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Mothers Taking the Fight to the RIAA
An anonymous reader writes "p2pnet is reporting that two more single mothers are refusing to be victimized by the RIAA. Patricia Santagelo was one of the first to stand up and fight the lawsuits, which some say resemble protection racket schemes. Now Dawnell Leadbetter of Seattle and Tanya Andersen of Oregon have decided to follow suit and stand up against the recording industry behemoth. From the article: 'Don't let your fear of these massive companies allow you to deny your belief in your own innocence. Paying these settlements is an admission of guilt. If you're not guilty of violating the law, don't pay.'"
...is most applicable. They are accusing based on evidence that would not stand up even in most civil courts never mind criminal, demanding a settlement before the filing of any suit, and then refusing to negotiate regarding said settlement, all on the basis that defending yourself is more expensive than paying. This is indeed a protection racket and the RICO hammer needs to be wielded against the RIAA.
I hope some crusading federal DAs have their children targeted and decide to go after the RIAA.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I wonder how much it would affect the strategy is large numbers of objectors banded together to create a massive defense fund. Retain a few lawyers and offer to defend anyone who is accused.
Agile Artisans
Ultimately, if you're going to fight this sort of thing, you'll want to not have too many assets, so if you do lose, you don't lose much. (Even a billion dollar judgement isn't worth much if the guy the judgement is against only has $6.)
You'll also want to have enough money to get some competent legal representation. The two normally do not go hand in hand -- usually when you have enough to defend yourself, you have so much to lose that it's safer to just pay. In fact, it's generally cheaper to just pay, even if you're poor, which seems to be what our entire civil court system is based on.
In any event, you may not need even thousands of dollars to defend yourself. You can spend as little or as much as you want on your defense -- the more you spend, the better the odds of winning, but even if you spend $0 and represent yourself, there is a chance that you'll win. It's also possible that some lawyers may work on your case pro-bono (since it would be good for a lot of advertising for them, especially if they won) and it's also possible that the EFF or ACLU may help defray your legal expenses if they decide that your case is strong enough to warrant their help.
Of course, there's also a very good chance that the RIAA won't push any cases far enough to actually go to trial. After all, so far they have a perfect record -- no losses -- and they won't want to risk that unless they're sure they can win -- and the people that are sure to lose are not the people who are likely to fight it.
So they kids are spoiled because they don't want to spend 15 bucks on a potentially crappy CD, which, even if good, will probably only have 1 or 2 good songs? Even if, as studies show, people who download music buy more legal music than other people?
The RIAA is fucking spoiled.
I dunno if you know a lot about law or not, so I'll just ask this and hope someone replies..
If you are sued by the RIAA\MPAA\whoever and are faced with this choice, could you simply refuse to pay them? Would that turn from a civil case into a criminal case? If so, could you put forward an argument against the RIAA\MPAA's ethics and backup why your actions don't deserve a multi-thousand dollar fine?
So far it seems the only people who can stand up to them are the people with cash, in which case there's a big case against them anyway, since they can afford the music they download. Seems a bit of a lose/lose situation, which is a shame because I'd love to take on these assholes without becoming bankrupt in the process.
The Australian government has already begun passing draconian laws of its own, following the cue of Bush
What laws would those be and how exactly do they relate to Bush? I'm all for people taking controll but it seems like ever fucktard out there thinks that everything was all milk and honey until Bush took office.
"Ahistorical - you think this shit just dropped right out of the sky
My analysis: it's time to harvest the crust from your eyes" - Fugazi
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
What happens in civil court when you show up and tell the judge that you can't afford to hire a lawyer?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I hope they keep up and tell the RIAA where they can shove their lawsuit. All it will take is one judge to rule in favor of any one of these single mothers to set a JUDICIAL PRECEDENCE nullifying every other case the RIAA tries to file.
Now back to reality, this will probably not happen this way. I'm not saying that the right to download a song is the exact same as the right to die or right to chose what to do with your own body, but everyone knows that these lawsuits are rediculous.
I hope they stick with it until the end, through all the appeals ... and win one for everyone. This is where we all knew that it would come down to. Whichever one of these cases actually makes it to court, will be the case that people refer to.
Lets just wait and see.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
"Now that the [wo]men are taking care of business, crap will get done"
Ever notice in commericals that if a man gets kicked in the balls it's funny but if a woman get's abused suddenly its a nono?
Say no to discrimination based on gender in what ever form you find it.
IANAL, but there is a concept in American law called "collateral estoppel." In other words facts necessarily decided in the litigation of one case cannot be re-litigated. For the RIAA to lose just one case, they might be damaged in this area. Expecially if they lose a bad-faith countersuit as well.
I.e if you are in the RIAA's position and as a part of this judgement, the court finds that you acted in bad faith, you may not be able to challenge this in future cases. The next defendent might be able to point to that decision and say "Hey look, these guys are filing as next friends, but they have a record of doing so in bad faith. They don't own the copyrights and they have a history of abusing their access to the courts." Every additional loss would add to this ball of wax.
This is the problem that Microsoft currently has re: antitrust law and why they are so interested in settling things.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
But the RIAA is a perfect example of why many people around the globe have the feeling that most of the USA is full of nut-jobs!!
What a load this trivial seeming crap puts on the justice system.... just outlaw the RIAA, revoke their copyrights, returning them to the artists and be done with it. The artists are not profiting from these lawsuits. Turning everyone from 18 to 80 into white collar criminals is so unbalanced as to be laughable.
I hope these women make a dent in the RIAA money stash. I no longer care if the *AA have any valid arguments, their behavior is disgusting, and continues to be.
What a sham! Trying to force a single mom, too ill to work, into debtors prison, or its equivelent? Anything with dignity, legality, and general social validity rarely ever culminates in such outlandish situations... at least not that I can think of.
So how does America (and the world) get the attention of sensible members of the justice system? How does the public reverse this trend? Don't tell me how they were criminal and wrong and deserve to be prosecuted. There is no smoke without fire, and the stories of such ludicrous racketeering behavior is probably just the smoke.. not the fire.
Its just disgusting...
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
It looks possible that Kaaza was on her machine, but that she was unaware that it was there and what it was doing, for the purpose of this comment I shall assume that this was the case. (I am a Brit and so from an understanding of UK law).
Several independent points:
Can we make an analogy in law between liability of pet activity and liability of computer activity ?
In theory a computer is completely under its owner's control, but many people lack sufficient understanding of their machines to control it properly; what is the situation when a computer is hijacked by some malware that (unknown to the owner) causes damage (needless to say this happens frequently) ?
I think that the last 2 points are very important, I am not aware that they have discussed -- now is the time to debate this very important issue.
I would love to know what the law decides: is a computer like a dog or a cat ?
Well, then they'd be screwed, on several levels.
This isn't just about the financial incentive to extort people out of cash. It's mostly about racking up numbers for PR purposes. Unfortunately, all it appears to have done thus far is encourage filesharing.
Kythe
How do we send these women money?
Let's say someone "illegally" downloaded 2,000 songs, but evidently he did not download 2,000 songs by the same artist, because no rocker is that talented yet. So, a rough but likely scenario is this: this person downloaded 5 songs by Metallica, 3 songs by Vanilla Ice, 6 songs by Britney Spears, and so on. With the value of each downloaded song being worth 99 cents, the financial tally sheet goes something like: this person owes Metallica 5 dollars, Vanilla Ice 3 dollars, Britney Spears 6 dollars, etc, you get the picture.
Here is the point: this person owes Metallica 5 dollars only if Metallica demands it; if Britney Spears decides not to ask for the 6 dollars she really does not need, then RIAA does not have a case as far as Mrs. Federline is concerned. We now know that many musicians are against RIAA's draconian way of suing the downloaders, but are afraid to voice their opinions for fear of offending their musician colleagues, I therefore suggest, as a legal tactic, that these single mothers publish their lists of "allegedly stolen" songs and publicly ask these artists if they want their 5, or 3, or 6 dollars paid to them. In other words, ignore RIAA, and go straight to the musicians, who, I'm almost positive, are more reasonable.
Sun and Fun
It wouldn't cost millions to defend agaisnt the charges. Thousands, yes -- far more than the RIAA is asking for -- but not millions. Sure, you could spend millions, but you don't have to.
Sometimes all it takes is a little technical knowledge and a sternly worded letter. I was a victim of one of the EMI extortion attempts. It turned out the software they were accusing me of running didn't run on any operating system anyone using my block of IP's used, plus my ISP firewall made it impossible for these first gen P2P networks to function, and the IP address they presented as "evidence" wasn't yet allocated to a computer, nor was it available to DHCP hosts. Either my ISP had been hacked, in a strange and bizarre way, or the "evidence" was completely made up. After a sternly worded letter to both my ISP and EMI I never heard from EMI again and my ISP changed their policy of co-operating with these mobsters.
Okay this is such a crybaby story. Why does the Motherhood of these women matter? Why does the marital status of these women matter. Are they alledging these are defenseless creatures or something. Oh PLease.
It's okay to hate the RIAA. But demonizing them for kicking elf, stepping on spiders, and scaring babies is just taking it too far.
Enough with this crap.
Seriously. This is enough to make me believe all the anti-RIAA propaganda we read here is just as much hot air as this story. I'm beggining to think if this is the best people can do to smear the RIAA that maybe I should consider if the RIAA has a valid point. Hmmm maybe they do since the people opposing them are apparently excitable children.
grow up!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Depends. I think you're a little underinformed. In any event, you may wish to revamp your definition of "bad faith".
... this is deterrence. It is not even about recovering damages for illegally-copied material. What this is about is making peer-to-peer technology seem too dangerous to use, because the RIAA (not the courts, not the justice system) has the power to destroy you at will. And the reason they want to do that is so that they can restore the heavy-handed control of content distribution that the Internet so handily took away.
There's a very real chance the RIAA would lose each and every one of the lawsuits they filed, since they aren't actually investigating these alleged crimes. Worse, they are basing their accusations on only the flimsiest of evidence (and I use the term loosely.) Besides, this is not justice, this is not even racketeering
The only real chain of evidence that exists in these cases are ISP logs. That's it. That's the only link between an address acquired via monitoring file-sharing networks (an activity that is, itself, of questionable legality) and the supposed infringers. Someone's life and livelihood hanging in the balance over an entry in a log file somewhere. Maybe in your mind that constitutes a sufficient body of evidence to warrant accusing someone of the heinous crime of copyright infringement. Courts, on the other hand, generally take a dim view of frivolous lawsuits, as they consider them to be a complete waste of time. If it were otherwise, the RIAA would be taking all of these cases to trial, rather than simply intimidating people with their Armani suits and threats of bankruptcy. The very last thing they want is a defendant willing to stand up to them and take this to court.
The RIAA is using the law in a punitive manner, acting as judge, jury and executioner, effectively bypassing due process. They are doing this by selecting people that they feel will not take the risk of a full-blown trial. How can you possibly say they are operating in anything resembling "good faith"? My God.
Now, even if one accepts that ISP logs (and the RIAA's own monitoring efforts) are one hundred percent accurate, and trusts the RIAA to even provide accurate information, one cannot remotely discern the particular individual who is "guilty" (i.e., the person who actually clicked the "download" button.) Consequently, these sociopaths just sue the person whose name is on the Internet access account, regardless of whether or not that person did anything whatever to infringe someone's copyright. Seriously, I hope you have an unsecured WAP plugged into your cable modem: perhaps one of your music-loving neighbors will help to give you an object lesson in these matters. I would be happy to provide him or her with the requisite software and technique.
And this really avoids the question of whether the law is just (it isn't) and whether this behavior on the part of the RIAA should even be permitted under U.S. law. Another poster who claimed to be an attorney used the term "barratry" to describe this sue-happy behavior, and apparently it is illegal. So just be damned careful where you throw your support.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
One thing that has always remained unanswered to me is to what legal extent a person is responsible for security ? Let's suppose that you're not a network guru, have a wireless AP, and you don't secure it. Afterall, this is how almost ALL AP's come out of the box - unsecured. Let's suppose your AP is then used by others to download copyrighted content, and you get fingered for it. Is this your problem ?
Afterall, if you leave the keys in your car then you are responsible to a large extent for it's theft most people would say. But then, why aren't ultimately the ISP's responsible, passing it up the chain, since they didn't stop copyrighted material being transmitted on their service ?
Taking this further, why aren't the music providers themselves responsible for not properly securing their music in the first place - afterall, they left the keys in their car....or on the DVD in the case of movies. Or how about the manufacturers of the AP ?
I'm not sticking up for copyright theft at all, but I find the legal consequences of responsibility and who it lies with very interesting. I wonder if this has been tested in any courts around the world ? On my short 12km ride from work to home, a casual sniff reveals that around 40% of home WANs are unsecured on my trip....so imagine how plausible this scenario must be.
....It's called: Sue children.....
So suppose an 8 year old is sued and totally ignores every shred of paper and summons sent by those idiots and then some stupid judge issues a default judgement against the kid. So what? Will they ever collect so much as one red cent from an 8 year old? Would they ever collect a red cent from a single mother on welfare? Why would such a penniless person even need bother to reply to these thugs using the legal system to oppress people? What difference does it make whether the judgment is for $1000, $10,000 to the size of the national debt? You can't get water out of a stone or blood out of a turnip. If I were in such a position of poverty, I would just let them make whatever judgement they liked.
All theory is gray
A hypothetical scenario (not that it can ever really happen): you - a complete computer ignoramus - went to Best Buy and bought one of those strange devices with two pencil-like protrusions on the top that, the salesman said, will let you access your lame AOL from your laptop without running any network cables. You came home, followed the "Easy Installation Guide" and... IT WORKED, to your complete astonishment. The same day Jack - a pizza-faced college student and your next-door neighbor - cancelled his expensive Comcast broadband, because he just discovered a high-speed WAP that some loozer (you) left completely unprotected (courtesy of the Easy Installation Guide). Jack is a big fan of eMule and an mp3 connoisseur. In a couple of months you receive a "settlement offer" from the RIAA gang, suggesting that you sell your car and wardrobe to pay for all those Metallica "hits" that you supposedly downloaded. After searching through AOL and discovering that Metallica is some sort of a musical band, you tell RIAA to shove it. They decide to drag you into court. Question: how can they prove your guilt? A follow-up question: how can you prove your innocence?
No, the fact that it is 40 years old means that the creators got whatever profit they should be entitled to. Music which has entered the common culture over a generation ago no longer should be "owned."
Then go change the law. Write your legislator, or become one yourself. Spread the word. What does any of that have to do with piracy of popular works on P2P?
And finally, the legal system should not be used as a weapon for the wealthy corporations to bludgeon poor individuals. Regardless of what the offense may be.
Oh, stop with the college dorm room rhetoric. Legally going after infringers of your copyright--as Slashdotters always tell people to do when the GPL gets violated--isn't a "weapon" to "bludgeon poor individuals." These emotion-based arguments full of emotion-based words just reveal how weak your position is.
EVERYBODY on this site, including the editors, was saying that the RIAA should be pursuing the individual infringers, back in 2000 during the Napster lawsuit. What changed? Well, the RIAA actually started doing it. And suddenly, it's wrong to protect your own copyright, and it's okay to make sure bands don't get paid for anything. Screw that, especially when legal means like iTunes are skyrocketing (and sound better than CDs anyway).
Once again, I'll repeat it--Slashdot's position five years ago was to do exactly what the RIAA is doing today. You guys just thought they wouldn't be able to do it. Turns out they were, and that makes you mad. Well, you don't have a right to a band's music, and you don't have the right to make sure they don't get paid for it. But they do have the right to make sure they get paid for it. Legally and ethically.
Some people blame high CD prices, some people blame bad artist contracts, but there is always some blamed scapegoat to justify people's behavior. It's so transparent. Piracy is nothing more than trying to get something without having to pay for it. Notice nobody responded to my points about popular music on today's charts being the most widely available and pirated on P2P networks. It's not about some culture revolution of music sharing that the RIAA wants to prevent you from hearing. It's people with high-speed connections starting downloads in eMule so they don't have to pay for the CDs. That's it.
"Sufferin' succotash."
> In any case, how is it the RIAA's fault?
It's the RIAA's fault because they represent labels who have performed the following questionable or outright illegal actions (in no particular order)
- Paying radio stations in cocaine / sports cars / tens of thousands of dollars to make sure a single gets played 12 - 22 times a day every day for four months, ensuring a "reasonable" debut for an artist who nobody has ever heard of - and sometimes artists they have. This practice has been criticized and even litigated in the past (the 1950's and 1980's most notably) with little abatement in this practice.
- Ensuring that CD's remained in a $17 - $22 price range from [literally, no joke] 1983 to the present, despite the fact that literally anyone will tell you that the reasonable retail price for a CD should more likely be around $9, max. (Note that the price outside of North America is usually substantially higher.) LP's and Cassettes were priced around the $7-$9 range range when CD's were introduced (1982). Even with inflation there is literally ZERO reason for a CD to be "on sale" at $16 or so.
- Ensuring that their artists - even the ones who pull in the lion's share of profits for a label - only earn a maximum of $0.70 per cd sold (and not returned), yet making sure that that same artist is the one responsible for paying for the $100,000+ video they just made which will be played precisely one (1) time on your alleged music video station of choice.
- Continuing to take major percentages of money from the sales of any possible merchandise an artist can make while on the road, including the sales of T-shirts, cd's, posters, etc. at the show's merch booth. (Note: this is one of the only ways an artist actually stands to make more money in terms of a major record deal.)
- Failing to offer any consumer, anywhere, any sort of online alternative that actually makes financial sense. People know that digital files to not require things like packaging or shipping costs. Yet a song on iTunes = $1. That is flatly ridiculous. I don't get artwork, liner notes or anything else - I get the song. It's also not a high-quality version of the recording. My guess, that's worth $0.50 at the very most.
Why labels have been dragging their feet since the introduction of the MP3 is beyond me. Maybe lawsuits were part of their actual overall marketing plan for 2000 - 2015. I don't know. Either way: the RIAA knows all of the abovementioned points. They should be brought to bear on the actual fiscal facts of this situation. We as consumers have been putting up with this crap for decades, not just since the introduction of the internet.
In my opinion, especially the Santagelo case proves that the labels and the RIAA are well aware that they are on the cusp of breaching the law themselves. They back away when barked at loudly enough. My hope is that real justice is served and copyright law is examined in much greater detail in the courts. Artists are getting screwed anyway, no need for the labels to make out like it's our duty to correct that.
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Because I can! [Brainrub.com]
> The fact you heard it in a commercial means you
> have the right to it for free? That doesn't even
> make sense.
Wait a second -- are you saying that you don't own the right to remember your sensory experiences?
In less than a generation from now, we'll have the ability to record everything we see and hear. Actually, you can do it today, but it is simply expensive. That cost is going to fall like a rock.
So what you're saying is, even though a person HEARS something, they don't own the right to store that in their memory? Oh wait, you want to differentiate between neurons and silicon. Nice try!
The simple fact is, if its on the radio, and you hear it, you should be able to store it. If you hear it at a concert, it's in your brain, you OWN IT.
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO YOUR MEMORIES. People don't have the right to charge you 100x for the same goddamn bits.
He doesn't need to make money off of albums he made 40 years ago. He's got concerts, and he released a new album last week. It's reasonable for him to make money off that (and other albums he's done in the past, let's say, 20 years).
Not a single band I worked with would ever deny a fan a copy of a song especially if they knew they made a devoted fan and neither did the Grateful Dead...nor Phish...The Black Crowes; you think they couldn't have major cash from record sales?!?!? How did they have such great financial success and still not care if their songs were copied? Cause when you're making $14-$59(each) on the ticket/CD/DVD/boxset/tshirt/thong/beer mug at the show instead of the $1.50/CD $5/DVD, if it's even that high these days, that the record company will pay you after all the production costs, attorney fees, etc. it really adds up. And when you're like Metallica, you get a percentage of the vendors' sales too...beer..gooood!! Even after all the expenses of travelling, etc. it pays the bills much better; an artist signs with a label for the exposure, because they realize that even if they go platinum, they make $250,000 each for a 4 person band, but if they tour, they will make a lot more thanks to the exposure, selling copies of their old CD's too, you know, the ones they had made for $1/each including packaging, selling for $17.50, more than double what they charged 3 months before that.
You want some rare songs you ain't finding on iTunes? Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters on Craig Kilborn's old show playing "Stairway to Heaven". There is no better version of that song.
Now, excuse me, I'm going back to my real life and I'm gonna just let you have the last word since it's obvious that's your desire.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
I think what the RIAA is experiencing is the inevitable backlash of randomly suing people for any reason or no reason at all. And let's be clear, randomly suing people is merely a business angle, another revenue stream. It has nothing at all to do with so called rights. That of course is laughable.
No what the recording industry is experimenting with is suing their customer base randomly as a new source of revenue in and of itself. It's like local police departments that periodically grind out thousands of traffic tickets. Fair? Of course not. Business as usual? Sure.