Slashdot Mirror
The RIAA Sues 482 More People
An anonymous reader writes "Today the RIAA said they have sued another group of people, 482 to be exact, for copyright infringement. The RIAA used their 'John Doe' litigation process in this round of law suits, because they do not know the names of the copyright infringers. After appeals court ruled that Verizon does not have to provide names of customers to the RIAA, the RIAA started using the 'John Doe' litigation process." (Similar stories at Wired News and CoolTechZone).
"the RIAA started using the 'John Doe' litigation process"
For those wanting to know more about 'John Doe' processes etc here is the RIAA's FAQ.
The total thus far is 3,429. As for the number of pirates, it is in the millions and millions, for sure.
A blog like any other.
Anonymous P2P will likely 'solve' these lawsuits, the technology is coming along nicely.
I think that I2P and Mute need some developers though if you are interested.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
The fact that you're not hearing much about the outcomes is primarily linked to the fact that settlements typically include gag clauses to prevent you from coming out and berating the RIAA.
You can probably infer from the fact that we've not heard much that 99.9% of the cases have been settled privately.
I'm not usually a guy to whine about spelling, but it's "hear", not "here". If you want people to take you seriously, spelling is important.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
It has nothing to do with contracts, actually. There is no contract entered into when purchasing a CD. What prevents someone from being able to distribute RIAA members' songs is copyright.
or, IHBT, IHL.
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
SCO isn't suing its consumers. It's suing companies that use a competing product that they claim infringes on their property.
BZZZZZZZZZT. Wrong.
SCO wants the public to believe that, but it ain't true. SCO hasn't sued anybody for using Linux. They've sued IBM for breaking copyright and/or license contract with respect to their tech contributions to Linux, but IBM is a licensee of Unix; remember SCO "revoking" their AIX license? SCO is is suing Autozone because SCO claims Autozone--a SCO Unix licensee--is using libraries from SCO Unix in their Linux systems and violating the license and contract. They are suing DaimlerChrysler--a SCO licensee--for, uh...I forget.
But everybody they've sued is a current or former licensee of SCO's, and in at least the Autozone case they say they quit using SCO Unix over 7 years ago and aren't required to submit to the demands of SCO, yet SCO claims they never terminated the contract and must submit a list of processors SCO Unix is running on.
SCO has not sued anyone who is not their customer. They have not sued anyone for using Linux. They have not sued anyone claiming a Linux user owes them a license fee. They want you to think that, though.
The Harvard Business Review ran an article recently claiming that illegal downloads aren't hurting the music industry's bottom line. In fact is supposes that it may help, from an economic sense. I submitted as an article but alas rejection :)
Music Downloads: Pirates--or Customers?
Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and co-author Koleman Strumpf floored the disbelieving music industry with their findings that illegal music downloads don't hurt CD sales. Oberholzer discusses what the industry should do next.