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?

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: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.

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.