RIAA Lawsuits from a John Doe's Perspective

An anonymous reader writes "Nick Mamatas was sued by and subsequently settled with the RIAA for file sharing. He wrote a piece for the Village Voice describing his experience, and he goes on to briefly discuss the implications of "John Doe" file-sharing lawsuits. He argues that the labels are using these suits as a source of profit; he also claims that when his lawyer contacted the RIAA to discuss the suit, he was put in touch with a regular staffer, not another lawyer. 'It feels like they're doing a volume business,' Mamatas' lawyer notes."

Comments

Shareholder Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps companies need to declare their extraordinary profit in shareholder reports due to pursuing 'legal avenues'.

Re:Shareholder Profit

[Maestro4k]

The have settled with about 1,500 people for an average settlement of about $5,000. That is about $7.5 million total. Once you subtract attorneys fees and split the proceeds between the record labels, bottom lines are barely affected.

• They don't split the proceeds with the record companies, all money recovered frm RIAA/MPAA/BSA actions stay within that organization to pay for -- whatever. Mostly it pays the costs of the lawsuits, and to lobby congress for more bad laws.

Proof?

[Seumas]

First, is it just me or does that article come across as if part of his settlement entailed him promising to use his public position to author a "scare-em-straight" article?

Second, why aren't people going to court over these lawsuits? I don't see why you would even need a lawyer. Just go to court and say "I didn't do anything illegal. Show me proof beyond a reasonable doubt that I did."

I mean, other than a record company CLAIMING that someone at some IP address was sharing certain songs, what proof is there? If something goes missing from my garage, I can't just point a finger at a neighbor and tell the judge "no, I KNOW he took it - I saw it!". You have to have more proof than that. Something unbiased and irrefutable, preferably from an independant party.

Short of confiscating your computer, finding an installed P2P application ACTUALLY RUNNING AT THE TIME, with a configured shared directory full of copyrighted songs that you are not legally licensed to distribute and your software is actively serving them to active downloaders at the time that it is being viewed by a judge - what proof is there?

Another way to share files. Legally.

[zymano]

It's called the LIBRARY. I know they don't have all the movies or songs but that could change with a little more funding. If we could also 'UNITE' the libraries through internet networking then we could also download or the library could download hard to find movies or songs.

One point on the Riaa lawsuits . Is it really like breaking into BEST BUY and stealing CDs' and movies ? Aren't these MP3's,Camcorder tapings, Divix, AVI and Mpegs just average to bad copies. If so then how could it be counted as theft ? Shouldn't there be a consideration to quality. Wouldn't you equate this to recording RADIO with tape ?

Re:Why are these suits wrong, exactly?

[HardCase]

I guess that I can accept that it's civil disobedience, although it's a stretch. But if that's the case, then you do your civil disobedience, go to your trial and make your statement. But that's not happening here - the disobedience is happening, but when the hammer drops, most of the defendants start making up all sorts of lame-ass excuses about why it was all innocent.

Don't put me down on the side of the RIAA - mass subpeonas are a cheesey way of using a loophole in the law. But don't lionize the people who got caught. Civil disobedience is one thing, being stupid and getting caught at it is another. Everybody knows what the RIAA is doing...so by now, the people getting caught are just playing the odds and losing. And I'm still trying to figure out exactly what civil right the music industry is violating anyway...being a bunch of luddites and treating your customers like criminals is bad business, but it's not trampling on anybody's rights.

I bet the musicians will see none of this

[Mike Kelly]

Musicians are probably getting none of these funds - A lot of them would not get any royalties if this music was distributed legally 'cause their contract was signed before the advent of digital music.

100% profit (after lawyer's fees)!

Re:Someone tell me if I am wrong, but...

[compro01]

This is precisely the type of copyright defense that was originally intended in America by our founders

are you trying to be funny? copyright was not intended to give basically perpetual profit to a corperation. it was originaly, what, 7 years? it's now life of artist, plus 75 years. that's 75 years that *record company* is able to sell the song exclucively at pure profit. no artist royalites.

your copyright system is a equally screwed up as your patent system. both need a serious overhaul, soon.

No Different than the DirecTV Lawsuits

[Bodysurf]

The **AA suing people is no different than what DirecTV has been doing for a few years.

The "problem" with these lawsuits is that it will cost you more to defend them than to settle.

Additionally, both the **AA and DirecTV typically sue you civilly where your guilt or innocence is based on a "preponderance of the evidence", not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That is, if their heavy-handed attorneys can make some jury full of idiots think it's 51% likely you did it, then you lose. You get no court appointed attorney and you don't get to plead the 5th ammendment without any negative inference. These **AA attorneys have these cases cookie-cuttered/boiler-plated out and don't care whether you are guilty or innocent. They care about billable hours and whether they think there is enough evidence for them to win.

And when you lose under the DMCA, you lose big time. You not only risk hefty fines, but attorney fees that are often in the tens of thousands. Look at the PACER reports of those people who try and fight these corporations in court -- the defendent typically has one attorney while the plaintiff often has four to six attorneys on their side. Is it NO WONDER nearly everyone settles, even if they are innocent?

So learn from the mistakes of those poor slobs, many who were innocent, but settled anyways.

BE ANONYMOUS.

Because if you get sued by one of the above, you always lose.

If you are gonna do anything that even remotely has the risk of you getting targeted for a lawsuit by one of these big corporations that could care less if 10% of the people they sue are innocent, make sure there is NO WAY it can get tracked back to you.