RIAA Files 531 More Lawsuits

nuclear305 writes "CNN is reporting that the RIAA has filed 531 'John Doe' lawsuits against defendants in Atlanta; Philadelphia; Orlando, Florida; and Trenton, New Jersey. Of course, once these thugs find out who you are, you can pay them off for the small fee averaging $3,000."

Comments

Be smart.

[readpunk]

If you only download music, it is your fault if you get a lawsuit or get busted.

Reason being is you are listening to bad music. Stop supporting or even ripping off the RIAA and wake up to the fact that any music that is associated with them is terrible.

Willing to pay for music, video, etc.

[justanyone]

I'm willing to pay for music, video on demand, etc., but I'm not rich.

I'd be willing to pay

• as much as $0.025 (2.5 cents) per song

for the right to have 256-bit mp3's of the top 10,000 songs of all time. That translates to 10000 * .01 = $250. That would be a reasonably complete music collection, and by my count, it would be about 100 GB of storage, not unreasonable at all given today's hard drive sizes.

But, what I'd really like to do is pay that directly to the artists involved. Or, I'm willing to pay the copyright owners, as long as that's not a firm that's rampantly cheating the artists out of their fair share.

I say, let someone accumulate enough distribution rights, and I'll be willing to purchase some music online. Until then, I'm sticking to my old LP's, some CD's I have received as gifts, and what I hear off the air. I don't like being a criminal, but I also don't like being price-gouged (or a party to price-gouging of recording artists who aren't really that wealthy either).

The suits, yes; the method, no

[melquiades]

Agreed: unpleasant business though it is, they are well within their rights to sue copyright violators. It is, in fact, what they ought to have been doing all along.

However -- and this is a big however -- they are completely outisde their rights using the powers the DMCA has given them to bring about these suits. Under the bill of rights, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure, and deprivation of property without due process of law, the RIAA would have to get a warrant issued to be able to shut down people's ISP accounts. The burden of proof would rest with the accuser.

However, the DMCA places the burden of proof on the accused. Basically, the DMCA makes it so that an ISP has to take action against anybody accused of copyright violation, regardless of the merit of the claim. The accused has to (at the very least) file a legal counterclaim just to get their account back -- not an easy thing for somebody who's not a lawyer and isn't up on the vagaries of the DMCA. And it's without any oversight from the judicial system.

This unreasonable power lets the RIAA use these lawsuits not as a valid round of legal complaints (which they would be), but as a bullying tactic. They needn't be careful about the accusations they make; they pay no price if they're wrong, and achieve the desired intimidating effect just the same.

Lawsuits were already enough of a big, ugly stick before the DMCA. So yes, they're within their rights to bring the suits -- but not by the methods they've chosen. They'll have my sympathy when they stop trying to dismantle my rights; until then, their business model can crash and burn for all I care.

Re:MS going after innocent P2P users as well

[Undefined Parameter]

In the tradition of the classic acronym many a slashdot denizen has used in composing their often insightful and interesting posts, IANAL. Even though such is the case (and until I am contradicted by someone who can truthfully say "IAAL"), it is clear to me that you probably have a very strong legal case against Microsoft right now; granted, it might only warrant small claims court, but it's still a case against them, and if you can get a guilty(?) verdict out of it, you have granted the lawyers of the EFF and other such foundations a tool with which to defend your fellow innocent file-sharers.

Go for it, man, if not for the your own rights and those same rights held by others online, then to strike a blow against that oft-belligerent corporation, Microsoft, or at least, so as to appeal to your baser desires, for the money. Don't tell me that such an award would be but a drop in the bucket and therefore not worth the effort for you (because if you do, I'll be asking for a donation to the "Put Undefined Parameter Through College Fund ;-) ).

Viva la revolucion!

~UP

Let them sue me...

[eWarz]

I wish they'd try to sue me! They'd be in for a _really_ nasty surprise. I own all the music i download, i'm just too lazy to rip the songs from cd. I have 250 cds in my collection, it takes an average of 2 minutes a song to download a 192kbps copy, vs 10 minutes a song to rip/encode. I also have company lawyers that bite. Hard.

Re:Let them sue me...

[hawkbug]

Yes... but what if you share it and the person you share it with also has the CD? Nothing illegal is happening here. I'd like to see somebody prove this in court. Granted, there a lot of people who don't own the discs that download, but still, somebody is going to have to prove something along the line here.

Re:Let them sue me...

[torpor]

The whole point of taking someone to court is to prove, or not, whether they are, or not, doing something illegal.

If you've got legal copies of your CD's, and you're sharing the mp3 files with your friends, who also have legal copies of those CD's, YOU'RE STILL A TARGET FOR A LAWSUIT!

Its just that, in the course of that lawsuit, the truth will be revealed.

That's something that people just don't seem to 'get' about these RIAA suits. They're not actually saying that something illegal is going on - only that they suspect it, and want the courts to find out, on an individual basis, what the truth is.

The only thing that will be 'disproven' by a legitimate downloader/sharer going to court, who has actually bought the CD's in question, is that the RIAA's investigative methods are effective. To be effective, they'd have to catch the crooks - if you're innocent, within the law, and exercising your rights, then the RIAA's techniques of discover are clearly flawed.

This is the only thing that will be proven if some legitimate sharer goes to court ...

I Have But Two Words for You, Sir:

[Undefined Parameter]

Civil disobedience. The practice of this ideology and method of protest begun many decades ago, but it has changed from protesting government actions (or inactions, whichever the case may be) to protesting government, corporate, and/or organizational practices. It may not occur to you, but it may be that some these illegal file-sharers are only breaking the law in protest of exploitation and high prices. Alternatively, if you wish to view civil disobedience as pertaining only to governmental practices, you could see the participation in such civil disobediance as protesting the lack of government action to stop such disservices to the community.

I cannot say I speak for file-sharers, but we all must take into account the culture of rebellion, especially against lawyer groups and corporations, in analysing the file-sharing movement and practice.

(The RIAA does not need to operate the way it does today. It could, for example, simply apply itself as a marketing, CD manufacturing, and distribution service, still garner substantial profit margins, and NOT take the copyright of the artist and cheat the artist of his/her/their proper compensation in practicing that business model. Things could be made better in this regard, for this subject, and there are people, plebs if you will, who are making the demand for change; the actions those individuals take in stating their demands are not necessarily organized or nonagressive in nature.)

~UP

Re:Me?!?

[El]

The question is whether or not you are regarded as a common carrier, and thus not liable for any of the traffic through your node. I'd love to see this go to court, but I don't want to be the one that takes it there!

Title 17 Section 1008 says they cannot sue!

[Losat]

Those same recording media fees are charged here in the USA, too (on blank cassettes and "Music" CD-Rs). This was made law at the same time as suits against consumers for making copies were prohibited!

I keep wondering how they are suing noncommerical infringers considering that the law says they can't sue them.

Title 17, Chapter 10 "1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."

I guess it must be that this section protects the act of making the recording but not distributing it. Thus, it would be legal to use the "digital audio recording device" embodied in your computer and favorite digital music software to make a copy of music available via P2P but not to let others get your music files.

(I'm no lawyer, but I play one on slashdot.)

If you're sick of the RIAA!!!

[torpor]

Then stop using them. They'll go away.

Looking for new and interesting music?

The AMPFEA.ORG Files Repository contains a signficant daily portion of new music which has been released on the 'net by independent artists.

The new-music mailing list is a handy, moderated list for new music announcements from fresh artists around the glob.

Go here if you've got music of your own online that you want to announce to the new-music list ...

You don't *NEED* record companies any more, in order to find good music. You only need them to make you feel good about belonging to a society...