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.'"

Comments

Once again, protest with your money

[secolactico]

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.

Re:Once again, protest with your money

[turnstyle]

"Let me re-state what I've said before: If you do not agree with what RIAA is doing, stop supporting it."

This is the correct approach.

The Grokster ruling basically reinforces the notion that the only people that rightsholders can sue at this point are the endusers.

Personally, I agree that you shouldn't generally hold a technology accountable for how some may misuse it. Along those lines, the EFF themselves used to suggest that the RIAA should be suing infringers.

On the other hand, I think Kazaa is just a scuzzy operation, and I'd rather see them get sued than a bunch of end-users. But the Grokster ruling means that's not going to be the way it works, at least not for now.

If you don't like the RIAA, don't buy their stuff, and don't copy it. Go find new independent artists, and support them directly.

Re:Once again, protest with your money

[PeeAitchPee]

Typical Slashdot holier-than-thou karma-whoring. The issue behind this article is NOT about whether or not you're supporting the RIAA and its artists -- it's that the punishments being meted out don't fit the "crimes" (which in this case don't even have to be proven), and that big media is fucking up normal citizens' lives for no reason other than to buy time for a failing business model.

(I feel better now. ;-> )

Re:Once again, protest with your money

[Zocalo]

Exactly my view; it's all about the deterance factor and I very much doubt that their lawyer's costs run to less than $3000 per case unless they are on-staff. The RIAA has already shown that they are not afraid to take their blood money from 12 year old girls and grandmothers, just to emphasise that no one is expempt as well. True, the former's costs were actually met by a third party, but that does not change the fact that the RIAA still expected payment.

What I'm curious about though, is that all the cases I've read about do seem to be very much canted in favour of the RIAA. The defendents are almost always financial unable to fight the case and there is also almost always clear cut copyright infringement. Is this merely media bias, or does the RIAA get to pick and choose its cases once they know who the mark is to better meet their goals of deterrence?

As I understand it, the RIAA usually files a John/Jane Doe case to subpoena the evidence needed to establish their victim's identity. Supposing that J. Doe turns out to be a very wealthy and outspoken proponent of fair use and realistic copyright laws who quite probably would be prepared to fight them in court. Issues of whether they would or not aside, could the RIAA make some excuses and "opt out" of the case at that point, or not?

Re:Once again, protest with your money

[jafac]

Same reason rich white guys in their BMWz don't get pulled over for speeding at the same rate as black guys driving old beat up cadillacs.

Same reason the IRS tends not to audit the high-end white-collar criminals with tax shelters in Barbados as much as Joe Sixpack, who may have done some work on a freind's room addition in trade for some cash under the table.

Same reason you get your ass handed to you if you drive with a straight-pipe welded in place of your catalytic converter, while the power company belches filth all over your neighborhood.

The little-guy is always the easier target. It's called "going after the low-hanging fruit".

Re:Once again, protest with your money

[AndyChrist]

Unless you live in a major city, chances are local music mostly sucks, and what doesn't won't be a style you enjoy.

Re:Once again, protest with your money

[Anonymous Coward]

> I am vociferously opposed to copyright law,

I own a small publishing company that produces learning materials for Japanese language learners. Our customers praise our products, and it is very rewarding to know that we are helping people, but I also need to make a living.

I recently created an audio companion, which can be paid for and downloaded, to complement a japanese flashcard product of ours. I spent over $1000 for the studio time and voice actress' time. If I sell one for $12, and everyone else SHARES it, then I just threw away about $1000 and wasted a lot of my time.

A copyright grants legal entitlement by which the owner derives the fruits of her labor in connection with her literary, dramatic, pictorial, and or other graphic creations, etc. The artist labors to create a copyrightable work and then he or she receives a paycheck for such work by exploiting that work under copyright. If someone else derives monies or rewards from that work, without the copyright owners permission, he has unlawfully violated the copyright owners rights and actually, in essence, stolen a portion of or all of the copyright owners paycheck.

Why would you vociferously opposed to that? Don't you think abolishing copyright law would stifle software, music, and printing industries, as well as artistic creativity, by taking away much of the incentive for producing a work? Don't film makers like Errol Morris deserve to be compensated for their documentary? Don't I? Please explain.

RIAA targets...

[dmayle]

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.

Re:RIAA targets...

[Flaming Foobar]

The person who has nothing but downloaded MP3s and CD-Rs burned from downloaded MP3s was NOT going to buy the album in the first place.

That's just silly. A person who has a 1000 downloaded albums clearly loves music and would have VERY PROBABLY bought at least a few of them if that was the only way to get them. And when the users of P2P are calculated in millions, that amounts to a HUGE amount of albums, even if there are some who indeed wouldn't have bought any.

IMO, downloading MP3s is no different than when we used to trade tapes at the skating rink or youth center. These tapes were often made from the radio (remember sitting with your finger on the PAUSE button?)

You don't see a difference between a degraded one-off versus hundreds of millions of 1:1 digital copies?

The facts are that MP3s are LOW quality (completely horrid, as far as I am concerned,)

320 kbps MP3's are completely acceptable, in my opinion.

huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

'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.

Re:huh?

[anagama]

• US government vs crack addicts seems pretty similar to me.

The context is different. The RIAA cases are civil - drug cases are criminal. A destitute defendant in a criminal case is provided a public defender. A destitute defendant in a civil case is provided jack. This is rooted in a principle that government threats to one's liberty (jail) are more dangerous than the threat posed by plaintiffs seeking nothing but money from a defendant.

Fear of standing up for one's self

[LoadWB]

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.

Re:Fear of standing up for one's self

[HeyLaughingBoy]

People are unwilling to stand up against tyranny, which is exactly what this legal campaign is.

Tyranny? Are you out of your mind?
Tyranny is jamming a spear up your ass and then planting the other end in the ground and leaving you to die (cf: Vlad the Impaler)
Tyranny is torturing a confession out of you because "we know you're guilty, so just admit to it."
Tyranny is taxation without representation and quartering soldiers in private homes against the owners' wishes.

Tyranny is not saying "we can prove you were complicit in violating our IP and we'll sue to recover damages."

For goodness sake, people die because of true tyranny and you're whining because you can't get free tunes!
Look, I'm all in favor of slapping the RIAA down when they go after people who haven't done anything, but for the rest of them, well, you play with fire, you burn your fingers.

If you're so in favor of standing up to them why don't you go share a few million songs and send the RIAA anonymous emails about your activity. Then you can have your chance to stand up for the poor oppressed music listeners.

Re:Class-Action Defense? Class-Action Defeat.

[turnstyle]

er, just about every case so far has either settled for about $3000, or lost for about $5000-$10000.

Is that the sort of "class defense" you had in mind?

Gee

[nwbvt]

People who broke the law are forced to pay fines. Its almost as if they were not supposed to break the law in the first place.

Bring it on mods.

This already has started...

[ScottGant]

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.

Re:Can I mod this +6?

[SillyNickName4me]

And I get sick of people who blindly repeat their statement regardless of the subject.

That people who downloaded or shared music that they had no right to are wrong is not being questioned at all here. WHat is beign questioned is how that is dealt with by RIAA and the legal system.

By going through civil court the RIAA has to comply wuith a much lower standard of proof, and by their tactics they more or less ensure that people will not ghet a fair trial.

Imho they are definitely right to pursue the people who infringe their rights, but things like proof for that should be held to proper legal standards.

Saying how people should not be sharing music is not contributing to that discussion, it is redundant, and in fact, off-topic.

My ? is - would /. help ....

[adzoox]

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.

Re:Will of the People

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

There still is widespread support for intellectual property within the general population

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.

Re:Stopping corporate terrorism in music

[Alien Being]

"The reason popular music is popular is because people happen to LIKE it."

They would like other stuff too, if it got a reasonable amount of exposure. It doesn't get that exposure because of the way things are. Granted, this is a more complicated concept than the one you believe, but maybe if you "Take your time", you'll be able to "wrap your brain around it".

It seems to me that you are the one who needs to "can the arrogance".

Popular Music

[solprovider]

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.