Slashdot Mirror
New RIAA File-swapping Suits Target Students
Fletcher writes "The Recording Industry Association of America filed another round of lawsuits against alleged file-swappers, including students on 13 university campuses.
The 750 suits come just a few days after Internet researchers released a study that found peer-to-peer traffic had remained constant or risen up to the early days of 2004, despite the pressure of recording industry lawsuits."
Only give the artist maybe 70cents-1 dollar for each record sold.
Its more like 6 cents if they're lucky, minus "expenses" that the RIAA charges them, like 25% for packaging. And thats not even considering how the recording industry cooks their books to screw people out of the rest. Artists barely see a dime from cd sales, their money is made from concerts.
espo
The boy actually *did* prevent the dike from collapsing. The story is about how the boy's courage and endurance saved the town.
HTH
There are several sites that carry a wide variety of music from independant artists.
There's dmusic.com, Musician MP3, Sound Click, Vitaminic, CNet Music, and even modarchive.com, Just to name a few. There's a bunch of other sites to get music from independant artists so there is no need to even use P2P to share RIAA music let alone purchase it.
This would be the proper way to protest the RIAA. If everyone did this, they would see their profits fall and at the same time, see that file swapping is way down, then they would have no choice but to confirm that they're really the ones to blame for the decreased sales. The biggest challenge is trying to get people that love the "Cookie Cutter Boy/Girl Bands" to switch over.
Music CDs aren't subsidized by movie ticket sales. Slashdot has been over this a million times.
Distribution of music without the authors permission is common and legal. It is called mandatory licensing. Radio stations do not have to ask permission to distribute music. Anyone know what the per play cost is for a radio station?
because the MPAA and studio made the bulk of money from the movie, the soundtrack wasn't paid for that way, I am sure there were royalties paid, but nothing like what the studio got. The DVD is just icing on the cake for them.
Ogg Stream
"2. Could /. please decide whether the RIAA produces rubbish, or not? If it is, why does everyone keep downloading it?"
RIAA doesn't produce anything.
"3. Music is not essential to your existance. If you can't afford it, don't buy it, it won't kill you. In particular, if both sales and piracy drop, maybe they'll finally have to accept they're doing something wrong. I'm sure someone can also point out a site with good legal MP3s? Oh, and I can highly recommend this new-fangled "radio" invention..."
That first sentence is just pure gold. I believe quite many of my university professors would disagree with that opinion. Art is necessary for survival. Either by producing it yourself, or by consuming it. Some people, like me, write and play ourselves. Other people chose to download or buy. I don't care which. Just enjoy.
Secondly: Have you listened to the radio? Have you ever heard Primus, or Mr Bungle, or Liquid Tension Experiment or anything like that on the radio? I haven't. Guess why my radio is always off.
"4. To the people complaining that they're prosecuting people who can't afford to fight the cases, maybe this is more of a problem with the legal system in general? Are you suggesting instead that people shouldn't be prosecuted for crimes, if they can't afford to hire expensive lawyers? Or maybe we should stop fining students for speeding, because they're poor..."
The problem is that the punishment does not fit the crime. Not by a longshot. Getting struck by one of these lawsuit will mean that your life is ruined.
"4b. Is anyone actually claiming these people have not been illegally copying music? If so, great, love to hear from you.
If not, is anyone claiming these students didn't know it was illegal? If so, maybe we should stop criticising the RIAA/MPAA's attempts to bring in more widespread copyright education?"
RIAA can be compared to the mafia. Their methods are extortion. Legalized extortion. What the students did is illegal, but that doesn't mean it's BAD and IMMORAL.
You can also question if any actual DAMAGE was done here. Where are the legal grounds for sueing without any actual proof of damage?
Some things, like what the RIAA is doing, is both immoral AND legal. An interesting combination which shows quite well that the law is not necessarily right just as something that is illegal is not necessarily bad.
(my grammar probably ran away somewhere half through this post, i hope it's readable enough)