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IFPI 'First Wave' Sues 247 In Europe & Canada
securitas writes "AP and many others report that the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry - IFPI - has sued 247 accused file-sharers in Germany, Denmark, Italy and Canada as part of an unprecedented, coordinated attack. The IFPI represents the global recording industry through its members - national associations like the IFPIG, DRIA, FIMI, CRIA and RIAA - and says it will launch more international lawsuits in the months ahead. You may also want to read the official IFPI 'first wave' press release/related documents and a statement by the IFPI's chairman and CEO. Lots of coverage at AP/AJC, USA Today, the New York Times, Reuters/CNN Money, ZDNet/CNet, Bloomberg , netimperative and the BBC. The timing of the international legal attacks is especially interesting in light of the recent study that indicates file-sharing has a negligible impact on music sales."
Same thing happened to me! When I first looked at the summary of the post, I thought it said "International Federation of the PORNOgraphic Industry"!
I was like, "Oh, no, they're suing people over sharing porn! What are we going to do?!"
All kidding aside, I'd really like to see chart showing the so-called "decline" in CD sales displayed alongside the trends in other aspects of the young person's financial life, such as increases in college tuition and the price of textbooks, the price of gasoline at the pump, and sales of designer clothes, video games, and other luxury items. I bet there are correlations all over the place.
Remember when Bart Simpson encounters the inventor of Spirograph, who glumly points out that there's a direct correlation between the decline in sales of Spirograph toys and the rise in violent crime in our nation's schools?
I think that the RIAA is using the same kind of logic... CD sales went down as P2P usage went up, therefore P2P usage caused CD sales to go down. I have this cool program on my Mac called "Fallacy Tutorial," which was made by some logic professor, and it lists this type of argument as "Ignoring a Common Cause." The RIAA and its buddies are doing what politicians have been doing for centuries. Go back and look at how Prohibition came into being in 1920, and you'll see how spurious arguments can be used over and over again until a tiny group of overly-influential people (often very wealthy to begin with) get their way.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I generally use warez groups to find out about new software or software I didn't know existed. I try it, if it's good I buy it. As a software developer I find it extraordinarily hypocritical that people will steal (illegally copy) software but want others to pay for their offering.
I would have never purchased the Adobe Design Collection if I hadn't been able to learn to use Photoshop, InDesign and Acrobat Forms first. I have yet to use Illustrator but Freehand is easier for me, and I'm too busy to pick up that old book I bought.
I have a policy at my company that if you use a piece of software to enhance your productivity and contribute to your job, you will get it. Hell, I've even bought WinRAR, Textpad and VuePrint (which readily have keygen's available).
This is why I think the "stealing music" slant is bullshit. How are you supposed to hear new music when Clear Channel owns 1/2 the radio stations and someone else owns the other 1/2? File Sharing. I buy every CD I have an mp3 for because honestly I make too much money to waste my time trying to decrypt the slang used to name songs. Not to mention my bandwidth, etc. A $11.99 CD is well worth the time savings.
The RIAA, etc need to pull their heads out of their asses and learn that people like to test drive a product before they buy. I cannot imagine buying a car without trying it out. Why should music be any different?
Why would they go after third-world pirates? Those guys are just increasing market-share when they would otherwise presumably be buying from local media/software vendors. Why would they want them doing that?
But you can bet your ass they'll go after us -- we don't have any other sources to buy their product from so why not? Whatever other sources we might have had they took away with the product design (DVD region codes) or DCMA.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Nononono!
They have a media tax to fuck people over. All it really does is puts money in the pockets of a corporation.
It's not interesting that they are suing at all. If filesharing helped music sales increase 1000% they still would be suing filesharers. They care about control of the media not sales. Filesharing is a threat to their business because filesharing makes their class of middleman obsolete. If artists release their music over kazaa what purpose would RIAA members serve?
*sigh* some people never learn...or they knowingly choose to use stronger language to frighten (or terrorize in today's overused parlance) the masses into submission.
And I don't want to fuckin' have to think twice every time I want to listen to the same music in my car, on my computer or on my living room. Is it that difficult to understand?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
What the fuck, I don't care who you lost on 9/11, or who your friends lost. I'm sick of seeing 9/11 paraded around as if it's a fucking badge to wear. Shit happened, it sucked, and now we're three years past it. I don't say we shouldn't continue talking about terrorism in general, but isn't it time to give 9/11 a rest?
Terroristic attacks can take all different forms. And this guy was just making a fucking joke against SCO, not 9/11, and you have to scream 'DUMBASS 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11'.
"Motherfucking dumbass."
This might be offtopic, but I'm annoyed.
/. aren't seeing real-time posts go up as they're quickly composing their replies.
I think it is really unfair for moderators to moderate the first four or five replies after the first one as "redundant" just because they all make the same observation. The fact is that people posting in
Heck, I made the observation about my own misreading of the name of the organization in question, and then went on to make a point about the arguments used by that organization, and got modded redundant!
About 10% of my reply was devoted to my misreading of the name of the organization, and I even prefaced it by saying, "that happened to me too," yet my entire reply is redundant? How about reading my entire post before moderating it, okay?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I share music with wild abandon, and think the lawsuits are BS, but you're basing this on one NON peer reviewed study that, if you read the PDF file linked from yesterday's story, makes some rather dubious assumptions.
--- Ban humanity.
It's the same reason Fox News and the Israelis call Palestinian bombers "homicide bombers" instead of the more accepted term "suicide bomber". It's the same reason SCO releases all of their crap. FUD. It's all about the FUD and the marketing with these people. If they can change the mind of John Q. Public they've won -- it doesn't really matter what us geeks think.
Of course I don't know how you win over the hearts and minds of John Q. Public by suing 12 year old schoolgirls either -- but I'm sure RIAA has people working on ways to spin that in a positive way.
(Disclaimer: I'm not trolling or trying to start an offtopic discussion about Middle Eastern politics -- just the first example that popped into my head)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I wonder if the IFPI will be asking equally ludicrous amounts as the RIAA has.
The chairman's quote seems rather funny in this context though:
"People are at real risk of being sued or prosecuted if they continue to rip off those who make music."
Pot. Kettle. Black. I guess he's got a good lawyer...
Cooper
--
This truth probably doesn't come as shocking news to any of you,
and if it does then you're stupid and I hate you.
- Everything Can Be Beaten -
I was wondering if there were any statistics between RIAA's drop in sales and independant labels' increase in sales.
:P
Not ever record label in the states is an RIAA member, and to be honest, since I started downloading mp3s, I've bought more cds but nearly all of them were from non-RIAA members (not as protest, but because that's the music I like!)
I don't think the RIAA could even come after me for trading these files, since it's not even their intellectual property
Damnit - I need to get this off my chest. If this much effort was put into catching the real criminals of the internet (spammers, child pornographers etc) the net would be a much better and safer place. All this is just due to a huge lobby and a horde of overpaid lawyers. I refuse to recognize this as problem worthy of this many ressources.
Ok - I'll get off my soapbox now. Sorry for the rant.
Underholdning.info
-
I wonder how many sales are being lost because of the negative PR all these lawsuits must bring.
Even if it could be proven the lawsuits are having a larger negative effect than the perceived downloading has on sales, I doubt the RIAA would stop. They ignore studies which show CD sales have not been majorly effected by downloading (we had a post about that yesterday, and the RIAA just tossed it aside claiming all these studies that had shown a direct-link. The only problem is I believe the RIAA or someone in the recording industry funded the research of all the researchers who found that there was a correlation.)It's not like the RIAA is even trying to hide that it's just sue-happy right now. Even people who haven't heard about the whole downloading bruhaha are starting to notice and think the RIAA is a bunch of idiots. That has to be effecting the industry, but does the RIAA even seem to consider the possibility? If they have, they sure don't act like it.
Actually, it is a constitutional right. See Article 1, Section 8, describing the powers of Congress:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
The first copyright act wasn't passed for some time after the constitution was ratified, it was very limited in scope, and the term was only fourteen years.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
You might be right that the industry is changing and that the record companies will be going by the wayside. If that makes you happy, fine. But that does not give anyone the right to steal IP from people who own it.
Since I am a software engineer I like to draw examples from the Open Source movement. Some of the same people that act like stealing music is justified because of the "evil" record company's behavior would probably vehmently argue for the defense of the GPL were it to be violated. The GPL is strong because copyright law is strong, any errosion of the copyright law in the music industry will affect the GPL as well.
We can't have it both ways, either IP is protected or it is not.
In the real world one would expect those 247 sued to be the biggest sharers they could find, but history (RIAA suits last year into this year) have taught us that the recording industry doesn't seem to share our reality.
If the goal was to cut off supply, then perhaps. But it is in fact quite silly when CDs and DVDs are publicly sold. While the release groups may have ways to be earlier and thus get their "name" on the release, thousands of people could do it once it is in normal retail. Read a doom9.org guide and you'll be making them like the "pros".
Instead, the goal is to act as a deterrent. To scare and intimidate people using P2P, sending the message "You can be caught too". Including kids. Yes, they don't want to seem harsh on kids, but at the same time they don't want to send the message that it's okay either. They want them scared off P2P, not alienated from buying the music.
Btw, is it just me that noticed the 247 = 24/7 figure? [tin foil hat]I wonder if that was on purpose to trigger a subconcious "we're watching you 24/7" thought...[/tin foil hat]
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"the RIAA can easily call illegal file sharers 'stealers' and be using the term in plain old English."
Is it okay to call the RIAA members "organized crime"? After all, they've been found guilty of price collusion, and ways to jack up prices for consumers by illegally consorting on pricing and squeezing margins on retailers.
But I suspect they'd object. A fine organization like the RIAA doesn't want to be "Organized Crime".
So which is it? If copying files is "stealing", then the RIAA is the "Mafia".