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RIAA Grinds Down Individuals in the Courtroom

Posted by michael on from the this-isn't-a-court-of-justice,-son,-this-is-a-court-of-law dept.

Iphtashu Fitz writes "The Associated Press recently reviewed many of the copyright infringement lawsuits that the RIAA filed against individuals charged with illegally sharing songs on P2P networks. According to the article over 800 of the targeted individuals have settled for approx. $3000 in fines. One man in California had to refinance his house to pay his $11,000 settlement. Many of the defendants are unwilling to face the possibility of even higher fines by fighting the suits in court despite the fact that it could resolve important questions about copyrights and the industry's methods for tracing illegal downloads. It seems that even some of the judges presiding over these cases question the RIAA's tactics. 'I've never had a situation like this before, where there are powerful plaintiffs and powerful lawyers on one side and then a whole slew of ordinary folks on the other side,' said U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner, who blocked the movement of a number of these cases in her courtroom for months. She wanted 'to make sure that no one, frankly, is being ground up.'"

4 of 680 comments (clear)

  1. Re:huh? by ryanmfw · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    You're right. Those poor poor crack addicts. All they were doing was breaking the law. Really, why does the government have to be so down on them, man? It's not like laws are important. Just let it go man.

    On a sidenote, when was it a crime to preside over drug related trials? With all of this "by her own admission" stuff, you'd think it was.

    --
    Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
  2. Re:RIAA targets... by Flaming+Foobar · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    What really needs to happen is that someone with an extensive music collection, and the desire to fight this, needs to leave various P2P applications open 24/7 with access to their vast, legal music collection, so that someone will notice.

    What exactly would you achieve with that? I fail to see what's insightful about this.

    People who share files are breaking copyright law. No matter how much you'd like your music for free, it ain't gonna happen before that law goes away, which isn't anytime soon.

    --
    while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
  3. Re:Class-Action Defense? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    but IaNaL.

    Then why not shut up?

  4. Re:Once again, protest with your money by maxpublic · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    No, just makes you honest

    An honest arrogant shit. Well, better than a dishonest arrogant shit, I guess.

    Max

    --
    My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?