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.'"

Comments

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck the RIAA. Maybe when they get their business model out of the stone age, I'll consent to give them money once more.

Re:Good

[cpu_fusion]

The post you're responding to never said they'd infringe on copyrights, did it? Just that they wouldn't give the RIAA any money. Nice try.

On top of that, have you actually listened to the music being produced today? It is largely crap. Go look at what people are actually downloading over the P2P networks -- a lot of it is older music, music that under a reasonable copyright system would already be public domain.

(Or wait, do you think people should still be paying for Beatles and Elvis albums that have been burned into their neurons by radio, TV, freaking elevators for the last 40 years?)

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Your automatic assumption that I download music illegally says more about you than it does about me.

/is in the moral clear

Re:Good

[thejynxed]

Everyone knows they have a new business model now. It's called: Sue children, single mothers, grandparents and yes, even dead people in some cases. So, at least in theory, their business model has evolved somewhat.

Re:Good

[E8086]

"under a reasonable copyright system would already be public domain"

or under a resonable business model it would have dropped in price and be readily available for purchase. But it's out of print and the few times you find it the seller is asking for a "collector" price of $100+ and you think; "I want it, I'm willing to pay for it but I can't buy it because it doesn't exist anymore other than maybe a low quality 128kbits iTunes download that really isn't owning it, so I'll download it" I wonder how much an on demand CD reprinting service would cost. It would be nice to have some of that "older music" on CD for $5-$10, the kind you can only find on old used cassette.

Re:Good

[Overly Critical Guy]

Listen up. This post may get me modded down into oblivion, but it has to be said.

The post you're responding to never said they'd infringe on copyrights, did it? Just that they wouldn't give the RIAA any money. Nice try.

Get real. We all know what was implied and what most Slashdotters advocate.

On top of that, have you actually listened to the music being produced today? It is largely crap. Go look at what people are actually downloading over the P2P networks -- a lot of it is older music, music that under a reasonable copyright system would already be public domain.


Wrong, most music on P2P networks is popular music on the charts, like Creed, Foo Fighters, Madonna, Nine Inch Nails, The New Pornographers, and so on.

I couldn't even find several bands on P2P, like the Lascivious Biddies, or Larry Coryell's "Tricycles" jazz album, or a certain jazz-metal group I like. I had to go to iTunes. This posturing of P2P as some sort of bastion for elite music lovers trading esoteric materials that the RIAA won't let you hear is bogus. It's mostly high school kids and college students trading popular music so they don't have to pay for it. If today's music is so crap, why are people pirating it? If most people aren't trading popular music of today, why are those files the ones most widely available on the networks?

Do you know about CDBaby, the most widely used service by indie artists to sell their CDs and put them on iTunes? When was the last time you bought an album from a CDBaby artist? Probably never. You won't find any of those artists on eMule or Bittorrent, because P2P isn't used to trade hard-to-find music. It's used to get popular music without having to pay for it. It's simple human nature, folks. Stop denying it already. There is no culture revolution here. It's simple freeloading.

(Or wait, do you think people should still be paying for Beatles and Elvis albums that have been burned into their neurons by radio, TV, freaking elevators for the last 40 years?)

The fact you heard it in a commercial means you have the right to it for free? That doesn't even make sense.

Face it, no one on Slashdot has ever validly justified music piracy. They demonize the RIAA to justify thier behavior while ignoring the fact it means the artist doesn't get paid for their work. Artists willingly sign their record label contracts, so don't give me the sob story about the poor, victimized artists and their new antique car collections. And don't give me the poor, victimized mothers getting sued either--their IP was logged, get over it.

Like I said, I know this might get me modded down, but geez, I'm so sick of the hegemonous, pro-piracy mindset trumpeted in the comments on Slashdot in every single article with the word "RIAA" in its headline. For pete's sake, songs are .99 each now and albums are as low as eight bucks. This "obsolete business model" argument has been dead since 2001. Legal online music is thriving, just like you guys wanted, and iTunes is already competing with P2P itself and surpassing its usage. How long is the "obsolete business model" card going to get played around here? Online music is taking off, and you guys seem to think it's still 1999.

To you, copyright is this evil system when the RIAA is mentioned, but when some company violates the GPL, suddenly everyone is calling on the EFF to sue them for...infringement of the copyright of the GPL. Various references to the phrase "stolen code" are used. Funny how that works.

People just use the RIAA as a scapegoat, as a way to make themselves forgot about the human beings in the band whose music they're pirating. It's easier to demonize some faceless company than realize, "Hey, I'm making sure System of a Down doesn't get paid today."

Re:Good

[xigxag]

The fact you heard it in a commercial means you have the right to it for free? That doesn't even make sense.

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."

Furthermore, even if we accept that copyright ought to be immortal and that copyright violaton is tantamount to theft, the punishment should fit the crime. Running a red light is a potentially deadly action. So why is the punishment for that less onerous than the punishment for uploading some old Kraftwerk?

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.

Re:Good

[ehrichweiss]

"You won't find any of those artists on eMule or Bittorrent, because P2P isn't used to trade hard-to-find music."

I may not be able to find the groups you listed there but then again you didn't list any "hard-to-find" music. Hard to find music is the stuff that we called "Alternative" before everyone thought they had right to call themselves alternative after the Sea-Rattle Grunge Scene blew up. Strangely enough I find the real hard-to-find artists on BT, winmx, shareaza and emule/edonkey easily though.

Oh, and it's not "Hey, I'm making sure System of a Down doesn't get paid today.", they've already been paid and aren't likely to see another dollar since the record companies are worse than pimps many times and will put a band so far in debt to them that they have to continue with little pay or go bankrupt. Marketing and production costs can make the end-of-year total for a band less than $100,000. Split that 4 ways.

The REAL money is made for bands on a tour where they receive a MUCH higher percentage of the overall take(tickets, merchandising, etc.) Proof of this lies in one of the most financially successful bands of all time, The Grateful Dead, who didn't care if people copied their music and taped their shows because they made all of it back on a single tour by charging for the tshirts, tickets, and getting a percentage from vendors. They actually had such a following that the band made several hundreds of times more per fan per tour than they would have ever gotten from the record company. And that's not a fluke since they did it for 25+ years.

Re:Good

[mortis_aeturnus]

While you are saying all this, I have already gotten more than a hundred students here at Georgia State University to proactively boycott the music industry by distributing music to fellow students. So far, we have distributed over five thousand CDs.

Also, I have personally set up a server where one can temporarily host any music collection, less than the 100GB limit, on a ftp server.

Most importantly, we have encouraged thousands of students to think twice before participating in the extortion scheme that they have been victims of since when they first bought a piece of music in their early youths.

I'm currently trying to set up a local darknet through a few servers around the Mathematics and Computer Science departments.

Lastly, I'm volunteering my time to help anyone set up a Linux system if they pledge to not use that same system to host Windows for the rest of its existance. So far, I have liberated 17 systems.

I'm happy to say that even in an University that has no firm roots in information liberation, we have been able to encourage a few hundred students to rethink their stance on the ligitimacy of intellectual property rights.

The FTP server has an IP address of 131.96.244.6. Please Slashdot it as much as possible.

Re:Good

[FLEB]

Well, as for minors, the parents would be sued.

With the "take all of nothing" stance, that's all good until they start garnishing future wages for the settlement.

Re:Good

[cpt kangarooski]

I agree. 40 years is far too long.

Why it's appropriate for us to decide what they're entitled to is this: copyright exists solely to promote the public interest, i.e. to encourage that works are created that otherwise would not have been, that the works are minimally encumbered by copyright if at all, and that they enter the public domain as rapidly as possible.

If you toy around with how much weight you ascribe to each of the various elements of the public interest, you can find a point where you maximally serve the public good, although you don't maximally serve any one specific interest.

With copyright, the encouragement we're providing to artists is basically the opportunity to make money. No one is guaranteeing that a work will make money, but rather that if it does, the artist will be the one to make it, basically.

The incentive is NOT that the artist will become a millionare, necessarily. Rather, we're looking for the minimal incentive necessary to get them to create the work at all. The Beatles, for example, surely would've done exactly the same thing that they did even if they had become vastly unpopular by the mid-70s and never sold another record again.

Well, the vast majority of the money to be made from a work is made upon initial publication in a given medium. For example, movies get most of their money on opening weekend, with ticket sales dropping thereafter. Then, when they hit PPV, or rental, or sales, they again make most of their money initially. Usually, you'll have made 90% or more of all the money you ever will make within a few months, tops.

This means that the incentive of a copyright that lasts, say, a year, is nearly as much as the incentive of a copyright that lasts a century. This means that the gain to the public re: creation is nearly the same. Since the public also gains by having short terms, it would be a great idea to vastly reduce copyright terms.

Perhaps not to as short a time as a year, but certainly not very long. Myself, I favor multiple short terms that can total 25 years maximum. I cannot think of a single work of art that would not have been created under such circumstances. Of course, term length is only one factor to be considered in copyright reform. It's not a cure all, but it would help significantly.

Re:Good

[Kadin2048]

In many states, they can collect against the minor's parents.

Or else wait until the minor has a paying job, and garnish their wages just like they'd do with a person who couldn't pay back taxes, or child support.

Believe me, the court system has many ways to wring the money out of you. Just because the person is underage or dead won't stop them.

Re:Good

[cpu_fusion]

> 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.

Re:Good

[EggyToast]

I agree entirely with the shortening of copyright, and one factor that I don't think you touched on. Copyright gives authors the rights over copying their work onces published, meaning that they submit their work to "public approval," and if the public approves the author is paid for their work appropriately.

By limiting the publics use, well, that's abusing the public who are responsible for the popularity of the piece in the first place. After all, there's also plenty of privately traded things -- plenty of artists will sell a piece entirely for one lump sum, in private (paintings do this, as well as individuals who sell the rights to their works). But by publishing works, they're saying "Hey, public! We put this out for you! If you like it, you should support the dude who made it!"

And the public responds as it feels it should. But the screwy thing is that these companies and many of the authors feel that these works should be heirlooms, or part of a family's history. And that's just wrong for published work. Once published, it's hardly the family's at all -- heck, it's barely the original authors. Nothing's stopping me from reading a book and telling my friends all about it -- it was published for public use, and the public should be able to use it as it sees fit. Limiting that so that lucky families can get rich off of works just abuses the system, and ruins it for individuals who get screwed in the system -- those who don't get rich, and have their work owned by a corporation, never to be re-released for the next hundred years.

Re:Good

[WMD_88]

So you're saying Paul McCartney should no longer be allowed to own any of the music he wrote back then, still tours for and plays live, and still makes money on through people continuing to buy the music today?

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).

Re:Good

[Grym]

There is no culture revolution here. It's simple freeloading.

I'm not going to deny much of what you're saying. Yes, the most popular files on P2P networks represent the popular media.

But what is freeloading? Your probable response would have something to do with not paying, "getting something for relatively nothing," and/or stealing.

My issue is this: when a company (or group of companies), in effect, bribes representatives to "get something for relatively nothing", is that not freeloading as well? Or is it different because they wear suits and have lawyers?

This system that all but excuses corporate transgressions, while throwing poor people in jail for stealing $100 TVs is repugnant. And I use the word system very purposefully: because that's what it is. There's a reason why most of those responsible for the Enron debacle are still in business today. There's a reason why the few that did get caught will only see relatively few years, probably in "jails" with golf courses. There's a reason why Halliburton and ilk can design their entire business models around guaranteed government contracts, while looters in New Orleans get bullets fired over their heads during a time of national crises.

In short, there's a reason why the RIAA can design their business model around outrageous laws that do not serve the public good and be called "victims", while college kids who ignore those laws are called freeloaders. That is the system. College kids downloading are no more freeloaders than any corporate fat-cat. The only difference is that the aforementioned aren't playing by the rules. That's why they're "freeloaders."

You want a revolution? The revolution involves exposing this system that allows people who have never provided a product or service to receive wealth for the rest of their lifetimes riding upon the backs of truly productive people. No, I'm not talking about welfare. It's an entire class of people who make their money through investment and lobbying. It's a modern form of slavery. The only differences are that it's not a racial thing (or if it is, only indirectly) and the poverty (by and large) only manifests itself in relative deprivation.

-Grym

Re:Good

[ehrichweiss]

The really, really short version: The Grateful Dead!!! That's all you need to think about!!! The short version: Bands like the Grateful Dead, Phish, The Black Crowes, and many, MANY others are financially successful not only in spite of but especially because of the fact that they allow(ed) copying of their music by their fans. Without it, Metallica would be unknown. That is all the proof you really need right there. The version that you probably wanted to hear since in terms of words you seem to think that quality is in direct proportion to quantity: I started designing, engineering, building and operating light, sound and video equipment on tour(more than "the tri-state area")with many bands professionally since I was 14 years old, which would make it well over 20 years ago. I have autographed pictures of myself with Ice-T's band Body Count(Cop Killer..whatta controversy) after I repaired their light system when they were in town and likely my "junk drawer" could be worth more than your house in electrical equipment alone thanks to my career so I'm not the one in fantasy land.

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.

Re:Good

[jhylkema]

/*DISCLAIMER*/ /*This is not legal advice. You are not a client. I'm not even an attorney. If you want legal advice, contact an attorney admitted to your jurisdiction's bar. What I am saying here is probably 100% wrong and if you do anything in reliance upon it, you are a blithering idiot who deserves whatever bad shit is very likely to befall you.
*/

Now that that's out of the way . . .

OP is correct. If someone's sole source of income is disability, unemployment, or other public benefits, they are exempt from garnishment. Likewise, if a bank account contains exempt funds, it is exempt from garnishment up to the amount of the exemption. And we don't have debtor's prison the US yet^H^H^H anymore, so that's not an option. Also, there are limits on how much wages can be garnished, and if a person is working part-time at McDonalds or somesuch, they probably don't make enough. What's more, a lot of these people who are working are already being garnished for child support, so they can't be garnished again. I can tell you from personal experience having worked at a collection agency that we didn't even bother suing anyone who didn't have some kind of a good job. It's just not worth it because the amount you get in garnishment won't even cover the fees. And if someone is that poor, chances are they'll just file bankruptcy.

What the RIAA is doing is essentially a fear campagin. I hear if you get sued, you don't even talk to an attorney, you call an "RIAA settlement center." I'm glad these people are taking the fight to the RIAA in court. I'd like to see the bastards try to prove actual damages.

As the IRAA starts going down hill

[crispybit]

Now that the women are taking care of business, crap will get done

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter whether you're guilty or not. It doesn't matter whether or not their accusations are true.

They are more powerful than you because they have more money than you, and that's all that matters in the United States in 2005.

Re:But...

[ScentCone]

They are more powerful than you because they have more money than you, and that's all that matters in the United States in 2005

Which is why you can get a $20-million settlement for spilling your hot coffee in your lap while driving, or $250-million from a pharmaceutical company whose product had nothing to do with the death of your already cardio-dying husband.

The seemingly-crazy imbalance in the courts is scarcely all going one direction.

I'd be a lot happier, of course, if people who clearly did not deserve an incoming suit (say, because some single mom's wireless net connection was being hijacked by the 13-year-old next door who WAS too cheap to pay for his entertainment) could, with no real resources of their own, countersue to recover their legal expenses and the loss of their time and energy. On the other hand, nobody's got a decent reason, at this point, for pretending shock if they get a wake-up letter from anyone that holds a copyright when they're caught red handed abusing it.

Re:But...

[mOdQuArK!]

The seemingly-crazy imbalance in the courts is scarcely all going one direction.

That's called backlash - what you get when you get a bunch of normal citizens being referees for a David-and-Goliath match, and they collectively make up their minds that Goliath's representatives are mind-boggling assholes. It's the kind of result you might expect in a society where there are huge class differences, but you still have the remnants of a jury-by-common-citizen system.

I think if you looked carefully at the statistics though, this kind of citizen backlash occurs infrequently compared to the times when the common citizen gets screwed over by entities with lots of money & legal representation.

Re:But...

[DrEldarion]

Which is why you can get a $20-million settlement for spilling your hot coffee in your lap while driving

It's nice to see that we have people looking into the facts of things before flinging accusations around!

Firstly, to clear up the facts, she was not driving, she was a passenger. The car was stopped at the time. Secondly, she did not receive $20 million, she received $640,000. $160,000 for medical expenses / pain and suffering / etc. (reduced from $200,000 due to her being partially at fault), and $480,000 in punitive damages (reduced from $2.7 million). She originally asked for $20,000, the cost of her treatment, and only resorted to a lawsuit when McDonalds refused that.

Now, McDonalds sold their coffee far hotter than is generally accepted. How hot? 180-190 degrees F. This, IIRC, is about 30 degrees hotter than it is usually served at, and is hot enough to cause THIRD-DEGREE burns in as little as two seconds. If you don't know, third-degree burns result in PERMANENT disfigurement, and require A LOT of medial treatment. Her doctor said that it was one of the worst scald burns he had ever seen. Consumers were unaware that this drink could pose such a serious threat. A study was performed, and no restaurant in area was higher than 20 degrees less than McDonalds served it at.

There's more - in 10 years, McDonalds had reports of over 700 people getting injured similarly, but did nothing. To make things worse, McDonalds even ADMITTED that its coffee was too hot to be fit for consumption when sold because of the burns it could cause.

This case is constantly thrown around as being an example of frivolity since nobody actually bothers to look into the details. People who actually do the research typically view it as a very fair ruling.

Re:But...

[back_pages]

This case is constantly thrown around as being an example of frivolity since nobody actually bothers to look into the details. People who actually do the research typically view it as a very fair ruling.

Right, right. But see, you happen to know what you're talking about, and you're talking about it on Slashdot. Now we cue proverbs about casting pearls before swine, etc., and pen some cynical post about idiots on the internet.

Then, predictably, a few ACs will respond with barely coherent one-liners, someone will get moderated +5 Informative or -1 Flamebait (hint: they're the same thing on Slashdot) and then some community college drop-out will share some dime store philosophy.

Eventually, the entire internet can be replaced by a very short script.

Me? I'm just the cynical oh-so-clever guy who thinks his cynicism makes him witty. So the fuck what?

By the way - thanks for explaining the McDonald's coffee thing. Someone should write a thesis on belligerent ignorance regarding that story. I've read the factual explanation no fewer than 5 times over the years, yet some people insist on the fantasy version. Eventually the urban legend must be replaced by the real version, since the truth is hardly a secret. Right?

Woah, holy crap. I think my cynicism failed me for a second. This ignorance will never die. Seriously, man, why try?

Re:But...

[zakezuke]

Now, McDonalds sold their coffee far hotter than is generally accepted. How hot? 180-190 degrees F. This, IIRC, is about 30 degrees hotter than it is usually served at, and is hot enough to cause THIRD-DEGREE burns in as little as two seconds.

I remember McDonnalds coffee before this lawsuit. I bought it from time to time to clean engines. Some nice foamy engine bright to soften up the grease and their coffee to rince. Amazing stuff... it came out of the percolator boiling... as in it was still boiling when it hit the cup. However I eventually had to stop using it as after using it it would peal off the paint from the engine block. Not good.

Can't say I ever actually drank the stuff, it wasn't possible, not without burning your mouth.

a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[KiloByte]

Paying these settlements is an admission of guilt. If you're not guilty of violating the law, don't pay.
Wrong. Your only choice lies between paying a few k dollars to an extortionist company, or getting many millions to be able to afford lawyers and stand through the trial. It's not something an average person can do, so the choice boils down to either paying the extortion or suffering a personal bankcrupcy.
You're a citizen, not a company. You have no rights.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[dougmc]

Wrong. Your only choice lies between paying a few k dollars to an extortionist company, or getting many millions to be able to afford lawyers and stand through the trial.

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.

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.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[KiloByte]

Yeah, but can you shell out all the cash front up? Having it be returned to you in 5 years after the lawsuit and all apellations are done makes you suffer enough to make it worth it for the company.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[YrWrstNtmr]

And on the flip side, no individual would EVER sue a company, just in case they lost.

Say you thought you had a case against, say, Toyota. Would you sue them, and risk the possibility of having to pay their expenses? Even if you had what you thought was an iron clad case....it sometimes doesn't work out that way.

Fewer lawsuits is a good thing. But I'm not so sure 'loser pays' is.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[einhverfr]

Your only choice lies between paying a few k dollars to an extortionist company, or getting many millions to be able to afford lawyers and stand through the trial.

IANAL.... And these are civil suits. However, the RIAA has behaved so badly in court so far, that I seriously doubt that it would be that hard to beat them. The facts are that often they don't have a strong case in these matters, so they have to spend the bulk of their money constructing a straw house. I commend these individuals for standing up to the protection racket.

Also, IANAL, but I find the law relatively understandable. Maybe not on a technical level (hence the need to hire a lawyer), but you have to understand that "preponderance of evidence" might be a pretty easy standard to use to protect yourself when the industry is conducting automated and unverified file searches in hopes of bringing suits against defenseless individuals.

In short, my opinion as an educated consumer (not lawyer) is that these are largely high-volume frivolous cases, and that anyone standing up to them has my support.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[pete6677]

This is why I've always thought a modified version of "loser pays" would be best. I think if you file a lawsuit that has some merit but you ultimately lose, you shouldn't have to pay the other side's fees. However, if your suit is dismissed by the judge in summary judgement (ie. the judge finds your case to have no merit), attorney fees should be automatically awarded unless you can convince the judge there are some extenuating circumstances as to why you shouldn't have to pay. It's currently too easy to file a frivolous lawsuit and too difficult for the defendant to collect attorney fees when a case is tossed out. If this process is made easier, it should help strike a balance between discouraging crap lawsuits and not penalizing lawsuits that are well meaning but ultimately unsuccessful.

Also, plantiff lawyers working on contingency should be responsible for the other side's attorney fees when they advise their client to file a baseless lawsuit; this will help cut down on some of the ambulance chasing.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[einhverfr]

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.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[gordo3000]

the idea is the RIAA has never actually taken someone to court(well, not forlong anyhows). paying the 3500 or so is there idea of saying, "ok, I won't take you to court" so what they do is avoid going to court to win(most of the cases are obvious wins) and pay there lawers many tens of thousands to get 5000 dollars from some debt laden family.

The RIAA doesn't want to go to court, its not profitable. this isn't exactly minting money but they are probably doing just enough cases to come close to breaking even(3500*10000= 35 million dollars, and that is if they have only finished 2/3, which is probably an underestimate). So as long as they can keep breaking even, they can be an endless presense that every now and then gets to shutdown something like suprenova(a big victory).

I would bet that is all the executives are looking for. But of course, I'm not one of them, so I don't know. You can go to civil court to fight them, but then you could be up for millions in damages(instances of copyright infringement can carry up to a 250,000 dollar fine, just watch the beginning of an old VHS tape). So you might be hard pressed to be told 7000 is a lot.

you can counter sue for invasion of privacy and for filing a suit without grounds and if you win, they may have to pay for your legal expenses. Loser pays is amazingly affective.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[Tony Hoyle]

Don't need to - most lawyers (at least around here) will work for free on the assumption that they'll get their fees when they win. Only works for 'easy' cases though (that's why there are so many compensation lawyers unfortunately).

There's also the government scheme where they'll pay for it for you.. again if you have a reasonable case it needn't cost you a penny.

No reason for money problems to keep you from justice.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[zenyu]

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.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[E8086]

I made an almost similar point when the first challege was reported. What's to stop them from reporting a most of or an entire IP block to an ISP to get the subscriber information? If you challenge how they got the IPs in court they can claim they received it from a "reliable" paid contractor and cannot explain becuse it would violate industry secrets or some BS like that.

"and the IP address they presented as "evidence" wasn't yet allocated to a computer, nor was it available to DHCP hosts"

Interesting, since the IP they reported wasn't available to you(or anyone else), I wonder how it was traced back to you, unless they or someone working for them spoofed all the data.

Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit

[Tablizer]

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.

First time anybody has ever made poverty sound almost cool.

The protection racket angle...

[suitepotato]

...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.

Re:The protection racket angle...

[yfarren]

I dunno. I mean, well. We, the people, have defined rights. Some of those rights are property rights. I mean, there is no INTRINSIC ownership, past, I am bigger and stronger and can TAKE this/keep you from taking it. Society, civilization creates rights. It creates property rights amongst others. It defines those rights in Law.

Currently, our laws provide for physical property laws, and intellectual property laws. You want to crusade to change the IP laws? Great. I dont think most people who want to do away with IP laws have really thought it through carefully. But that is beside the point.

Under our current laws, the RIAA is using the law to protect its Intellectual property. I know I know, lots of people think you should be able to "share" music online, cause it isnt hurting anyone. However, the LAW says, in fact, you are not allows to arbitrarily "share" music. You are allowed to make mix tapes for yourself and friends. The law lets you. But it doesnt let you arbitrarily copy music.

Do I dislike how the RIAA is handling itself? Yes. I find it revolting. Is it within their rights? Almost certainly. Make the distinction.
1. I dont like it
2. I think it is WRONG (moral claim)
3. They are doing something ILLEAGLE / What I am doing is perfectly justified/legal.

Just cause you dont think something isnt WRONG doesnt make it leagle. Our IP law actually makes it illeagle to share music online.

Now, the question of did these ladies (and now man) actually share the music? Hey, if only 6 out of 14k stand up and say "no it was a mistake". Then it looks like the RIAA is doing a pretty good job of getting people who have, in fact, had their computers used for file-"sharing". Look if you put something out there you want shared. Good for your. However our leagle system allows protections for somone who puts stuff out there and DOESNT want it shared. Just because you dont LIKE that we (society) provide that protection doesnt mean it isnt there.

I mean, suing someone, even suing lots of people it leagle. There is virtually no punishment for "frivolous lawsuits." And if the majority of people are settling rather than go to court, then you would be hard pressed to claim that these suits are "frivolous". As much as you hate them, thr RIAA still have rights.

Do you like those rights? Probably not so much. Do _I_ like those rights? Certainly not. I try to write to my senators every 3 months or so, and tell them I object to various elements of IP law. What have you dont other than rant and say "they are bad, they are wrong I hate them" on slashdot?

Just sticking your head under a rock and saying BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD is pointless. Merely saying "they are bad and shold be prosecuted" when they are very clearly legally in the right is useless. Write your congressman. See if you can get the Number of Signatures to get a measure in your state (though that is hard as Copyright is exclusively (IANAL) Under Federal Law). But Just saying they are bad, Yay women, way to stand up to the MAN.

Is well. Silly

Re:The protection racket angle...

[cpu_fusion]

I agree 100%; this activity deserves application of the RICO hammer. This is basically the actions of a corporate mafia.

The longer the RIAA gets away with this, the federal DAs stand silent, the less any of us should feel that our government is for the people. When the government becomes corrupt, there is only one course to take for the citizenry ...

What about a massive defense fund?

[jarich]

They are (generally) going after people who can't afford to fight...

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.

Re:What about a massive defense fund?

[interiot]

The other option is for one very generous lawyer to take a couple of the cases to court, and get enough motions passed and maybe get a couple cases thrown out, so that the RIAA has to get real, actual, very solid proof of a crime before they take someone to court.

This is the exact option that Ray Beckerman of Beldock Levine & Hoffman is taking. Mrs. Santangelo is said to be paying half rate, but given that she couldn't get a lawyer at all before Ray Beckerman came along, it's possible that the actual rate is lower than that.

The thing is, if you're just one or more individuals, like David Zamos, it's much more likely that the big corporate simply settles once they see they're losing, so as to not establish case law that will make it harder for them to be bullies in the future, and the individuals are likely to accept. Hopefully with an actual lawyer working for low rates, they can take this thing all the way and force the RIAA to do their due deligence investigating before they file a case.

Re:What about a massive defense fund?

[patio11]

Yeah, you'll be SO effective at persuading massive numbers of objectors to contribute thousands of dollars to defense funds when they're too cheap to buy songs for 99 cents on iTunes.

New Org

[oiper]

MARIAA. That does make a nice acronym.

Re:New Org

[Werkhaus]

MARIAA. That does make a nice acronym.

But how do you solve a problem like MARIAA?

Re:New Org

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Well, it is a forty year old musical. (God, I'm suddenly very old).

Re:New Org

[cpu_fusion]

> But how do you solve a problem like MARIAA?

Thank you so much; that seriously made me laugh my ass off. Reattaching ass now.

WE ARE RIAA of BORG

[infonography]

"This is the RIAA Collective," they said menacingly. "Prepare to be assimilated. We will add your Financial and topographical distinctiveness to our own. You will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

That and we don't got dates for Saturday.

Sounds like she's probably on dialup

[PornMaster]

From TFA, she sounds like someone who'd be on dialup. The RIAA should thank all the people on P2P on dialup for pissing people off with long download times and making them go out and buy the CD.

Re:Editors - edit

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? When would the editors find the time to actually proofread posted articles? Slashdot has what, 20 accepted articles per day? If the editors actually took 30 seconds to proofread each one, that would waste an entire 10 minutes every day! You think they have that kind of time to spare, just to make their site easier to read for the thousands upon thousands of visitors who do the rest of the work for them and make this place what it is?

and...

[Marvin_OScribbley]

If you're not guilty of violating the law, don't pay.

You know if you are guilty or not. If a court of law says you're guilty but you know you're not, still don't pay.

Re:and...

[superyanthrax]

The parent post is not insightful at all. Maybe funny. If the court of law says you're guilty, you are going to pay the punishment, or else you'll suffer even worse consequences. (Fine -> higher fine -> jail time)

Re:and...

[QuantumG]

Fine -> Declare bankruptcy -> Go piss on the courthouse lawn.

A quote which comes to mind here...

[petrus4]

"Only follow the law when the law is just."

Ordinary Americans desperately need, now, to begin to take back their country. If they leave it much longer, they themselves will not be the only ones to suffer consequences at the hands of their government and groups like the RIAA. The Australian government has already begun passing draconian laws of its own, following the cue of Bush, and I have no doubt that more will follow.

Technology is such these days that it is no longer good enough to merely talk about removing a dictatorial regime after it has come to power. In this case, it's not merely prevention being better than cure...Prevention may be our only option.

Re:A quote which comes to mind here...

[east coast]

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

Re:What's there to fight?

[NanoGator]

"If you steal music, via internet or at the store, you're still stealing. The choice you make, the chance you take, the price you pay. Its simple. These mom suck."

If you run a busines selling music, and you fix prices, and you refuse returns, and you treat the artists like shit, and you refuse to adopt new technologies that come along in favor media that you can over-price, you have no right to act surprised when your customers find their own way to satisfy their demand. These RIAA suck.

Re:What's there to fight?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you steal music, via internet or at the store, you're still stealing.

Repeat after me, COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT IS NOT STEALING. It is in a legally separate category. Copy right infringment is sometimes against the law, but it is never stealing.

For the last fucking time....

[MustardMan]

IT IS NOT STEALING. When will you people get this through your thick skulls and stop believing the propaganda? Copyright infringement is a crime, but it is NOT theft. If it was theft, they wouldn't have to invent a whole new category to call it. To steal something, you have to gain what another person loses - you steal a car, someone loses a car and you gain a car. Copyright infringement is NOT stealing. You can tell, because due to the lobbying of these assholes the penalties for copyright infringement are WORSE than the penalties for genuine stealing.

Re:For the last fucking time....

[TheGavster]

That's it. From now on, instead of downloading music I'm going to break in and steal the masters. At least then I don't have to deal with crappy compression.

Re:For the last fucking time....

[NanoGator]

"IT IS NOT STEALING. When will you people get this through your thick skulls and stop believing the propaganda?"

Whoooah, slow down man. The 'stealing' argument is based on the idea that a music download means one less bit of music purchased. Whether stealing is the correct term or not isn't all that interesting. The claim is that money is lost from downloads. In those terms, the term 'theft' isn't all that unreasonable.

Unfortunately for the RIAA, the only real 'damage' that they've been able to reasonably prove is that the sale of singles has shot way down. (That was two or three years ago, I don't know if it's true today.) According to the RIAA, there were 2 billion songs being traded a month. With numbers like that, you'd expect to see a huge dip in their profits. Not even close. They did have a small dip during a stormy economic time. Blah blah blah.

Frankly, I'm not offended by use of the term 'stealing' when downloading music. I see where they're coming from. What annoys me is the assumed 1:1 ratio between downloaded music and sales lost. I'm also not thrilled with the automatic assumption that downloading of music is automatically some unethical move or that it was some attempt to save money. People went out and spent $400ish on iPods and related gear and where then accused of trying to get 'free music'. A new market was created and the RIAA refused to move into it. Even if they did manage to lose money on it, what'd they really lose money from? Downloading of music or a really bad business move?

What irks me the most about these accusations is my own downloading habits from years ago. (I'm a Rhapsody subscriber now, all my music is 'legit'. If anybody's curious about my experiences with that service, I'd be happy to talk about it.) There were two reasons I downloaded music. 1.) I downloaded music I already had on CD so that I had my collection at work and at home. 2.) I was trying to find new music. The second one is the hot button for me. According to the RIAA, I should go spend $15 to $20 on an ablum I've never heard before, and I cannot return it if I don't like it. Some stores have neat little kiosks where I can preview the music. That's nice and all, but I seriously doubt they want me loitering around long enough for me to make my decision. (Not to mention I've got OTHER things to do...) Funny what happened when I started doing this. I went and bought less music. Because I already had it? Nah. I rarely downloaded a whole album. I just found that there were several individual songs I wanted, but they weren't worth the cost of the whole CD. Yeah I saved money by downloading music. It helped me make wiser spending decisions. It's a pity they didn't sell music on a per-track basis like iTunes does now.

Okay, I've drifted off topic a little bit. Sorry about that. My point is that the theft vs. copyright infringement argument isn't going anywhere. Both sides are talking about two different things. The 'downloading is theft' side is saying that money's being lost. The 'downloading is copyright infringement' side is saying that not all downloading is illegal. Frankly, you're both right. But I think both sides need to think a little bit more about what the other side is thinking. The 'theft' side thinks that the nitpickiness over the term is a wake justification for the bad evil things the other side is doing. The 'infringement' side thinks the theft side is making broad generalizations which sound an awful lot like the "MP3s == Communism" propoganda that was flying around. I think there's a common ground here, but it'd probably help if the term debate would finally die.

Re:Victims? Not really

[Renraku]

Point is, physical laws on an electronic medium.

If I took you to court and said, "This man over here stole $4000 worth of music from my music collection. Pay me right now for damages." they might consider it, but what if I told them by stealing I mean that you took my CDs, copied them, MP3'd them, and then returned them without any kind of damage? Now is it stupid to ask for their full value?

Now what if I said that instead of my entire music collection, you owe me 50 times the price I paid for them. I'd be laughed out of the courtroom and cornholed by the baliff for making him miss McGuyver.

But its all good if you're a company, because God knows whatever a company says has been well researched, thought out, and their word should be taken over mine at all times.

Re:Victims? Not really

[The Angry Artist]

Excuse me? I can't tell you to RTFA, because you are quoting the article, but this is just totally out of context.

Full paragraph:
I have always been against music downloading. In fact, I have been a member of BMG's music club for quite some time and I purchase my music either from there or from Target. When I first got my computer set up almost three years ago, I had a friend set it up for me since I did not know how to do it. She had put Kaaza Lite on there and told me what it was. I never used it and had no interest in doing so. I deleted it since I had no use for it. Even though I deleted it correctly, as is recommended by Microsoft, Mr. Eilers has told me it can hide out in my system and play without me knowing about it. I have done a total check of my computer and it is no where on there.

I don't know if you're trying to make a point or not, but you completely ignored everything Tanya Andersen said in that paragraph.

Civil Litigation

[Detritus]

Like the song says, "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose". Threats of lawsuits and huge fines are not going to be effective against people with no assets.

What happens in civil court when you show up and tell the judge that you can't afford to hire a lawyer?

Re:Civil Litigation

[mrchaotica]

What happens in civil court when you show up and tell the judge that you can't afford to hire a lawyer?

You defend yourself, or lose by default. The right to have a lawyer appointed to defend you only applies to criminal court.

So, the sequence is thus:

1. Get sued
2. Try to defend yourself without a lawyer
3. Lose
4. Declare bankruptcy, therefore ruining your financial future
5. Become initiated into the fun world of martyrdom!
6. Repeat above steps several thousand times
7. ...
8. [No more] profit [for the RIAA]!!

(I'm beginning to think the "..." step is bloody revolution.)

Re:Civil Litigation

[John Hasler]

Far more likely that you would settle for a very small fraction of their initial demand so that they can avoid spending tens of thousands on legal fees that they would never recover.

BTW US Federal courts make substantial allowances for pro se defendants.

Re:Civil Litigation

[cgenman]

Slashdot user 11846: Your unauthorized use of Kris Kristofferson's IP and it's dissemination to millions of people on the internet is unconscionably un-American. However, we are willing to compromise and defer a civil suit if you admit guilt and bring a penalty of 3,500 dollars in small, non-sequential bills to the northwest corner of 1330 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, DC.

Come alone.

Sincerely,
The RIAA

Re:Civil Litigation

[Alsee]

BTW US Federal courts make substantial allowances for pro se defendants.

Great, now I need to hire a lawyer to tell me what "pro se defendant" means.

-

Re:Victims? Not really

[tktk]

Nice job of selective quoting.,,

She tried to delete it and her computer says it's deleted. It can't be her fault if it's still used to share music.

"...She had put Kaaza Lite on there and told me what it was. I never used it and had no interest in doing so. I deleted it since I had no use for it. Even though I deleted it correctly, as is recommended by Microsoft, Mr. Eilers has told me it can hide out in my system and play without me knowing about it. I have done a total check of my computer and it is no where on there."

AILF

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Associations I'd Like to Fuck

This was just a matter of time ...

[SuperDuG]

My biggest fear though is that this is just a ploy to knock the settlement figure down to a more acceptable level. The RIAA knows it can't save face and NOT sue the people they subpoena. That does not mean they can't convince you to settle their multimillion dollar lawsuit for a few bucks.

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.

Re:Victims? Not really

[Fastolfe]

Unfortunately, in the US, it's not that easy.

Tort law is one of those things that isn't intended to punish the person causing the harm, but to compensate the person that was harmed. Consequently, we have lots of situations where a seemingly innocent mistake on one person's part can end up with them paying significant damages to someone else. "But I didn't know!" It doesn't matter.

To put it another way, if it can be proved that infringement of someone's copyright was done, the law is set up to make sure that person is compensated. It doesn't matter of the person causing the harm knew, or intended it to happen.

I personally hate this, since it allows for a completely innocent mistake or accident to completely ruin someone's life, if the damage they caused was significant enough. (Some of this is balanced a bit by the requirement that the person being harmed wasn't negligent in allowing the harm. Driving around in a billion-dollar car made of diamonds, and then suing someone into bankruptcy for dinging your car door, probably wouldn't go over well, for example.) I'd favor, for example, penalizing the person if they knowingly or intentionally caused the harm, else compensate the victim out of a fund built from taxes.

But IANAL, and it's possible that this approach to torts is reasonable once you get at the heart of things.

It costs them money too.

[Mustang Matt]

Sure they've got millions of dollars but how many people are they suing? What if every person stood up to them? I'm betting they'd feel that hit on the wallet.

Re:It costs them money too.

[Kythe]

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.

Sad to say...

[zappepcs]

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...

Re:Sad to say...

[aaza]

I'm an Australian, and I have to say that most of the individual Americans that I have met are nice people. I would also like to say that I think the government of the USA (at all levels) appears to be a bad thing (maybe that's because we only hear the bad stuff).

In short: individuals are nice enough, it's populations as a whole that are bad and have a bad image.

Re:Victims? Not really

[tftp]

She says there was no music on her computer, and the CD recorder is broken, etc. etc. But nobody wanted to investigate even that. It is really strange that RIAA accused her without having any proof whatsoever, except maybe the IP address.

But anyone can set any IP address he likes, manually, as long as the other computer is off (which was mostly the case). Depends on the type of the network, probably. And if she had a WiFi router, unsecured...

Is a computer like a dog or a cat ?

[Alain Williams]

When I first got my computer set up almost three years ago, I had a friend set it up for me since I did not know how to do it. She had put Kaaza Lite on there and told me what it was. I never used it and had no interest in doing so. I deleted it since I had no use for it.

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:

1. Should not the RIAA go after the friend who installed Kaaza, since it was she that caused the computer to ''perform illegal activities'' ?
2. There is a notion in law of ''intent'', ie you need to intend to do something to he held liable. So should Ms Andersen be liable for something that was performed by her computer when it was not her intent that the computer do this ?
3. If my dog causes you some damage I am, as it's owner and the dog being under my control, liable for that and responsible for putting it right (ie paying). However: if my cat causes the same damage I am not liable since the law recognises that a cat cannot be controlled.

   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 ?

Go mothers!

[Cow Jones]

Blame the RIAA!

(they're not even a real country anyway)

$$$ money

[Kludge]

How do we send these women money?

A Proposed Legal Defense Tactic for Downloaders

[Sundroid]

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.

Re:What's there to fight?

[sanx]

A simplistic juvenile answer. Here are a few rebuttals.

Copyright infringement is not theft. It's not stealing. "Stealing music" is a phrase invented by groups like the RIAA to try an justify their actions to the general public. Only the truly gullible and terminally stupid (i.e. you) really believe them. If you want proof that copyright infringement is not stealing, then simply look at the papers the RIAA filed. "Theft" is not the offence these mothers have been accused of. QED, copyright infringement is not theft.

Your post assumes that these mothers are guilty of the 'crime' they have been accused of. They way the RIAA spin in, it's beholden on the accused to prove their innocence. This act is directly counter to the principles that many legal systems were founded upon; notably - that one is innocent until proven guilty.

It is a logical impossibility to prove a negative. All the mothers can hope to do in this case is prove that they didn't use P2P applications or have music on their machines they didn't have a legal right to. This doesn't prove they weren't sharing music at the time the RIAA alledge.

The RIAA should be made to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that:

1. These files they alledge were shared were on the computer belonging to the accused.
2. That the files contained tracks for which the copyright is owned by an RIAA-affiliated organisation who has specifically given the RIAA enforcement powers.
3. That the files had been placed in a shared directory through a deliberate interactive action, not placed their automatically by an application / trojan, etc.

Civil Rico (was Re:The protection racket angle...)

[mankey wanker]

IIRC, RICO can be exercised as an ordinary civil suit, you just have to be able to state a claim for damages. In this case I would think that Anderson would have a claim for the stress factor this RIAA BS is causing her.

I hope she's reading this, more money for her and her attorney.

BTW, this is why you NEVER want to limit what attorneys or you can recover in lawsuits - because sometimes regular attys have to do the hard work that govt. either will not do, or when govt. is acting against you (as in criminalizing "copyright infringement" as if it were *SO IMPORTANT* to the whole of society instead of just some big wigs at the record and movie companies).

Single Mothers?

[goombah99]

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!

Re:Single Mothers?

[Fjornir]

Can someone tell me what "kicking elf" means?

Re:Single Mothers?

[Deagol]

Yeah! -- it's not like the RIAA has ever sensationalized anything in its press releases.

Oh, wait....

Sometimes to fend off a fight started with a sucker punch, you have to resort to playing a little dirty, too.

Re:Single Mothers?

[lawpoop]

Why does their maternity matter? Well, they are doing one of the most productive and valuable things for society -- raising children. Children are the only thing that ensure our long-term survival, and the only place they comes from is women. So in this sense they are much more productive than the RIAA as social entities (though there may be mothers working in the RIAA, the RIAA itself doesn'r produce babies).

Mothers are more important to society than the RIAA. If the RIAA, which is a leisure industry, is making life difficult for single mothers, who are doing the most productive work with the least amount of resources, we have our priorities misplaced.

Re:Single Mothers?

[Spy der Mann]

But demonizing them for kicking elf, stepping on spiders, and scaring babies is just taking it too far.

You're right - we should only demonize them for bullying families, enslaving the artists, stealing from their own customers (with overinflated prices) and suing people to bankruptcy.

Re:Single Mothers?

[smithwis]

Exactly right.

This is just how things are decided upon by the masses. With tiny little morality plays tht rarely, if ever represent the truth of the situation.

The Scene: A small, empty, and locally owned record store with a going out of business sign on it's window.
The Actors:
The Small Businessman: Symbolizes all that's good in America. A local self made man that every one is supposed to love.
The Evil Goatee wearing Pirate: The young hoodlum who carelessly and illegally distributes Music and thus drives the Businessman out of business.
(Never mind the fact that music sales are not down and the closing of the little shop has more to do with decade long consumer trends away from downtown and locally owned shops.)

The Scene: A small and simple but well kept house
The Actors:
The Honest Single Mother: Symbolizes all the helpless through no faut of their own
The Evil Goatee wearing RIAA Lawyer: The young hoodlum who harasses innocent mums. No better than Mobster really.
(Never mind the fact that most cases have legitimate copyright infringement at their core)

The Scene: A squalid street corner busy with foot traffic
The Actors:
The Hard-up Musician playing for change: Symbolizes a pure musician who only wishes to be payed for creations
::Insert bad guy:: This depending on if you think RIAA or music piracy is to blame

Rinse and Repeat.

Notice that this happens with all sorts of issues.

Re:Single Mothers?

[ccmay]

Can someone tell me what "kicking elf" means?

I suspect it has to do with the Harry Potter books. Dark wizards often hold house-elves in magical bondage, and frequently kick and otherwise abuse them.

-ccm

Re:Single Mothers?

[Kadin2048]

I was about to consider the GGP's point as valid, but anybody who makes references to Harry Potter and expects everyone else to understand them as if they're a part of conversational English, is probably a little detached from reality.

Re:Single Mothers?

[Guppy06]

"Why does the Motherhood of these women matter?"

Because mothers, especially single mothers, have the second-highest political value of all, right behind children. It's all about who you can march out in front of the television cameras.

Nobody cares about the rights of college students.

Re:Single Mothers?

[steve_bryan]

...Why does the Motherhood of these women matter?,

This is speculation but I suspect the reason there was a case to consider is probably because a child or a friend of a child installed some file sharing program on the computer. The account with the ISP was registered and paid by the mother. So when an action was filed it is the mother who was named though she probably had no idea of what might have been the cause.

It should be understood that the copyright laws that are being invoked were written in the draconian terms because they were intended for legal actions of one commercial venture against another. All the mother might know is that she was providing an internet connection that the child is required to have for school work (if you are a parent you are probably aware that this has become a new requirement).

The idea that a parent is responsible for policing a home computer or face possible legal action that could result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages is a new and startling development. If these cases go to trial and the mothers involved lose then the RIAA loses BIG TIME. The laws that they rely on to intimidate and win in the other cases will be seen as unreasonable laws and politicians will be falling over each other trying to address this perception. So if the RIAA wins then they definitely lose and if they lose they may still lose. Their best hope is that these individuals can be convinced to quietly settle.

That is why in the earlier case the most important development was that the judge told the lawyer from the RIAA that their resolution center was no longer involved in the case in any manner. They brought a suit in the judge's court and she [the judge] was determined that it would be adjudicated. Attempts to quietly settle were no longer an option. I suspect she was upset that the RIAA appeared to be using her court as a tool to force a settlement while avoiding a trial. Of course that is exactly what the RIAA wants to do.

Re:Single Mothers?

[KDR_11k]

Yeah, Harry Potter isn't written by Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett or Monty Python.

geolocation

[E8086]

This may sound bad/conspiracy theory-ish.
I'm starting to wonder if the RITA* is using geolocation with the lists of IPs they bought from some possibly questionable collection/data mining agency. I don't remember the last time I heard of a middle or upper class kid getting sued, but they probably have a prepaid no limit iTunes account to go with their 60GB iPod photo. Are they sueing people who in most cases cannot affort their minimum $3500 settlement. They seem to be relying on lists of numners bought from IP harversters and taking what they get as 100% correct and never infallible. My advice to anyone who is unfortunately being sued an as far as they know they have done nothing wrong is how they got their information on you. If someone is using dialup and disconnects data will still be sent to that IP for some time, especially if they were requesting information from P2P apps, maybe kazaa supernodes.

It's possible that the requests were made several minutes before the IP was assigned to them but with the low response time you get with dialup, by the time the RITA snitches' packet sniffers got hold of it the "infringing" IP was assigned to someone else. I used Verizon DSL a few yrs ago before optimumonline was available in the area. The policy was one IP per house but you could connect as many PCs as you want. Without a router to keep a semi-static IP I'd go through lots of IPs a day since I turned my PC off when I left. For at least 20min after connecting ZoneAlarm would record pages of logs from traffic intended for the previous user of the IP, the IPs appeared to be immediately reassigned. I've on seen one takedown notice with logs, the inital detection and followup detection times were 20sec appart. With checking times only 20sec appart it's very possible that the packets they sniffed were going to another person but were time delayed.

Challenge the sources, if they're unwilling to reveal them then they're no more credible than kid A telling the teacher claiming that kid B did something bad or McCarthy's list of Communists that he never let anyone else see.

*I've stopped called the RIAA the RIAA, it's really the RITA Recording Industry Trust of America

Re:You can safely ignore this article

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel strange asking if you've read TFA since you seem to comment so authoritatively on it. But I know that *I've* read it, and it doesn't start with any "whining about someone's physical handicaps". So I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. Maybe you've read the wrong article by mistake?

Re:she had a hemorroid flare up

[KarmaMB84]

It's actually common for tards to install p2p programs on a friend's PC and tell them about the "big favor" they did by installing that "free" music program on that there PC. The woman probably deleted the shortcuts and left the program on there. If she didn't install it and doesn't know how to remove it or what it's doing, should she really be held liable for it? Should I be held liable for a virus that plants child porn on my hard drive?

Re:Wishful thinking

[ScrewMaster]

Depends. I think you're a little underinformed. In any event, you may wish to revamp your definition of "bad faith".

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 ... 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.

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.

user responsibility

[GooglyWoogly]

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.

RIAA, P2P, and Wireless Networks

[Venik]

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?

Why is that?

[HangingChad]

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.

You don't think massive corporations suing single moms is demonic behavior?

Hmmm maybe they do since the people opposing them are apparently excitable children.

Or maybe they're tired of seeing corporations making billions of dollars in profits and who have been porking the music buying public for years with price fixing dragging people who work for a living through the courts. Does that make me an excitable child?

That's probably one of the reasons Sony, BMG and some others collaberated to form RIAA, the same reason MSFT funded the BSA. So someone else could be the bad guy.

It's sort of like the Republican controlled Congress and Senate passing the bankruptcy reform bill which makes it difficult to discharge credit card debt. You'd think with the increased collections the credit card banks would give people a break right? Instead they all raised their late fees and penalties, knowing that they can get away with it because people can't discharge their credit card debt in court. Bet ya didn't see that coming, did you?

I don't know anyone else, but I'm tired of corporate money running this country. I want my country back. I want to lead a torch carrying mob down K Street and sack every lobbyist office and burn every corporate jet at the airport. And this crap that RIAA is up to is just one more reason we really need to do that.

Re:Why is that?

[Floody]

Not if they have evidence that said single moms have broken the law. They could be 95-year-old great-great-grandmothers, but if they broke the law, they're a valid lawsuit target.

They allegedly have evidence. If someone has "broken the law", the correct prodedure is to contact the attorney general or relevant law enforcement agencies. If, once investigated, they believe said evidence is sufficient, the individuals in question will be processed through the criminal court system where they will be provided with an attorney if they cannot afford one, the right to trial by jury and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. These are cornerstones of a society which, supposedly, values individual freedoms for all over special interests.

What the RIAA is attempting (and with some success) is to manipulate the civil legal system into a criminal surrogate, wherein they cause (or threaten to cause) such financial strife that defendants bow to their mighty will in an attempt to avoid life-long reprocussions that often make it difficult to provide for the future of the defendant's family (credit, education, etc).

Guilt or innocence has nothing to do with it.

They cannot, yet, imprison individuals but I'm sure they would simply love that sort of power.

The RIAA, and other similar organizations, are not elected representatives of the public trust and have no business acting in the capacity of such. Their blatant attempts to portray themselves in this light combined with predatory litigatious behavior would generally be considered crimes of coercion under common law.

Re:Why is that?

[curunir]

Not if they have evidence that said single moms have broken the law. They could be 95-year-old great-great-grandmothers, but if they broke the law, they're a valid lawsuit target.

Legally, yes. There's no disputing that the law allows the record companies to do what they're doing. Never mind the fact that many of the laws that allow the record company to demand exorbitant settlment numbers were bought and paid for by those same record companies because they can give more in campaign contributions, they're still well within their legal rights to do what they're doing.

But morally, they're just assholes. Any law that causes hundreds of thousands of mothers to become targets of lawsuits demanding exorbitant settlements based solely on the youthful indiscretions of their children probably needs to be re-examined. Especially if those laws also make criminals out of millions of other people in this country.

The basis of the social contract is that we submit to the authority of the government and, in turn, the government uses that responsibility to do what's best for society as a whole. Their mandate is to build roads and bridges that no single person could afford to build on their own. Their mandate is to organize mass transit, fire and police stations, and stuff like it because we learned the hard way that those types of agencies don't work when implemented in a free-market fashion. And their mandate is to make laws that prevent certain behaviors that undermine the stability of the society we live in.

But when a law makes criminals out of a significant percentage of the population, it's their mandate to figure out whether that law is just. It's their job to ask who is being hurt by the offending behavior and to what extent. And it's their job to ensure that the consequences prescribed by the law are appropriate. I think the vast majority of Americans would say that the penalties for online music "piracy" are currently way too harsh.

It's easy to sit back and say that someone is in the wrong because they've broken a law. It's the very nature of the social contract that we submit ourselves to those laws and by breaking those laws, we also break our contract with society. But the agreement is two sided. To make laws that put the well-being of a select few individuals ahead of the well-being of the vast majority of the masses is just as much a violation of the social contract.

Unjust laws are meant to be challenged. Here's hoping that whatever jury hears these cases is fully cognisant of their right (and responsibility) of jury nullification when they feel that they law prescribes something the believe to be wrong.

Re:Why is that?

[alienw]

The RIAA is doing exactly what it should be doing: protecting its members' interests. The real problem is the US legal system, which was designed precisely to give large corporations and wealthy individuals an unfair advantage.

Re:Why is that?

[rhetoric]

I don't know anyone else, but I'm tired of corporate money running this country. I want my country back.

I'm sorry to say, but big money has been running this country since its inception. Read the Federalist Papers? That should be a good start.

Re:Why is that?

[jafac]

I want to lead a torch carrying mob down K Street and sack every lobbyist office and burn every corporate jet at the airport.

Dude, gimme a call when you're ready to go. Just not on a Saturday, my weekends are kind of tight lately. . .

Re:Why is that?

[ebyrob]

Copyright infringement is chiefly a civil matter

Was, we live under the DMCA now.

and ideally should only be civil.

Making it so once more would certainly be a good first step in getting things back into line.

If a copyright holder wants to enforce his rights and recover from the damage that infringers have cost him, that's fine.

We must also decide that a compromise such as copyright is necessary, reasonable and exactly what that compromise entails before there are any "damages" to be disputed. 70 years work for hire with a bullet and heavily restrictued use sounds like anything but fair to me. (ie: vendor approved device, which costs $$$ and pay-per-view etc.)

Re:Why is that?

[Lesson No. 25]

"To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into contempt."
--Elizabeth Cady Stanton

(found here, here, and here).

Re:Wishful thinking

[Sparr0]

Here is the paragraph you are looking for. A "more official" version (but less easily naviable) is available here. In short, if you cut out the intervening parts that cover all the OTHER stuff you arent allowed to do, the relevant part boils down to: ... the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to ... reproduce the copyrighted work ...

Now, all nonsense aside, when you click that "download" button you ARE reproducing the work, copying it from the remote computer(s) to your own.

The civil and criminal penalties for violating that exclusive right are laid out a few pages away from those links.

Coming soon to the Lifetime Channel

[NotFamous]

A made-for-tv movie staring Lindsay Wagner. Her physically-challenged daughter is just starting to make progress by listening to P2P songs when suddenly the RIAA files a lawsuit against them both. Only a last-minute visit from Madonna stops the plans of the evil RIAA. Yup.

Music-downloading viruses: the ultimate defense

[sacrilicious]

All we need is a few more viruses that download songs from p2p networks, and these lawsuits would disappear completely.

Re:More gratuitous RIAA bashing - NOT!

[AdamD1]

> 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.

ad

Guide to Copyright Law

[SonicSpike]

My major in college was the study of the recording industry. I am an audio engineer but have had a couple of law courses focusing on the rec industry.

Here are some of my brief notes from my copyright law course. Some of this is kind of random, scattered and dissheleved.

BASIC LAWS
There are currently 3 types of property in the US:
1) Personal - should be obvious 2) Real - and/buildings 3) "Intellectual"

There are mostly 3 tyes of "Intellectual Properties"
1) Patents - systems, processess, formulas, etc 2) Copyrights - original writings or works of art from an author or artist 3) Trademarks - logo, name, design, slogan 4) Trade Secrets - anything a company uses secretly which is not patented

Trademark conflicts are between businesses and is based on geographic location and which industry it is used in. When courts try trademark cases they base their decision on the objective of "causing the least amount of confusion in rhe market place"

Novelty and inventiveness are required for a patent, but not for a copyright.

Anything that has a minimal degree of creativity meets the threshold for copyright can be copyrighted

A creative work is copyrighted the instant it is put in the form of a tangiable medium.

IDEAS ARE NOT PROTECTED BUT WORKS THAT CONTAIN IDEAS ARE COPYRIGHTABLE.

What can be copyrighted?
Literary works, musical works (including lyrics), dramatic works (music too), pantemines, cheorographic works, pictorial, graphic, scupltural work, motion picture, a/v works, animations, sound recordings, archetectual works.

RIGHTS:
As the owner of a copyright what rights do you have?
- Reproduction - Authorize derivivative works - Distribution - Public Performance - Public Display
- Digital Transmission (DMCA)

Copyright litigation:
The 3 questions asked by the court:
- Who owns the valid copyrigt - Was there unlawful copying by the defendent - Substansiality and/or similarity

REMEDIES:
The remedies for a civil copyright infringment are this
1- Injunctions (preliminary and permant) 2- Impoundment and/or destruction 3- Damages (fines/restrictions) damages can be actual (plantiff loss + defendent gains) or statuatory (as defined by law) 4- Court costs and attorney fees

Statuatory damages and court costs/attorney fees are not availble remedies to the plantiff unless the work was registered with the US Copyright Office PRIOR to the infringment by the defendent.

Statury damages can be as low as $200 per infringment for an innocent infringment but as high as $150,000 for a willful infringment.

To have infringment:
1- Plantiff must have ownership of valid copyright 2- Unlawful copying must have taken place 3- Access must be proven; direct (defendent saw/heard copy of work); indirect (access is inferred by wide dissemination) 4- Similarity; 4 types- identical; striking, substantial, insubstantial

Criminal infringment:
Willful infringment for commercial advantage or private financial gain by the sale of 10 or more copies or retail value of $2,500 or more within a 6 month period.
Penalties: $250,000 fines for a person or $500,000 for an entity and/or imprisonment 5 years for first offense, 10 years for second offense.

Constructive knowledge - once a work of art is registered with the USCO it is presumed that the defendent is aware of the copyright.

FAIR USE
What is fair use? It is a defense against alleged copyright infringment
The courts evaluate 4 elements in defining fair use:
- Nature of the work (factual vs fictional) - Nature of the use (commercial vs educational vs private vs public) - Amount and substantiality (using the hook/chorus or verse) - The effect on the commercial market place (more weight has been given to this one recently)

MISC CONCEPTS/IDEAS:
There is concept called the idea/expression dichotomy. The expression of the facts can be copyrighted but the facts themselves cannot.

There is a concept called the Merger Doctrine; there

Re:Guide to Copyright Law

[DragonTHC]

Copyright litigation: The 3 questions asked by the court: - Who owns the valid copyrigt - Was there unlawful copying by the defendent - Substansiality and/or similarity

Was there unlawful copying by the defendant? this has to beg the question of public domain. I believe the person who uploads the work is guilty of copyright infringement, but not the person who downloads. in a p2p situation like bit torrent, where uploading and downloading are a simultaneous mechanism, everyone is guilty. but where web/ftp/irc sites are concerned, only the person uploading the work is actually infringing upon that copyright. The person downloading is actually obtaining a work from the De Facto Public Domain. The RIAA is only suing anonymous and identified users who have been found sharing (offering for upload) copyrighted works.

Meh.

[modecx]

Change the law? Are you serious? With all of the money involved on the opposing side, it would be just about as easy to work at minimum wage with the goal of saving up enough money to buy a private island and enough yes-men so you can create your own little dictatorship that dosen't recognize copyright on materials older than a reasonable life span--all so you can thumb your nose at Mickey Mouse.

The Beatles, for example, are legends, and their works will continue to generate money well after the generation that first heard them have entirely turned to worm food. Michael Jackson makes a buttload off them, and they're just a drop in the bucket. It's in this industry's interest to make copyrights infinitely long, I realize this, they realize it, we all realize it. They have the money and the support to do it, and everyone else can eat shit. That's the reality. Unless someone cares to pull a few billion out of their ass to buy up and free all this good stuff, it will be tied up forever.

Somehow, to me, it dosen't seem unethical to copy music or other materials that have outlived everyone involved in its creation and its original investers, regardless of the legality.

Re:Meh.

[modecx]

What the hell are you talking about? The generation that listened to the Beatles is still alive today.

No shit. They were an example--legends with music that transcends time, they WILL be heard for generations after anyone involved with them has gone! Perhaps you missed the forward pointing language, but I don't think that's my fault. Yeah, they're still alive and kicking, they deserve the fruits of their labor, but it's all too likely that the bigwigs who invested in their music have kicked the can--corporations excepted, they can live forever. Should their great-grandkids still be collecting royalties after they're gone? Should King's Quest I be tied up until 2078? Is it right that some Vanilla Ice wannabe in the year 2075 would have to liscense that famous loop from Under Pressure? I don't think so. Its insane.

There's plenty of music, video, photos, and stuff that has been produced since 1923, which is still copyrighted, and that stuff won't become public domain until 2019--if they don't decide to extend copyrights again, that is. Do you think it was a mistake that the copyright extension act was Sonny Bono's pet project? Talk about a guy with vested interests, too bad he couldn't stick around to gain from it. Many (most, nearly all) of the people who were adults when they created works in the 30's are gone now. Some of the stuff is still relevant, but it's sad that photos, newspaper articles, and even floor plans from the 30's and 40's could still belong to someone/something, I think.

I think milking copyrights in perpetuity is wrong. 40 years isn't unreasonable. 50 years isn't necessarily pushing it. I think the current 70 years for personal authorship is a little long (even if you create something at 18, you're covered till you're 88, that aught to be long enough to get your share out of your works). 95 years for corporate authorship is simply disgusting, though.

The thing is, they only need to find another Sonny Bono to push their agenda, and they've got it in the bag. That's not right or fair, and this is from someone who makes pretty good money on the side doing creative stuff, which is covered by copyright. In a world where nearly all arts are built upon the foundation of previous works, super long copyrights are a burden and a hindrance.

Re:Meh.

[spejsklark]

I think the current 70 years for personal authorship is a little long (even if you create something at 18, you're covered till you're 88, that aught to be long enough to get your share out of your works).

Those 70 years don't start until the author is dead. See http://www.copyright.gov/fls/sl15.html

Re:Katrina and now this mean that ...

[cnerd2025]

What the hell are you talking about? How ignorant you are. The media in general is a waste. Where do you think your media gets its footage? You hippocrite. Europeans all but allow genocide to happen in your back yards. Your sad excuse for an "economic union" has failed because you couldn't agree enough to ratify a constitution. The Russian and French Revolutions were violent...and they didn't happen in America, they happened in Europe. I'm American and am no fan of the media, the RIAA, or any of the other corporate dirt bags that exist. But when global warming does happen and the precious gulf stream no longer gives you cold weather, I'd happily laugh because apparently you know how to handle this type of thing. Go sit in your own filth. I lived for three years in Europe after three years in Japan. I've seen my share of society from around the world. I loved Europe, but Europeans are without a doubt the most racist people on the planet. Always have been. And another thing, We feel obligated to do the decent thing is a total lie. Europeans have historically not done the decent thing. Take World War I for example. The treaty of Versailles was a miserable failure. And the reason? Because it penalized an already shot Germany and the Europeans took NO INITIATIVE WHATSOEVER! I am no fan of Bush, but at least in the USA we have balls. Europeans run around shooting their mouthes off about how Americans are so outrageious. Fortunately our founding fathers were much more visionary than yours. And consider this as well: the US government has survived longer than any in mainland Europe. Our country is young, just approaching a 400th anniversary of the British settling in America. But when we felt our rights were violated, we revolted and fought and died for what we believed. The French fought and died because they hated an oppressive aristocracy. The Russians fought and died for what they believed was right, although it was definitely misguided and definitely brutal. Communists failed because you can't impose vision on people, no matter what the circumstances. Who saved Europe's ass after World War II? America and the UK. France can do its part and host invasions for all I care. Or perhaps sell weapons to brutal dictators. Or perhaps raise pander about a stupid union that will never amount to anything but a trade bloc. European economy is rotten. America has the best economy and best military in the world. Sorry, folks, you lose. Should have repealed the Stamp Act earlier. I'd like to let you know as well from when I lived in Europe that the footballers were the most violent people I've ever seen. Our sports fans are nothing like those in Europe. And our government doesn't control the media. Learn to think objectively, not hypocritically. Your racism is showing. Africa colonization, Asian colonization, holocaust, and then genocide in the balkans. This is outrageous that you are lecturing us about "the decent thing." Go sit in your own filth.

Sidestep the whole issue

[TheNucleon]

I understand that a key issue here is whether or not the (potential) defendants violated copyright. But a lot of the responses have been variations of "what can we do about the RIAA, and the unchecked power of corporate America".

So, I say, we sidestep the whole issue, and just start enjoying media that artists release under Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/ licensing. That is, tell the RIAA, in your face! There is LOTS of good music (and other work) out there that can be had freely. Sure, it's not the bubblegum stuff you're hearing on KRAP radio, but lots of it is really worth listening to.

The more we adopt alternate methods, the more the power will slip away from the current abusers. It's not a total solution, but it's a place to start.

Re:What's there to fight?

[jlaxson]

The legal term for theft/stealing/robbery is larceny, defined by Miriam-Webster as "the unlawful taking of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it permanently". The Wikipedia article goes into more detail. The key part of those definitions is the word "deprive." Illegitimate file sharing does not deprive the copyright holder of any property (compensation isn't mentioned anywhere here), so larceny and its related words (theft, stealing, etc) aren't suitable.

Copyright infringement really is the pertinent term. The record label (copyright holder, whoever) owns the exclusive right to reproduce the works it creates, and to license and control those rights. The United States Code itself calls the violation of copyright "copyright infringement," not theft or larceny.

I think the main reason that copyright infringement cannot be simplified to theft is that theft implies that the owner no longer has something that is his. Downloading a song or movie illicitly does not deprive the copyright holder of anything. (It does not deprive them of profit, as downloading has nothing to do with whether or not one has or may purchase the work legitimately, nor do they have the currency you owe them in the first place to be stolen)

I do not claim that file sharing is legal, proper, or the like, but it is not theft, stealing, or larceny. It is copyright infringement, no more, no less.

Re:More gratuitous RIAA bashing - NOT!

[shark72]

"Ensuring that CD's remained in a $17 - $22 price range from [literally, no joke] 1983 to the present,"

You're half right. CDs were about $18 in the mid-80s. If CD prices had stayed the same, that $18 CD you bought in 1983 would cost about $35 today. Instead, CD prices have been freefalling -- they were down to $13.29 in 2004.

"despite the fact that literally anyone will tell you that the reasonable retail price for a CD should more likely be around $9, max."

Hmmm... the free market disagrees with you. I don't dispute for one second that you and all of your friends think that CDs are worth about $9, but the free market has deemed that CDs are worth about $13.29 and online tracks are worth about $0.99. Whether they'd sell more at $9 to make up for the lost margin is one of those classical supply/demand curve analysis issues (and you can bet that the record industry has hired smart people to do that analysis) but keep in mind that the record industry nets about 20% on physical CD sales (although I suspect it's much higher on downloads). There's not much more to shave off.

"LP's and Cassettes were priced around the $7-$9 range range when CD's were introduced (1982)."

Also correct -- I was buying LPs around then as well. $9 in 1985 dollars is about $17 today. While unfortunately it's not the case with gas or property, at least we pay less for music today than we did in the 80's. This is not due to the kindness of the record executive's hearts, but because it's a much more competitive market today Record companies need to compete with all other sorts of entertainment -- and they need to compete with piracy, too. Record companies are slaves to the laws of supply and demand just as everybody else is.

"Even with inflation there is literally ZERO reason for a CD to be "on sale" at $16 or so."

As mentioned above, the average price of new CDs is down to about $13 and change. Some CDs may be more (two-disc sets, audiophile versions, and so on), but that's because the record industry gets to reap the same benefits of supply and demand that other industries do. Logitech could sell that mouse for $20, but they sell it for $50 because they know people will pay for it. It might cost Kenneth Cole $10 to make a shirt, but they'll charge $100 because they people will want it at that price. And so it goes, in virtually any industry you can name. So if a record company thinks they can create an audiophile special edition version of a CD and sell it for $16, and people buy it because they think it's worth the few extra bucks, then God bless 'em.

Bringing supply and demand home, if you've made the efforts to get the education and training that allows you to compete for jobs (say, as an IT manager or a development lead) that pay $80K - $100K, but your cost of living is such that you could scrape by on $40K, you'll still gladly take that $80K job if somebody's willing to pay you. There's nothing illegal or even immoral about that.

"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."

Eh, mechanicals alone can run up more than $0.70. Royalties typically run $1 - $2 per CD. Not sure where you got your figures on video plays, either.

"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

Wrong.

[raehl]

Reproduction is easy, and is not a service to society.

ADEQUATELY RAISING CHILDREN TO ADULTS WHO CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY is a service to society. If you raise a kid who ends up in prison, you did society a disservice. If you gave birth to a crack baby, you did society a service. If your child ends up in foster care because the sheriff found a meth lab in your kitchen, you did socieity a disservice.

This doesn't mean the RIAA should run around suing people because they perform an antiquated economic function that now requires lawsuits to support, but the assumption that merely reproducing is inherently valuable is wrong.

Random lawsuits tend to end this way

[gelfling]

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.

Would most Windows users be guilty of ignorance?

[Rick17JJ]

About 50 percent of all home and business wireless networks do not use the optional security features like encryption or MAC address filtering. Furthermore, for years now, Windows has had serious security problems with viruses, spam, e-mail attachments and other problems. Despite these unaccepatble security problems, most people have continued to use Windows even though more secure choices such as MAC OS X and Linux exist. According to on BBC article there are over 1 million Zombie computers spewing out spam and viruses or being used for other illegal activities. Should most of those over 1 million people be considered to be criminals because as you say "ignorance is not a valid defence?"

Most computer users are not knowledgable about computer security and use an insecure operating system. So if ignorance is not a valid defence then should I assume that most Windows users are potentially guilty of allowing their computers to be used for crimes? I use Linux by the way and am not a lawyer but, it seems a little harsh to hold unlucky ordinary average ignorant Windows users guilty by saying "ignorance is not a valid defence."

By the way, I am not saying that Linux or Mac OS X security is perfect but they are nearly immune to viruses, worms and e-mail attachemnts. However Linux users still need to use a firewall and download the latest security updates.