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RIAA Countersued Under Racketeering Laws
Negadin writes "According to CNET News, a New Jersey woman, one of the hundreds of people accused of copyright infringement by the Recording Industry Association of America, has countersued the big record labels, charging them with extortion and violations of the federal antiracketeering act." The woman's attornies are arguing that "...by suing file-swappers for copyright infringement, and then offering to settle instead of pursuing a case where liability could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the RIAA is violating the same laws that are more typically applied to gangsters and organized crime."
It probably won't stick, but Bravo! I'm tired of watching the RIAA offer to settle with people regardless of guilt. By agreeing to settle many people look guilty and add fuel to the RIAA's fires.
Stick it to the Man!
Have you hugged your penguin today?
Now if everyone who got sued by the RIAA counter-sued with similar charges, you'd see these lawsuits go away entirely, for two reasons:
1) The RIAA can't stand up to intense public scrutiny, without shooting themselves (and their industry) in the foot.
2) Being sued by over 1,000 people becomes cost prohibitive very quickly, particularly considering it will be in 100's of different courtrooms spread across America.
I'm not a big fan of lawsuits, but I say good for her.
The RIAA does make a bit of a racket, finally some one telling them to quiet up.
Was I the only person who was unable to access the Slashdot site at the exact moment that this was posted?
Coincidence? I think not!
Three Squirrels
I think it's worthy to note that, in the headline, CNET News called the lawsuit a "long-shot."
Someone's suing the RIAA! Good things are going to happen, good things are going to happen.
(Of course, this will end when the RIAA then settles with the woman herself, paying her to shut up.)
In fact, whether the woman wins or loses, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Say hello to my LITTLE FRIEND!
*mows down RIAA*
God I love you Pacino....
Does anyone else feel this took way too long? I seriously can't believe any of the others haven't had the balls (or money) to stand up to them yet.
Now they'll start suing everyone for hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of offering to settle. And they've got the perfect excuse--the US government made them do it.
The Mafia doesn't offer you your day in court if you would rather not pay your protection money.
The RIAA is suing those whom they think are guilty of file sharing. If you are not guilty, you have the absolute right to demand your day in court.
I'm not trying to absolve the RIAA for their heinous practices, but there is nothing illegal about what they are doing.
I have been pwned because my
She'll never win, she won't have the cashflow. Even if she were, by some miricle to 'win', she'd probably be bankrupt. Its about as useless as me suing IBM or Microsoft 'just for fun'
So if convicted, the RIAA can either:
a) Do nothing, and seem ineffective at stopping P2P (which they already are, but it's a different thing to give up the PR battle) or
b) Drive every court case home. The evidence is quite clear, the possible damages huge. The courts might award them considerably higher fines than any settlement.
Somehow I think this will push them to b), and I sure wouldn't want to be on the recieving end of the next $97 billion lawsuit... $97 million, billion, trillion, kazillion is kinda irrelevant at that point anyway.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
How dare they compare the Scum of the RIAA to such upstanding citizens. Such as: Al Capone, Tony Montana, and Don Corleone
"It's probably not the first time that record company executives have been likened to Al Capone, but this time a judge might have to agree or disagree."
I sincerely hope that we get a good judge on this one. A precedence ruling in favor of the alleged file swappers would be a nice help.
Every RIAA executive weenie's nightmare:
headline "RIAA COMPARED TO MOB, TACTICS RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL"
Her lawyers should do this pro-bono for all the attention they will get from this case.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
if it is cheaper on a monthly basis, I might just pay the protection money to RIAA, instead of signing up for itunes/audible ;) :)
It is a joke. Laff!!
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
How's that work.....??
The darkness... controls the music. The music... controls the soul.
Section 1964 of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act not only provides for civil remedies in cases like this, but also automatically triples the damages and covers court costs and lawyers' fees. Personally, I'd like to see a massive class-action lawsuit against these dirtbags. If it can be won, surely the damages would be enough to curb their malicious behavior.
Why is it that the police will arrest individuals, but corporations seem to need to be sued? If someone sent in a tip to the police that the RIAA were racketeering, nothing would happen, but if the same tip were applied to an individual or gang, there would be an investigation. These days, big businesses seem much more powerful because they can hide behind lawyers and deep pockets.
Also known as taking unfair advantage of being an officer of the court. From the Scots term for being a corrupt judge, extended to include persistantly filing false suits.
davecb@spamcop.net
The RIAA companies probably make a small profit when someone settles with them for a few grand. Lawyers take their cut, but a settlement contract isn't all that expensive or time consuming for the RIAA.
But unless they win HUGE punitive damages (and the loser actually has the money to pay and doesn't declare bankruptcy) they probably lose money when it comes down to a lawsuit. And that takes a long time and involves a lot of up-front legal expenses, for questionable return.
If enough people start counter-suing the RIAA, or at least going to court instead of settling, then the lawsuits will soon become a huge financial burden on the RIAA, even when they win.
This seems like the racketeering suit filed against DirecTV, which was tossed out of court. Still, I'm glad that someone is taking a stand. Even if this suits and others like it are not successful, the RIAA may change tactics as they begin to meet resistance.
I liked this part of the article:
"Maalouf's attorneys noted that downloading through Kazaa was openly discussed at Maalouf's daughter's school by teachers, and they downloaded songs used in classes. That should be a protected fair use of the music, the attorneys said."
First, I really wonder if the teacher said "now, put thousands of songs in your Kazaa share directory." They got nailed for apparently sharing lots and lots of copyrighted material with Internet users at large without authorization, not for downloading a song or two at the behest of a teacher.
At any rate, helping yourself to a copy of Photoshop because you need it for a class project isn't "protected fair use" (although, sensibly, Adobe and many other software companies do often take steps for students to legally get software at less than retail cost), and neither is downloading a song. Did the teacher mislead them into thinking that massive music piracy was legal? Fine; sue the teacher. But it's no excuse to break the law.
There are plenty of legitimate ways to fight back against the recording industry (as the main subject of the article is doing), but this defense is just plain silly.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
I hope the RIAA finds illigal MP3s on SCOs corporate servers. Ohhh, that would be so sweet!
Life is not for the lazy.
Maybe you could get SCO to sue the RIAA if they use Linux on their machines, and vice versa? Oh if it were only possible to get them both suing each other, and maybe take themselves out in the process. Or maybe just nuke em both.
Doubltless under what you propose some people may get financially mowed down, but you are leaving out a few factors wich could be very good for the masses:
1) Children age 12, Grandmothers, and People without actual computers being sued in court. Wonderfully bad publicity RIAA
2) Sympathetic Jury Nullification. More wonderfully bad publicity for RIAA
3) A Hung Jury or a simple Not Guilty Verdict. Not only bad for RIAA but it sets a track record. This is one of the things they absolutely DO NOT want.
4) A wealthy defendent who hires an Attorney who can go the distance. This would also be very bad for the RIAA.
So yes, if convicted the RIAA may just take cases to court en masse, but they could also become a classic David vs. Goliath story as well.
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
One has to ask two questions. First, if they are willing to settle for such a small amount, why are the fines so high to begin with. Wouldn't it be more efficient to set fines at a appropriate level in the first place? It is very arguable that such high fines were created to allow extortion.
Second, why do they want to settle so badly? It seems like they would want some percentage of the cases to go to court to establish that these people actually violated copyright. As it stands, it would be very reasonable to assert that they are randomly choosing people, and then extorting money from them.
So, with the current tactics, extortion and fear seems to be their game. It is like those old shows where a gang would go into a business and demand protection money. There are legal ways to extort this kind of money, the MPAA and BSA does it. The RIAA does not seem to care about the law.
I really don't understand why the RIAA does not get an independent arbitrator to look at each case, assign a dollar value to the damages, and then send a letter to the alleged violators. Further legal proceedings might occur if the money is not paid, but at least then we would have some confidence that the RIAA is not just harassing innocent people.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I just read that a fedral judge told the RIAA to stop calling file sharing 'piracy'.
He said, it is something new and not yet defined, but it is not 'piracy'
I do not think I should have to pay some organazation every time i hear a tune.
I think making counterfit CD's or CHARGING for some one elses work IS piracy, but I really am not sure file sharing for free is...
And neither is the fedral judiciary
cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
If they all counter-sued and dried up RIAA's resources, it would be like the legal equivalent of a Slashdotting!
EvilCON - Made Famous by
IANAL, and am just thinking out loud, but couldn't those that have been singled out by the RIAA claim some sort of discrimination? More specifically, there are hundreds of thousands of people the RIAA could pursue for sharing music. What is the chance of convincing a court to force the RIAA to attempt to identify and prosecute every single user of Kazaa that distribute RIAA music?
Not only would it cost the RIAA a fortune (as well as create logistical impossibilities), but as soon as the children of a few politicians, celebrities, executives, etc, are fingered by the RIAA we would see some fireworks fly.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
CRIA named the IPs and nicknames of the Kazaa users it intends to sue.
B B2&file =viewtopic&t=24
details here:
http://www.canfli.org/index.php?name=PNphp
Well, this has been tried before against directv (they were suing people who had purchased smart card readers). The judge (in Texas IIRC) ruled that speech related to litigation was protected, and not racketeering.
I doubt this suit will fare much better.
Artists have known for years that they were racketeers.
Proving that in court? That's somewhat more difficult.
>> Since when do judges in the U.S. define the
>> meaning of words in a language?
Judges anywhere can tell lawyers to stop using one term to describe another. If I call a person who was shoplifting a murderer, that can influence the audience, media, and jury, any anyone else involved in a case. I imagine most people see a huge difference between shoplifting and killing, but I'm not alone in seeing a huge difference between piracy and file sharing.
As for open and shut cases, do you really trust an organization that's suing a list of IP addresses because they can't actually go to the trouble of finding actual defendants? Given that a significant percentage of the last batch of addresses aren't even in the United States (the jurisdiction of the court in which the suits were filed), do we trust their investigative prowess so much as to call the cases open and shut? If you're truly concerned about harm to your business, you do the research. If you can't even be bothered to before you trot your ass down to the courtroom, you look a little less than honest in your plaintive wails of "stop the evil file sharers from starving our artists!"
If you happen to know the plaintiff in the RICO countersuit, and you know she is guilty, then my apologies for my tone. Otherwise, I'll keep an open mind as to who the real extortionist is.
Ok, fine. So they'll win. Let's do some fun math, and look at the practical results of such a suit...
You get sued, and refuse to settle. The RIAA takes their $100/hour lawyers (probably quite low) to court, and make an example out of you. You were sharing, oh... say, 500 songs. Now, the maximum statutory penalty for willful copyright infringement would be 250,000 USD TIMES 500 songs. 125 MILLION dollars. Lets say that the really nice RIAA lawyers, in making an example out of you, decide to recommend to the judge that you only be fined... 10,000 USD per infringement. <sarcasm>After all, that's much better than 250,000 USD.</sarcasm> Willful infringement would likely be really hard to prove, but infringement is easy if you were really infringing and they have proof.
Moving on, at 10,000 USD/song, we now have a much more reasonable number of only 5 million USD. RIAA presents proof, IP addresses, whatever. BAM goes the gavel, and a judgement against you is entered for 5M USD. Ignoring court costs.
You have a really good job, where you make 50,000/year. Their chances of ever seeing anything out of you? Nominal. The chance that they've just fscked your life (if you had much of a filesystem left in the first place after they raid you)? Pretty good.
And thus we again have a semi-sane, though probably twisted, example of why copyright is messed up.
Disclaimer, as usual: IANAL. This is not intended to constitute legal advice, if it could be taken in such manner under any interpretation. If you're in the process of being 0wn3d by the Racketeering In America Association, please contact a REAL lawyer.
I think making counterfit CD's or CHARGING for some one elses work IS piracy, but I really am not sure file sharing for free is...
I won't disagree with you but Congress already has. The DMCA, of all laws, changed the definition of "commercial gain" to include "the receipt, or expectation of receipt" of copyrighted material. In other words, Congress specifically made mere trading illegal. People running P2P clients are making infringing material available because they expect to download other infringing material.
burris
That's definitely what we want. We don't want rational justice if it doesn't serve our purposes.
In my limited understanding of the case, I would side with the woman. However, I believe this can be solved with the facts.
This sounds similar to the approach taken by Mitsubishi regarding the Lemelson machine vision patents. I believe Mitsubishi argued that the Lemelson foundation had deliberately embarked on a practice of bringing weak patent claims nationwide because it knew that most defendants could not afford protracted litigation, and then would "settle" by requiring each defendant to purchase a license that cost less than the cost of defense. So virtually every defendant was forced to settle even though they believed the patents had no merit (and, ultimately, those patents were invalidated). My recollection is that the RICO claim did not work, but I am sure that counsel in the RIAA case has review the arguments pretty carefully.
Leave it to someone here in Jersey to strike back at them using laws made with the intent of reducing organized crime.
And I am sick of people who think that the objection to actions like this by the RIAA are based on legality alone.
People who focus solely on what is and is not legal (like the RIAA and yourself) are missing the point. Sure what the RIAA is doing is legal. But it is also ludicrous.
By (ab)using the legal system in this fashion, the law must be made ever more stringent, new exceptions and modifications must be introduced and so it grows more complex and (from observation) less flexible.
All that this sort of legalism encourages is
a) pressure by special interest groups to change laws to be more favourable or to leave in place laws that have long past their intended purpose to the detriment of the community at large;
b) business models based more on litigation than real value;
c) an increasingly complex legal structure that becomes less and less a codification of the will of the people and more an artifact to protect those who can best manipulate it.
The law is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. It should be (and again I own to idealism) a means of defining the desires of those who elected the people making those laws.
Take a step back. The law under a democratic system should be a tool for everyone and usable by everyone, and examples like this are making it increasingly apparent it is not.
In this case though, they're accusing you of stealing $10, they threaten to sue you sue you for $250,000 and offer to settle for $1000.
If you're innocent, your choices are;
Pay them the $1,000.
Pay a lawyer $10,000 and waste a year of your life fighting the case.
Sure if you're guilty it's a generous offer on their part.
But if you're innocent, it's extortion.
It might be legal extortion, but it's still extortion.
-- this is not a
Sorry to be nitpicky, but I must point out that you put an extra 'g' in the word "sue".
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Actually, this is a pretty close metaphor. Real pirates killed people. They tortured them to get that treasure. They kidnaped people for ransom and often they defaulted on the promise to return them and killed them anyway. They raped. In many cases, they bore arms against the militarys of their former nations in time of war, which fits the general definition of Treason. Calling copyright violators pirates IN COURT is simply an attempt to emotionally influence the jury. Further, a lawyer has taken oaths and claims to abide by ethical standards, some of which require them to attempt to speak accurately in using legal terms in court, and, as anybody should know, Piracy is first a legal term in a court, and only secondarily at best a metaphor.
Who is John Cabal?
So what is it when someone listens to a song on the radio? Does having a copy of the song so you can listen to it when you want make it theft? What if you record it off the radio?
I'm not saying I think file sharing is not theft, I'm just playing "what if".
I was thinking about "piracy" the other day. If I break into your house and take your TV, it is obviously theft because I have obtained the TV without paying for it and you have suffer the loss of your TV. If, however I make a copy of your copyrighted song, I have still gotten something without paying, but you are not out anything except the money you theoretically would have received for my copy.
When I was a kid, I used to make "unauthorized copies" of lots of programs for my Commodore 64 (I don't do that anymore... I mostly use Free Software or buy the few things I can't get as Open Source). Anyway, the software industry was not really deprived of the money they would have gotten from me purchasing all those games because I never could have afforded them anyway.
To put it another way, if you work minimum wage at Burger King and you download $200,000 worth of music, have you really deprived the music industry of $200,000? No. That's why I find the numbers they spread around about the cost of "piracy" to be misleading.
No, its not. Altogether now kiddies - its "copyright infringement"
It is not theft. Theft is a criminal act. What is described is a civil act, a violation of copyright. Any recent law to the contrary will eventually be overthrown by the court.
It is NOT theft.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Hmmm. "...receipt, or expectation of receipt", eh?
Sounds good to me... just write an article on the issue of the DMCA and copyright law. Duly register it with the Library of Congress, or whoever it is that you need to go to in order to formally register a copyright.
Then mail a copy to each and every member of congress, and each and every high-level executive of the RIAA and MPAA.
Finally, haul them all into court for violating the DMCA, as they are in receipt of your copyrighted work.
If there's a problem here because it's your copyrighted work (i.e., you have permission to distribute copies of it), then perhaps you could make use of some other copyrighted work. It should be a short bit of work to find something that has a registered copyright, but where the actual owner of the copyright can't be located.
If that won't work (say, becuase only the copyright holder can press charges under the DMCA), then perhaps you could use a copyrighted work that was created by someone morally opposed to the DMCA - RMS, for example. Let him know that you're violating his copyright, and point out that under the DMCA, not only you but everyone you sent a copy to can be taken to court and fined up to $150,000 each.
Someone smarter than I will point out exactly why this wouldn't work, I'm sure. But I like the idea of turning the legal system back upon itself, like the worm Ouroboros...
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Listening to the above mp3 is great to (1) listen to what a real appellate argument sounds like, and (2) hear real lawyers debate stuff that's important to many /. readers, including file sharing and the meaning of the Sony Betamax decision.
Related links are here and here.
The RIAA has been threatening prosecution under a law (the DMCA), that gives them a 30,00 dollar penalty at base, or 5 times that (150,000 per incident) if they can prove willfullness. They are being taken to court under RICO, a law aimed at organized crime, yet that law only allows 3x damages, and requires proving criminal intent, which seems to be a lot higher standard than willfulness. It's a good thing for the RIAA that the "cruel and unusual" clause doesn't automaticly apply to civil suits, or that very fact would shoot down the DMCA.
Why do they have a special law that lets them come down harder on file sharers than victims of the mob can fight back against mobsters? Do we really need a law that is tougher on copyright violators than the law is allowed to get on Drug Kingpins, Murder for Hire rings, or general Racketeers?
Who is John Cabal?
The law itself is not valid. The US has a principle of supercedence of law. The higher a levels of law override the lower ones. So A city can't make something legal that is illegal on a federal level, for example. Works the other way too, the right to freedom of speech can't be nulled in a given state, it's at a higher level. Specifically, it's at the HIGHEST level. The constitution overrides all other levels of law. Hence why the supreme court is so concerned with the constutionality of a given law or legal action. Their job is to intrepret teh supreme law of the land, that being the constituion.
Well, one of the ammendments states: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." The key here being the cruel and unusal punishments. The intent and interpretation of this law is that the punishment must fit the crime. You cannot execut someone for anything less than a murder (and a premeditated one at that) because it wouldn't fit the crime.
Well, as you noted, the statutory punishment for copyright infringment is TOTALLY out of line with the crime. If 20 people download a song worth $1 the makimum you can posibly claim it cost you is $20. Theoretically, if those 20 people intended to spend the money on your song, but elected not to because they got it for free, you would have not gotten $20 in sales. Of course, this is all theoretical. Some of those that downloaded may decide to but the song anyhow, and some may not have been willing to pay regardless of if they could not get it for free.
Regardless, it is quite clear that the statutority damages are totally out of line with the crime. Thus the law is invalid, it is a cruel and unusal punishment and in violation of the constituion.
I see this BS copyright "damages" the same as if they decided to charge people $10,000 for each mile per hour over the speed limit they went for tickets. The crime is just as (if not more) harmeless and thus should be in the same class of punsihment (small fine, not billions of dollars).
The prinicple is called "jury nullification." Judges are so scared of the idea of juries deciding for themselves what the law should be that lawyers are forbidden to mention the possibility in their arguments to the jury.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
You clearly have no concept how much money it takes to bring a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. It's like having your wallet Slashdotted for years!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
No, it IS NOT THEFT. It is what it is and it is NOT THEFT. It is copy right infringement. It is not the same thing as stealing and cannot be given the same penalty.
There is a reason it has its own phrase to describe it. The legal system does not invent phrases to be more descriptive of a particular crime. It tries to be as straight forward as possible.
There is a reason it has its own phrase to describe it. The legal system does not invent phrases to be more descriptive of a particular crime. It tries to be as straight forward as possible.
First degree murder
Second degree murder
Manslaughter
Involuntary Manslaughter
Vehicular Manslaughter
Involuntary Vehicular Manslaughter
And, my personal favorite:
Intoxicated Manslaughter
I always thought dead was dead, you know? In any case, copyright infringement isn't theft, which I agree with, but our legal system isn't as clear with language as you say it is. They do invent phrases to be more descriptive of a particular crime, usually because it means something specific, such as Capital Murder. You get a harsher sentence if you kill for money than you do if you kill for fun.
Like what I said? You might like my music
Just a thought...
(Now the question: offtopic, troll or flamebait. These things are so unpredictable)
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
If I ever get sued, just give me a jury with some college students on it. That's all I ask. And maybe a few baby-boomers who have bouht the same albums over and over again in vinyl, cassette and CD.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
"It is the first I've heard of anyone attempting that," said EFF legal director Cindy Cohn. "I guess that is a silver lining of the fact that the RIAA is suing so many people, that there are a lot of lawyers trying to figure out ways to protect folks." ... the above quote is from the article--right at the end. Unfortunately this racketeering counter-suit doesn't work when the people being sued are doing the illegal/infringing activities.
How do I know? DirecTV has been doing the same thing for far, far longer, someone counter-sued them for racketeering, and the suit was dismissed. If I'm not mistaken, it was even discussed here on Slashdot.
Anyway, the alleged activities these people are engaged in are illegal in the U.S. (but not in Canada!) so if it's proven they did them, then it's proven.
Think of the consequences of a racketeering conviction! A company would no longer be able to sue large masses of people who were infringing their intellectual property! Ack, the chaos that would ensue there!
We need a judge to stand up and say that the term cyber-terrorist hereafter only applies to robots with bombs.
..or, in other words, to the governor of California.
IANAL, but since you are using legal terminology (e.g. "copyright"), "theft" must be the unauthorized misappropriation of another's property with a view to permanently deprive them of it.
Think of your basic Supply & Demand curve. It just doesn't work that way. If you want to sell more, you charge less.
(________________i__________________)
(big but[t])
That was just the 'Why you already knew for sure they were full of it, empirically.'
Adding the a skosh more complexity, the model gets a lot closer to what intuition says it is:
I recently came across a few papers, etc., dealing with what is being called 'Willingness to Pay.' What has been found is very much in line with what we all know: most people 'stealing' music/software don't get enough utility from the 'product' to buy it.
Gee, you mean that maybe the fundamental paradigm of market economics is whats happening? It doesn't require a whole new paradigm based on everyone wanting to rob poor rich oligopolists?
But wait! There's More!
The 'age old' examples are things like the Bandwagon and Snob effects. [You want more the more other people have something, or the reverse]. But think about what you already know.
If people who wouldn't have paid for your product have it and use it, well you didn't loose any potential revenue [no matter what you think honey].
Oohh Oooohh! What do you call it when more people know about your work? Oh yeah marketing .
The stuff I've read was dealing specifically with software, so I'll limit the scope to just that. When the unwilling end up willing [need app at work, change in income, etc.] the effectiveness of this form of marketing can be profound.
Oh, and what about the community effect? What about the 'buzz' effect?
Nah they don't exist, RedHat was really worth that much...
Turns out that the addition of unwilling 'pirates' in fact boosts the damned demand curve. The only people who are in danger, are those who have crap product.
[Unless there is something I've not thought of that experiences a strong Snob effect...]
So am I saying it's not 'stealing.'? Well, IANAL, and I'm not even going there.
Ok, I lied.
It is in fact possible[probable] that there is a negligible or negative loss in such activities.
Intelligent firms would actually manage and caughnotcaughoverlycaughdiscouragecaugh such behavior
But no, I don't know if I but that for the recording industry. Two reasons:
- They have behaved so stupidly that the potential positive marketing opportunity has been mung'd into a massively negative one
andAnd ya know, $1/song when the marginal cost of production is near 0, is STILL agregious.
Still don't believe me? If you charge $0.10/song, how many people wouldn't purchase damn-near-every-song-they-even-might-know-someone who-likes; but would instead deal with free P2P shares to download them 'illegally'?
Gee make alcohol illegal, nobody will drink...
PS There is a utility crew right across the street doing some highly important something involving a backhoe and jackhammer... So have pity if this entire comment falls into the 'infinite monkeys with typewriters' category...
PPS And FWIW I'm in GMT-5land...
PPPS In Soviet Russia.... ahh screw it
But in the east piracy still happens exactly as it happened in the time of sailing ships. Sure the movies may have shown pirate ships with three decks of cannons taking on the british navy but that is fiction. Most pirates used small fast ships wich could out manouver their prey (don't forget that canons of those days were more or less fixed and you needed to move the entire ship to aim) and then board and overwhelm the largely civilian crew.
This is still the way it goes. Pirate ships have gotten smaller but then most civilian ships these days are totally unarmed anyway and their crews have gotten smaller.
Piracy of a different sorts exists in areas where drug running takes place where pleasure yachts(?) are captured and the owners forced to smuggle drugs or simply killed.
For the facts on piracy today search google with "piracy lloyds" (lloyds is a famous insurance company) you will find countless links talking about the costs, the risks and people offering protection. The lloyds bits helps keeping the filesharing "piracy" links down.
So I agree with the judge who might have said that calling filesharing piracy is wrong. Piracy is a current and far different crime.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
http://www.fija.org/
Copyright infringement is not a FORM of theft.
Calling it theft "therefore" is not even vaguely valid.
Since your premise is faulty your house of cards falls down. Repeating your statement in capital letters does not make your point any more valid than talking slowly does.
Copyright infringement is closer to an "infringement of a prohibition" [against copying and distribution] than it is to theft, stealing, larceny, pilfering or light-fingered-ness.
It's closer to the breaking of an exclusivity contract [and one in which you have no right to negotiate].
Using politically motivated, inflamatory language ["theft"; "piracy"] does not make it any worse an act in reality.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce