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RIAA Grinds Down Individuals in the Courtroom
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.'"
Let me re-state what I've said before: If you do not agree with what RIAA is doing, stop supporting it. Sadly, this means stop supporting artists affiliated to it. Quit cold turkey. Do not buy their CDs. Do not attend their concerts. Do not request their songs on the radio. And do not download/share their songs on the Internet.
Go on and protest their actions. The louder, the better. But stop supporting them, or your cries will fall on deaf ears.
No sig
The sad thing, I think, is that those of us who would be brave enough to stand up in court aren't participating in the types of activities likely to get them targeted.
A lot of the people who are doing this probably don't own copies of the songs to begin with, which makes it tough for them to stand up for themselves.
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.
'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
the honourable Nancy Gertner has presided over, by her own admission, numerous drug related trials. US government vs crack addicts seems pretty similar to me.
This is all to common a theme these days. People are unwilling to stand up against tyranny, which is exactly what this legal campaign is. It's very similar, IMO, to the racketeering of DirecTV against people who had purchased smart card programming equipment.
If people would take a stand against the RIAA/MPAA when it comes a-knocking, a lot of light would be shed on their lair of demons. As said by the original poster, this would be a great chance to publically question the (RI|MP)AA about their calculations and figured, and tactics, and have the answers on record. Even if the individual being sued had a judgement made against him/her, I do not believe it would be anywhere near what the desired settlement would be, and it would finally set a precedence for limiting what could be sought in future cases.
If no one stands up against them, they will continue to rape and pillage the consumer. Think about "A Bug's Life,"; the RIAA/MPAA grasshoppers NEED us ants, and they KNOW we are strong and outnumber them, but somehow they are able to bully us into submission.
Is that the sort of "class defense" you had in mind?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
From the article: "lawsuits that the RIAA filed against individuals charged with illegally sharing songs" (emphasis mine)
Bring it on mods.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
CD sales are down...the RIAA is in panic mode. Many people already HAVE stopped supporting them which is why they're suing people left and right.
The cat is out of the bag...the horse has left the barn....the _________(insert favorite metaphor here). The MP3 Genie is out and they can't put it back in. Sorry, but it's a losing battle.
The industry will change...this is a fact. The RIAA doesn't like this because they're basically going to stop making the huge mark-up on the CD/Record Market they had cornered. But their monopoly is crumbling, and it's crumbling more and more as the day wears on. Their trying to plug the leaks but the whole dam is falling all around them.
Is this good or bad? I honestly don't know, but it's going to be an interesting thing to witness! We've seen it many times in the past here, when a business is failing, the last-ditch effort is to issue lawsuits.
Want to support a band/artist? Go see them in concert OR send money to them directly...and I mean directly TO them...not to the management/record company. Will people send off a check to Chili-Peppers? Don't know, stranger things have happened.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Don't like the RIAA's tactics? Don't like how they rip off artists and sue their customers? Then don't buy from them. It's simply not that hard- buy used CDs if you must, get freely downloadable music from any of a dozen sources, go listen to a local unsigned band and buy their CDs. I've bought exactly one RIAA album in the last three years, and that was because I was curious about iTunes. I still get to listen to interesting new stuff all the time.
As far as file sharing, folks, as the law as written, file sharing of copyrighted works is illegal. No matter how you spin it (It's not theft, it's not wrong...), it's still illegal. If you think this is wrong, you have two options
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
If someone that got sued by the RIAA came to slashdot and created a website to help with legal funds I wonder how much the /. crowd would raise for them?
Are we just talkers or can we each put a dollar where our mouths are?
I would think a donation thread and an advice thread WOULD help win a case against them.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Oh, I call BS on you. Within "the general population" there isn't even understanding of intellectual property, much less "widespread support". Ask your friends: How many of them realize they're criminals for taping the last episode of Friends and lending it to a friend? How many even know that you have to pay royalties for singing "Happy Birthday" in public, and how many of them think that's a good thing? How many understand that when their high school teacher photocopied articles for them to read, it was illegal? How many think "As long as I don't charge for it, copying is legal?"
If you're honest in the survey, you're going to find the answer is "a lot" -- indeed, probably most of them.
I'm a fan of the general population and, unlike a lot, I don't think they're intrinsically stupid or unfit to govern -- indeed, they probably are better than anyone we've got actually doing it. But on this issue, the public is woefully under-, mis-, and ill-informed.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
...this is how things often work in the legal world, now-a-days. Legal professionals want to go to court as only a last resort, for the simple and compelling reason that you don't know what could happen. The RIAA doesn't want to go to court, as it's worried that they will set a bad precedent for their legal racket. The defendant doesn't want to go to court because they could lose big time, and be forced in to bankruptcy.
The problem goes much further than this specific case--the legal system is broken and needs fixing. We've created this zero-sum game, forcing people to either settle early and choose their own destiny, or go to court and leave it up to no more than a coin flip.
Thing is, under the current system, I'd advise my clients to do the same thing. Settle and get on with their lives. Yes, we need a test case to set some precedent here, but I would not put any of my clients in that position unless they were adamant about it.
There's just too much risk and money involved with going to court, and, so, settlements are creating a practically private legal system with often confidential terms. What to do, what to do...
Stop listening to crap ...
That would be a perfectly viable way of ending the reign of RIAA-led corporate terrorism in music, if a majority of music listeners were to join in and stop listening to the crap. As things stand though, 99% of the audience consists of musical sheep, ie. people who despite their good intentions follow exactly the instructions of the music industry in deciding what music is "good" at any given time. The vast majority simply don't realize what's being done to them. Brainwashing is not too strong a term.
It's pretty inevitable. Unless you shut yourself off totally from the media, you get enveloped in the utterly pervasive music machine's output of not just music and video, but celebrity, hype and buzz. You literally cannot avoid it, it's as sticky as napalm. Face it, there is no future in asking the 99% of musically non-militant people to cut themselves off from the media, not even to enter the shopping malls where that sticky music is playing. The brainwashing is everywhere.
That public rating idea is great, and if it were to catch on then it might even improve the quality of "big business music" through perceived audience pressure. But meanwhile, music downloaders are being crucified, and leaving them to it in the hope that a long-term strategy might prevail is less than charitable. Some sort of direct legal action or preventative technical solution offers better prospects for the short term.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Are you talking about big name artists? I mean, if you downloaded a No Doubt live show, liked it and kept it, are you saying you would try to send the band some cash directly?
If so, have you ever actually verified that the group is getting the funds? I mean, for all you know, their manager or whoever is responsible for handling incoming fan mail might just be pocketing the cash themselves.
I guess what I'm asking is, is there any indication that performers are even aware that folks like you exist? Because if not, you aren't having much of an effect. It seems we would need to raise awareness to the bands directly.
Now, what if someone were to create the proverbial tip jar, but this time, with available options to tip any band or performer you choose who has listed themselves with the service. The money would go directly to the performer's bank account without suffering the middle man. By requiring the bands to sign up, you could at least try to screen them to make sure they understand the money is to go directly to them. Fat chance actually talking to them directly, but you never know.
And I imagine it would have to be in the form of a tip jar or donation or somesuch because of contractual requirements for profit sharing based on sales and such. Better than a "Screw-The-RIAA" jar, legally speaking.
I am afraid they are smarter than that. The legal team part of the RIAA, anyway. Attorneys have a slang phrase they call "Bloodwork". Getting the blookwork on your own client, or someone you are hired to sue, means using all of your connections to get all the info you can on that person, and put it all in one folder. Credit Report, Life History, Goodgle Results, the Private Investigators/Cops/Government Officials who are "friends" of the Law Firm and do behind the scenes checks... all this is part of Bloodwork than any top 100 firm in this country does on EVERY CLIENT and EVERY PERSON THEY ARE UP AGAINST. I would bet my iPod that the RIAA have come accross many people who where sharing songs who were Attorney's, Heart Surgeons, Feds, very wealthy, etc, and skipped right over them.
The reason popular music is popular is because people happen to LIKE it.
The reason popular music is popular is because people have already heard it and are comfortable with repetition. Classical, Musicals, Big Band, Swing, Gospel, Rock, Punk, Metal, BoyBands: each generation did not morph into a new type of human being preferring a new type of music; each generation was indoctrinated by the music aimed at them during their formative years.
Today's popular music is simplistic compared to music before the rise of the guitar. Modern music is complex when it has 2 vocal melodies, 1 instrumental chord pattern, 1 instrumental melody, and a beat limited to what one person can create (hands doing one pattern and a single-note bass drum line.) Songs are limited to 3 minutes because there is not enough content to keep anybody interested longer. (I enjoy LinkinPark, but they usually turn off the music when they sing, and much of the "singing" does not have a melody.)
Today's music is not "better" than older material because it is more popular. It is popular because we hear it more often.
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Please refrain from poorly written personal attacks. I do not know Morgaine, but the post was not "self-involved" and does not exclude Morgaine from the sheep category.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.