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RIAA Threatens 15-Year-Old
MunchMunch writes "It looks like the RIAA is still going after teenagers--this time, 15-year old Megan Dickinson was caught sharing 1,100 files. At the maximum statutory damages for copyright infringement, this makes Megan's liability at least $825,000, at most a mere $165,000,000. Naturally, the RIAA benevolently offered a $3,500 settlement to avoid these moderate, legally sanctioned damages. As we can hardly forget, the RIAA has already used this technique to settle with a 12 year old. Megan's unsurprising take: 'Yeah, it seems ridiculous.'"
Between this type of scare tactic and the saturation of the P2P networks with garbage files, I think they days of the current generation apps and networks could be numbered. The average file-sharing home user scares fairly easily. I'm not saying these networks will dissapear, but they will cease to be the giant beasts that they are today. I think IRC and new networks like Waste will continue to reign/rise up in the place of the Napster paradigm.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
What's stopping them from asking for $5000, or $10,000, or $50,000?
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
Every time I read stories like this, I feel an extreme sense of paranoia that the RIAA is going to come busting down my door and demand money for my songs. Then I realize...I turned off file sharing, which makes the penalties MUCH, MUCH less. The penalties for DISTRIBUTING music run about 750$ per file. The penalties for downloading music run about 99c/file (You just have to reimburse them for the cost of buying), under Title 17, Chapter 5, S504, b. If bad comes to worst, I'll sort through my selection of 400 some-odd files, count out how many are indie or not coverred by the RIAA, which will be around 300, and then pay them their $1,000 and be on my way, having beaten the music industry. Then I realize once again, they're not coming for me because I don't use FastTrack. [Note, IANAL]
Has anyone considered a class action countersuit on behalf of p2p users for harrassment and extortion by the RIAA. This sort of thing was being done by SmartCard readers recently harrassed by DirecTV.
"Where is my mind?"
You would think that an organization of, well, music companies would have something better to do than attack individual users for a crime that doesnt really matter. Honestly, shouldn't they be working on techniques to lower the cost of CDs so people, you know, start buying them again? Damn, but the RIAA really pisses me off, which I am sure is a sediment of many here in /. .
Save Sam and Max!
I know I would represent myself under the 'my computer was compromised by Windowz insecurities and I didn't know this was going on' defense?!?!?!
Good God! What's the address, before they take her down?
All kidding aside, ehh. She is sharing illegal files. She got caught. I'm not really seeing the "Shock and Awe" about this news article.
Sig it.
The key to being safe from the RIAA: Don't listen to music owned by the RIAA.
For the past few months (okay, a few years) I was somewhat sympathetic about RIAA's action. Even though I don't like it, it's the only way they know to go about it. Even when they sued a twelve years old, I was hoping it would be one of their "shock" cases... but this just went too far. If they were doing some drastic remodeling of their business model when they sue people, I would still be sympathetic. But now, they just sue, sue and sue and no actice action on how to repair it at the base, their own out-dated business model.
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
Can you actually sue a minor in the USA? Hell, I'm 20 and I can't drink beer there, but a 15 year old kid can get sued? What the fuck is that?
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
First they sue a 12 year old girl, and now a 15 year old girl. Is their new plan of attack to sue the only portion of their demographic that are still buying CDs?
While I am certainly no fan of the RIAA nor its tactics, I'm getting a little sick of the "I didn't know it was wrong" defense. Come on. 1,100 songs downloaded, parents oblivious, child claiming ignorance. Anybody see a problem here? You can argue until you are blue in the face whether or not the copyright laws should be changed. You can argue (persuasively, I might add) that the RIAA is heavy-handed. But don't come off pretending to be ignorant. The law is clear. This is theft.
Ignorantia legis neminem excusat.
99.6% off sounds like a deal to me.
Thanks to the dude who moderated this as insightful, I am now locking all of the doors in my house, and am putting on my bullet-proof vest.
Only in America. Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Factory owners terrorizing workers who were unionizing in the early 20th century, or Al Capone. And I seem to remember that the Unions won, and that Capone went to jail.
However, you also have to remember that back then the common people actually had spines. They knew they were probably going to get raped; They didn't bend over and they sure as hell didn't relax and enjoy it.
It's like Marty says in BTTF 1: "If you don't stand up now, he'll walk all over you for the rest of your life!"
What's the saying? Never cost anyone more than it would cost to have you killed :)
And that's going to help how?
Assassinations never deter anyone - it didn't work when they assassinated Lincoln, or Gandhi, or terrorists, or doctors performing abortions or just about anything else. And what are you going to do, destroy a whole organisation, given that it would be the organisation suing you (which is a person in law, but not in flesh) rather than an individual.
Not a very well thought out theory, besides which it just means that you're breaking more laws and you're going to go to gaol for a lot longer than you would have for file-sharing (I don't think anyone has been imprisoned for it yet), assuming you don't get the death penalty.
I think that $3,500 is fair. If they went to court and won that amount, I would consider it fair. But extorting money from a 15 year old girl is just as bad as downloading 1,100 songs, if not much worse.
and I'll say it again...I sometimes wonder if they are scratching their heads thinking, "What's the matter? We keep suing out customers, and the fuckers still won't buy our products! What's wrong with them?"
Joe
If at first you don't succeed, lower your standard until you have.
I don't get people around here.
The girl was illegally sharing copyrighted materials. She was one of many who have been contacted.
Slashdot, in a typical tactic of propoganda latches onto one example and drives it home. A 12 year old! A 15 year old!
Meanwhile, no matter how you shake it, they're still doing the legal thing--protecting their copyrighted works! Even Jamie of Slashdot knows what that is about--threatening the daily Slashdot summary site because they are "illegal."
Look, I don't like the RIAA, and I'm doing my best not to support them.
And I think that in terms of customer relations, the RIAA is making a big mistake, which will turn around and bite them in the ass.
And I agree that the RIAA has long overcharged for CDs.
But I also don't download files (or share them) in violation of copyright.
And I'd sue if my copyright were violated. As for instance, if code I'd licensed under the GPL were used in a closed source product in contravention of the GPL.
This is ludicrous, but save your moral indignation for Direct TV's suits against people who purchase legal hardware, or for Belkin and its spam-vertising, or for John Ashcroft's willingness to trample the 4th Amendment.
What the RIAA is doing is stupid and heavy-handed. What the 15 year old did was stupid and illegal. But moral indignation against the RIAA is misplaced.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Not my point, I agree with you.
The only reason this gets press is because it's some BIG SCARY BUSINESS INTEREST sueing a _poor little kid_. These articles get posted because someone wants to enflame the rage of all the illegal file swappers against the RIAA. The RIAA is just following through with there legal right.
There are an awful lot of people who seem to think that if they don't like the law, they'll just ignore it. Then when the law comes back to bite them they get angry that its unfair. Well, maybe they should've lobbied to get the law changed before breaking it!
I'm no fan of the RIAA, they are so stuck in the stone age they don't see a good opportunity staring them in the face. But they are going to do, what they are going to do. And if you don't like it, follow the law or change it.
I call bullshit. This guy is feeling powerless over his life, and violence is the court of last resort for the powerless. That's why the War on Terrorism is so flawed an idea - tomorrow, they may point the gun at you becuase you're the threat, you, with your old fashioned ideas about individual freedom and liberty. Such ideas are imcompatable with 2003 USA as we find it. One or the other must die. Which side to you want to choose to win, the government of the likes of Dick Cheney and the neo-cons, or the common citizens? Im on the little guys side - Dick Cheney is already rich and powerful.
What is the legal situation for suing for actions of a minor? The article says the family are being sued, not the 15 year old. At what age does a person become liable to be sued directly? If the child is not at home when the "offense" occurs, what then? (E.g. if they music-file-shared on a school computer, is the school liable?)
Another legal question: Say I am about to be sued for everything I own. I liquidate all my assets, go to a casino, and bet the whole lot on a spin of the roulette wheel. If I loose, I'm no worse off (I was going to be bankrupt anyhow), if I win, the winnings pay off the judgement and I still have my money. Effectively I am gambling someone else's money, but I get the winnings. What legal sanctions are there to prevent this?
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
She's not _stealing_ from anyone. She's infringing their copyright.
That is not theft. No matter what the RIAA wants you to believe. Theft is a Criminal act. Copyright infringement is a Civil act. That's why they're suing her and not throwing her in prison.
Her violation is not worth $165 million. Anyone who suggests that it is is a fucking idiot.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
What I'd really like to know is this:
Can she settle the case with the stipulation that the settlement does not consitute an admission of guilt?
If the SEC can settle with Putnam and Morgan Stanley without forcing them to admit wrongdoing after they committed fraud on a huge scale and victimized thousands of innocent people, it seems to me that the RIAA could see its way to giving a 15 year old girl the same courtesy.
"However, some local bands say they didn't ask for and don't want protection from fans downloading their music.
"I'm all for file sharing," said Mark Arm, the lead singer for Mudhoney. "I think it's ridiculous that they're going after 80-year-old women and 15-year-old kids, no matter how many items they've downloaded."
The biggest artists may have the most to lose. File sharing takes money out of their pockets, because fans download the music rather than buy it.
Non-mainstream, more independent artists take a different view. File sharing gives them exposure they may not otherwise get. "
Nice to see that even the mainstream media is beginning to catch on that just because the RIAA bought themselves some laws it doesn't mean they are right. Yes, laws have now been crafted to make it illegal to share, so what she did is "illegal." But she didn't do anything wrong, some music groups understand that, and eventually people will see that file sharing is the best way to advertise.
Spare me the new /. wave of conservative thought that wants to lecture me about how the corporations are in the right and we should just cooperate and shut up. The RIAA got this one wrong, they are trying to protect a dying business model, and history will show that file sharing increases business, not descreases it.
Keep in mind, I actually am law-abiding, even though I disagree with the law. But it encourages me when I see the mainstream media begining to see that just because the RIAA says 'file sharing = evil' it isn't necessarily show.
If a 15 year old girl has a nudie pic of a 15 year old boy, I'd probably chalk it up to good clean fun.
... just as (to a different degree) it would be hard to be terribly upset at someone who, say, stole some fancy silverware from Saddam Hussein.
Now, if a 30 year old woman has a nudie pic of a 15 year old boy, *then* I'd have issues.
"Stealing" vs. "copyright infringement" aside, I agree that she's probably doing something illegal, but I still think the RIAA are assholes, and I continue to boycott them in the hopes that they and their whole system of music distribution die a nasty, flaming death.
The music machine has so disgusted many of us that we have trouble seeing people who act against their interests, even illegally, as bad
-monique
read 504(a)(1) and (2) ... the plaintiff is entitles to ask either for actual damages OR statutory damages. In your case you can bet they'll go for statutory. If you've got 300 infringements then you're paying between 750 and 30,000 per.
any time before final judgment the plaintiff can ask for statutory damages.
if you were to make that argument in court the riaa lawyer would chuckle and say something to the effect of "thanks for playing, game over." and then you'd get the hose of justice where i'm sure you don't want it.
Don't be a stupid criminal.
Leave the toying with children thing to Michael Jackson, RIAA... It's his job to poke around in their pockets not yours.
Seriously though, the RIAA doesn't care who you are so long as you've got their material without paying for it. Instead of this whole big campaign against people who share their material, why not use it to pay the artists in compensation for the money they "might" be losing?
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Well, you see, I'm not sure about that. In order to get their information about who was sharing they used a modified client on a P2P network. This could quite possibly be considered as trespassing. Also, modifying the client, would be a copyright violation (assuming they didn't write it from scratch)... In either case, I believe they should get a call from the lawyers at Sherman Networks...
According to the Kazaa Media Desktop End User License Agreement you agree not to...
2.1 Transmit or communicate any data that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
If you look at all of a persons songs an then mail them letters, that's an invasion...
2.2 Harm minors in any way;
Sueing ain't benificial....
2.3 Impersonate any person or entity or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;
2.9 Interfere with or disrupt the Software;
2.11 Monitor traffic or make search requests in order to accumulate information about individual users;
Do I really need to say anything about this one?...
2.14 Collect or store personal data about other users.
3.2 Except as expressly permitted in this Licence, you agree not to reverse engineer, de-compile, disassemble, alter, duplicate, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, make copies, create derivative works from, distribute or provide others with the Software in whole or part, transmit or communicate the application over a network.
Stop the Slashdot effect! Don't read the articles!
Yes, and as to many teenagers, the concept of actions having real consequences seems a little ridiculous too.
Say whatever you will about the RIAA's tactics, this type of reaction from a teenager is hardly the result of an over-aggressive music industry.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Theft is a Criminal act. Copyright infringement is a Civil act.
True, but copyright infringement is also a crime (17 USC 506).
Her violation is not worth $165 million. Anyone who suggests that it is is a fucking idiot.
It took half of Congress to enact a law that provided for such damages. You just called at least half of Congress "fucking idiots." Not that I necessarily disagree *cough*Bono Act*cough*DMCA*cough*.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I remember most Slashdot posts back when the RIAA was trying to get Napster shut down. They were to the effect, "Napster is just a tool, it can be used to share legitimite things too! Go after the actual offenders, not the tool!" Now the RIAA is going after the actual offenders. Guess the general opinion has changed since those Napster days. I called bullshit back then too, we all knew Napster was all about illegal file-sharing back then. Don't believe me? Go back and look through the Slahdot stories covering those issues, you'll see what I mean.
This is exactly the feeling many people get. They don't have the money to defend themselves in court, even though they may be in the right. You can only fuck people over so much before they decide that life ain't worth it if you gotta live in fear.
Blar.
I'd really like to punch the RIAA right in its bitch mouth.
Then, while it writhes on the sidewalk, I'd turn to the MPAA, and say, "You're next, Nancy."
Then I'd swagger off to Moe's for a Duff.
This mantra is starting to disturb me. In my opinion any law that allows corporations to sue perfectly normal teenagers for hundreds of thousands of dollars is wrong and needs to be changed.
I think it's good to protect ownership of creative content but protecting the right of a company to make a profit by distributing music made by someone else has little to do with any issue of creativity or authorship.
The argument that people are hurting "the artists" by trading music on the internet is extremely weak. Most active musicians make most of their money by playing live shows.
Record companies made their money by distributing music to consumers more cheaply than any alternative means. The cost of buying a CD is factors of magnitude less than the cost of hiring your favorite band. In an age where the distribution of recorded music was difficult this made sense. It no longer makes sense. Most of the cost of recorded music goes to promotion and distribution, but the internet has made promotion and distribution cheap and easy.
It's time for a new business model. Perhaps less music will be recorded if there isn't a profit to be made anymore, but maybe more people will be involved in the creative process.
O new art woe are we.
By my calculations, my mp3 collection could hit me with a $2.5 Billion dollar fine. Who knew that 100GB could be worth more than the GDP of most third-world countries?
Dave
moo
Of course. Minors can commit crimes under the law. This was illegal distribution of copyrighted works. Disagree with the actions of the RIAA, but it's still within their legal right.
This isn't about IF someone will go over the edge, it's about WHEN someone goes over and how far over the edge they go, It could be as simple as a small pistol and one or two dead or it could be a Van loaded with explosives crashed into an RIAA target. The fact is that if you randomly select and threaten to ruin the lives of people eventually you are certain to pick the wrong person. And by limiting your search space to heavy file sharers you are selecting from a group of more hardcore internet users, which have an even higher concentration of unstable individuals. I don't think this will be an assasination, but more a blind lashing out against the RIAA or possibly a record store.... just to be safe i'm going to stay away from record stores to avoid becoming collateral damage.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
My guess is that music file sharing won't disappear; it'll just go further underground to something that's more difficult to track back to individual users.
One obvious candidate would seem to be FreeNet. IMHO the only thing stopping FreeNet being used for music file sharing is that most people don't know it exists and there's no music-specific-and-easy-to-use client for it - if/when someone addresses those two issues, it's going to be game over as far as file swapping is concerned.
Your entire argument was weak.
This mantra is starting to disturb me. In my opinion any law that allows corporations to sue perfectly normal teenagers for hundreds of thousands of dollars is wrong and needs to be changed.
Even if those "perfectly normal" teenagers were illegaly distributing copyrighted works knowing full well it is illegal? I still do not understand the leniency around here with regards to just grabbing music without paying for it. I have yet to read a single valid argument for it.
I think it's good to protect ownership of creative content but protecting the right of a company to make a profit by distributing music made by someone else has little to do with any issue of creativity or authorship.
It has to do with ownership. Those companies own the recordings to distribute. That's how they make their money. You seem to be implying it's a-okay to just take copies and not pay for it, for no reason. Would you say the same for warez? How about movies?
The argument that people are hurting "the artists" by trading music on the internet is extremely weak. Most active musicians make most of their money by playing live shows.
Actually, that point is extremely weak. For one, most active musicians do not make that much more money touring live than they do from album sales. Second, you are still hurting the artist--that is still money you are not giving them. Third, if an album doesn't sell well and makes no profit for the label, what do you think happens to that artist? Now you get it.
Record companies made their money by distributing music to consumers more cheaply than any alternative means. The cost of buying a CD is factors of magnitude less than the cost of hiring your favorite band.
This argument has been shot down countless times. The cost of a CD includes the marketing, distribution, recording costs, and tons of other expenses. It's not like the label is supposed to just take the expenses for getting those sales in the first place. They make it up in the sales, as does the band.
In an age where the distribution of recorded music was difficult this made sense. It no longer makes sense. Most of the cost of recorded music goes to promotion and distribution, but the internet has made promotion and distribution cheap and easy.
Then why is it not working? The only instance I've seen is iTunes, and even that is dwindling out. The answer is--free piracy. Advocated by places like Slashdot for some inexplicable reason. Honestly, nobody has ever actually given a morally or legally sound reason. It's always half-baked "culture movement" lectures or other similar excuses.
It's time for a new business model.
People love to say that. "It's time for a new business model. That means I get to take their copyrighted works!"
Perhaps less music will be recorded if there isn't a profit to be made anymore, but maybe more people will be involved in the creative process.
How could more people be involved if less people are recording?
the legal fact of the matter is that they may pursue copyright infringers. It is not her content to distribute
The problem is, folks like the parent like to whine "they mod me down without responding", but really, EVERY thread on the **AA has 500 responses to his/her initial statements. Most posts like the parent get modded down because they insist on whining. "You're all a bunch of thieves!" "See, this is Slashdot hypocrasy!!!" "What if someone stole YOUR code/violated the GPL!".
See, what you and the parent seem to miss, is that most Slashdotters respond to stories like this in the usual fashion, because most of us disagree with the laws as they stand.
We don't have a problem with laws being enforced per se, it's more of a statement of "the laws really, really suck". And no, it's not some black and white issue of "she shared music, therefore she must be guilty because the law says so". For one thing, she's a minor. For another, there is the concept of evidence, due process, etc, which seems to be entirely missing from the RIAA's current tactics. Oh wait, that would assume they're a law enforcement agency, which they most certainly aren't, even if they act like one.
Yup, some kid is accused of having copyrighted material on her hard drive. Coming to the RIAA's defense by saying "she's guilty, she's a thief, what they're doing is right!" isn't insightful, it isn't informative, and it sure as hell isn't interesting.
Although in all fairness, I think everything on this issue has already been covered a million times here, so I'm not too sure just what is interesting or informative anymore.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I don't know much about the American Leagal System, But if you go by Australan Law, it looks like All the RIAA is trying to do is "Prove" that filesharing is wrong by settling out of court with all of the little guys, then when it's time to move in on the big file sharers, they will have enough precedents to make the cases as short as possible to save more money in the long run.
violence is the court of last resort for the powerless
That's why emperors and kings of the past, people who had nearly unlimited power, used violence at their whim? Violence solves everything. Full, unrestricted violence. Violence is power. It's the two powerless pussies that sit around and "discuss" a "resolution".
There is no difference. They both screw kids
~~
Extortion used to be an indicator of organized crime too, now I guess it's just business as usual. Pathetic.
The reason why the vast majority of people side with the filesharers instead of the mega-corporations like the RIAA is not because of some David-vs-Goliath underdog syndrome, it's because the RIAA and labels are making money from doing nothing.
Back in the analog days, actual physical copies of works had real value (each copy had real costs associated with it and took time to make), but in the digital world the copy has no value; anybody can make 100s of thousands of copies of a song per day using the most basic features of their computers. Aside from other factors such paying for convenience, supply and demand dictates that copies of works have zero value since the supply is effectively unlimited. Sure, creating the actual song itself required work, but they are trying to sell us the copy not the song itself.
People are simply rejecting the idea that they should pay for nothing, which is why we should change the copyright laws to recognize the basic principle of "no work, no money". People could download songs all they want completely legally as long as they don't make money off of it. If a company wants to use a song in their commercial then they pay the artist/authors for it because otherwise the company is making money from increased sales without doing the work of writing the song (this is the same principle the GPL is founded on). This preserves the author's incentive for creating a song in addition to concerts, selling the rights, fame, and other forms of compensation.
In other words, Digital Copyright should prevent others from making money off your work instead of preventing people from enjoying your work without paying for it.
Just because the RIAA says something doesn't mean it's right. There just isn't anyone with as much clout arguing for relaxation of restrictions, or reduction of prices. However libraries and rental shops have for a long time rented audio/video media.
Libraries buy books and other items for lending, why couldn't a respectable outfit try to do this digitally? Are libraries illegal now?
Certainly there are differences between books and digital media, but there still remains a lot of unexploited potential between Fair Use and the Tradition of Libraries. There are even things called interlibrary loans. And there is value in promoting research and telling people about relevant authors which librarians also do. I'm curious about whether there would be any problem with software client that would let a repository track files, and provide the services that libraries generally do. This service would cover print media, audio and video. It might be free, for profit, nonprofit, tax-supported, members only, a coop, or something else. Hopefully it would be international.
The library would certainly have to pay for its own copies, and it would have to handle only items for which electronic distribution is allowed. But it is also conceivable that through fair use people could register their own music with the library and sign something which says they will not play a given song when it is being played by someone else. Some cryptography may be appropriate, but this is not really so important (except for some signature to identify each file uniquely).
It may sound like there are lots of loopholes for copying but this is true in many other realms. The public does not bear the burden of inventing ways to enable corporations to infringe on their rights. I am not interested in promoting illegal copying but the kinds of money the RIAA talks about are not part of reality as we know it. I believe that if we want to own our own past and future, we must take steps to do so ourselves. This means discussing the subject with professional librarians, publishers, broadcasters, authors and artists. Then bring on the developers and lastly the business people. It doesn't have to make a billion dollars but it should be a useful service for people of all ages.
Those companies own the recordings to distribute. That's how they make their money. You seem to be implying it's a-okay to just take copies and not pay for it, for no reason. Would you say the same for warez? How about movies?
Sure. No one ever said that the laws had to be favorable towards their making money. There used to be a thriving industry in patent medicines in this country -- then we created the FDA and it ran all of those snake oil hucksters out of business. This was not a bad thing, despite destroying their ability to make money.
As for why we might want to do this, it's for the same reason. If we thought that the public would be better off being able to copy works (assume that we might merely alter, rather than outright abolish, copyright, e.g. by reducing term lengths) than we would be otherwise, even taking into account the effect that this might have on the creation of works, than frankly we'd be stupid to _not_ do it.
After all, why would you not want to be as best off as possible?
We only grant copyrights in the first place due to a belief that we're better off doing so than we would be if we didn't; certainly through most of history we didn't have copyrights and no one complained.
Given people's attitudes, the increased ease of publishing and creation (e.g. not every movie needs to have a zillion dollar budget -- those may be unsustainable with regards to the laws they need to be worth creating not being justified), etc. the time might be ripe for cutting back on copyright protection in order to make everyone better off than we are right now.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
If somebody actually had the balls to take the RIAA to trial, I really wonder if the RIAA would have a shot at a favorable verdict. They're on the right side of the law, but the law is so unreasonable that I'd bet most jurors would refuse to vote in their favor. I don't know what portion of the jury is needed to render a verdict in a civil trial, but it has to be at least a majority and my bet is that the RIAA couldn't get half of any reasonable jury to find anybody, 15 years old or not, liable for $845,000 in damages (much less $165 million) for this type of offense. Nobody can compel a jury to vote based solely on the law - they're free to find however they want for whatever reason they want AFAIK.
It's incredible how many people try to justify their use of p2p for sharing copyrighted music. Here's the bottom line. It really does not matter one bit whether it's more like sneaking into a movie theatre than theft, or any other daft analogy you can come up with. It also doesn't matter that the artists/shops/RIAA/whoever is corrupt and evil. Didn't your grandma ever tell you "Two wrongs do not make a right". The absolute bottom line is it results in you gaining something you have no legal or moral right to.
If you dispute that, please explain how this is different from the people who download full version warez under the premise "I need it to fully evaluate it" - despite the existence of a fully or almost fully functional trial version - and having these "evaluations" last.. well.. permanently.
The "Information wants to be free" argument invariably falls down when a person who'll quite glibly throw out that catchphrase suddenly falls quiet when asked to "free" their full address and credit card number.
Finally, I am NOT trying to justify the actions of the RIAA here. I think their behaviour is completely draconian and yet another really bad PR move on their part, but I also think it's somewhat over reacting to paint them as the big mean evil bully picking on the poor little girl for no reason whatsoever. Fact remains, she HAS committed a crime. The only question is whether the punishment is fitting. Personally I would say no, it isn't. It's complete overkill, but that's the ONLY problem I have with the situation here.
Incidentally, for the triggerhappy mods out there - If you really feel you must mod this as troll or flamebait, then go ahead, but please at least think carefully about it first. Troll != Devil's Advocate
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
As I see it, and I have a feeling that the founders of this country might agree, excessive copyright terms steal works from the public domain.
Copyright is supposedly a limited monopoly on distribution of a given work granted by the public in return for the owner's courtesy of sharing their work. This was meant to encourage creators to share their work widely, as it would enrich the public domain when the clock ran out on the limited monopoly.
However, copyright terms have been getting longer and longer. Since the moment distribution of recorded music became commercially possible, new works have stopped entering the public domain.
Add this to the fact that the RIAA does do an incredible job of promoting their own music, but doesn't do such a good job of making it clear that their music is used with permission. Usually the use of music in a movie is mentioned late in the credits, when most of the audience has wandered out. Listening to the radio spew out song after song at no cost to me other than the time spent dealing with (listening to or avoiding) commercials, I hear no legal notices explaining that the songs were used with permission from the relevant parties. Stations have to pause periodically for identification. Perhaps it would clarify to the general public that the music is used with permission if they would pause from time to time in a similar manner to explain whose permission allowed them to play such music and to remind the public that the music is a tightly controlled resource.
When you see a trademark used in print, there's a little symbol used to explain to people that the symbol in question is, indeed, trademarked. The fact that copyrighted works require no similar annotation allows the RIAA to dangle their music in front of our noses before slapping us the minute we start to believe that they're actually giving it to us for free.
All of this has lead to a public which doesn't understand why the radio can redistribute music, but we the people cannot. The situation also leads me to believe that the public is attempting to get a refund for the time-limited monopoly it has granted.
To put it in real-world terms, if I agree to let you borrow my car for a few hours in exchange for you washing it for me, that is a reasonable deal. You have exclusive possession of my car, but I benefit in the end.
However, if you were to try to extend the term beyond hours to days or even weeks without offering me significantly more benefit, I'd definitely reconsider the arrangement.
The RIAA hasn't brought the car back yet, and Congress keeps telling them that they can extend the joyride longer and longer. Decades beyond the death of the creator is too long, and the public is saying that the RIAA needs to wash the damned car and bring it back to the public with whom it belongs.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
With the current business model in the US, music sharing/trading does potentially hurt artist revenues. It sucks, and needs to change.
Most active musicians make most of their money by playing live shows. Wrong. In the US Musicians can make a decent living from live show ticket sales, percentage of liquor sales, and merchandise sales, but the real money is in royalty payments from performances, recordings, and of course, music sales. A good album release keeps paying the artist without him doing any work so long as the album is bought or music is used commercially (among other things).
Royalty payments is big money in the music industry, and this is why musicians can get so obsessed with impressing A&R reps to hopefully get signed on to a major label. These labels provide capital and assist with marketing and distribution to wide national and global audiences, something that is difficult for an artist to do on his own. Now there is no rule saying that artists can't make money through performances or other creative means. Unfortunately, and no offense intended, musicians generally aren't savvy businessmen and as much as the "system" is so crappy (odds are less than 1% of getting a record deal even after catching an A&R rep's attention) they tend to see no other way.
The solution to all this has nothing to do with the Internet, mp3s, or any file sharing technology. Even iTunes isn't too much of a revolution -- it's just another channel for music distribution that happens to play nice with both audiences and record labels. A real change would involve providing complete and available alternatives for (talented) musicians to sustain themselves while still exploring and sharing their musical universes.
Nuff said...this is already about to spill into another discussion altogether.
This fifteen year old is accused of illegally distributing music and faces a fine of up to 165,000,000 dollars.
Glad to see we have our priorities straight...
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
To extort money from a 15 year old and before that a 12 year old? WTF is that about and WTF is that going to solve? Law is Law, even if it is complete shit and designed to help line the pockets of the greedy and toss the scraps to the artists. But to leverage money out of a teenager/child even at the amount of $3,500 is just plain stupid. Even if they had a silver spoon in their mouth and mommy and daddy could pay it, nothing has been accomplished. It's this flagrant display of greed that makes me sick.
I'm not saying I have a solution, I'm not saying you should get off unscathed for breaking the law. I beleive there is a better solution to them addressing this then feeding lawyers and pissing a lot of people off despite words on paper that say you are in the right. Just because words say you are in the right, does not make your actions right. I'm not even saying I have a solution here, but with the amount of money they have already extorted and ripped off from bloated prices...you think they would have hired at least an MBA to figure out, "Hey lets try to save face and instead of trying to get money from the people who probably don't have and won't have it...have them repay it by working community service." As much as I wish horrid things upon everybody associated with the RIAA, I would be hard pressed to keep such a view were they to make their point and show they are not a greedy giant too important to see the humanity side of things.
On a personal note, I think the kid would learn their lesson sucking exhaust up their nose for a month picking up trash on a local highway or freeway.
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
I know what this person did was illegal, and, depending on who you ask, probably immoral... But doesn't $3,500 seem a little bit on the steep side?
I'm not saying we should all violate copyright wherever we see it, I'm just saying that the punishment shouldn't be quite that severe. How long would it take a 12-year-old or 15-year-old to pay off that kind of money?
Side note - though I agree with your post. Neither example you cited are legal.
Time-shifting/format-shifting for personal use is legal and protected, but not distribution - which both of your examples include. You can record from TV on a VCR or TiVo just fine, and watch it at your leisure. However, you can't give that recording away, even to a friend (they could come to your place to watch it with you, and it's a grey area as to whether it's a 'public showing' or not, but you'd probably be able to argue it wasn't).
Nonetheless, since your friend could legally record the show himself, and since tapes have no source watermark, there's no way to prove, once he has it, that he didn't record it himself...
This is the same reason why possession of MP3s is perfectly legal. However, the distribution of them isn't. In every case, the RIAA is going after uploaders - because that's the only type of infringement they can prove.
-T
In his testimony, [to Congress, RIAA chairman/CEO Mitch] Bainwol urged peer-to-peer network operators to voluntarily implement the following reforms:
...
"The law is clear. Yet the understanding of the law is hazy. Why? In large part it's because the file sharing networks like Kazaa deliberately induce people to break the law," testified Bainwol.
If this is true, the RIAA has a point. Such behavior on the part of the P2P services is hard to justify.
On the other hand, it means the kids using the service according to official RIAA testimony often lack intent to violate laws in general or to redistribute copyrighted material in particular ! The sort of random shakedown of well-intentioned end users (SCO anyone?) that we are now seeing is outrageous and enromously destructive, far worse than a total collapse of the recorded music industry would be.
If I can be assaulted by a squad of corporate attorneys when I think I am minding my own business, I will simply be inclined to avoid using any products whatsover that include any technology invented after about 1910.
If this kind of malicious attorney-goon-squad behavior is legal, it shouldn't be. Now here's a place for a federal law.
mt
Does anyone wonder why publicised cases when RIAA prosecutes underage kids for copyright violations involve extremely young females?
I mean, most sharers (as well as Internet users capable of installing and configuring P2P software) are males. I'd expect the most hit group to be 16-21 years old males.
Or just media are focusing on those few very young girls within 260 people (as stated in the article) sued by the RIAA.
When in doubt, go to the library. - Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
It's totally true.
You heard it here first.
The RIAA has been conducting SURPRISE RAIDS of people's homes.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Go to the RIAA Radar page. Look at their top 100 non-RIAA albums. I'm sure you've heard of some of these artists... Warren Zevon ('The Wind' has been #1 on their chart since it was released!), Brian Setzer, Natalie Merchant, Jimmy Buffet, Boz Scaggs, Simply Red, and more.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
said RIAA President Cary Sherman. "That's our job!"