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The RIAA Sues 482 More People

Posted by timothy on from the befriending-the-youth dept.

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).

20 of 535 comments (clear)

  1. How long will this go on? by MacGoldstein · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder when they'll ever figure out that suing your consumers is not an effective business model?

    --
    Help a college student
    1. Re:How long will this go on? by lightspawn · · Score: 5, Funny

      I wonder when they'll ever figure out that suing your consumers is not an effective business model?

      When SCO files for bankruptcy.

    2. Re:How long will this go on? by KrisHolland · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "letting everyone take their product for free is though right?"

      These companies likely would lose very little money to begin with because A) they would have rented it from the library B) they would have bought it used C) they would have borrowed it from a friend.

      People who have time to dick around for hours looking for music online is the type of people who have little money (other wise they would have worked a fraction of that time and bought the music instead).

      --
      3dinfo@maficstudios.com
    3. Re:How long will this go on? by loid_void · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, I think the think the question really should be: How can the recording industry be so stupid as to be represented by an association that by it's very actions drives it's customers away. Oh yea I forgot, the industry choose them. Then they deserve to die the slow death that they have chosen.

      --
      Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
    4. Re:How long will this go on? by dasmegabyte · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When people stop buying CDs from RIAA artists. Which, after close to three years of this nonsense, they haven't. In fact, according to SoundScan, OTC sales are actually up.

      So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that suing potential customers IS an effective business model, if you get more money from the suit then you would from their potential sales and if other customers want your product so much they're willing to buy from you even as you screw them. And seeing as how they're settling for $3k+ from filesharers who aren't likely to be buying 160+ cds any time soon, it looks like this is going to be just another line item in the budget. $5,000,000 from price fixed cd sales here, $2,000,000 from recouped advances, and another mil or so from suing grandmothers and preteen girls. Very effective; and you don't even have to call a sleazy accountant to do the books.

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
    5. Re:How long will this go on? by grumpygrodyguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh please.

      Don't act so smug and self-righteous. Congress has been degrading the public's right to access information for far too long. It used to be that you could go to places like the library and rent tapes, casettes, and relatively new novels.

      The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Act and other recent IP acts extend the copyright term to something like 100 years. It's appalling, and serves no purpose other than to allow big corporations to buy and sell our cultural history just like so many other commodities. Our parents generation enjoyed the proper balance between protecting innovators and the public. It's clear that our current leaders have no respect for the value of the public domain.

      We're raised on music, movies, and games only to learn that we have to pay a tithe to revisit our childhood. There's no reason we should stand for that. 5-10 years is more than sufficient time to ensure that an investor/artist is compensated. Until congress stops selling out the average american to corporations, there's no reason the average american should respect the acts of congress.

      --
      The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
    6. Re:How long will this go on? by MyHair · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

  2. Overall total? by BrickM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does anyone know the number of people the RIAA has sued thus far? I'd be interested in a comparision between that number and the number of estimated pirates (the more accurate numbers, and the RIAA's numbers). I'm wondering if all of this litigation is a financially sound strategy for the RIAA.

    1. Re:Overall total? by BrickM · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So according to Wired's total (and their settlement estimate), the RIAA is looking at $10,500,000. That's pretty impressive for a bunch of copy-n-paste lawsuits. Any lawyers want to estimate the RIAA's legal costs for this campaign?

  3. Poor John Doe by neon-fx · · Score: 5, Funny

    I feel sorry for this John Doe character, he's always getting picked on.

  4. We always here about initiating the suits..... by wo1verin3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    .... but unless it's an odd case like a 93 year old grandmother we don't here much about the outcome. While I'm sure some have come to settlement, where are the other thousands of cases? Have ANY of them gone to trial?

  5. As ALWAYS.....It's been said before..... by Valiss · · Score: 5, Funny

    "We keep losing customers! I don't understand! We sue the fuckers, and they still won't buy our products!"

    --

    -Valiss
  6. More info, please by cove209 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have two questions regarding this: 1- The RIAA is filing "John Doe" lawsuits (they will add the names later after the discovery process or warrants are served or whatever). At this time, they are trying to use the ip addresses to establish the identity of the people they are suing. How come the ip addresses are not posted in the news stories or on the eff page if it is public information and is in the lawsuit? 2- Exactly how is the RIAA obtaining their information? Are they seeding songs with data in the tag so they can then say in court that this song was slightly modified and now has a unique filesize or date in the tag and we alone have put this song out there and let people download it? And if so, can they legally do that? They are not a law enforcement agency, can they say that the laws regarding copyright don't apply to us since we own the copyright? OK, more than 2 questions: 3- Exactly what applications are the people using when they download this stuff? Kaaza? If it is Kaaza, are they then looking int he default shared Kaaza folder for the song they have seeded? I have found NO websites that have this info. Any thoughts?

  7. Uploading is the key issue... by Brandon+Glass · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder why more people don't realize this, the RIAA are actually balancing on the edge of a knife with this one: They want to stop copyright infringement, but they don't want to draw too much attention to the copyright infringement via P2P issue, because they realize that if too many people start paying attention to it, the masses will realize what the law actually says regarding this.

    Downloading isn't the key issue, uploading is. Copyright infringement is traditionally defined by unauthorized distribution - so they really only have the right to go after those who are illegally distributing their content. This means the uploaders. Depending on your P2P client, it is possible to prevent uploading, or at least stop uploading by removing the file from the P2P system as soon as it's downloaded - of course, in some cases this will render individual P2P networks unusable if too many people do it, but some, like Emule/Edonkey, have the ability to upload while downloading... so unless they catch the culprits very quickly, removing the files from the shared directory and thus preventing further uploading will take all of a few minutes, and no charges can (theoretically) be pressed.

    --
    Brandon Glass's personal site.
  8. Don't call us pirates -- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We prefer copyright challenged.

  9. Re:Yay! by fwitness · · Score: 5, Funny

    I feel like Britney is stealing from me every time I hear her songs on the radio. It's like my soul is just a little smaller.

    Then I see videos of her practicing in sweats. Alright, we're even.

    --
    -- I have fans? Wow.
  10. Re:Damn I need a subject by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

    3 years ago the economy went to shit...

    3 years ago CD sales went down....

    Think that's a coincidence.

    Didn't we tell you that piracy would destroy the economy?

    KFG

  11. Re:Sue Happy by loid_void · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Exactly, and just like Prohibition, no one stopped drinking, everyone just got a little more careful.

    --
    Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
  12. Re:Anonymous P2P by SB5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The RIAA is being VERY STUPID. The only thing they are going to do is make P2P stronger. Probably stronger than the internet.

    It will eventually become very decentralized, very efficient, probably encrypted, use really good hash file verification systems.

    And it is going much faster than it probably would have if the RIAA didn't step in....

    --
    If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
    it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
  13. Re:Yay! by Epistax · · Score: 5, Funny

    And let's not forget why we call it stealing. ..
    We call it stealing because the original owner no longer has it. No wait...
    We call it stealing because.. umm.. they don't get money?
    Oh right we call it stealing because the people who made it need money... no wait..
    Oh I remember, we call it stealing because some CEO someplace needs to buy a yatched. Yeah, that sounds right.

    Disclaimer: This is a joke. Taking this seriously offensively makes you look like an idiot. If you had a girlfriend she'd dump you.