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RIAA Extends Legal Action
shystershep writes "An article at InfoWorld tells how the RIAA 'is filing 41 new lawsuits and sending 90 lawsuit-notification letters this week, adding to the 341 lawsuits filed and 308 notification letters sent since September. The RIAA has settled with 220 file-sharers as a result of lawsuits, lawsuit-notification letters and subpoenas. In addition, 1,054 users have submitted affidavits as part of the RIAA's amnesty program.' The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and reduce online piracy."
The message is now clear: Online piracy has failed!
$8.95/mo web hosting
... this is what their records and statistics may claim. And as we all know the RIAA is a bastion of honesty, forthrightness and righteousness.
If their previous lawsuits are any indication we'll see them suing:
A 4 year old Eskimo girl.
A parapalegic with Tourettes.
97 year old twin sisters who still listen to their tube powered RCA radio.
A man who has been in a coma since 1972.
The Vatican.
That crazy guy outside my office who plays a harmonica.
The estate of J. Edgar Hoover.
Some T-Rex fossils in the NY Museum of Natural History.
Antarctica.
Trolling is a art,
The RIAA are coming for the children!
These are getting seriously out of hand...
So, has anyone that they have sued actually decided not to settle and are mounting a vigorous defence? Has anything actually made it to court yet, or is it still exclusively a scare tactic?
Considering the number of filesharing users out there, 1,054 takers on the amnesty program is fairly pitiful, actually. What would be more interesting would be the number of people who have quietly dropped off of the networks due to the RIAA's threats... but new arrivals will probably mask any people leaving this way in terms of the overall filesharing "population."
--- Bwah?
The RIAA has decided that the holiday season is a season of giving...subpeonas.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
The number of people on the big file-sharing networks is half of what it was before the law suits. But as kazaa declines, edonkey and bittorrent grow. If they're stated goal is to destroy kazaa, then mission accomplished. But if they want to stop file sharing, they'll have to destroy the internet.
However, the DRM server was down and I was unable to read it!
You might scare people into stopping downloading, but that doesn't mean we'll go back to buying your overpriced CDs. $11.99 is a start. Better yet, try $7.99 just like the old LPs.
Of course, it wasn't really the lawsuits that dissuaded me so much as the utter crap the labels have been putting out. But still, effective tactics are effective tactics. Why, I'll bet they could stop music piracy completely in 2004 if the tunes continue to be as gut-wrenchingly terrible as, say, Britney's last album (or any of those that preceded it, come to think of it. She sure is hot, though).
On a related note, there's an interesting article in the SF Chronicle about how small local bars are getting hit with lawsuits because the bands they hire play covers of copyrighted songs. Wonder how far we are from surgical lobotomies for people who get copyrighted tunes stuck in their heads...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
How many people will have to have their Internet use watched in order to generate a meaningful sample?
If the sampling is truly anonymous, how can it prevent cheating?
Will 'offensive' works be excluded? If they are, what is the impact on Free-Speech?
Will such bureaucratic governmental (or quasi-governmental) control over the arts really be an improvement?
I've written some about "compulsory licensing" here.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Well the RIAA doesn't consider the fileswappers customers, whether they actually are is an entirely different topic. Look at it from their point of view, if someone steals from your store, do you consider them a customer or a theif? And when you tell them to never come back, are you distressed that you lost their business, or relieved that they won't be stealing anymore?
... comes in another year when piracy is down but so are profits. Funny thing happens when you develop an antagonistic relationship with your customers instead of following the age-old law of supply and demand.
-madgeorge
Based on the numbers that you can see on Slyck.com, after years of consistent growth, p2p usage is down substantially for the last few months, especially on the networks believed to be actively monitored by the RIAA, with the decline starting at the same time as the filing of the first lawsuits. And based on the announcements by Apple, Napster, MusicMatch, etc., digital music sales appear to be up substantially over the past few months as well. So while coorelation can't prove causality, it sure looks like the lawsuits are effective at making some people stop using the p2p file sharing networks, and might even be helping with digital download music sales.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
I don't think the point of the lawsuits are to really punish the people being sued, but more to get the word out, and get some publicity. Average Joe computer users who used Kazaa and thought that it was legal are now hearing about these lawsuits and uninstalling Kazaa.
I think the RIAA is accomplishing what it meant to, Publicity.
So does this mean they aren't going to be charging me an extra quarter per blank cd now?
They're only suing Kazaa/Morpheus users for now, but you can be sure they're monitoring all the P2P networks. "They" being Mediadefender, Mediaforce, Ranger Inc, OverPeer, BayTSP, and others.
Why should any of those people (or things) be immune from legal action simply for the reasons listed.
Are you saying it's okay to pirate music if you register your account in the name of a man who's been in a coma since 1972?
I agree that the lawsuit's are stupid on the part of the RIAA, but why is suing a 12 year old file swapper any worse than suing a 32 year old geek who lives in his parents basement?
Jason
ProfQuotes
It's interesting to see the statistics on how many people have settled, but I'd be more interested in what has happened to those who haven't settled.
Hardball tactics only work if people think you'll be able to follow through; if they don't follow through on the holdouts, then this tactic collapses.
Anyone have information?
RD
Your analogy is absurd.
You didn't have a "job". You were a musician.
Don't think that these two words have anything to do with each other.
A "job" implies a contract between you and your employer. Your services rendered (ie: your job) contractually obligates your employer to pay you.
A musician is a capitalist and a free agent. A musician, like all other free agents -- be they artists, consultants or any other person who represents themselves -- UNDERSTANDS THE ELEMENT OF RISK.
If you do not or cannot understand the element of risk in your vocation -- and that risk applies to artistic risk, marketplace risk, and the risks that pertain to your industry as a whole -- then you SHOULD NOT BE A MUSICIAN.
Clothing manufacturers get their asses handed to them by Chinese laborers. Drug manufacturers get their asses handed to them by changes in legislation. Musicians get their asses handed to them by changes in technology. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Understand risk.
Undersatnd reward.
Oh and by the way it sucks about your business model no longer being viable.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
In the last 3 weeks alone I've heard of 4 different private file sharing networks. Just because they're being somewhat effective at ending widespread public sharing, there is a definite growth in the private file sharing arena. Fraternities, dorms, office workers, and almost any other similiar group are forming smaller networks of users, which is going to be VERY hard for the RIAA to fight.
It seems like one or two users are gathering content from (primarily) overseas file sharers and then making it available to their individual group. The current RIAA tactics don't work, because they simply don't have access to them.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
I agree that the lawsuit's are stupid on the part of the RIAA, but why is suing a 12 year old file swapper any worse than suing a 32 year old geek who lives in his parents basement?
Because the purpose of the lawsuits are a public relations war, and every time they fuck up (sue a 12 year old, sue a Mac-owning granny) they shoot themselves in the foot.
Also because they are trying to change the term "piracy" to mean "sharing copyrighted material without paying the piper" away from its original meaning of publishing copyrighted material without a license. Funny, folks don't seem to cotton to equating a 12-year old downloading tracks with a criminal bootleg operation.
Lets give the RIAA what they want.
Don't download commercial music that you are not allowed to possess.
Instead, try iRATE and get free, legal mp3s.
You don't have to pirate music, and you can still kick the RIAA where it hurts (mindshare).
The problem is that the customers REFUSE to vote with thier wallets this also applys to 'copy protected' (read corrupted) CD's. If thier target market which is something like 10-30 year olds would just refuse to buy any RIAA products for just a month or two it would send quite a message
wanted: one clever sig,apply within
My question is, is the RIAA specifically avoiding sueing slashdotters? I find it amazing that we have yet to hear of a case actually going to court, and by the tone of everyone on /. (myself included), it would seem that droves of these cases would be going to actual court, and would in turn attract lots of media attention.
Something is fishy here...
is that they probably help encourage further P2P developments from people trying to avoid the RIAA tactics - eg improved decentralisation, better anonymity, better filtering.
Sort of like how wars help encourage technical developments.
P.S. I'm a musican and I lost my hard work to illegal mp3 downloads. I sold only 400 CDs and my music was downloaded thousands of times and is all over mp3 sites. I give up....I'm $10,000 in debt and everyone is enjoying my creations.......this was my thanks. It's not the Major labels that are being killed, it's people like me. Cockroaches are the last to die.
Well, Michael, you should probably stop touching children and concentrate on your music. That's very, very, very Devilish...
-dameron
Considering that these "thieves" are a sizable fraction of their potential customer base, I'd be worried about lost business.
To extend your example:
If fifteen percent of the people entering your store shoplift something, do you just spend your time throwing them out, or do you consider that there might be something wrong with the way your business operates?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
I find it disturbing that the RIAA is claiming it is acting on behalf of record labels that it doesn't even represent.
NPR radio has a story about several record labels (notably Fat Wreck Chords, one of my personal favs) that had to fight for years to get their names removed from the list of labels the RIAA claims to represent, since they do not want to be represented by them.
1. How do you know it was downloaded thousands of time?
2. How do you know that any of the people who downloaded your music were going to buy it.
3. The point is, if it's really true that everyone is enjoying your creations, then I'm sure a portion would be interested in your future work or would be interested in coming to your shows.
4. Spending $10,000 for a home studio is equivalent to starting a small buisness of your own, and not working for someone else. If you'd sold a million copies of your CD, who would get the money? If your clothing store sells a million piece of whatever they sell, is your paycheck going to vary?
5. That's exactly the point. There's no boss and you are your own boss when making music independently. If you wanted a boss, then why don't you work as a studio musician and play other people's songs for other people to use.
Actually it was just one user sharing 1,054 files. For a total of 1,054 user equivalents.
include:
Semore Butts
Amanda Huggankiss
Dixon Coxs
You get the picture. I think at least half the names are bogus.
So 220 settlements, at an average of 5,000(just a guestimate) a settlement. Thats a cool 1,100,000.
What did the lawyers cost them?
Are they making money on this endeavor?
Veramocor
File sharing is not theft. Theft is when property is stolen (i.e., someone takes your desk or music CD).
File sharing differs because you are not stealing something unique, you are copying. If I made a desk design and "copyrighted" it, and someone copied my design, it would not be theft, either, it would be copyright infringment.
The two are different.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
What the RIAA is the equivalent of plugging holes in a dike
/. terms..
or in
Plugging up the craters in Morpheus's face as viewed on an IMAX screen with a pixel as viewed on a 15" crt at 1600x1200 res.
I think that pretty much says it all...or...that would be fucking impossible!!
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Is this the RIAA's way of saying Merry Christmas?
Stranger things have happened. The United States Supreme Court recently overturned the last of the sodomy laws in the United States, a decision that at one time would have been inconcievable to the majority of Americans, but the gay community worked together patiently to make homosexuality completely legal.
Now, I want you to consider that there are over sixty million Americans practicing peer-to-peer file sharing. That's more people than voted for George Bush, and also more than the number of homosexuals in America. So it's not unreasonable that copyright could be repealed, or at least reformed.
I discuss the background of copyright law in the US and what you can do to make file sharing legal in Change the Law, a section of my article Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads. The steps I suggest you take to make file sharing legal are to speak out, vote, write your elected representatives, donate money to political campaigns, support campaign finance reform, join the electronic frontier foundation, and to practice civil disobedience.
It is my objective that all sixty million American p2p users will read my article by the time of the 2004 election. I've got a long ways to go to reach that goal.
The article has a Creative Commons license. I encourage you to copy and distribute it. I'm also seeking help in translating it to other languages; a Romanian translation will be posted soon.
Thank you for your attention.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Each sample would likely be fair use, but reconstructing the original work would still be copyright infringment. I suppose it would be just like cutting pages from a book and then reconstructing the book to distrubute for free -- nothing legal about that.
You guys are tarded.
Actually, we were tarded once. Liked is to much we're now re-tarded. Welcome to slashdot!
Trolling is a art,
I think that the point of Palladium ("trusted computing") and upload restrictions via ISPs is to do precisely that - to destroy the ability of individuals to publish on the Internet and replace it with a broadcasting medium in which only the privileged few can afford to publish, thus creating a world where content providers (if you can call it content, but I guess since people want it it must be) can feel safe from any potential copyright infringement. Of course, their safety is bought at our expense (by negating much of the Internet's utility) but that's a small price to pay to hear more RIAA-assisted Britney Spears clones.
The industry fucked up by not taking Napster and using it as a conduit for regular sales.
I know too many people who love good music to risk buying crap at the store that they haven't gotten a proper chance to preview, but let's leave behind the idea that many people treated the MP3s they downloaded as the equivalent of ads when it came to determining what CDs they wanted to buy.
Think on this instead. You're already on Napster, downloading music. You've just found out that you can also buy concert tickets there. Or, there's a neat service that, for 5 bucks, will dump a huge selection of thematically-related songs onto your computer in a conveniently located spot for burning to a CD. Or, there's a spot for getting T-shirts, posters, sweaters, stickers of your favourite band. Or, there's a spot for buying 50c's autobiography or that Rolling Stones concert on DVD. Or, there's a spot that lets you buy the CDs themselves, since sometimes people want the jackets and lyrics and higher-quality music.
Never mind the ad revenue that could be generated by having such a flourishing community that you're at the center of and controlling.
Feel free to add to this list. On top of it all, you put yourself in a situation where you're working with technology, not against it, and you've got GOODWILL going with your customers.
Imagine that.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
What about sharing via torrent files?
You gather various, pieces from many user which are then uniformly, recontructed after you have reached 100%.
Try watching an incomplete torrent divx or any other file for proof of the file(s) being "pieced" together. until the torrent is complete the files sit in an unorganized file inside whatever future extension they turn out to be.
To me this begs the question...
How can anyone sue you for sharing on bittorrent if it's only a piece of a file, random at that, and not a full file?
The only way they could approach this is to catch the user with the complete file on their hd after downloading it.
How would they do this?
Can you say invasion of privacy?
Who knows?
A good thing to do no matter what you use is to have peer guardian running at all time. You can even incorporate the blocklists in sygate's firewall software if you choose not to use peer guardian.
Above all monitor and block all traffic when using P2P apps or you might have to pay the piper...guilty or not...it really doesn't seem to matter anymore.
P.S. Fuck U RIAA
P.P.S. Thank you internet
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Stealing a song is morally equivalent to stealing a chocolate bar. That's why I say stealing a song is theft.
...and has been practiced for years by record stores, that is, stores that actually still sell vinyl records (primarily DJ shops). You open the package. You take the record (or cd's in a used cd store) out of the package and place it in a turntable or cd player behind the counter. You hand the customer headphones. Customer listens. If customer likes it he buys it, if not he hands you a different CD to listen to.
File-sharing isn't as popular as it is because people want to *own* the music. It's popular because people just want to hear what it sounds like before they buy it. If I wanted to actually *own* those songs it sure would't be in mp3 format (80% data loss), and without any liner notes, catalogs, or stickers.
I mean, when you buy an $8 t-shirt at wal-mart, you get to try it on first, right? When you want to buy a $10 book, you get to browse it at the bookstore before you buy it. Why should an $18.99 CD be any different?
Try-before-you-buy has always been my reason for using filesharing for music, if I hear a CD I like I buy it, that is if I can even find it at the store (thanks again RIAA).
But the RIAA will never pursue this method of both reducing piracy and meeting the consumers' needs, because they have zero interest in one of those two things. Guess which one. I maintain my opinion that the RIAA is terrified of file-sharing not because of any loss of profits to them (they're doing just fine, thanks) or to their artists (who they've been ripping off since the '20's), but because it means the average music consumer will no longer be satisfied with the STINKING, VOMITOUS, VILE, REPUGNANT, DISGUSTING, MALODOROUS, REPULSIVE SHIT being passed off as "popular" music by the RIAA. People have no option if they want to hear good music but to turn to the black market, for in this case the black market happens to be the only free, or even fair, market around.
All that could change if the music stores let you listen before you bought. For some reason, though, I'm not holding my breath.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
Hooray! Their tactics are working in decreasing piracy. Now when an album doesn't sell, it's because it stinks, not because everyone's downloading it.
Honestly, even though they claim their tactics are working now, in a month, they'll be saying how lost profits due to piracy are sky high and increasing.
This is what happens when Don Quixote starts tilting at windmills, but actually has the firepower to take them out. No more windmills, no more monsters. Solution: Make new monsters.
So, this time next year, look for the RIAA blaming people humming songs for lost revenue.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
....use of nonstandard ways to file share ala bittorrents, irc, newsgroups, etc., etc., etc.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
File swappers don't have ANY "right" to pirate MP3s. None of us do. You have the right to download what you already own, basically. Owning it is your problem. I know that intrudes on a lot of "information wants to be free fantasies" but that's tough, that's what the rest of us call capitalism.
-Matt
Duke '05
Ummm, you can't contract your way out of the law.
Just because you signed a contract with them, doesn't mean that they can commit a crime (theft) with impunity.
I would've told the police about what happend.
Let's say they stop (for argument's sake) 75% of the online piracy. By RIAA math, that should mean a 75% increase in sales (or at least some significant percentage). It's entirely possible (and, in my opinion, entirely likely), that sales will continue to slip. The moment I start laughing is when they're standing around scratching their heads (among other things), wondering why sales are still falling.
AT this point, one of two things will happen: they'll either realize that they DO produce crappy music, that they are greedy bastards, and that above all, consumers DO have standards (though on average, not very high), or they'll continue their witch hunt, making believe that there's still some massive vortex of illegal copying and downloading, sucking money right out of their pockets.
This isn't an endorsement of the so-called "harmlessness" associated with illegally copying/downloading music. Crappy or not, it's still the property of the RIAA, and they are still entitled to do with it what they please.
"Excuse me sir but I just moved into town and I am required by law to let all my neighbors know that I am a convicted music pirate"
I know, I wasn't arguing against that. I was saying, on the assumption that you would never buy a cd from them, downloading their music is not theft.
If you weren't going to buy their album, why should you get to have the song for free?
Yes, NOW you're actually adressing what I said. Except you don't actually provide an argument, you just leave an open ended question. Why shouldn't you get to have the song for free? One could say "because it's not fair to derive benefits from someone else's work if you don't pay to support him." Well what if the artist is dead? Does that matter?
Let me put the argument differently. Suppose I steal a chocolate bar from the grocery store. The owner of that store is now worse off. Suppose I download a song by Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson is no worse off. The grocery store owner would be better off if I had never been born. Michael Jackson would be no better or worse off if I had never been born. See the distinction?
Now, it's fine if you want to say that copyright infringement is morally no better than theft, that's your perogative. But in the real world, there's a substantial difference. If the two were equivalent, and every song downloaded actually cost the artist something, they all would have been forced into bankruptcy 2 years ago.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Which raises a question. If you were nailed by the RIAA, and forced to choose between a multi-million dollar settlement and betraying your friends/coworkers, which would you choose? Before getting too heroic, remember that life after bankruptcy might not be fun. Do you know how your friends/coworkers would answer the question?
Even if you're a tight-knit secretive ring that knew each other from childhood, all it takes is one ring member participating in p2p.
Copyrights don't expire through nonenforcement, but there is still a concept called laches, which basically says if you know someone is infringing and you don't do anything about it, after a while it is no longer fair to go after them. Essentially, there is a statute of limitations on when you can bring a copyright infringement suit, and I think it is 3 years from the date that the copyright owner should reasonably have been aware of the infringing activity.
So, in a sense, you do lose the right to enforce your copyright, but there will be a seperate "clock" keeping track of each infringing activity. Just because you fail to follow up on one doesn't mean you can't go after another one later.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
They're doing nothing more than making examples of people.
Personally, I'm not in the least bit concerened. Hell, I'll admit it: I share over 10 gigs of farily popular music on most of the P2P networks. I'd love to see them try me in a court of law.. unfortunately for them, I'm "tech savvy" and they'll have a hell of a time proving I share music.
These stories do nothing but piss me off and make me share/download more music (and movies now, too). I know a few people still in High School and I actually encourage them to share/download music. They'll tell me about how they're gonna buy so-and-so's CD, I say, "No, don't. I'll download it for you."
Yeah, this will probably get modded troll, or even flamebait, but it's really not. I'm just a person who's fed up with general apathy from people who let corporations get away with this shit. We're talking about downloading and sharing music, not murder, rape, or any other "crime". We know CD sales are unaffected because of artists who continue to break platinum status.
It's okay for them to spend years overcharging people for CDs and for mass marketing canned acts like Britney Spears/Justin Timberlake, but it's not okay for them to take some heat?! Sorry, that's not how it works.
If you can't take it, then by all means, don't fucking dish it out.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
anonymous filesharing
Article mentions Blubster,Filetopia and ES5.
RIAA is going after your IP number.Kazaa is not protecting you. Be aware.
Good luck.
1. Build yourself a XPC or something that size.
2. Toss in the needed parts including a 200G HD and a PCI 802.11b card.
3. Post notices around the dorm/building/whatever with the SSID and quick instuctions.
4. Enjoy.
While the selection of files in the beginning will be low I'm sure it would take little time for it to become quite varied.
The other solution is to buy a cheap 802.11b router, hook up to the LAN and bury it behind some sheetrock. The campus IT dept could spend years looking for it (if done correctly).
Of course this information is for educational purposes only yada yada yada ...
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
They are not stupid.
No matter what they say, I'm sure they have a much better idea of exactly what is responsible for their sales decline, and a very clear idea of the "impact of piracy".
Financially anyway, I'm sure their perspective on piracy is clearer than anyone outside the industry. For example, did you ever think that cigarette companies really believed their product was not dangerous, or that MS did not understand the position of their anti-competitive licensing policies, all despite what they proclaimed to the public? It's clear now that they were very clear-headed about their actions. My point is not to ding these other industries but to point out that they all either have or rent smart folks who are telling them exactly what is going on. They of course use this info to rationally pick the action that leads to their desired goal.
And in the midst of this particular situation, probably with a goal of maximizing financial return from assets, this postiion and these actions is the best they think they can do.