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RIAA Files 532 Lawsuits
Like2Byte writes "The RIAA is at it again. This time, Yahoo! News is reporting that 532 file sharers' IP addresses are being submitted to the courts instead of their names because ISPs decline to name people and the courts previous blocks. Music lawyers filed the newest cases against 'John Doe' defendants -- identified only by their numeric Internet protocol addresses -- and expected to work through the courts to learn their names and where they live."
I wonder how long most ISPs keep their logs linking usernames to IP addresses.
I start to wonder about the sheer cost of pursing this type of legal tactic. It cannot be cheap to field the army of legal weasels that the RIAA keeps throwing at filesharers. The court-order-required process of tracking an IP down to a given user is neither quick nor easy, especially with certain major ISPs refusing to hand out names.
... if they can wield enough phantom, borrowed force through the courts, they can give the appearance of having the authority to terrorize the little people who feel the legal system will not deal fairly with them.
If you stack the cost of the lawsuits on one side, and the average settlement win from people scared out of their wits on the other... is there a profit being made here?
I'm betting the answer is 'no'. And all that means is the Recording Industry is attempting to achieve compliance through fear. All authority derives from force, as the old saying goes
I wonder if that's worth the money they're spending.
RIAA first tried to horribly abuse the (horribly abusable) DMCA and issue their own subpoenas.
Filing against John Does is the correct way to do it (from my armchair lawyer stance), if the ISP's won't voluntarily divulge the information.
>>The ad was well done and would be understood by most anybody.
Yeah, unfortunately it's totally missing the point.
I've seen one of these ads (3 different ones so far) in front of every movie i've seen for the last for months.
HELLO!?!? I JUST PAID $10 to sit in this theatre and you're preaching to me to not steal off the internet!??! HELLO? WE'RE THE DAMN PAYING CUSTOMERS.
shit. Talk about missing the point and annoying the wrong people.
For as long as they keep their logs, anyway. That could be a very important point, depending on how long the cases take to reach the discovery stage.
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Most of you claim to hate the RIAA almost as much (if not more) than Microsoft or SCO, but can't seem to live without their product!
Downloading the music for free (therefore depriving the RIAA of revenue from the sale of the CD) does nothing but give them ammunition for the press and clueless legislators.
If you really want to knock the RIAA out, stop listening to their music period!! Don't listen to the radio, don't download songs (of RIAA-signed musicians), and don't buy their CDs.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
I JUST PAID $10 to sit in this theatre and you're preaching to me to not steal off the internet!??!
The intended market for those ads includes the projectionist and the prick in the nth row with a camcorder.
Basically, our friends at the RIAA are more than happy if you'll keep buying your CD's at fifteen dollars a pop, then every few years they'll try to make what you already purchased obsolete by offering a new release with better packaging.
Sometimes I wonder if they are deliberately incompetent in issuing their first release. I remember back in 1991, I picked up Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue." Five years later, the record company had re-released it, along with the shocking announcement that one of the original CD's songs had been mastered at the wrong speed -- so the CD I owned had a song that was therefore in the wrong key and at the wrong tempo. And for this incompetence, on their part, I was supposed to shell out another fifteen bucks to get the fixed version.
Understandably, people are tired of this crap, so they've resorted to downloading music. That's where the RIAA's new revenue generating tactic comes in: they're using their legal department to send letters, coercing downloaders to pay up at about seven grand a pop. That's a lot of shiny CD's.
So buy CD's or download illegally -- either way the RIAA wins. Unless you decide to get out of the game.
If you follow the RIAA's tactics at all, you might have decided it's appropriate to not give these bloodsuckers another dime of your money. So here are a couple tips. Don't buy from labels that are affiliated with the RIAA -- and don't buy legally downloaded music from these labels just because they happen to be on the iTunes record store.
Second, check out sites like Magnatune. Read everything you can about their business practices. These people are cool, their artists' music is awesome, and they deserve our support.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
It's like filing suit against a phone number for a bomb threat.
Ask them who they represent. Ask them what content is allegedly infringing. Ask them where the DMCA-compliant takedown notice or court order is. If they start getting pissy, I remind them that there ain't squat I'm going to do about it (or am required to do about it) until they at least have the courtesy to write me a real takedown notice.
Oh, yeah. Then go look and see if the fool actually is infringing, and scream at him.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Yes! Stop producing anything! That'll show those nasty pirates!
Sorry, but being denied something that hasn't been created is less of a problem for me than being denied something that was created but is now inaccessable because of draconian copyright laws.
because people break the social contract that is copyright and steal. It's a shame really.
The social contract was broken a long time ago... by the content producers. When copyright was extended long past absurd lengths the writing was on the wall. The present day piracy was predicted way back in 1841. Here's a quote from that link (Thomas Macaulay speaking against copyright extension): Seems to sum it up quite nicely.
As for "university property" and whatnot, you clearly have the situation reversed. Universities exist for the benefit of the students, and not vice versa. Networks are student resources, not a Pavlovian carrot to teach them your personal idea of right and wrong. The RIAA is clearly using terrorist tactics, using P2P as sleight-of-hand fake to scare people off even "fair use" applications.
You seem to have a real "God complex". Us and Them. My guess is that you, for the moment, find yourself on the priveledged side of that divide. If justice prevails, you'll find yourself victimized by someone just like you. Hopefully soon.
Now, I'll still say that the actual prosecution of filesharers is ridiculous, but at least if they're going through the court system I don't have to be pissed off that they're using police-like activities sanctioned by some piece of horrible horrible legislation.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Last I checked, IP-addresses were not legal ID, like ID cards or passports are. As far as I know, you can only sue legal entities, like people or businesses. Not abstract concepts (if I could, I'd sue some Back Propagation Algorithm for grievous mental harm)
So they're bringing lawsuits against unidentified IP-addresses, which could be anything from a NAT router to a university network, a government agency, or whatever. Many of these lawsuits will therefore be against companies which are not liable for their customers' actions.
This is ridiculous.
(IANAL, as if it wasn't obvious)
It isn't evidence until you are subpeonaed for it.
So if you destroy it, it is not a problem because it wasn't evidence at the time. Until then, it's just data. If you destroy it after you get the subpeona, then it's a problem. Why do you think they have those guys run around and hand out papers for? To make an auditable trail so the court can bitch slap you for not doing what they want because they KNOW you knew what they wanted you to do.
At worst, the University admins might end up in a long discussion about your network SOP with the FBI or something, but get fucking real. All the shoes I ever wore in my lifetime could be evidence too... but I sure as hell am not going to keep them when they wear out. (If any court wants my shoes, they are welcome to them, my feet sweat like crazy when doing first person shooters.) However any court wanting me to produce shoes from 10th grade won't get them, and I won't get in trouble because I don't have them either.
This is correct, but that is only if the ISP is an ethical business.
The flawed logic I am trying to dis-spell is the "I could start an ISP, then my friends and I can hack sites all day long, not keep logs, and be immune from any prosecution." idea.
Anyone who has followed a few court cases knows that such an asinine concept will result in failure.
Fact is, I did abuse for a major ISP for 4 years. I also have done several years of Information Security. I've also turned over my fair share of evidence to various agencies. I know what not to do, and not keeping records is one of them.