals through court. It's interesting that they've already announced their amnesty program... all you have to do is swear on your mother's grave that you'll never ever ever ever do anything horrible like file sharing again.
What this will accomplish is to scare off all those borderline-computer-literates who found a neat program called Kazaa and thought downloading music was fun. Most of these people have never even considered the legal ramifications of what they are doing. Simply being threatened a little, or sued and then "mercifully let off" will cause people who have no interest in the issues at stake to delete their kids' Kazaa clients to make sure that never happens again. These people will then go back to watching television and shaking their head over this whole Internet thing.
Since this same demographic probably buys 80% of popular music, the score will stand: RIAA 1, angry informed minority 0.
This looks like a bad job of research by the RIAA lawyers. You would think they would have confined themselves to unsympathetic looking guys with long hair, past criminal histories to include beating of their wives, drowning of kittens and possible ties to the KKK. NO, instead they find themselves a twelve year old girl in a single parent home. Personally I love it. I want to see more stupidity. I want the RIAA lawyer to come out and tell everyone a twelve year old girl is responsible for their 31 percent decrease in music sales. That decrease in sales has nothing to do with the overpriced crap they put out. I want him to say with a straight face that the 20 dollars for a Brittney Spears CD is worth the same as that 20 dollars I just paid for the Lord of the Rings Two Towers DVD. I want that lawyer to be on CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and even the BBC telling us how this twelve year old needs to have her life ruined so that Justine Timeberlake can get another SUV. Please please, bring on more stupidity, I need to be entertained.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
This shouldn't have been posted on Slashdot... It should have been posted on The Onion...
Hmmm...
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal," said Torres. "This is a 12-year-old girl, for crying out loud."
I've worked with lots of 12 year olds. Being twelve doesn't prevent kids from breaking the law. The two are not linked.
Hopefully, though, the public will see this as an extremely heavy-handed approach and the backlash against the recording industry will cause the dinosaur to rethink its business model in today's electronic age. I mean, even $3,000.00 for the smallest settlements seems steep. But supposedly they're only going after the most prolific traders who have downloaded hundreds of albums or thousands of songs.....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
According to the article:
The family signed up for the Kazaa (search) music-swapping service three months ago, and paid a $29.99 service charge.
In that case RIAA should be suing Kazaa for providing service and content which they have no authorization to OR the family should be suing RIAA for misleading them OR maybe the family didnt read the License agreement...
But this makes me wonder as to what RIAA is doing about the websites that charge users fee and tell them they can download any number of unlicensed MP3s from their P2P application ??
An example is this site that I found by clicking on 'Search' hyperlink in article text:
Site offering unlicensed music for $0.97 a month
In case the site gets slashdotted, I am copying and pasting the content of the site (without any HTML formatting):
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First off, let me say... I do think the RIAA are a bunch of right bastards! That said, this article is a friggin joke, written with the intention of pulling at the heart strings.
First off... they wouldnt be sueing a 9 year old girl... they would be sueing her mother. Her mother got dupped into paying for the Kazaa service, her mother owned the service, and her mother is the childs legal guardian. The article should read "RIAA suing the mother of a 12 year old girl". Also, the article says "we" not "she"... if the mother listened to the music, and from the sounds of the article, she was active in downloading it... she is the guilty one.
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal," said Torres. "This is a 12-year-old girl, for crying out loud."
Ummmm... yes... it was like you were doing something illegal. Its called theft.
Like I said, im not pro- RIAA, I think there a pack of dinks... but I hate journalistic drivel like this. Who gives a shit that mommy is an honour student? That she was helping there son with homework when they got the notice... Its all designed to villify the RIAA and deflect that fact, that yes, this household was infact commiting a crime.
Really... do you have to frame the case in the way they did to vilify the RIAA? Is there not already enough hatred of them already?
Oh well, >shrug I hope the average reader is smart enough to see through the emotional fluff of this article, although somehow, I doubt it.
by having to pay for the program, whatever kazaa ripoff company she paid was in fact the one doing something illegal by alluding to the idea that the content on the service was legal. the parents were paying for the service including the content. its more akin to walking into a bank, already under the control of bank robbers who happen to be standing in the teller booth, making a legitimate withdrawl and not having the withdrawl taken out of your bank account.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
And here I thought that lawsuits shouldn't be dropped out of airplanes like propaganda flyers. Hell, why don't they just send out notices to everyone they won't be suing, it would be less paperwork.
It may or may not have been this girl who downloaded the music, this point is moot. The parents are responsible as they most likely set up the account.
To the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars? That is some pretty big punishment if you ask me.
Yeah, I recognize this story as RID (My new term - Reactionary Incendiary Demonization) towards the RIAA, but if anyone ever deserved it, it was them. I'll bet the little girl has a wooden leg too.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The article states that the girl (and I assume her mother) set up an account with Kazaa for their music download service. Couldn't they then say they were mislead by the service? Of course Kazaa probably has its back covered by some fine print. "...service shall not be used in the exchange of illegal software or files..." some such.
Kazaa seems to be an anachronism held over from the late '90s: all venture capital, free product, and all Underpants Gnomes three step plan to Profit!!!
What is music when you despise all sound?
copyright theft? they stole the copyright?
Did anyone else read the article but me? That story can sum up everything that "geeks" get wrong about user interfaces and assumptions about "levels of knowledge" when it comes to computers. Let's look:
She's paying $29.95 for KaZaA service. Now, unless they paid for the application (didn't specify), maybe they were referring to their ISP service? Kinda like when users point at their computer and say "My modem".
Dig deeper (paraphrase):
"We just listen to the songs and then just let them go. We don't save them."
Obviously these folks do not realize that KaZaA saves the files to their harddrive and automatically "shares" them. They don't even know they still have the song! Not to mention that they probably download the song over and over if they want to hear it again. Don't laugh, I've seen my dad do that. He didn't know, literally, that just because he downloaded a song via napster that he still "had it" and had no idea on how to find it if he didn't use Napster to get to it.
I cringe at the thought that my own dad can't use a computer and has no inclination to learn. I've literally shown him a dozen-times how to open up windows explorer and browse through to find stuff, but he doesn't use his computer very often and by the time he wants to find something, he's forgotten again. It's not that he's stupid (to the contrary, he's a professional musician, a retired machinist, etc etc), it's just that computers are something he very rarely uses and he just doesn't have the dedication it requires to learn the basics.
But that's Joe Average User.
This little girl might know a bit about IM and kazaa and how to use Internet Explorer, but I doubt it goes much beyond that.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
If they sue her, then they'll have the PR nightmare of suing a poor 12-year-old girl living with a single mom.
:)
If they drop the case, then all of the other people they're suing will (quite publicly) ask: "How come it's okay if a 12-year-old does it, but not if I do?" Because really, if it's unjust to do it to a 12-year-old girl, it's unjust to do it to anyone. Little girls just catch the public eye more because they're sympathetic characters.
It's a lose-lose situation for the RIAA. I love it.
The real need here is education. I have a coworker who buys CDs every week; I let her know that the people making and selling them them would sue her, have already called her a liar and a thief, and that she is supporting an industry that treats its artists in a similar manner to her working for a year and getting paid $100 dollars.
Sadly, our conversation was not preserved for posterity, but the end result was disappointing (not that I expected a different outcome).
Her CD purchases are continuing unabated because she, like most other Americans, *don't care* about things outside their paycheck every two weeks, what's going to happen on Big Brother 12, and how to protect their children from the 'evil world' without leaving the comfort of their reclining fat-cradles.
I don't buy CDs, and haven't for almost 10 years. I can't even give price as a reason, as I could get a wide variety for $5 (due to where my wife works - a subsidiary of the Big 5). I don't trade RIAA music, because I make my own.
Read my Journal and buy my non-RIAA CD you pirating whores. Put your money where your mouth is. Or go and tell someone why they shouldn't buy CDs. Educate the mouth-breathers, because in the end, when they are forced to struggle out from their comfy chairs, cheese-fed Americans can still fight for you.
While this in and of itself is horrible, so is them going out and blanket suing people. Maybe this will make the law makers finally wake up and realize that give an origanization like the RIAA the power to do this is not as good as they thought. I don't even think that the RIAA's deep pockets can fix this mess.
Maybe, just maybe this is the begining of the end for this type of behavior. One can only hope.
It's not just the children, they're also apparently suing a 71 year old grandfather:
You're plainly a moron.
I don't know about you, but here in civilised countries we have this idea that children below a certain age aren't sufficiently mature to understand that what they're doing is wrong and therefore they can't be held accountable.
Clearly this is the case here - in fact I would go as far as to say that would hold true for any reasonable person - they're paying a fee to Kazaa - what for if not to download music. If anyone's guilty it's the Kazaa for charging the fee for a service they couldn't legally provide.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Wrong. As far as I know the law does not say that you cannot download music from kazaa. It says you can't steal a cd from walmart but if it were as cut and dry as that then there wouldn't be so many questions and debates over it.
The RIAA says its illegal, but they aren't the court. SCO says you are illegal if you don't buy a linux license from them but we all know thats BS. But they say it isn't.
So lets just wait till the lawsuits hit the courts shall we.
Setup or no, when a law is passed that automatically defaults the majority of citizens as being criminals, there's something wrong with the law, not the people.
Depends on how you define citizens. If by citizens you mean those that can vote, then what happens when they lose their right to vote after a criminal trial? I guess they aren't citizens.
maybe slave labor. My favorite is all the things that require a criminal background check. They won't even be able to get an apartment without lying.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
So they decide to sue a 12 year old girl. Brilliant PR move. Might as well use orphans for firewood.
From the story:
"When reporters visited teh apartment last night, Brianna -- who her mom says is an honors student -- was helping her brother with his homework."
Who knew that Slashdot trolls were writing articles at FoxNews?
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
At least they paid for Kazaa.
That's good, isn't it?
1. I wonder if this 12 year old got the "What the F*ck do you think you're doing" message from Madonna?
2. How is it that a single mom with 2 kids in city housing can afford $30 just to avoid seeing advertising while stealing music?
3. If the RIAA are in fact only going for the flagrant downloaders - people sharing thousands of songs - then that would mean that A) They must have broadbank and B) They must have a good sized hard drive - See #2 above.
4. Anyone who lets a 12 year old use the Internet, especially Kazaa, unsupervised, should be investigated for child endangerment. And if she was supervising her daughter 100% of the time, then she's the one they should be going after.
I'm sorry, I hate the RIAA as much as the next guy, but this is BS. If anything, this is better than the other 260 lawsuits because maybe it will call attention to the fact that this mother, probably on public assistance, is letting her kids run wild on the Internet and blowing money on broadband and ad-free Kazaa access.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
It would be more effective if people and newspapers stopped saying "RIAA sued a 12 year old girl" and instead said something like "Sony and other labels through the RIAA sued a 12 year old girl". Currently the use of the term RIAA allows the labels to keep themselves at a distance from most people's perception. The general public doesn't equate the two. The labels would hate to get bad press directly.
Sensationalistic reporting from Fox News? Never! That wouldn't be Fair and Balanced!
SCO have filed a lawsuit against the RIAA, claiming that the RIAA are infringing on SCO's copyrights over filing absurd lawsuits.
"One could also quite convincingly argue that it is this girl's guardians' responsibility to find out what their charges are doing, and the illegality if any."
I want to see you argue that in front of a jury of parents.
I double-dare you, in fact.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
RIAA suas a 3 month old baby and his mother, who sang lullabies w/o paying the license
A RIAA representative said "SInce this kid is not going to forget this lullaby ever again, were thinking of lobotomizing it so we get back our intellectual property"
how long until
how fast could there connection be??? if they truely are on subsidized housing then they are most likely using dial-up. maybe they didn't notice kazaa's icon in the start bar, but how much could they truely share on dial-up versus the tens of thousands of college kids on T1 connections?
If they had 1000 files on a dial-up connection they would still be sharing 1000 files, just not very effectively. I'll bet the RIAA's bots just get the list of files and don't actually try to download them.
It makes me want to train a monkey to download songs all day. I want to see them sue my fucking pet hamster.
"Oh no Baxter! Looks like you're going to do some hard time unless you don't come up with $150 million dollars quick."
That's 1000 songs at $150,000 a pop. Makes the $20 you're paying for 10 or so songs seem cheap, now doesn't it?
Is downloading music illegal? Sure seems that way, Baxter. But is it fun? Oh yeah!
...that fox is reprinting.
The URL for the slightly more indepth new york post article is http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/5349.htm
Where are the musicians in all of this?
Frankly, I'm appalled that more *musicians* haven't spoken up and said, okay, we don't want you stealing our files -- but, for fuck's sake, I don't to part of anything or any entity that sues 12 year olds and 71 year olds.
Me, I'm a writer, not a musician, but if I heard that 12 year olds were being sued by my publisher, I'd be pissed off, appalled, and shocked -- at my publisher, not at the 12 year old.
Of course, I want to paid for my work. But I don't want my work to used as a political leverage for fat cats to get even fatter. The musicians are being used and taken advantage of by the RIAA. They're pawns, and they have a moral -- yes, I said it: "moral" -- responsibility to speak up and tell the RIAA to back the fuck off the fans.
This would be a good time for the People invoke jury nullification, assuming any of these go to trial. (Note that the Bill of Rights grants any RIAA victim a right to jury for lawsuits worth over $20 if they decide to take this to trial.)
So what is jury nullification? It is the principle that jury's may find a defendent "not guilty" if the law is unjust. This harkens back to British colonial days and is the primary reason we have juries in the Bill of Rights: both the defendent AND the law are judged. It is the Peoples' last check against unjust law when the three branches of government fail.
A prominent case of this was when William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, was charged with assembling Quakers for worship when only the Church of England was permitted to assemble. (Again, pre-Revolution colonial days.) Though the jury found that he did indeed do just that, they gave a "not guilty" verdict on the grounds that the law was unjust. The judge held the jury without food and water for a couple of days and imposed fines, demanding that they give a "guilty" verdict, but they refused to budge. Events like this are what inspired our nation's founders to recognize the right of juries over the judge and the law. Jury nullifications also played an important role in overturning Prohibition. Juries often ruled against the law even when finding that the law had been broken, thus making Prohibition unenforceable, and I believe some regions of the nation still regularly have non-violent marijuana prosecutions lost due to jury nullification.
Jury's are unfortunately not informed of this right when they go to trial. I believe during the slave days the government realized that it was near impossible to get a conviction for violating the Fugitive Slave Act since people in the northern state juries, which was the only place the law really had any use, would rule "not guilty" on the grounds that the law was unjust. And so the government sadly decided to stop telling juries of their right to jury nullification.
So how does this apply to the RIAA? Well if enough 12 year olds, or any one else for that matter, being sued millions of dollars for downloading music take it to court then the People (ie-the juries) could toss out the cases as being unjust. Given enough of these rulings, the law could be forced to change to reflect what the People consider just or the RIAA could be forced to change tactics. Though this will remain unlikely if we do not go back to informing juries of their rights. (Plus stacking the jury by having the prosecution quiz them instead of making it truly random also undermines things...) So write to your state and federal legislative representatives today and demand that they pass laws requiring judges to inform juries of their "jury nullification" rights!
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
I don't think people here had that much sympathy for the young minor from Quebec? Her parents are responsible in this case, though I suppose it is still bad PR for the RIAA.
It is interesting to see Fox News coming to the rescue here. I thought it would be more like....
"Evil non-conservative parents in an inner city neighborhood encourage child to steal music..."
Is someone asleep at the wheel at FOX? Geeze they should hire me to prevent these liberal whiney stories from making it to the air! At the very least, put the right spin on it Fox!!
I believe this is another approach on the part of the RIAA to deal with the Kazaa service. sinec they couldn't get Kazaa shut down like they did Napster, they are trying to scare people away from subscribing to the service. I think they picked this girl deliberately.
Until you are 18 years old, you don't exist as a legal entity in the US. You cannot sign binding contracts, cannot sue or be sued, etc. They can sue her parents who are legally responsible for her actions. It is completely inaccurate to say that she will be sued because that cannot happen in US courts.
-- Adam
I'm gonna go out and get me a 12-year-old and have them do all my file sharing.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
I don't understand what they are trying to accomplish by charging so much per song ($150,000?). Who in their right mind has that sort of money. They are counting on an out of court settlement, anything else would bankrupt the common person.
At this rate, I might as well start breaking into cars and stealing CDs. If I got caught, I'm sure the fine would be no where near $150,000 dollars.
You would think having people pay for the songs they have ($1 or 2 dollars per song), then sign some "promise not to file share again" form would be most beneficial.
We can blame Fox all we want but they are really the only ones who could do an article like this. Who else:
CNN - Owned by AOL Time Warner (Warner Music, etc.).
MSNBC - Joint Venture with Microsoft (not about to attacked RIAA).
ABC News - Owned by Disney (we know how they feel about Copyrights).
CBS News - Owned by Viacom (also owns MTV)
Fox, as far as I can tell, is the only one not totally in bed with the RIAA and if there is anybody who can piss them off and get away with it it is Rupert Murdoch.
Heheh, this girl will have her income garnished for the rest of her life. The RIAA has gained a lifetime slave. I predict further targeting of children. Waiting for them to reach college age is inefficient, because the RIAA misses out on all those wages from summer jobs, paper routes, and Christmas gifts from grandparents.
The RIAA really is taking its cues from Zappa's JOE'S GARAGE.
Before you can issue a subpoena or sue someone don't you have to know who they are first? If they already had the child's name, couldn't they have found out other basic information. At the very least, her age, residence, etc...
Otherwise, couldn't RIAA mistakenly sue someone for filesharing, by not having all of the necessary information or the individual they plan to prosecute?
PaladinBLZ
Today's civil tort system serves the role that the machine gun-toting Pinkerton guards served during the Gilded Age - crushing profit-threatening dissent . I don't see how anyone could think otherwise. If suing someone who is not particularly wealthy is guaranteed to bankrupt them, I simply cannot understand how anyone has any respect remaining for the civil tort system. One thing that an honorable person can do to fight this practice is, if serving on a jury in a tort case, simply refuse to vote in favor of any corporate plaintiff, no matter what the evidence, i.e. nullify. On the scientific side of the question, contribute to research on anonymous/encrypted communications that could make electronic censorship irrelevant, no matter how fanatical or well-funded the censors are.
Some people on slashdot point out that copyright infringement is against the law and that file sharers are the problem.
In my two above linked past postings, I argue that file sharing is merely a symptom of the problem. The real problem is that nobody respects copyright anymore. And it is only going to get worse.
If copyright holders want some respect, they need to act in a fashion deserving of such respect. Let's see. We have
I just don't care about copyright. Sort of like prohibition. If the copyright holders, like the government, want respect, then they need to set a better example.
What is the purpose of copyright? When does anything ever fall into the public domain?
In my above linked posts I argue that...
- It is not that people don't understand that what they are doing is illegal, it's that they don't care. There is no respect for copyright or copyright law.
- Someone argued that the RIAA will put fear into them and that this would fix the problem. The problem is not lack of fear, it is lack of respect. The RIAA may generate more fear, but they will at the same time get even less respect.
- The only way the problem will really get fixed is to fix the broken copyright (and patent) system.
- The RIAA is fighting a losing battle. They are guaranteed to lose. (We now have alcohol to drink, and a 70 MPH speed limit on roads where it matters.)
- Someone pointed out that slashdot is full of knee jerk paranoia. I responded to that in one of my above linked posts with a long list of the abuses that justify such paranoia. They ARE out to get us.
The latest efforts seem to be that even mere compilations of facts should be able to be copyrighted.I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Many of the posts so far seem to be saying that someone so young should not be responsible for these actions. I wonder what we would say if she were responsible for Blaster?
"Asked if the association knew Brianna was 12 when it decided to sue her, Weiss answered, 'We don't have any personal information on any of the individuals.'" Sure, no personal information other than your name, address, ISP, music tastes, etc.
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a 12 year old girl...
Time for EFF to do a "reverse-sting" - have 12-year old girls pose as 35 year-old male file-sharers with the goal of drawing more RIAA lawsuits.
(The reciprocal of how law-enforcement snags pedophiles in chat rooms - they have 35 year-old men posing as 12 year-old girls).
Next stage is that the parents say "shit", we're in trouble, let's contact the papers and try to get out of this mess by way of our 12-year old daughter.
Plausible, but based on my experience with 12-year-old daughters, not likely.
With the current state of technology, it's really not that difficult to install "stuff" on a PC, if you're interested in doing it. That "if" is the difference -- her parents probably aren't interested, and therefore have no clue. The kid (and her friends) are very interested, and IM even gives them a free tech support network. So she's able to install whatever she wants. If it costs, she just bugs Mommy, who comes over to the PC just long enough to type in that magic 16-digit number.
On the other hand, she still has no clue what she's actually done to her PC. She clicks, she gets music. As a poster in another thread noted, she's probably downloading songz without realizing that Kazaa is saving them on her PC -- and to her, "peer to peer" means chatting with friends at lunch.
If I weren't a geek myself (I'm on Slashdot, after all), I'd probably have no clue what my daughter does online. Which means that 99% of her friends are basically surfing on their own.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
What the 12-year old's mother should do is sue Sharman Networks (KaZaa) for conspiracy (inciting attempts to break the law - they PAID for kazaa while Kazaa AFAIK has no safeguards).
Also, how could you expect a single parent to monitor all their childs activities while they are out working to pay all the expenses.
Even so, sending the single parent to jail is more wrong than copying a few songs and not knowing what you were doing was illegal because you paid for it.
If Kazaa was causing so much grief for the RIAA/MPAA, why not sue the makers of KaZaa (Sharman Networks). It happened with Napster, and other P2P networks.
This may very well be an attempt at social engineering but it's backfiring miserably. As if we didn't need more evidence that the RIAA was a bunch of greedy jackbooted thugs, they now go out and sue people who are about as far from being pirates as you get.
The DVD-CCA lawsuits is, unfortunately, an example of how you do this sort of thing the right way. You go after people who look direptuable. Why sue the New York Times when you can sue 2600? Suing a 12 year old girl living in public housing and a 71 year old grandfather is just prooving the point that they are thugs.
This is the sort of thing that could finally stir the masses to make intellectual property an issue that the masses will consider. If they think, "it could be my child next", it's much more likely they are going to bug their congressman about it. This could ultimately lead to legalization of file sharing networks.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
What worries me about this whole RIAA-sueing-everyone-on-earth thing is the effect it is having on our culture. When people have to spend money just to get what in every other century was freely provided, one has to wonder what the effect will be. Will the poor not have music in their lives? Will the young no longer be inspired by great stories simply becuase they can't pay the publisher his outrageous dues? Will the average man on the street have to be worried about the song he hums to himself on the street for fear of being sued? Perhaps the furure of music isn't on cd's at all, perhaps it is the street musician. Maybe, in 100 years when they look back on this time, they'll discuss the rise from the streets of the great musicans and the RIAA and all its assembly-line produced music will only be a footnote.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
If a sufficiently large number of people - more than it takes to elect a president, say - do not understand a law or its basis to the extent that they regularly break it, eventually it falls into desuetude. That's why Prohibition ended: it was unenforceable. Equally, if enough people decide that certain people shall not be rewarded for certain activities, that business plan is doomed. (and vice versa, of course, hence the fruits of the cult of celebrity.) In the UK, you cannot legally make money selling handguns to people. In the US you can. I do not believe there is any absolute moral standard for this difference: it reflects different views of different societies. If the RIAA pushes things to the point that a lot of people turn round and say, in effect "We didn't understand that was what copyright meant. Now we do, and it sucks", then ultimately that business model will fall.
Perhaps successful musicians will only be rewarded for live performances. Perhaps music will only be sold in conjunction with some other service, as has been suggested by the guy who thought the telecoms companies should buy up the studios. Just as a record company can lay off an exec because of a downturn, incompetence or whatever, we the people can decide to lay off an industry. When we started to travel by air, the railways could not impose a tax on air travelers to recover their lost revenue. But the airlines were certainly taking away the railways' monopoly on long distance intracontinental travel.
I think one thing that obsesses some people here is the idea that the most sacred thing there is, is property, and that anything which apparently removes my property is theft. (Strangely, many of them will claim to belong to a religion whose founder was extremely anti-property, but I leave that one for the psychoanalysts.) Yet things are constantly encroaching on my property. It gets old, it wears out, it falls out of fashion, and one day I will die and it will cease to be mine in any very meaningful sense. Somehow, the suits in the RIAA need to realise that they need to adapt to society, rather than the other way round. But they won't...they are actually frightened, and behaving like frightened men in a position of power.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
1) Educate the family of copyright issues and illegal software/data
2) Give them one more chance. If they blow it, fine them. Don't send them to prison.
3) Publicize the case as much as possible. Yes, social engineering is the reason.
If you ever made something and seen it pirated across the neighbourhood, you would know how much it hurts. It's the same about an artist that worked hard to produce a song.
The problem though isn't that the artist isn't right. The problem is music companies rip us off. Virgin Music decided to lower the price of music CDs by 2 euros(there is a story at www.theregister.co.uk). So what ? from each CD sold, after the productions cost are met, 99% of the CD value is NET profit. The CD costs a few pennies to make.
So, the problem isn't that of piracy, it is that of prices. We shouldn't let rich people get richer and poor people get poorer. In the US alone, 5% of the population owns 80% of the world's wealth. That's ridiculus. They are after a little girl and her family...they won't to milk every last penny out of us...let's not give them excuses for doing so!!!
[rant]
What are you talking about? Did I say that I thought Gore should have won? I don't care that he had more electoral votes than Bush did. I know the rules of the election, and I support the outcome.
That has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic at hand. The point is that (if you believe the source quoted above) more people use file sharing, mostly for "illegal" purposes, than voted for EITHER of them.
The funny things is that RIAA is trying to fsck this 12yo girl, while preaching that p2p is for child porn and is evil
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Nope, they're actually suing a 12-year-old, which would mean that POSSIBLY the suit is null and void, and another one needs to be filed.
As of April 21, 2000, some commercial Web sites will be required to obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under the age of 13. The FTC called the rule "a definitive move" that "puts parents in control over the information collected from their children online."
So when did this parent give the P2P people the right to disclose the personal informaion about her child to the RIAA?
Didn't the RIAA break the law by collecting this information?
Another link about this law.
You forget you're on Slashdot? WiFi and water cooling comes before food, shelter, and medicine.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
That's the point, isn't it?
Since much of the adult world is comprised of parents, getting in front of a jury of parents is going to be a tough sell.
Combined with the idea that all she was doing was listening to music, I think at best its a long shot.
The name of "Briana"? Simply icing on the cake. Living in public housing, honor student... I'd like to be their lawyer, and I don't practice law. I could win that case.
The RIAA will probably back out of this by the end of the day.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
For many, Internet access is like any other utility - water, garbage, electricity. It's not hard to scrape together a computer for $200, or obtain one free from various charities. It's also not hard for a 12-year-old to get a job that pays $20 a month for Internet access.
I know these thoughts will entertain some and enrage others, but I will post them anyhow.
The fact that a 12-year old girl in 'government housing' is being sued seems to indicate that the file-sharing issue is not an 18-24 age group issue. It is apparant to me that people of ALL ages are sharing files, some of which are music.
I had an argument with a friend of mine recently. He lives in LA, and is, like EVERYONE there, it would seem, affiliated loosely with the entertainment industry. His stance was that the artists are working and ought to be paid. If not for the RIAA, their music wouldn't get distribution. To make money, they require distribution, and the RIAA is the only one in town through whom they can find it.
My perspective, being in Michigan, unaffiliated with the music business, experienced with technology and trained in the performing arts (theatre degree--marketable as galoshes in the Mojave), is vastly different. I understand that artists, like everyone, are working for pay. However, the advance of technology has been marginalizing the RIAA/record producers for some time now. I believe that technology has come to the point where artists, assuming they are enterprising and not lazy asses, can entirely circumvent the recording houses. Sure, they might not have instant distribution, but AFAI am concerned, when they take it upon themselves to market themselves and what art they have produced, any success is well-earned and not as likely to crumble or fade, as would an artificial creation of the industry (Menudo, Brittney, Tiffany, etc.). Additionally, since they chart their own course, they are free to take whatever artistic tangent they care to explore. In my opinion, the RIAA stifles artistic expression in all but the few artists whom they have contracted whilst on cocaine binges, and who would sign anything to get more blow.
I can't really elaborate any better, seeing as my boss is sure to see me typing madly on non-company business. But, in short, I believe that the RIAA, etc., are close to joining the buggy whip industry: their raison d'etre is about to expire, thanks to technological advances, and their realization of this threat of extinction is evidenced by their willingness to blindly sue a 12-year old, financially disenfranchised girl. When a corporation feels it must go after kids to get its pound of flesh, I believe that its social contract to provide whatever useful services to society has effectively expired or must be revoked.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
Also, the BBC has a look at other 'victims' of the court cases
Let's see now - 261 people, assuming each shared 1000 songs (which I believe was the cap at which RIAA selected their litigants) - @$150000 a song - they expect $39,150,000,000($39 Billion smackeroos!!!). Assuming each case settles at $50000, the RIAA still stands to make $13,050,000 just from this 'spook & awe' campaign
Not bad for a 'sunset industry'
If they're so poor as to be living in welfare housing, why do they have a COMPUTER and INTERNET ACCESS?
A high-speed internet connection is a $30/mo investment in your childrens' education. Her priorities are right on track.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
You're absolutely right. This poor single mom and her kid should not only have no internet access, she shouldn't have water or electricity either. That way taxpayers can save an average of a ten thousandth of a cent.
My goodness, do you realize what this twelve year old is probably going to be doing when she grows up? She'll be in some high paying technical job paying taxes, instead of being a crack whore - depriving pimpz like you the steady supply of fresh meat you need to keep your business running.
If the government continues to misuse their budget supporting such socalism as this, you may very well go out of business. It just shows once again, how average Americans like you are being hurt by the anti-business sentiment in this country. You certainly have every right to complain. As do drug dealers like tobacco companies.
For someone living in the projects, mostly likely in one of NYC's ghettos, what is the definition of "illegal?"? Would it be "unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works" or would it be drug dealing, stealing, fighting, prostitution, and stuff like that? You know, the stuff that the other kids/young adults/old addicts do outside her apartment building every day?
Their (the Torres') perception of the situation is a pretty good example of what most of the population believes about file sharing. It's about as much of a crime as jaywalking. Yes, any street cop can give a ticket for jaywalking, but only if he's a complete loser. Same principle applies here.
========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
The article quotes the girl's mother as saying "There's a lot of music there, but we just listen to it and let it go"
The defense arguments will be interesting when they undoubtably say the clients didn't have the technical knowledge to understand that "download and listen" really means "download and provide." It's possible that users deleting the file transfer log line in Kaaza (erm, not that I know what that is or have ever seen it before) may have assumed the file was gone too. But lo, the hundreds of songs they "just listened to" were saved and now available for mass download from their machine by the whole world.
Sheesh this is going to be fun!
I wonder if this could end up hurting iTunes. Little Jimmy asks his Dad for an iTunes subscription for christmas, and Dad says no. He read in the paper that downloading music off the internet was illegal. This could really put a damper on legitimate downloading services.
You answered your own question. You are not sharing if you record a song from the radio or a movie from HBO. That is fair use. Uploading them to millions of others is illegal dstribution, a violation of copyright. Grow up and learn the law.
We are surrounded by intellectual product. All our technologies and products (ALL OF THEM) are merely constructs of pre-existing technologies.
Wheels, incandescent lights, circuits, building materials, plastics, adhesives, machines, our knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology. Everything we know, understand, and utilize as a culture is all based upon the intellectual developments of preceding generations.
To suggest otherwise is to start history at a convenient point.
The great composers adapted ancient folk songs into their work. Jazz musicians then played wonderful creative games with the works of great composers. And then the Rolling Stones came along and claimed ownership over those jazz standards. Anyone who believes in the right-of-ownership in pop melodies has a very small understanding of music composition.
Can you imagine how stifled creativity and progress would have been if the "wheel" was patented.
The lawyers and the big corporations are attempting to create ownership over our cultural heritage, and ultimately they are trying to maintain in unsustainable business model in the face of new technological developments. It is neither our national responsibility nor our legal right to maintain business models that have been surpassed by technological evolution.
And remember: 99.999999% of musicians in the world are doing it for free because they love music. (Myself included).
Peace.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
From the EFF Website:
In other words, if you ADMIT GUILT, while you may be sparing yourself the wrath of the Rabidly Insane Assholes' Association, there's nothing to stop individual record companies, or individual bands (i.e. Metallica) from suing you.
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
We are surrounded by intellectual product. All our technologies and products (ALL OF THEM) are merely constructs of pre-existing technologies.
Wheels, incandescent lights, circuits, building materials, plastics, adhesives, machines, our knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology. Everything we know, understand, and utilize as a culture is all based upon the intellectual developments of preceding generations.
To suggest otherwise is to start history at a convenient point.
The great composers adapted ancient folk songs into their work. Jazz musicians then played wonderful creative games with the works of great composers. And then the Rolling Stones came along and claimed ownership over those jazz standards. Anyone who believes in the right-of-ownership in pop melodies has a very small understanding of music composition.
Can you imagine how stifled creativity and progress would have been if the "wheel" was patented.
The lawyers and the big corporations are attempting to create ownership over our cultural heritage, and ultimately they are trying to maintain in unsustainable business model in the face of new technological developments. It is neither our national responsibility nor our legal right to maintain business models that have been surpassed by technological evolution.
And remember: 99.999999% of musicians in the world are doing it for free because they love music. (Myself included).
Peace.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
He does seem to have alot of time on his hands. I believe last i heard, he has spent over 53% of his time in office on vacation.
I understand that you're primarily talking about deterrence, but come now, Locke wrote about property before 'intellectual property' even entered our vocabulary. Physical property is not governed by the same criteria as intellectual property (see this discussion of Copyright Law for a detailed explanation). You are in fact pointing out, albiet unknowingly, the big problem with intellectual property law: namely, that it treats IP like physical property.
In all of the raving and ranting that most of us frustrated /.ers are doing against the heavy handed tactics of the RIAA, I see that it really doesn't add up to anything. Really. Tomorrow morning the RIAA will send out another thousand lawsuits against another thousand teenagers and granparents, and /. will again rant and rave against it... but what will happen?
Sure, a lot of people will be pissed, and a lot of people will boycott the labels, but how long will that last? After all the smoke clears from the lawsuits the public perception will have been changed from one of believing that it's OK to copy music from the Internet to one of believing that the ONLY way to enjoy music is to pay for it. There will be a lot of hard feelings, but give it six months - a year - and most of those boycotting will go back to buying CDs, or otherwise paying for music.
WHY? Because there is nothing to stop it from happening. The RIAA has millions of dollars to spend on this social engineering campaign, and there is nothing but a small bump in the road (EFF) to get in its way. I submit that the ONLY way to ultimately stop the RIAA from persecuting everyone is to change the law.
Laugh you may, but as another poster pointed out, approximately 57 million people use P2P services. It took 50 million people to elect the president. I'm sure it will take far fewer votes to elect a congressman or senator that won't sell out to the labels or movie industries. I even think that if your current congressman or senator were to receive, say, 5 to 10 thousand letters from their constituents it would not go ignored.
Our (US) government is supposed to be set up to make laws based on the voice of the people NOT the corporations! It is imperative of the people to make its voice known, or suffer the consequences! The people must speak, so please, please, just write a little letter to your congressman or senator. It doesn't have to be long, just a few words to express your position. Make sure you sign it, put it into an envelope, stamp it, and put it in your mailbox.
God bless America!
Back during the Oil Embargo to conserve fuel?
Not for reasons of public safety?
Yes, that was how the NMSL was sold to the American public in 1973. It was made permanent in 1975 by Congress on the basis of the drop in traffic fatalities that occurred at the same time. Of course, the Arab oil embargo might have had a minor role to play in reducing traffic-related deaths too, but hey, all that extra revenue was too much for the states to let go of when the embargo ended.
Twenty years later, it became (literally) painfully obvious that unreasonably-low highway speed limits were costing more lives than they saved, and the NMSL was repealed. If you look at a graph of fatalities per hundred-million vehicle miles travelled (which is the only meaningful statistic in the traffic safety business, not the death rate per capita used to justify the NMSL in the first place), you'll see a slow and almost monotonic decline beginning in the early Seventies and continuing to the present day. The correlation between posted highway speed limits and the death rate is much more often negative than positive. The reasons are probably twofold: (1) nobody pays that much attention to highway speed limits anyway; and (2) higher limits on the Interstates encourage the diversion of traffic from slower but far-more-dangerous secondary roads.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
In fact, I got my first ADSL in my own name when I was 17 (the age of majority here is 19).
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Ahem. You may need to re-read that speech. I quote (emphasis mine):
Gore supported the Supreme Court decision only in order to bring an end to the country's uncertainty, misery and embarrassment. He didn't agree with it though. How ironic that the electors should be deprived of a man noble enough to make such a sacrifice, only to be left with a President who was apparently willing to bring the country to its knees rather than relinquish his ill-gotten gains.
Cocaine IS illegal too. Of course, no one at the top has ever used it...
So is drinking under the legal age. Didn't stop Bushettes from being caught.
Murder is illegal too. Didn't stop Skekel from being caught.
Note that CNN.com (RIAA member Time Warner) ran the story about the 261 lawsuits in the top spot _all_ day long yesterday, despite a fairly busy news day with Dubyuh's speech and the Palestine situation.
Today, no mention of the targeted 12 year old girl on either CNN.com or ABCnews.com (RIAA member Disney).
CBSnews.com (now expanding their holdings to include Universal) is running the 12 year old girl story in the number two position today.
Freedom of the press!! Yay!!!
You do the crime, you do the time!
Good thing I did too. After months of old-fashioned jobseeking failed to turn up any leads, a contact on the 'net found me a job doing PHP for a local startup.
If you want people to make something of themselves and stop being a drain on the system, they have to have the resources to educate themselves, and to find employment.
A computer is a much better investment for a low-income family than cable TV or console game systems (which both seem much more acceptable by most people's standards).
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Well, there's at least one artist whose done filesharing. In the April 26, 2001 issue of Rolling Stone Joe Perry (guitarist for Aerosmith) says something along the lines of:s p?cf=18) but they only give you an excerpt, not the full story.
I really hope they don't shut Napster down. I've been using it to introduct my kids to rare old stuff that you can't find anywhere else.
I looked up the story online (http://www.rollingstone.com/features/cs867main.a
Here's the text of the petition; you can sign it if you like at mediareform.net.
There is a single parent. They live in Government Housing. This means that the mother is mostly likely out working a minimum-wage job to meet NYC living expenses. She keeps her kids off the streets, off of drugs, and out of gangs; but no, she needs to make sure they don't infringe on the copyrights as well. Would you mind covering her shift so she can watch her kids 24x7?
=========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I've been waiting for something like this to happen. Now the parents can go after no only the RIAA, but also their ISP. The internet privacy act protects children under 13 from just this sort of thing. When the RIAA sopneaed the girl's ISP, they were not allowed to give her information up.
Looks like we finally have a case that'll make this circus stop.
Learn something new.
God forbid you visit this link.
The following are sueing a 12 year old girl:
1500 Records 20G Entertainment 241 Records 2Ksounds 32 Records 333 Music 4AD Records 4th & Broadway 5 Minute Walk 5.1 Entertainment 510 Records 550 Music 57 Records A& E Latin Music A&M Records A440 Records Abkco Acony Records AD Records Aftermath/Shady Aleho Alice Alliance Alligator Records Almo Sounds Amaru Records Ambar Records American Empire American Recording Amiata Records Andy Prieboy Angel Angels Antilles Antone's Antra Records Apple Archive Ardent Aries Music Entertainment, Inc. Arista Latin Arista Nashville Arista Records Ark 21 Arsenal Artanis Arte Nova Artemis Artist Direct/Kneeling Elephant Astoria Entertainment Astralwerks Records Asylum Records Atco Atlantic Atlantic Classics Atlantic Nashville ATO Records Atrium Records AV8 Records Avatar Records Avenue Records AVI Aware AWOL Records Axiom B.E.C. Back Porch Records Bad Boy Entertainment Bad Dog Records Ballers Entertainment Baphomet Housecore Barak Entertainment Barb Wire Productions Barco Records Bass Productions Beat Club Beauty Records Beginner's Bible Beiler Bros Records Belart Bellmark Belly Soundtrack Benson Record Berman Brothers Best Side Beyond Music Bibleman Big Baller Big Beat Records Big Cat/Work Big Deal Big Dog Records Big Ear Music Big Head Todd Big Idea Productions Big Records Big Screen Music Big Tree Big Wadd Big World Bigtyme Records Billy Corgan Biv Ten Records Black Market Records Black Out Black Pumpkin Records Black Top Records Blackground (Barry & Sons, Inc.) Blackground Records Blackheart Blackstone Bliss Productions Blix Street Blood and Fire Bloodline Records Blue Gorilla Blue Jackel Entertainment Blue Note Blue Plate Blue Thumb Bluebird Blues Bureau BMG Classics BMG Entertainment BMG U.S. Latin BNA Records Bob Marley Music Bocelli-Sogno Bohemia Bon Jovi Box Tunes Branford Marsalis Breakaway B-Rite Broadway MCA Brody Records Broken Bow Records Broken Records Brutal Records Bullseye Bungalow Records Burnside C2 Cadena Records Cadence Christian Caliente Candle In The Wind Cannan Capitol Nashville Capitol Records Capricorn Cargo Records Cash Money Records Catalyst Caviant Cell Block Records Celtic Corner Celtic Heartbeat Chameleon Records Charisma Cheeba Sounds Cherry Entertainment Chignon Records Children Chord Chordant Christian Music Group Chronicles/PSM Chrysalis Music Group Chuck Life Cintas Acuario Circular Moves City of Hope Cky Classic Tracs Clatown Records Clean Slate Climate C-Loc Records Clockwork CMC International CMG Cold Chillin' Records Colli Park Music Columbia Records Command Conifer Contemporary Coolhunter Records Coolsville Productions Copacabana Records Costarola Cotillion Covenant Artists Crazy Cat Crescent Moon Crime Partners Critique Records Crowne Music Group Crystal Lewis Crystal Rose CTW/Sesame Street Curb Curb/Rising Tide Cyan Records Cypress D & D Records Da Border Music, Inc. Dagger Records Dali Records Damian Music Damian US Latin Dancing Cat Dare 2BU, Inc. DAS Day Spring Daywind Music Group DCC Death Row Debris Records Debut Decca Deep Purple Def Jam Def Soul Delicious Vinyl Delos Denon Desert Storm DGG DHM Digital Theater System, Inc. Disa Discipline Disques Vogue DJ Honda Recordings DKC DM Music DM Records, Inc. DMY DMZ Doggystyle Records Domo Records Dopehouse Records Down in the Delta JV Dr. Dream DreamWorks DreamWorks Nashville Drive Thru Records Duck Down Music DV8 Records E Pluribus Unum Eagle Rock Eaglevision Earthbeat Earthdance East Side Digital East West Records Easydisc ECM Eddie Soundtrack Edel America Records Edel Entertainment Edito Classica Edmonds Record Group Elektra Asylum Elektra Entertainment Group Elektra Musician group Elementree Records Ellipsis Arts Elton John Elvis Tribute Project EMD Music Emergent Music Marketing EMI Classics EMI Gospel Music EMI Latin EMI Records Eminent Empire Records Enjoy Records Epic Epic Nashville Epidrome Equinox Music ERATO ESC Records
"Oh, except for her name," Weiss then went on to say. "And her address. And phone number. And her Kazaa details, and who her ISP is, and a bunch of the stuff she downloaded. Nothing except for that."
Did you read those other articles? They are much less sensationalistic. They talk about the various people getting sued but don't outright attack the RIAA. Only Fox chose to go exclusively with the 12 yr old and turned it into an attack.
"Many everyday Joes and Janes do not have any concept what current copyright law really is"
How long have warez sites existed? Have they EVER been legal?
NO. It doesn't matter if you download it off a site, buy it off the street, or get on P2P. Warez are ILLEGAL. What's the difference between an illegal copy of software and an illegal copy of a song? None.
"they continue to pi$$ off their current, former, and potential customers."
I'm not seeing it. All I see is Slashdot bitching constantly that things that have always been illegal with those perpetrating the crime being punished, are still *shock* illegal.
Warez site owners are constantly getting shut down, fined and or jailed. Just because you put your warez on P2P and happen to "specialize" in songs doesn't make it any less illegal. Just as it always has been.
The only leg the mom has to stand on is the $30 fee. But that doesn't allievate her from the crime of being a supplier in the digital black market. That simply potentially makes Kazaa also liable. How liable they are depends entirely on how they sell their subscription.
Kazaa isn't responsable for the illiteracy of those who pay for their service.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Although it *does* beg the question: if a 12 year can't assume debt, then how exactly did they get her name in the first place?
I've not seen anyone confirm or deny the following scenario, but I was thinking about this question this morning.
I suspect the mom, who was likely the owner of the ISP account (billed to the mom's credit card) is the one who actually had her name on the suit since the RIAA got her name through subpoena'ing the ISP. But in a brilliant PR move, the mom is telling the press that the RIAA is suing her daughter (since the mom had nothing to do personally with the copying.)
This is the only scenario that makes logical sense to me, but I'd note that it is 100% speculation.
--LP
How do you know the machine wasn't a gift from a wealthy relative or a hand-me-down from a friend? Also, many apartment complexes offer built-in internet access these days. How do you know they don't live in one? Section 8 housing is in all sorts of unexpected places these days, now that the government got smart and stopped putting 1000 low-income people in one building, but rather one or two in 500 buildings. My complex offers free internet access, and also have section 8 units. Crab crab all you want, but a computer as a tool is no more an extravegance than a screwdriver or power-drill. After all, shouldn't the mom be able to create a resume to get a job with?
To put it another way, your assumption that all the people using computers are wealthy is quite erroneous.
Who did what now?
*cough*
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
There are two issues here. The Supreme Court decision was only about the various Florida recounts, and that was what Gore said he disagrees with but accepts.
Then there's the Electoral College, which ensured that the few hundred disputed votes in Florida were so important, even though everyone accepts that Gore had about a half million more votes than Bush nationwide. This is obviously unfair, but Gore isn't the best person to criticize it. Before the election, some of his supporters were speculating happily about the opposite outcome (Bush winning the popular vote and Gore the presidency). Unfortunately, there's little chance of it being changed, as the constitution was designed specificially to be unfair in this regard. (It's not a bug, it's a feature!) The very people who benefit most from the College are those who would have to remove it.
- Microsoft: The evil empire that controls all PC software. They've survived Linux, OS2, and anti-trust litigation from the US government itself. Hell, Linux is FREE and still can't compete with Microsoft's $99, security-hole-riddled garbage.
- Intel: The evil empire that controls all PC hardware. They've survived Cyrix, AMD, VIA, Transmeta, and every other CPU maker. Why? Because if you have "Intel Inside" your web browsing will be much faster. Don't buy anything unless it has "Intel Inside."
- DeBeers: Diamonds? For crying out loud! They're not rare, they're not "precious" in any way. They literally have warehouses full of diamonds! They sell clear chunks of carbon and every schmuck in America buys one for his fiance. Why? Because, if you love some one, then they deserve a diamond. A diamond is forever.
- Cigarettes: THEY KILL YOU! I think the cat is out of the bag... yet, somehow, cigarette sales continue to increase.
It's simple. He who has the most money has the best marketing. And he who has the best marketing wins, because people are stupid. And it doesn't hurt to buy a few politicians, either. Money is power, period. You can polish a turd.So, go ahead and boycott the RIAA and listen to indy music on your AMD system that runs Linux. You are the exception, not the rule. You will not bring any industry to its knees. Sorry.
By most standards, I am doing ok. I don't live in a box. I work for a fairly large software company. I have all my limbs, healthcare, and food for me, my son, my fiancee and my pets.
We live in a midsize yuppie town. My son attends, for all intents, a poorish school. About half the students do not speak english as their first language.
Most of their parents live in considerably worse conditions, have to work long hours for little pay at unskilled jobs. In other words, they're pretty poor.
I work at the school on request to help with their computer problems. Through a small network of connections, I am beginning to work to get computers and net access into these homes, as hardware becomes available to me.
Someone mentioned PeoplePC. There was a time when PeoplePC had a companion program - PeopleGive - where computers and access were given to low income families.
So the answer to your somewhat abrasive question is, no. "We" aren't giving away computers and net access. But apparently, some of "Us" are. You can call me whatever you like, be it communist, socalist, ignorant, naive or just plain stupid. But for some reason, I have to think that opening up the net to kids who might not otherwise be able to get to it is somehow better than using old computer hardware to fill otherwise empty and usable space in my garage.
Anyone who sees why this might be a good idea and who might want to contribute, mail me. If you don't see the merit, then move on. I'd rather see some kid using hardware I hadn't powered up in months to access the net than watch it gather dust.
best web host ever
I've seen a number of people use a comparison like this one from further down the line:
[S]houldn't a shoplifter who is 12 years old be treated the same as another 12 year old who essentially is doing the same thing, only online? we tend to forget that music piracy IS a crime. if you were a musician would you like your music to be STOLEN by anybody 12 or 112 years old?
The comparison is not precise. A better comparison would be between file trading, and taking a picture of a piece of copyrighted art. Taking the picture is still a technical violation of copyright, but most people would not think of it as one.
Why is this a better comparison? Because nothing physical has been taken (unlike in shoplifting), and the copy is not a perfect reproduction.
So, I walk up to a painting for sale, and take a picture of it with a digital camera. If I offer this picture on my web site, I am subject to the same laws as a file trader is...
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
With women a distant last on that list...
They're far too difficult to configure...
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Well, RIAA, congrats. You've just succeeded in educating the masses as to what is at stake. You are ruining peoples life over songs I can hear for free over the radio.
Idiots.
-- $G
It's comments like this that destroy my faith in the human race:
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal," said Torres. "This is a 12-year-old girl, for crying out loud."
What in the world does being 12 years old and female have to do with the legality of an action? These statements are equivelant:
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal, we have curly hair!"
"It's not like we were doing anything illegal, I have a pet lizard!"
Ignorance of the law is not a defence. Yeah, the RIAA is scum. Yeah, copyright law blows. But, jeez people, what the hell is happening to taking responsibility for your actions.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
The real problem I have with 'Intellectual Property' as it stands today is the stifling of our economic system. As more and more ideas become owned and licensed, the barrier to entry rises in more and more industries. This has a negative effect on consumers (because prices will rise due to lack of competition) and creators (because it becomes more expensive to create, due to either license fees for ideas, or a requirement to do every stage of creation alone, without the help of the existing body of ideas/support/etc). The only beneficiaries are the owners of the ideas, which often are not even the people who created them. The narrowing of the pool of innovators acts to stifle innovation.
Sure, many of the "innovators" being prevented from entry are just cheap knock-offs (like the myriad of Harry Potter clones that are being sued now). But sometimes one of them rivals the popularity of the originals (Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, arguably, is entirely derivative of a combination of Lord of the Rings and Dune).
What does this have to do with music swapping? The RIAA and affiliates have made it much harder to get started in the music business. Radio stations are no longer independant. Music distribution is, in general, closed to non-RIAA members. The alternative to the RIAA isn't much of an alternative at all, having neither the quality, the quantity, nor the community that their affiliates possess.
This is, thankfully, improving thanks to the internet and places like mp3.com. It still has a ways to go, though. But there is another problem.
Unlike a TV set, music is not a commodity, but a creative work (well, except for the latest boy-band... they're commodities.) If I don't want to buy from the RIAA, I have no option to get songs I like. With court actions like the one I mentioned above, independant recordings of the same song become impossible.
Which leaves the "alternative" of lesser-known, non-RIAA-affiliated bands in the same category as buying a microwave oven instead of a TV. It might be a great microwave oven. But it's not a TV.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Keep in mind that what we consider "poor" has changed over the years. In 1950, half of the households in the US did not have indoor plumbing. Today, even many of the poorest in the US have refrigerators, indoor plumbing, at least one television, a microwave oven, and increasingly, a computer (though often used).
Looking at Ebay, I see a Compaq Deskpro Pentium II/P2 350MHz 6.4GB which is fine for Net surfing and playing simple games. The price: $35.
Compared with rent of $500-$1000 per month in US urban areas, computers are no longer a "luxury," even for people living near the poverty line.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
The old truism is that if you look a generation or two back at any big family fortune, you'll find some laws broken...
Vast wealth virtually requires playing fast and loose with the rules of society Case in point--I give you Mr. Gates and his anti-trust difficulties. Or, if you prefer, you could consider the Kennedys and Joe's bootlegging activities.
The mere fact that you get to keep the money (again, consider Mr. Gates or Mr. Kennedy...) doesn't mean that your means of getting it were entirely honorable.
Happy Birthday Copyrighted
While a lot of people have been focusing on the RIAA's most recent doings, I am still writing an alternative to the Happy Birthday song, so I can legally and freely sing a ditty to wish someone Happy Birthday. The story of Happy Birthday shows the extreme end of how ridiculous and corrupt copyrighting music can be. I first became aware of the Happy Birthday copyrights, when a friend pointed out to me that restaurants no longer sang Happy Birthday. Looking into the history of Happy Birthday got me thinking about how we view recorded music. For this little girl Kazaa functioned as radio, something that everyone in the US has taken for granted. This, I believe, is fundamental to understanding why people download music.
Simply put, downloading music is illegal. However, instead of focusing on how they can sue everyone on earth, the RIAA should be looking into why people download instead of buy music.
People around the world have been exposed to free music since the turn of the century. The largest provider of free music has been the radio. Granted the radio pays for the music lists that it aires, which is paid for through advertising revenue. However, the end user does not pay to listen this music, except through listening to ads. People feel the desire to buy copies of this music, so that they can listen to it free of ads and at a higher quality level.
The advent of tape, introduced people to the idea of protecting their investment in music or creating custom mixes through the making of copies. Here is where the whole recording situation became sticky. No longer could the recording industries easily control people's access to high quality music. This problem did not turn out to be a significant issue, especially with the advent of CDs which offered people even higher quality listening.
Nowadays CDs are considered to be overpriced and digital radio stations offer CD quality music. MP3s offer better than FM quality music in a small compact format. Additionally there is more music available now than at any previous point in history. Music trends, largely dictated by radio and MTV, rise and fall faster than people can appreciate them.
This leads me to believe that we should focus on convincing people that their ROI is justified when they buy music. For instance, if you buy a CD, you gain access to a site that will allow you to download a variety of MP3, WMA, etc versions of the music on the CD in varying compressions and sizes, so that you can take your music with you anywhere you go. Make people feel that they are getting something better, by offering HD-CDs. Offer more singles and custom made CDs (pay based upon the song not the album). Offer more low quality MP3 versions of music (FM quality) for free, so people who want to buy an album know if they want to buy all of the tracks. If consumers were offered those options, maybe they wouldn't question the $10-$20 price tag on a CD.
People enjoy music, however if they cannot afford it or do not see the value in buying a CD, they will find a way to access that music. The RIAA cannot sue everyone who uses CDs, but they can change it so that people do not feel that free is better.
A lot of these posts raise the question of ethics. I doubt that there is any single person that would be able to define ethics. This is one of those studies in Philosophy, along with Aesthetics, Metaphysics, etc, that raise the classic questions that cannot be answered. Even though many have tried to prove their arguments, questions such as "Is there a god?", "What is thought?" etc.. are still hotly debated. If you think about it though, generally the ethics of a society is decided by the society. In a democracy, this means that the majority decides the rules.
For me, I think that we shouldn't be basing our argument on "ethics" of pirating or copyright enfringement. I definitely think that the majority rules. Apparently there are a couple billion users of Kazaa every day. This seems to be a majority of people out there, who believe either that what they are doing is right, or they know it's "wrong" and still do it. In either case, it's the _majority_ that is deciding to download these songs and thus I think that these copyright laws are not democratic.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
They rapidly announced today that they've agreed to a $2000 settlement, and went so far as to make a nice little public apology and promise to never do it again.
AP Excite News Story
It's just a shame that the family couldn't get help from a high powered lawyer who wanted to make a name for himself in this case. The publicity alone would have been phenomenal. Oh well. The RIAA has won yet another round on their campaign to step all over people.
Londovir
Londovir
My question is "is there a middle ground?"
Rather, what is the solution that could satisfy both the content creators and the content consumers?
I often hear the argument that you can legally record music off the radio, so therefore downloading MP3's should be legal too. Additionally, it is argued that exposure to music is beneficial to the artist themselves, however, if you download a high quality track, what is the motivator to ever purchase that music legally?
My proposal is to make low-bitrate audio files legally tradeable. I know that I would rather have a 128+ quality file for my library, and if the limit were 96kbs, I could listen and freely trade that lower quality file.
It is a win/win situation. I am able to share/distribute/expose music I like in a format similar in quality to radio recordings, and have an upgrade path for the music that I actually enjoy and want to own.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON