Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Sued For Amnesty Offer
wo1verin3 writes "CNET News is reporting that the RIAA is being sued because of 'Clean Slate' filesharing amnesty program that was announced on Monday. 'Clean Slate' allows people to (supposedly) avoid legal action by stepping forward and forfeiting any illegally traded songs. The suit, filed in the Marin Superior Court of California, charges that the RIAA's program is deceptive and fraudulent business practice." The suit claims that the amnesty is "designed to induce members of the general public... to incriminate themselves... while (receiving)... no legally binding release of claims", a statement the EFF also agrees with.
It's easy to be cynical and think that the RIAA's offer was just a trap, but what if it were genuine ?
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Isn't it possible for the RIAA to put all the money they spend on lawsuits in some projects which make music legally available on the 'net? They'll loose the war against (millions of?) p2p swappers in the end
Alan Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing"
Dear WCCO,
In your 'RIAA lawsuits' piece this evening, I thought it rather irresponsible of you to suggest that all songs downloaded via P2P were illegal and copyrighted by the RIAA.
Since WCCO is no doubt familiar with Minneapolis and its plethora of musicians, you might have taken a moment to interview a musician who uses P2P to distribute their own works, of which there are many. A trip to mp3.com, for instance, turns up hundreds of thousands of bands and artists that give their music away, with *no* connection to the RIAA.
I thought the suggestion at the end of your piece to 'apply for amnesty from the RIAA' was especially misleading, as this would probably open one up to multiple lawsuits from other sources; giving your personal information to an organization that has already proven itself 'lawsuit happy' and has attacked its own customers as liars and theives is not a good idea.
I am rather disappointed in your treatment of this issue, and I believe that one-sided reporting like this only adds to the misinformation that the RIAA 'owns' all music, that P2P applications are only used for piracy or (child) pornography (this is the next view that the RIAA is pushing), or that P2P is at the root of reduced CD sales.
I suggest either doing some research on this topic in the future and presenting a balanced view, or please mark your broadcast 'Sponsored by the RIAA' in the corner of the screen. You could probably get the MTV logo guys to do that, as MTV is owned by Viacom, your parent company.
Thanks for your time,
Now that they have a documented case of someone who was part of the 261 doers of evil against the RIAA paying only 2000 dollars for their crimes, does this hurt their 150k per song price?
:D
Couldn't you just argue that 2k is the going rate?
IANAL, so I don't know, but it sounds funs
If I were beins sued by the RIAA, I would hire an attorney and have him call the president, vice president, CEO, and a number of other RIAA execs into his office for depositions in bumfuck idaho or wherever i lived, plead not guilty and have a jury trial, and then countersue for intentional infliction of emotional distress since these are obviously meant to scare people, but thats just me......
"The suit ... charges that the RIAA's program is deceptive and fraudulent business practice."
Which brings us one step closer to my idea. If there are any real lawyers here, could you please tell me why no one has bothered to attack the RIAA's charges using the Federal RICO Act? The RIAA and member organizations have engaged in a pattern of corrupt business practices for over 50 years, and are now using the law to intimidate individuals, companies, and universities to further their interests.
From my (admittedly limited) understanding of RICO, you must prove that the organization has engaged in a pattern of criminal activity, and is using illegal means, especially under cover of authority (court actions, copyright law, etc) to further their interests. Now, the ongoing illegal activity is really two-fold. That being, the RIAA's member companies have illegally maintained an effective distribution monopoly by engaging in anti-competitive acts, and have conspired to defraud consumers with a massive price-fixing scheme which caused consumers to be overcharged by more than $480 million (USD) since 1997 alone, according to the former head of the FTC. This scheme was labled "Minimum-Advertised Pricing", or MAP by the Attorneys General who investigated and eventually brought about a settlement. With regard to the anti-competitive acts, the RIAA and member companies have engaged in such practices as "payola", in which radio stations were paid money in order to ensure that music not controlled by the RIAA's members was never played, and therefore never heard by the public at large. Thus, their only competition, the independent artist/label, continues to struggle to get by, while the RIAA monopoly takes in billions each year.
So I ask again, why is it that no one has attacked the RIAA on RICO grounds. A corrupt organization cannot use the legal system to facilitate its illegal activities. The lack of legal online modes of music distribution is but more evidence of the RIAA's desperate struggle to maintain its distribution monopoly with an iron fist. It would seem to me that showing these lawsuits to be nothing more than tactics designed to further the interests of a corrupt organization is a far better defense than, "my client didn't know it was illegal".
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Omission of information may or may not be a "crime" (which is not the issue here, but may be an issue for another day). However, ommission of information (i.e., the willful suppression or failure to disclose a relevant fact) can give rise to civil action for fraud or willful misrepresentation.
California Civil Code sec. 1709 provides:
See Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1709.
Most importantly, section 1710 of the California Civil Code provides:
See Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1710. (emphasis added)
Finally, section 1711 of the California Civil Code provides:
See Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1711
Without reading the compalint (which to my knowledge is not yet available), my guess is the plaintiff alleges that the RIAA amnesty program amounts to a deceptive and fraudulent business practice because it suppresses or fails to disclose certain relevant facts (e.g., that the person seeking amnesty can still be sued by others and is still subject to criminal prosecution) while giving "information of other facts which are likely to mislead for want of communication of that fact." See Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1710(3). The complaint may cite more specific unfair business practices statutes, which are found in the Business and Professions Code, but the basic principal is the same.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Um, no. Ignorance of the law is not a defense. Distributing copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright owner, whether you know you are doing it or not, is certainly copyright infringement (civil) and if certain thresholds are met it is also criminal. Ignorance may play a part in penalty or settlement.
The issue with P2P is not whether or not it is legal to download or redistribute the (copyrighted) files. That's simple, it isn't. There's a variety of issues, including the fact that the laws are unjust and counter-productive, the despicable RIAA tactics, the business model of RIAA and member companies, monopolies, and how the RIAA and music industry treat artists and consumers, to name but a few.
But there is a useful point hidden in your message. I've always wondered whether downloading a song is in fact illegal. Certainly making it available (distributing) is illegal, and that's about the only way the RIAA can catch you, by finding copyrighted songs available on your computer. I know the copyright laws talk about distribution, but I'm not clear on what they say about accepting illegally distributed copyrighted materials (consuming). Can they even really catch you downloading?
As far as I know, with P2P you can't see who is downloading unless they are downloading from you. So the only way the RIAA can see you downloading is if you download from one of their computers, which would either be legal (if they have the copyright to distribute the songs) or they'd be breaking the law themselves (distributing the songs without proper copyright authorization).
Not completely true in Europe. We have two "different" rights: moral rights (author's right, derechos de autor, droit d'auteur) and economis rights (exploitation rights).
Moral rights belongs to the author, they are inalienable, they cannot be sold or waived. BTW, they are recognised by the Berne Convention.
Have moral rights any impact on this RIAA issue. Have no idea.
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
So the only way the RIAA can see you downloading is if you download from one of their computers,...
This conclusion doesn't follow. For example, if they identified a server, they could plop a court order on the ISP to set up observation, and collect all the "downloaders" that way.
C//
The fact is, this "amnesty" program could be a lot of things.
1) It could be a trap. I can't underestimate the incredibly bad PR that follow, should the RIAA promise amnesty to someone, and then a member company turns around and sues them, or the government prosecutes them.
2) It could be a genuine offer, only poorly thought out. This is what I wondered about in my parent post, for which I certainly didn't expect to get a "flamebait" mod.
3) It could be a purposely half-assed effort to garner good PR, with no obligations. This seems to be the most likely. They offer amnesty, but careful inspection reveals that it could be a scam. The RIAA doesn't intend to sue people who sign up, because it rightfully expects that nobody will sign up. They get good PR, and a political feather in their cap later - "Well we offered people amnesty but nobody took it".
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Of course the artists pay attention! For every Madonna who insults a fan interested in downloading her latest track, there's a David Bowie who would probably give all his music away for free; if he had some reasonable guarantee that everyone who grabbed his music would show up at the local Sponsor Amphitheater for his next tour, buy a $40 ticket and see him play live.
As this "RIAA vs. Its Customers" drama plays out, expect to see more artists fall on either side of the "Do I really care about the music?" fence. It has been somewhat heart-wrenching for some fans (including myself) of Madonna, Metallica, and others, to see thier musical heroes betray them in such a way.
"Have moral rights any impact on this RIAA issue. Have no idea."
Nope. The american copyright tradition is actually opposed to the idea of moral rights. There were a couple supreme court decisions making this clear. We recognize copyright as being different than the so-called natural rights. As for the berne convention, we rejected that as well. The DCMA was a reaction to the reaction to that attempt. The convention had been rejected but for political and economic reasons (basically to buddy up to europe) Clinton wanted a close duplicate to it and hence the DCMA came about. Read Lessig's books and Saidvyathan (sic? - no idea, read the books last semester) for a better description of it. Copyrights and copywrongs is probably the one you'll want to pick up.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Hmm, I have a friend who is a small time musician on an independent label. This artist supports RIAA, and believes it's a good the what the RIAA is doing. He says that big brother is coming, there is nothing the public can do to stop it, and when he's here it will be a good thing.
I'm suprised a little by his stance, but he believes that rampant piracy of music is hurting his sales and income a long with quite a few other small time artists on independent labels. He argues that any association with downloading music increasing CD sales due to the ability to sample is just one of several arguments to justify to oneself that this copyright infringement is okay and that there is no hard data to suggest this is actually the case.
They gotta be pulling these kinds of stunts out of desperation.
Somebody in the earlier story (Tuesday I believe) about the RIAA settling for $2000 with the mother of the 12 year-old mentioned that perhaps the RIAA is suing these people not because they're major downloaders or share metric ass-loads of files, but because they are the only people they can track down. This lends some credibility to the "desperation" angle... perhaps they want people to step forward so they can go "AH HA! See, you were next on the chopping block... you should feel lucky" and add to their FUD. Or maybe they'll just keep a lookout (since they now know who you are and can get your ISP and your ip address and all that) and if you ever (ever ever ever... ever) download or share another song again, then they'll sue you.
Or maybe I'm just paranoid...
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Robert Fripp said it the best "Music and the music industry have nothing to do with each other." This persuasion, featured in RIAA propaganda, and held by some people(guy who ran "family" record store?), that somehow by downloading songs you won't have any music to enjoy is just stupefying. Even if all the major labels went out of business the consumer would not be negatively affected. The internet with all its file-sharing realms would still be there, and no-doubt better then ever. And new music would still fill these realms. Artists make art because that's what they do. It has nothing to do with profit to them. They would be making art no matter what. If anything, it just opens up the average consumer to more artistically inclined music; they're better off.
The US only recognizes moral rights in architecture. Music, poetry, prose, and all other creative works are not covered by moral rights.
If Majel Roddenberry produced documented evidence that Gene had signed over all moral rights to Star Trek to her, and she tried to sue Brannon and Braga for violating the moral rights of Gene Roddenberry for the utter perversion of Trek that they've created, a US court would not find in her favor.
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Like what if you never downloaded anythnig, and sent in the stuff anyway? I can't seem to find the document that you have to sign, but it'd be interesting to see what would happen in this case.
I'd love to hear what Frank Zappa would be saying now. I'm sure it isn't to different to what he has always been saying. Too bad he's gone the the big "Joe's Garage in the Sky." He'd be lighting a nice little fire under some RIAA peoples. If nothing else, he'd be throwing out some great musical commentary. **sigh** I miss him.
To answer your question of who might be willing... I don't know if anyone is willing today. For someone to have the "oomph" required, they would have to be a child of the RIAA and people in the entertainment industry tend not to bite hands that feed of have fed them.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
Pretty much all the mainsteam press I've read (CNN was the latest) seems to be reporting that, yes, the lawsuits are going to rub consumers the wrong way. But they also said that the image of the recording industry is so low they almost can't do themselves any more damage even by alienating people with lawsuits.
You think that such a nasty public image might have just a little to do with their slump in sales??
2) It could be a genuine offer, only poorly thought out. This is what I wondered about in my parent post, for which I certainly didn't expect to get a "flamebait" mod.
I think they have the legal budget to produce a good contract. Of the three options I think this is the least likely.
3) It could be a purposely half-assed effort to garner good PR, with no obligations. This seems to be the most likely.
I agree. They are trying to get some good PR recognizing the fact that their lawsuits are definitely bad PR.
They get good PR, and a political feather in their cap later
Thing is, I don't think they received good PR from it. I don't think anyone trusts them, so it smells of either a trap or just a PR scheme--and people don't tend to appreciate either.
I think people are seeing the RIAA for what they are. The best thing the RIAA could do is nothing. Virtually any action that they take will only worsen their image in the eyes of the public and very possibly lead to even fewer CD sales.
"Biting the hand that feeds" you comes to mind. Yes, people may be sharing files but they're also buying CDs from time to time. With these lawsuits people will probably continue to share files in one way or another but they'll be less tempted to fund the RIAA through CD purchases.
Actually, there are many companies that let you do something as crazy as Valenti's lawnmower story. You can generally return products to companies like Target, Land's End, or Nordstrom without argument. In the case of Nordstrom I once returned a sportcoat my son wore only once because he outgrew it within three months. I once had a Land's End phone rep encourage me to exchange a briefcase after a year because it was fraying in some areas and "it should have worn better than that."
If you think about it, the cost of good customer service to the recording industry would be almost nothing. Why don't they make an ironclad guarantee that anyone who presented at least 51% of a damaged CD or DVD--no matter how old--would be given a new copy? Wouldn't that help to reduce the need for backup copies?
"Actually, there are many companies that let you do something as crazy as Valenti's lawnmower story. "
When I bought my Nintendo 64, I paid $30 for a warranty like that. They said I could drive over it and still get a replacement heh. In retrospect, the warranty was a waste of money. The motivating factor in getting it was the analog controls, had no idea how long those would last.
The reason I picked on Valenti on this one was because his choice of rebuttals. The main problem with it is that when somebody burns a copy of a CD or downloads Mp3s, the RIAA suffers absolutely no direct expense from it. You're not using their media, you're not using their internet bits, you're not even using their electricity. So, in Mr. Valenti's case, he's saying I'm not allowed to buy a lawn mower and then, using this one as reference, build a duplicate one with my own resources. If it were being asked of the RIAA to make backups available for the consumer, well that'd be a different story.
Which leads to this point:
"Why don't they make an ironclad guarantee that anyone who presented at least 51% of a damaged CD or DVD--no matter how old--would be given a new copy? "
They should be doing that. They absolutely should be doing that. But since they don't do that, it makes one wonder how they're supposed to know they're buying a license to listen to music, not a pretty CD with music on it. Grr.
It seems that the Record Industry has forgotten that sales are dependent on both product and service. Customers'll come buy your stuff, but you still need to treat them good. Soft drink companies come to mind. They produce a consumable. You can get them anywhere, often times without any sort of human interaction what soever. Yet, they still make you glad to be a customer. Sometimes they give away prizes. Sometimes they entertain you with amusing commercials. (well, Coke moreso than Pepsi) Sometimes they even respond to supply and demand. Buy 12 cans of Coke, pay less per oz. than you'd pay for one can of Coke. I don't think softdrink companies could get away with demanding that customers only buy 24 packs at a time. No single can for you.
...and at least somewhat offtopic.
OK. So I download an album from the internet that I Do Not Own. It is horrible and illegal and for this I will burn in hell, etc. etc. etc. Now, the argument behind this, supposedly, is that I have not paid for and asserted ownership over the material, and (presumably) the RIAA/Artist/ASCAP hasn't received any money. And they're not happy. And thus I am infringing and rightly in the Wrong.
Say I acquire the CD. I buy it used, even (heaven forbid) at a garage sale. I pay $1.99 for it.
I realize that now I am "allowed" to have these MP3s, and to do with them whatever I please...perhaps I will rub them all over myself gleefully. But *why* exactly? I understand the first sale doctrine and how it works, but I still haven't enriched anybody. My owning the CD certainly hasn't contributed to the flow of royalties. Presumably the original owner no longer has a copy, so this is all kosher, but it's still an odd way to thing about conferring "rights to have." No royalties have entered the chain, but suddenly I'm immune and (more importantly) an Honest, Moral Being.
As at least 70% of my CD collection is secondhand at this point, it's fascinating to think that while I certainly don't contribute to anybody's revenue flow by downloading albums, I *still* don't tend to profit the artist/record co/etc. if I do indeed deem something worthy of my all-purchasing eye.
Again, just a thought/musing/whathaveya.
I submitted this as a story, but who knows if it'll get accepted? So I'm posting it here.
;)
I'm just as sick of this RIAA nonsense as the rest of you. Here's what I'm doing about it. I had this idea for a t-shirt, and I decided it would be coolest to just put it up on Cafepress and donate the profits to the EFF. So that's what I did.
The shirt is based on the real pirate Bartholomew Roberts' -- aka Black Bart -- flag (one of them), which originally had the letters ABH (a Barbadian's head) and AMH (a Martinican's head) on it. He didn't like those places much, since he was wanted for piracy there, much more aggressively than anywhere else.
I should make it clear that I'm not affiliated with the EFF in any way. I'll just be donating ALL the profits ($5 per item, except for the stickers and mousepad, which generate $2.50 profit) to the EFF as I get checks from Cafepress (in $50 increments, is what they say). No, there's no accountability -- you'll simply have to trust me. I'm just a geek trying to do something good.
In the case of someone getting sued that I feel really got screwed (like Brianna LaHara), I'll be donating the money directly to their paypal recovery fund (assuming they have one) instead of the EFF. As soon as my Cafepress account shows some sales, I'll post the progress on my website, with full disclosure (# of sales, total profits, where they went).
Feel free to post your opinion if you think I'm being too naive -- I'll get screwed by taxes for not filling out some form or something -- but I trust you'll do that anyway
c-hack.com |
iRATE is an interesting idea, but it needs a lot of work. It has a poor UI. You can't even jump to the middle of a song.
And most of the music sucks. I've found a few songs I've rated 10/10, but I rate most songs 0/10 or 2/10. And their playlist shuffle algorithm sucks. If you rate a song better than average, it will be repeated VERY often. It's played some songs that I rated 10/10 three times IN A ROW.
I would be curious to learn more about their server-side "matchmaker" algorithms. I looked at their Java code in Sourceforge and it is poorly organized. They don't use a SQL database backend. The entire catalog (tens of thousands of songs) are stored in XML and require O(n^2) algorithms for comparing each song.
cpeterso
The content I found on the web has not been marked as copyrighted. Therefore i am not the person who broke the law. Whoever ORIGINALLY published the copyrighted materials is the one who broke the law.
It doesn't matter.
Distributing copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright owner, whether you know you are doing it or not, is certainly copyright infringement (civil)
It doesn't matter that there was no sign telling you that it was copyrighted, it still is. It doesn't matter that you don't know, you are still infringing on th copyright. Both you and whoever originally copied the work, are infringing on the copyright.
There is no such thing as "leaked" copyrighted materials. There is just plain copyright with no mitigating factors.
Don't believe you have the right to distribute any copyrighted material (i.e., any material that is not trivial) without the consent of the copyright holder, preferably in writing. (Usual disclaimers for fair use)
How is one to know whether something is under copyright or not? I couldn't care less about the current offerings of the music industry, but I might be interested in an old recording of Robert Johnson blues or an old but outstanding recording of a Verdi opera. All the composers and performers are certainly dead. I think--but don't really know--that performances themselves are subject to copyright. Is that true? There must be *something* out there that the RIAA has no claim on, but how is one to know?
...that the DVDs have content beyond the movie. Companies actually make an effort with the DVD to sell you something you feel like owning. In many cases the 'bonus' material is a significant quantity of work. Lord of the Rings is a good example. The fact that people appreciate this stuff is reflected in the sales.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
At what price does the RIAA put on their IP? Expecially IP that is inferior to the original. If they are claiming the violation is worth full market value, this is ludicrious. This would be akeen to buying a car with parts missing. Just like an MP3 has parts missing.
Sure, one can find music compressed in the lossless .shn format, but not generally "illegal" music.
My point here is the RIAA should not even bother. Sure, many people don't care about prestine CD quality, but a lot of people do (and the better the car stereo, the worse MP3s sound).
This tends to help the augument that P2P services are actually doing the RIAA a free and helpful promotional service.
California Civil Code sec. 1709 provides:
1709. One who willfully deceives another with intent to induce him to alter his position to his injury or risk, is liable for any damage which he thereby suffers.
so this makes Microsoft Products Illegal in California?
Hell it should apply to every EULA I have ever read.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You don't sue every person who records a TV show and keeps it, because the precedents you would set (violation of privacy, corporate search and seizure, etc) are greater cost to our society than letting individuals have the "right" to make copies for their own use.
This is the way the court has read things several times, and the way any thinking individual would be likely to read it as well.
Where p2p is "different" is in the peer part. Every download you make from kazaa goes into a folder that defaults to "shared" which means every song you download is made available for someone else to upload. Every reproduction of the file adds to the available bandwidth for "sharing", which technically makes you party to an act of unauthorized distribution.
The thing is, if you're a dialup user that bandwidth is probably never used, because most clients favor the lowest ping times and that ain't gonna be a dialup user who is in the act of downloading. The 12 y/o girl who was sued allegedly had "over 1000 songs" in her "shared" folder. But so what? Is it more of a "crime" if I let you choose which of my 1000 CDs you can take home to copy? Odds are great such nonsense wouldn't stand if tested, because the RIAA is suing people for actions they cannot prove ever happened rather than suing them for participating in a conspiracy to pirate works - which is technically what you are doing when you "share" on kazaa.
The problem is no one has challenged this nonsense in court. There is no "de minimis sharing" precedent (and, thanks to the DMCA, there isn't likely to be one). This is another reason I'm hopeful about the record industry suing its own customers; once they've bullied enough of them, it's a sure bet some lawyers are going to decide a(nother) class action is worth their while.
There is a web site hosted in russia that allows legal downloads for a fee. The have all kinds of artists, including most of the US ones. If I pay for my membership and download the files off there, can RIAA still put their foot up my ass?!!
http://club.mp3search.ru