Slashdot Mirror
Cuban Says RIAA Damages Should be $5 Per Month
Thomas Hawk writes "Mark Cuban is arguing over at Blog Maverick that with the introduction of Yahoo!'s new $5 per month music service that this needs to become the new de facto 'damages' that the RIAA ought to be able to claim when suing kids. After all, when the kids could have paid for the music via Yahoo! for $5 a month it makes it hard to say the music loss is worth more than that. 'The RIAA can no longer claim that students who are downloading music are costing them thousands of dollars each. They cant claim much of anything actually. In essence, Yahoo just turned possession of a controlled music substance into a misdemeanor. Payable by a $5 per month fine.'"
The RIAA doesn't sue downloaders. They sue people who upload music. Yes I know, some programs upload what you download by default, but that change what they sue people for. You can't get the right to upload music for $5 a month. Even if you could, the RIAA can always sue for statutory damages, which are a lot higher than $5 a month even for downloading.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Wow.
This guy is about as bright as a 5 watt bulb.
It is like he does not even understand the reason that the RIAA is able to sue for thousands. The premise in court is (right or wrong) that the Music Industry is losing thousands per filesharer, for a specific reason. That is, each song available for download is being downloaded by thousands of people, and each of those downloads costs the RIAA membership the sale of a CD. Thousands of downloads * CD sale = mucho cash.
Again, this is the premise that would be followed in court.
Changing the price of a music from $CD_PRICE to $DOWNLOAD_YAHOO_PRICE simply means that someone making files available, would be liable for $DOWNLOAD_YAHOO_PRICE now. In other words, $num_of_users_downloading * $DOWNLOAD_YAHOO_PRICE.
How is this ruining the RIAA in court? It only reduces the amount of damages per COUNT of people downloading.. that's all....
Put another way, the RIAA is not suing because you did not buy music. It is not suing the people that downloaded music. It is suing the people that _shared_ music, and setting the price accordingly.
Again, right or wrong, that's what happening. It's almost like this guy thinks people are being sued for downloading. They aren't. If they were, the RIAA could only sue for what they had lost in revenue, and that would be the cost of the songs the sued downloaded.
No, they sue from a much bigger angle. They sue with the claim that file sharers have cost them thousands of CD sales...
That is like saying the most a person can be fined for stealing a shirt from WalMart is the price of the shirt.
The main people the RIAA are going after are the SHARERS - the people who have hundreds, dare I saw thousands of songs in their shared folder, and are on a high-speed connection. 5 dollars per month per each individual person who downloaded from that one person is probably a little more what the RIAA would be after, if they had to affix something like that to the cost.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
It's called "punative" damages. That money is intended to deter people from the act of theft. (Similar to the fines charged to speeders.) If punative fines didn't exist, then someone might figure that they would only have to pay for stuff that they were caught stealing.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
There should be caps on this sort of thing anyways. Remember the kid who made a search engine for his University and when the RIAA found out that people were using it to search other people's shares for MP3s they sued the kid for $10,000 which he paid out of pocket from his college fund. Fortunately for him he has since recovered his money thanks to an internet fund raising drive, but $10,000 is an awful lot to sue for when someone has not caused you any sort of monetary damages directly. I could only imagine the world of hurt the poor kid would be in if he didn't have the funds to just simply settle.
This is chilling precedent. What's to stop the RIAA from one day hacking into my machines and finding some MP3s (actually, they will find a LOT) and deciding that I am distributing them or that I do not legally own all of them? Can I afford to pay some schmuck lawyer to help me defend myself against this tirade? I can't, as I am unemployed currently. Could I afford a $10,000 "fine"? Probably not. People put other people's lives at risk with drunk driving, but when they are caught, they face only a $3,000 fine here in good ole Pennsyltucky. Aparantly putting the lives of people in danger is only worth $3000 to the state, while saying that stealing some music from a corporation that owes a multitude of its artists money and does its best not to pay is ludicrous is worth $10,000 is totally ludicrous.
The government doesn't need to get involved in this sham either. Hasn't anyone read the news? Record sales have been up. I guess the piss poor economy has had a lot more to do with sales driving down than some college kids who wouldn't have bought the freaking album new anyways.
For the record, 90% of the albums I've ever bought were from the used bin. It would be safe to say that I never supported the artists in the first place. KRS-One has this great line about how "if you downloaded the album, come to the show." I'm sure he makes a lot more from ticket sales at shows than he does from his albums. Maybe more people need to get out and see shows and maybe more shows need to start costing less than $50 a seat!
Is Dave Matthews really worth $100 to go see with your girlfriend? (assuming one has one here)
zosxavius photography
Actually, buying music from allofmp3 may equal stealing, depending on what country you are in. The fact that you are paying a Russian company money does not make it legal to download the songs from countries ruled by plutocracies (like the USA). If the download service you are using does not have the proper right to sell citizens of your country the music then you might as well be downloading it from any common peer to peer service.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Can I set up a new cable network that broadcasts all of the Maverick's games if I pay them the cost of a season ticket? Sounds fair to me.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Until then it's all threats and scares.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The argument doesn't hold up.
These pay-per-month services are rentals: you stop paying and you no longer have access to the music (though I suppose its only a matter of time, if it hasn't happened already, before someone cracks the DRM in these rental services). With iTMS you own the track you've paid US$0.99 for. It's yours.
People forget this, or don't think about it. Hilary Rosen's recent drivel makes the same mistake when she complains about iTMS lockin while saying how great Rhapsody or Napster or Yahoo! or whatever is. Of course, you're locked into those too. Anyway.
If RIAA ran Walmart it wouldn't have shoplifters prosecuted for theft, it would launch ridiculous civil suits against them.
If you stole a shirt from RIAA's Walmart, it would sue you $14.95 in loss/damages plus $1.5 million for pain, suffering, legal costs, etc.
I agree that Cuban's logic is flawed, but I might amend the argument. RIAA has tried to sue for silly amounts, somewhere along the lines of $2500 per song. I believe that the defendant could argue that since there is a legal $5/month service from Yahoo that a more resonable assessment would be $5 * number of months known to offend * a reasonable estimate of the number of people who got songs from your PC in a given month. It is that last factor that is different from Cuban's argument--unfortunately what a reasonable estimate is debatable.
So instead of these dumb multi-million lawsuits against teenage girls and grandparents that do nothing but make bad PR and settlemsnt at a small fraction of the original amount you'd do something like this:
$5 * 6 months * 500 USERS (not songs) uploaded to in a given month is...$15000. I'd bet that in most cases it is much less than 500 unique users who get all or part of a file from your machine when logged into P2P. In any case $15K is mcuh less ridiculous than millions but still enough to remind the offenders that it is wrong.
BTW, comapring copyright infringement to shoplifting isn't really accurate either because despite what RIAA says, violating copyright is NOT THEFT. When you steal a shirt you are denying the victim the use of said shirt. When you download music the artist (or more likely the publisher) still owns the rights and paying customers can still hear the music. Just to make it clear...
DOWNLOADING MUSIC IS *NEVER* STEALING...
HOWEVER...it IS violationg copyright... AND VIOLATING COPYRIGHT IS ALSO WRONG.
The problem is that RIAA et al want to prosecute people for copyright infringement much more harshly than deserved--more than what some people get for things like theft, assault and rape. A reality check is required for people all around.
I am not defending the RIAA or their actions. I do believe people have the right to make off their ideas and thus, I respect copyright. I believe the technology grew too fast and majority of consumers haven't related to the ethical problem yet. Thus, I believe the proper response should be education first then punitive action. However, with punitive action, $5 for every month of infraction is too low. With P2P and torrent, the downloader becomes the uploader. With desktops and always-on broadband, these programs could run for days at a time. Take a one person with 600 pirated songs, he has $600 worth of music. If a hundred people download just %10 of his collection, he just distribute illegally $6000 worth of songs. I would guess this could happen in just a few days. Imagine, how many songs he distributes in the course of a year. Thus, $5/month is too low and would be ineffective if punitive action is being used.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Cuban is no idiot. He knows that the way to change things is to control the structure of the argument. The music industry has managed to paint their struggle for continued control as a fight between them and "evil music thieves," and now Cuban is reframing the argument so it revolves around the music industry's pricing policies.
Anyone who forms their opinion about music filesharing's effect on the music industry and on creativity solely on the basis of Cuban's comments is a bit dim. But that doesn't diminish the worth of what he's doing by shifting the argument. He's using the broad reach of his blog to re-think the big picture.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The argument is ok so far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far at all.
Regrdless whether the plaintiff suffers any damages at all, and regardless whether the defendant obtains any unjust enrichment from the infringing content, a plaintiff may still elect to obtain statutory damages. The jury gets to determine the amount of statutory damages, but that determination can be no less than $750 PER WORK INFRINGED.
This exceeds $5 per month.
While I dislike the RIAA/MPAA just like the next /.'er, I wholly disagree with this story writers pricing assessment. Part of being sued and penalized for doing something bad is paying a penalty fee. For example: If a company wronged you and you were injured. You do not just sue them for your medical bills (boy does the health insurance industry wish this was the case) - you sue them for more money above and beyond.
So while we hate the stupid prices, and the DRM's - I at least cannot say it is morally right to give the music I bought to strangers on the internet (or to download them).... As such when they sue - yes they can sue for more. I do not know how much is more valid - but $5/month is not an acceptable price.
Though the RIAA/MPAA is suing uploaders, not downloaders.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Once audio, video or print is turned into little ones and zeroes, it becomes impossible to control. You can wrap those ones and zeroes with some DRM pixie dust, but there's always some smarty-pants who can un-DRM them again. There are those still in denial about this, like the RIAA and MPAA executives, but history has proven this out in the last decade or so. Increasingly draconian laws have a short-term effect, but only postpone the inevitable shift to a different model.
Personally, when I get music or video, there are people I want to see paid for my privilege of enjoying the work. The writers, composers, musical artists and actors are at the top of the list, and also the professionals who capture and refine the work. Without them, there wouldn't be content to enjoy, so I want them to be paid. They need to be able to make a living.
Currently, though, a HUGE percentage of the money lines the pockets of people who have little part in the creative process. I don't care to pay them. They are not doing me any good. In fact, they often do me harm, screening thoughtful or poignant content out of the mix because it will somehow make them less money.
So, two problems - (1) we can't effectively control content in exchange for license fees in the digital world, and (2) we want to pay the right people and jettison the baggage. I propose that to solve these problems, a new economics of entertainment content must emerge.
Better, more informed and creative brains than my own need to noodle on this, and we need to quit wasting time arguing about the current, doomed paradigm of entertainment commerce. Of course, thoughts like these will threaten the barons of the entertainment industry - they are slow to move, and have no vested interest in seeing things change. But the status quo can't last forever, and is already on it's last legs.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
It's like burning a copy a CD, destroying, the original, and saying, "This one isn't a copy, I don't have the original any more."
Making a backup is also making a copy. Are you meaning to say that I don't have the right to use my backup if my original gets destroyed? Next you'll be saying that I can't make a backup of that backup, even after the original is destroyed.
The symbol for copyright should be a burning candle with a cage of barbed wire around the flame, symbolizing that though you could light your candle at mine without diminishing mine's light, I'm still not going to let you copy my fire.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Either direct infringement (it's often infringement even when you copy just a very small part of a work), or contributory infringement, since you're working with a lot of other people to, in sum, infringe.
That you'd consider this kind of indicates that you're treating the law as a machine, which can be spoofed. This is a mistake; there are human beings involved, and they're often fairly smart, too. Your scheme is so very simple that it is no work at all to see through. I'd watch it with the whole pride thing.
You may also be interested to read the essay "What Colour Are Your Bits?".
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.