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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."
Reflexive thinking like that is unimpressive and diminishes you greatly. Add something to the debate. Your shrill declaration is noise.
http://www.busyweather.com/
WHy do you think the RIAA targets grandmothers and little girls? Because they know that THEY won't fight it in court - they CAN'T. The RIAA will never sue someone who will likely make them look stupid in court.
But that's not who ends up IN court (unless they are actually the people responsible for the machine/pipe that was being used). The suits pursue damages for infringement, and the "profit" on those suits is a pittance up against the money that "sharers" aren't paying for the music they want (and which they illegally take anyway).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I offer no opinion on RIAA's actions at-large, however...
I have serious doubts that RIAA is turning a profit on these lawsuits. Yes, it's clear that they're trying to cut the costs of a large-scale litigation. But is that, in and of itself, a bad thing?
These cases are civil suits -- and the defendants usually don't have any significant amount of money (relative to the plantiffs). Let's think for a second about how much it costs to sue someone in a situation like this. First a person needs to be located. RIAA needs to create a division to either manually seek out uploaders, or write software to do so (or both). RIAA then needs to request customer names from IP addresses. That goes to court and gets appealed...and gets appealed again, finally losing in the 8th circuit courts. That costs quite a bit of money. RIAA's legal team learns that they need to file John Doe lawsuits and then subpeona the necessary data. Just filing those suits and subpeonas costs money (at the very least, paralegals/assistants need to be hired by their legal team, and attorneys need to read and sign the paperwork).
At this point, I'm sure that RIAA's legal bill is getting pretty massive -- well into the $millions. Now, if I were the RIAA (and facing millions of dollars in legal fees) and about to introduce another round of John Doe lawsuits, I would probably staff a call center with relatively inexpensive negotiators instead of high-priced lawyers. Regardless of the ethics behind their actions, this act is simply smart business. This is the same reason why we have nurses and PA's -- certain medical procedures do not necessarily require a physician. In that same light, certain legal procedures do not necessarily require a lawyer.
This is all to reward the RIAA with a prize of approximately $3000 per lawsuit (according to TFA, the average high settlement is $3000). After all is said and done, I seriously doubt that there is a net profit for the RIAA from these lawsuits -- remembering everything else that they've been through. You can't get blood from a stone.
I guess I have to put another disclaimer in this post (I'm sure that there will still be those who miss the double disclaimer): I am neither condoning nor condemning the RIAA's tactics at-large. However, if you're gonna sue someone to prove a point (especially someone who probably doesn't have much money), do it on the cheap. I would.
-Turkey
And you, my friend, are a petty thief.