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Record Industry Sues 532 More U.S. File-Sharers
Patik writes "The RIAA today issued 532 new subpoenas for music file swapping, many of them college students using their campus networks. They will not say which ISPs or colleges were involved, but that the users were sharing "substantial amounts" of music files. This brings the total number of subpoenas to 1,977. The RIAA has been averaging $3,000 per settlement so far." Readers Digitus1337 and Warpedcow point to stories respectively at Wired and Reuters.
The RIAA ought to keep on doing this until the public gets either so fed up with these antics or simply doesn't have enough money to buy the CDs altogether.
Though they've made around 6M dollars, this is a losing strategy in the long run.
I have been pwned because my
It must cost the RIAA more than $3,000 per case to file against file swappers. Lawyers don't come cheap...
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
"The RIAA has been averaging $3,000 per settlement so far."
...so are they giving all the money they've received to the authors/performers of the music? How do they decide who gets what and what's the money used for.
I remember when they first started sueing, the file trading slowed down for a while. I think it went back up though. Do you think most people think they won't get caught? After all, when there are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people on a p2p network, sueing 532 people is only a fraction of the overall filesharers.
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Smack your momma good deals!
It is a weak terrorist-like tactic.
How is this measure, which is entirely legal and non-violent "terrorist-like"? Or is everything we don't like supposed to be referred to as "terrorism" now? I didn't get the memo...
And it works. When you use a p2p application, do you share all of your music? How much do you have?
I have 8GB of music on my work computer. It's all legal - I own the CD or vinyl to match each one. But you have to admit - it's easier to download a copy of a song than it is to "rip" it from vinyl.
If I shared all that music, I would expect to be sued by the RIAA. They target people sharing a lot of music.
So... I don't share it. That means that there are 8GB of music that AREN'T available for download. In fact, by scaring people into not sharing their music, they are winning.
I'm not going to spend $3,000 for "the cause."
I'm reminded of why I quit buying their stuff and started buying better music instead.
Rank Presidents by th
Well, that is -precisely- what I do when it comes to music, especially when it comes to electronic- music, where there are so many DJs/groups releasing songs/remixes/mashups; with many only being released on wax, etc.
Tell me, if I hear a snippet of say, something like, "D-Funktional" by Mekon featuring Afrika Bambaataa, where I can go to hear the full version?
The answer is nowhere. And this is why P2P rocks.
And in other news, Water still feels wet, the sky hasn't fallen, and SCO still hasn't had all their cases dismissed with prejudice.
C'mon people, this doesn't even count as news anymore. People violate copyrights, people get sued. Let it go.
Now, what I consider the bigger "news" from this involves the experiment the RIAA has run on the level of stupidity in the general population. 1977 suits so far, and people still keep using Kazaa to download this crap. Get a clue, Kazaa users! At the very least, switch to a different P2P app. Perferable one with at least a tad bit of privacy, like FreeNet.
Or better yet, just go back to the way that has worked for the past 30-40 years, from the days before P2P - Swap music and movies privately, offline, with your friends. You can get the same stuff, with absolutely no chance of an RIAA nastygram as a resuly. You can even do so as a sort of buying pool, where you and a dozen friends agree not to overlap in your purchases, thus maximizing your available music library. "Need" to find something really obscure, possibly out-of-press (print? Whatever you call music that you can no longer buy new, for any price)? Hook up with a fan group, where you can get material far more obscure than even Kazaa's bottom-20 list.
Or, best option of all, just buy from indie labels. Hey, we all have a favorite band, and I'll admit even I will buy whatever a handful of RIAA-signed groups puts out. But for the rest of the "fluffy listening" music, look into companies like Magnatune, or go direct to the artists' websites. The musician gets a FAR bigger cut, you pay less ($5/cd on average, in my experience, for buying direct from the artist), and best of all, the RIAA gets nothing.
Produce a product that anyone else can copy and you'll soon go bankrupt. That's capitalism. What you describe is a system of government backed monopoly.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I would say listening to it first is a pretty good way to decide whether something is valuable to you. At least that's the way I choose which CD's to buy: download songs from p2p/usenet, and buy the CD if I like it.
The Record Industry's business model is geared towards them telling you what you should be listening to, not the other way around. They simply are not going to stand for listeners being able to pick and chose music on their own. The best way out of their trap is to find some independent bands that you like and avoid RIAA stuff altogether.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Are you kidding? What legal uses?
Downloading non-RIAA files.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
That guilt was predetermined. If we know that someone is guilty before a court proceeding, why have courts at all? I mean if someone's accused they MUST be guilty, right?
Give me a break.
You have no idea if these people are liable (this is civil court, it's liability, not guilt). For one, there is no gaurentee that those files were actually copyrighted files. There are TONS of misnamed files (either delibratly or accidentally) on any given P2P network, and no the RIAA doesn't bother to download and check. Even assuming they are actually the songs they claim to be, there is no way to know that the files were on the computer you think they are. Kaazaa particularly is not known for it's accuracy in pulling lists from computers, it gets it wrong sometimes. Even supposing it is the right list, you have no idea if the person who is associated with the IP is actually the right person. Maybe they have wireless and someone used it (seriously, it's easy to break in, even if they use WEP). Even if it ends up being their computer, you have no idea that they were the one responsible. Virsues, worms and hacks are RAMPANT, and it wouldn't be out of the question for someone to use a hacked box for P2P to shield themselves.
So basically they are saying "Well this IP, which might or might not be for this computer, which might or might not have been under this person's control, might or might not have had this list of files which might or might not be what they claim to be is infringing on our copyright." What? You mean you think you can predetermine guilt from that? Give me a break.
Given your numbers an illegal file sharer can calculate their monthly financial risk from RIAA lawsuits.
Your numbers are:
Time (T)=8 months
Probability (P)=1/25290
Cost (C)=3000
With monthly financial risk = (P*C)/T, if each month you put away 1.483 cents, you would on average have enough money to pay your settlement fees by the time you were sued.
Now assume that the RIAA gets more aggressive and settles less, and through the courts gets a $1 million verdict in 100% of the people it sues (1977 people / 8 months). The monthly financial risk then is $4.94 a month.
So even if your punishment is $1 million, the financial risk of getting sued is less than any online music service with a monthly fee. It's also less than 5 songs on iTunes a month, which probably isn't nearly as many songs as Kazaa users download. Why does the RIAA think their legal efforts will convince people with such a low financial risk?
And here's an interesting twist -- why doesn't an insurance company insure people against RIAA lawsuits for $10/mo so they can download as much as they want on Kazaa? Isn't this similar to what Redhat is doing to protect its customers from SCO? I'd much rather pay $10/mo to download whatever I want without risk of being sued than pay the same money to MusicMatch for their inferior service. And if everyone did the same, peer-to-peer services would blossom again with tons of quality content from all genres imaginable.
my blog
If you love the music industry executives, thier spouses and mistresses AND thier nosetrails... buy the overpriced shit they sell you.
When translated to reality, reads:
"I'm justifying stealing some artist's music because I don't like that an exec who heads the label makes money in a capitalist system. I'll ignore that the artist willingly signed their contract and that distributing intellectual property without the copyright holder's permission is illegal.
Instead, I'll sidestep the issue of ripping off artists and say, "Here, look at this, it's a rich RIAA exec and his wife!" Thereby completely distracting the issue with something irrelevant that the anti-social, anti-capitalist, generally-broke Slashdotters can rally against.
And we'll pretend it's actually WRONG for the RIAA to be suing people still illegally distributing their product--even after all the awareness of its immorality and illegality. Never mind that when Napster was being sued, Slashdotters were saying the RIAA should be suing individual downloaders instead because they're the ones breaking the law!
Now they're doing exactly what Slashdotters said they should do, and suddenly it's wrong. Because I'm really trying to justify the piracy I participate in daily on my DSL connection. I'm going to pretend it's not illegal, not immoral, and I'm going to rid myself of the guilt of downloading by trying to remove the image of me being a criminal and instead paint the RIAA as the bad guy."
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Once the RIAA/MPAA has shot themselves in the collective feet enough through negative press and marketing, consumers will demand alternative bands, distribution, technology, etc.
You're kidding, right? Have you met anyone under 20 recently? 90% of the kids out there don't even know what the hell a RIAA is, nor do they care. Neither do they seem to care that an album costs $18. You know why? All their friends are buying Linkin Park CD's and they don't want to be left out. At any cost.
Face it, the RIAA is selling to a largely agnostic market. It's just the same as the Nike sweatshop phenomenon.
That AC is overrated.
/. it gets interesting when people discuss, explain their position. Saying "the answer is 23!" does not say anything about what you think the question is, or what the logic behind "23" is. You could shout "buy!" and I could shout "don't!" all day, and nothing useful would come out.
If you want music, buy it! If it's not valuable to you, don't.
No, don't buy it ! If you want music, get it through the most convenient, cheapest way you can ! If it's not valuable to you, don't bother.
Now that I gave a reply in the same tone of your post, let me rumble a bit.
Here at
How about bringing us all more about what you think. For instance I would like to remind you that laws should reflect the best interests of society. They are generally very, very arbitrary in their content.
Music was historically freely available -- those who liked it, listened to it, those who had talent, repeated what they listened to. After thousands of years of Music being free, and some (how many?) hundred years of copyright law, I would say it is fair to ask: "It the copyright way of treating musical works really the correct one ?". If so, why ?
Music is, at its core, a comunal event. It was alway played to be listened. The player needs the listener as much as the listener needs the player. Why should the listeners pay the player, and not the player pay the listeners ? The answer is, because the extra-hyped, created celebrities, super publicized top performers are few in number, and many groups of people would like to have the same performers coming over to play, so an auction effect raises stakes and pays them a lot.
BUT is this fair to equally talented, not so famous bands ? No it isn't. Is the star creation system, through major labels, an optimal allocator of musical talent -- I do not believe so. So why not let the labels starve, and stop feeding the star system, so that each one starts looking around for local talent, which will not be as expensive ?
I would rather have a new world than risk a world in which I need to pay for each time I press play on my music jukebox. One Microsoft is enough, already.
Sorry for the long post. It's late at night and I decided to throw my 25 cents in.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Last time I commented on a related topic, someone responded by commenting that the song he/she/it downloaded lead to he/she/it buying the songs in question. (or somethign to that effect), as if that was somehow a rebuttal to my comment.
I'm sort of tired of people who cite increased CD sales to somehow justify piracy. That's totally beside the point. It's the copyright owners' prerogative to dictate how the works are sold, or not sold, for that matter. If the copyright owners didn't want the increased sales from allowing P2P, that's still their prerogative. It does not change their right to distribute or not distribute the work as they please. They can sew the master copy inside a matress and sit on it, if that's what they want to do.
Our prerogative, as consumers, is to not pay for said works if we don't agree with the terms under which they make it available. That's it. Piracy is piracy whether or not P2P leads to million or billion CD sales. Smart labels will realize this and capitalize on it; stupid ones will fight until they run out of money and lose to the others with a little more business savvy.
The industry's treatment of artists is also a completely separate discussion. No matter how crappy the artists' deals are, it STILL doesn't transfer copyright to pirates. If you don't like the way the labels do business, it's your prerogative not to buy from them. It still doesn't grant you rights to use the works they have the rights to without permission.
If you don't like the copyright laws, try to have the laws changed. However, until the laws do change, you STILL don't have the right to pirate copyrighted works.
Nobody forced these kids to distribute these files. If they were in fact participating in piracy, they deserve whatever reprimand they get.
Get it through your thick skulls -- It's the copyright owners' right not have their work distributed through P2P.
-- "This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."