Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Suit Rejected With Prejudice
yfarren writes "According to cdfreaks.com the RIAA has lost the case against the mother of a 13 year old girl accused of file-sharing violations." From the article: "The case was dismissed with prejudice, which prevents the case from being advanced against the defendant. Finally, the RIAA tried asking the Judge to amend the judgment in order to allow them to sue the child through a Guardian Ad Litem. However the court denied [the] RIAA's request."
Could it be? The first spark of intelligence to come out of a courtroom in regards to all this *IAA crap?
-GenTimJS
13 year old girls - 1
The **AA - 3247923874932749782365926323
We're catching up!
Seriously though, I hope these rulings keep coming. Although it is wrong to pirate music and other media, you shouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars in fines.
The case was dismissed, but the defendant still had to pay legal fees! Aargh! So, basically they still got screwed.
Not sure about intelligence, but sanity, certainly.
Everybody, cross your fingers and hope this sparks a trend - it should at least set some sort of precidence that other's can use to their advantage.
Practically speaking, is there much difference between suing the 13 yr old vs suing the parent? Let's say the RIAA successfully sues the girl and pins her with a $1,000,000 settlement -- who's liable? It's not like the girl has any assets they can seize. Can they then go after the parent's assets? If so, is there really much difference in whether they sue the mom or the girl?
Agreed. The RIAA lost mainly because they tried to sue a parent over the actions of the child. The court said, nice try, but if your beef is with the child, then sue the child. Either the RIAA was suing the parent to get the extortion money to keep paying for the lawsuits, or suing the parent to avoid the unpleasant reaction that would probably ensue for going after a thirteen year old. Both seem plausible. Haven't other parents paid up in other suits that weren't contested like this?
Since this was Federal court, does anyone know if this makes precedent that will force the RIAA to change tactics (i.e., start going after the kids directly)?
IANAL, but does this mean soccer moms have nothing to worry about from RIAA pressure tactics or does this mean EVERYONE has nothing to worry about?
;-)
if i get an extortion letter form the RIAA for $36,000 because i downloaded Kelly Clarkson, can i play stupid in court and win?
"honest your honor, i didn't know that anyone could connect to my WiFi connection and use teh intarweb"
"honest your honor, i didn't know what my dumb cousin vinny was doing on the computer all night"
"honest your honor, i didn't know that that program is for illegal music"
do clueless soccer moms get off scott free? or anyone who challenges the RIAA and plays stupid?
serious question: can anyone plead ignorance in court and win against the RIAA extortions now?
i personally think that would be wonderful if true, because you can say what you want about the immorality of downloading pirated music, but the extortion the RIAA is pulling against average folks of limited financial and legal means is a greater form of immoral behavior
someone who is a lawyer speak up: has the RIAA's extortion mill been effectively shut down now?
please say yes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Now, with prejudice in the bankruptcy world only means they can't refile for a 160 day period. I am wondering if the same thing applies here? Does the record industry merely have to wait in order to get another crack at it? I'm not up to snuff on my legal code for law suits.
Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
I own multiple retail businesses, and when a child steals from me, I guess I "extort" the parent by saying "pay up or I'm calling the cops." In fact, I've CALLED the cops a few times to arrest the kid, and the parent pays up, in front of the cops, and I've never been arrested for extortion.
So far, it's been pretty cheap (I wonder if they're actually making money at it) for the RIAA to threaten potential infringers with lawsuit since virtually every one (all?) of their suits has been settled. Cost equation is something like: Cost of searching for infringers + lawyer time to right a boilerplate letter=big settlement and no court time. If more people were to fight these cases I think this approach would end real quick, or there would be a big landmark case where they sue an individual for a hojillion dollars. At that point, I think people on both sides of the issue might need to reevaluate what they're doing.
I mean, if the RIAA were to actually take one of these big cases to court and win all the money the law says they're entitled to against someone with multiple thousands of "illegally" shared files, they could be looking at a several million dollars. Regardless of whether or not the defendant could afford it, that might actually make other people scared. However, clearly they can't support the court fees of suing as many people as they are currently threatening, so I'm just wondering what the actual deterring effect would be...
'the Internet is right.'
Just because your innocent does not make it all right for you to not obey the law to the full. It is something an awfull lot of people seem to forget and it is a judges job to remind them.
Pity the article does not make clear exactly what she did. but the message still remains clear, obey the law. You have some leeway and big company's can't just steamroll you but neither can you steamroll the law.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So if a child steals from a store that they go to without a parent, it should be OK because the minor can't afford to purchase the item?
Fair enough, but for an intangible like copyright, I am not sure what sort of damage one can allege.
Oh that's right.... It is damage because the parent didn't pay for the intangible, not that it caused a demonstrable loss. Right....
The problem is that copyright infringement is not like theft any more than tresspassing is.* If I go into your back yard and pitch a tent and sleep there, technically, I am not stealing anything from you. And you can't exactly prosecute me for theft. You can prosecute me for tresspassing, but that doesn't have the same ring.
* I am deliberately omiting arguments you might want to make about being able to steal your property legally via adverse posession and historical use laws. These activities are legal, however, and basically state that if you don't object within a certain time period, you can't suddenly stop me from using your land (and in some cases, I might be entitled to title). These are more similar to fair use in copyright law than they are to theft.
(IANAL, etc).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I keep hearing this argument repeated, and it's false. If I have a one-of-a-kind car and you go and create and sell replicas of it without permission, it certainly does take something away from me since it reduces the value of my car. The same thing with pirated music: if you copy and distribute a song without permission, it reduces the value of the authorized distribution channel for that song. Not everything needs to be physical to be stolen, see "identity theft" for a really nasty example.
File sharing is theft, IMHO. But I do believe that the current market for music and movies is dying and that the RIAA and MPAA need to find ways to convert P2P into a new motivation tool for artists and consumers. I don't have a good solution, and I don't think lowering prices will really decrease P2P that much. I know that I buy more music and movies because of P2P, but I don't actually pirate music or movies, just trailers and samples.
On the other hand, what if the RIAA (and MPAA) required that every consumer of a CD or DVD signed a contract saying "I agree that I am borrowing this medium for $9.99, and that any data contained on this medium is priviledged and I am not able to disclose or copy the data to any individual, network, corporation, or entity under penalty of law" and you had to sign the contract in order to get the CD or DVD? Would that be acceptable? Is this an option where the **AA organizations only allow specific companies to push their product?
When I buy a CD or DVD, I understand that I am buying a license to listen/view/use the data in the privacy of my home for just myself and my family. I know I don't own the music or the movie, just the physical medium that the data is carried on. That's fine. If I want to own a song or movie, I'm sure I'd be happy to pay whatever it costs to create it so that I can distribute it.
FYI, I don't agree with the RIAA or MPAA tactics or system. I do believe information wants to be free, and I am more than willing to switch to a "direct to the artist" payment system.
the RIAA's strategy.
/.'ers dislike are strongly reinforced. What's worse is a dissenting view can easily be positioned as at least disreputable behavior if not outright criminal activity.
1. Entertainment mega-corps still win big because they strike fear into the hearts of consumers. The message is simple, "don't steal our music." The underlying assumptions that many
2. It looks to me like they lost on procedure, not so much on the theft issue. The woman's got to pay anyway and that works out great for the RIAA.
3. No one cares that they are going after minors. The US has a criminal courts system for them too. Again, the underlying assumptions about the control of the music are not even on the table.
I really don't see how anything positive comes out of this story.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
So if a child steals from a store that they go to without a parent, it should be OK because the minor can't afford to purchase the item?
It's not theft, it's copyright infringement. Shoplifting is a crime. As with all crimes you would need evidence to prosecute. There is an actual loss that you can measure. With copyright infringement, there is no physical loss and flacky evidence.
And when the parents are unaware of their child, it is bad parenting. Sometimes a warning isn't enough.
So a person is a bad parent if they don't know how to operate their PC? IIRC we are talking about a single mother and like it or not a single parent can't be everwhere at once. And we are talking about an issue that someone who was childless in the 80s and 90s that doesn't think this is a big deal. And actually, a number of artists encourage p2p distribution... and there is presently no way your average end user could know if it's OK to share the music.
What we need to learn is the concept of respecting the rights of the copyright holder. To assume all sharing is bad in it self is a serious violation of the rights of copyright holders.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I'm not even sure that the RIAA can afford so many lawsuits. Sure, they're a multi-billion dollar "co-op" organization "defending" artists, but each lawsuit costs them something. Even with in-house legal staff, there are still filing fees, follow-up costs, and the like. I'm assuming their return-on-investment is calculated by how many people they assume will stop pirating their music out of fear of lawsuits? So they're assuming that they'll be seeing a return from people buying more albums because they are afraid to pirate because the RIAA sues pirates? Confusing.
Actually, there have been very few (if any) RIAA lawsuits that have actually gone to court and reached a verdict. From what I gather, the RIAA has set up a telephone call center via which defendants can pay setllements in order to call off the lawyers. This costs them practically nothing: they just mail out threatening letters and wait for the money to roll in.
I think this is one of the first major defeats the RIAA has suffered so far in relation to its sue-the-customers scheme, and we can only hope that it will bolster more people into challenging the RIAA's suits instead of settling out of court via their hotline. The problem is that anyone who challenges the RIAA and wins will have to then pay their own lawyers' fees, so many people decide that settling is cheaper and less time-consuming - which is exactly what the RIAA is gambling on because they want to brag about how many people their goons have scared settlements out of so far.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
As an artist, I decide how I want to whore my creations -- not you.
Bullshit1 If you don't want people "stealing" it, then don't publish. Keep it to yourself and get all the pleasure that gives you from it.
Society generously gives you certain limited rights to encourage you to share it with us. the "uniqueness" is just selfishness. A piece of art can be shared with the world for virtually no cost. It's still the same piece of art whether one person or a million people have it.
Because digital piracy has always been a grey area. Is it theft? Does the industry really lose sales? If so how much?
And traditionally, people are afraid of going to the courts because of uncertainty of the outcome, and more importantly the lack of experience to act and react in a courtroom.
Why do people so scared of doing bad things? Because somehow they thought that they might be going to hell when they died, and that uncertainty is enough to keep most people on track.
Now imagine if someone went to hell and back, and told everyone that it's actually not that bad, and he's publishing "The Bad People's Guide To Hell" telling you which road to take to avoid demons and punishments.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
The weak, maybe, but targeting the young is often a huge mistake. There are few things more ferocious than a mother protecting her cubs - most predators that fail to realise this don't pass on their genes.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"I'm not even sure that the RIAA can afford so many lawsuits. Sure, they're a multi-billion dollar "co-op" organization "defending" artists, but each lawsuit costs them something. Even with in-house legal staff, there are still filing fees, follow-up costs, and the like. I'm assuming their return-on-investment is calculated by how many people they assume will stop pirating their music out of fear of lawsuits? So they're assuming that they'll be seeing a return from people buying more albums because they are afraid to pirate because the RIAA sues pirates? Confusing."
They care afford it.
Most of these attorneys are on a contingency basis. The xxAA hire (or the "big gun" attorneys hired by the xxAA turn over the inital wave of defendents to) low-quality, inexpensive, local attorneys who file "boiler plate" lawsuits against defendents in their area. They get a list of potential infringers are told to "Sue away" and anything they get is theirs. It's just like carpet-bombing or trying to catch tuna with dolphin-unsafe nets. The vast majority settle upfront. Those that don't settle (very, very few) and want to fight it in court have costly "big gun" attorneys (from the local council) with a lot of experience take over.
The xxAA makes no money on these suits and aren't making any pretenses that they are.
Their goal is simply this: Scare as many potential pirates as possible into not pirating their product. Make it tremendously painful to those that get caught. Reduce piracy to an acceptable level. A few geeks trading music on IRC via XDCC and the Usenet is acceptable. Everyone and their Grandmother NaPsTeRiNg and BiToRrEnTiNg music a la carte with a click of the mouse is not an acceptable level.
Oh and Edgar Bronfman Jr: You say you want to hold the cheapest songs on iTunes to
Not only is he trying to put himself out of business, he's trying to directly oppose the law of supply and demand. Granted, it's been argued that the S&D laws don't necessarily apply to intellectual property and the like, but charging a premium for a high-volume item is a recipe for disaster.
If anything, it's the rare live recordings that should be priced more agressively. Why would we want to pay a premium for a song that's played frequently on the radio?
I could possibly see something like 'Buy 2 songs from this EP and get the 3rd for $.50' -- which would be a win-win for consumers and the labels. Consumers get a cheap song, and the labels still make a profit on it because chances are, without the discount, the person wouldn't have purchased the song.
The RIAA is shooting itself in the foot.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Guys, I thought of an idea. How about donating to a special fund for "Victims of the RIAA" so the we can pay for the defendants' attorney fees? Something like "music taxes", but instead of paying the corporate monster, we'd help support the innocent victims of a corrupted system. This way, when a mother is told: "Pay us thousands of dollars, or see you in court!", we can tell her: "Don't settle! We'll pay for the legal expenses!"
Is there already such site?
Yes, I now own a GNC franchise and you simply would not believe the number of young teenage boys--and, occasionally, girls--who have tried to steal protein powders, creatine, etc., from my store. Generally, I catch them and hold them for the cops and their parents who can pay for what they stole.
What I *don't* do is follow them home and then sue their parents for many times the cost of the item.
I always thought stealing meant taking something that isn't yours without the permission of the owner. If you don't buy it (AFAIK, that's the only way the RIAA will give you permission to take it) but you take it anyway, then you stole it. No where in that definition does it mean that the other person lost something tangible.
Oh oh! I have a better example. What if a child walked into a store, sat in the home theatre demo section and watched a whole Disney movie they hadn't seen before. Is that OK? Is it theft then too?
"It's not theft!"
Yes, I know the example was silly. Just recounting the image that came to mind.
I got popped for taking some jerky out of a jar when I was 12, my mom had to pay like a 100 bucks on top of the cost of the jerky, Not sure what the 100 bucks was for, but now I am curious how they could do that.
I always found this is one of the strangest features in the US Justice System - that the loser does not automatically gets to pay both sides fees in a civil complaint. After all, if you bring a lawsuit against me and I am proved innocent, you still get to bankrupt me on legal fees (or force me to surrender whatever you wnat without trial because I can't afford it). It is not only unfair, it (probably intentionally) tilts the balance of Justice in favour of corporations and against the consumers or the common person. I wonder why there is no popular movement to review this specific legislation so anyone can defend him/herself against corporate lawsuits without fear of losing everything to the lawyers on the way to reclaim Justice.
Is it ironic that the judges, those who the citizens do not directly elect are the ones most on consumers' sides? I thought about it and reallized that judges don't have to worry about huge campaigning bills and therefore can "afford" to be honorable. Even though we know that elected officials could be honorable too. But then the media would have to get off of its fat lazy ass and begin working. I think it has forgotten how to spell "Kosovo."
The weak, maybe, but targeting the young is often a huge mistake. There are few things more ferocious than a mother protecting her cubs - most predators that fail to realise this don't pass on their genes.
This is false in most cases. If you want proof, do research on why most animals produce incredible numbers of offspring, and why so few actually survive.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
> The RIAA is shooting itself in the foot.
Is this really something that should be discouraged?
Yes! Because the RIAA is also trampling all over our rights. Guess where the bullets are going to end up?
This post brought to you by Overstretched Metaphors, Inc.
This has probably been posted/pointed out before - but downloads don't necessarily equal lost sales. This seems to be what all the *IAA's are going on as well "200 million tracks shared illegially, why that's $1bn!" (or something to that effect). If I download some crap, I'm not gonna go out and buy it. If I download a single because I wanted to hear it once or twice, wtf is the difference if I have the file or if I listen to it on radio? Having said that, I just went and bought 3 albums yesterday, these were cds I would never have found without the loveliness of file sharing! So if anything, in my case file sharing creates record company profit!
"consumers should be able to download music to have a listen before they buy; perhaps someone needs to form an association similar to the RIAA, but that embraces the concept of worthwhile content that can be used without restriction. Maybe just a recording studio that does it?"
Did you mean something like magnatune?
They have no isue with people downloading their full albums in *high* quality mp3 format so you can make up your mind wether or not its worth buying. Then to boot you get to choose how much you want to pay ($5 minimum). The artist gets HALF of that!
Then there's always allofmp3.com , but you gotta wonder how legitimate they are...
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
It's a civil demand. Basically a legal form of extortion. Basically better for everyone though, you don't get a record and the owner gets compensated a little extra for the people he didn't catch and security costs.
I don't think that you can get yourself out of court-imposed debts through bankruptcy. Otherwise you'd have deadbeat dads, drunk drivers, and other scum doing it all the time to avoid paying up. I'm not sure exactly what kind of legal language prevents you from being able to do it, but my recollection is that even if you declare bankruptcy, that satisfies only PRIVATE debts -- as soon as you start making money again, the courts will garnish your wages to pay off the PUBLIC ones.
There are specific debts that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Drunk driving fines, child support, fines for criminal activity, etc, are virtually impossible to discharge.
IANABL (bankruptcy lawyer) but I am in the middle of a Chapter 7 myself and everything I have read on the subject would lead me to think that you _could_ discharge a judgment owed to RIAA. Typically judgments are dischargeable unless they stem from criminal activity/fraud/child support.
I don't know if it works this way for government-backed standard school loans or not
Student loans are pretty hard to discharge in bankruptcy. The only way to do it is to prove that paying them back would be an undue burden. Pretty much the only way you can pull that off is if something really bad happened to you and you have little or no prospect of working again/having income.
As for your thoughts about the military you are probably right. I have a friend who was forced out of USAFA after she testified in the ongoing sex abuse scandal. She had the choice of paying them back for the education she had received or doing two years enlisted to make up for it.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Some of what you have said is true. For example, WiFi leeching will deprive your neighbor of available bandwidth and bypassing your electric meter will put more load on the power company's generator but give them no revenue. But the others are infractions other than stealing. The unemployment and insurance examples were fraud. With fraud you go to jail for lying, not for taking.
However, getting free cable and free music is another form of crime. It is copyright infringement. It is a system put in place to make sure that the business of creating non-physical property will continue to be a viable business. Laws are created with that in mind and only that. For example, if you rip the next Harry Potter book to PDF and sell it on the Internet, you are guilty of copyright infringement. However, if you rip The Great Gatsby and sell it on the Internet, you are not doing anything illegal. If it was cut and dried theft, why isn't the second illegal? If you want to get really weird, the US is working on agreements where a person can copy something in Germany that was produced in the UK, sell it to someone in China and be extradited to the US for a crime. It seems that shortly, you may have to follow the copyright laws of hundreds of nations simultaneously.
The way you seem to think this country works is that a bunch of smart guys make laws and we follow them. Well, it's a little more complicated than that. Our laws are made by a feedback system designed to make sure the people get what they want. Some people are artists, some are music execs, and some are neither. When the people think the laws are tipping too far in one direction, we have a few choices. One, we can vote. However, you only get to vote for four nationally influential positions (President, your two Senators and your Representative). Also, sometimes there is not a clear cut good choice or you win on some issues and not others. So, voting isn't a perfect system. If things get out of hand, we can lodge some type of protest. The only way to directly get a law changed is in court. So, you have to break a law that you believe is unfair and defend yourself until you're blue in the face. Really, that is our responsibility as citizens. However, don't do it on a whim or you'll end up in jail pretty quickly.
Those who are going to court against the RIAA are essentially soldiers in a campaign to put a little more sense in intellectual property law. They are brave souls risking very high stakes. Every time they lose, it's like taking a bullet for their cause. Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would be proud of them. Those taking the settlements are draft-dodging to Canada. If I were sent a letter from the RIAA, I'd probably settle. But that's because I'm generally a play-it-safe kind of guy.
So please, get off your high horse and realize that these are real issues and that American law is always being adjusted. Also realize that CDs cost what they do because of a massive price-fixing system that is being protected with our own court system. With the Internet, the middle man really isn't that useful. Instead of making themselves useful in a new economy, the RIAA's members are trying to scare the new economy out of existence.
Think about this -- if there were a law on the books that 30% of the country regularly broke, would you think that the country was suddenly tranformed into lawlessness, or would you think that the law simply doesn't fit the way we live? If it doesn't fit the way we live, why is it our law?
that the mother can't be sued, the Guardian Ad Litem implies that neither can the Girl as the child's GAL is her mother, and it would be a loop.
RIAA sues girl, GAL is mother, mother has immunity due to Dismissed with prejudice. Lawsuit against the girl is a defacto lawsuit against the mother. The Judge chopped that one off with an axe. There was much gnashing of teeth at RIAA HQ.
Worse yet, since the kid is under 18 they can't wait it out. Actions under the age of 18 are except in certain extreme circumstances, deleted at age 18.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Yah, it's easy to forget that "honor" has a very specific meaning within military culture, and even within different branches. Flexible word, really.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
You may want to read the judge's ruling. He clearly states that the RIAA can certainly sue the daughter. Also, the guardian ad litem is not necessarily the mother - the court appoints that person - but even if she is appointed by the court, it doesn't matter that her case was dismissed. Mom's not the one being sued.
-h-
You are confusing plagiarism with copying. They are not the same thing. Plagiarism involves _lying_, copying doesn't.
Depending on copyright laws, copying _may_ breach a granted limited monopoly over copying and distribution.
BTW extending copyright reach/scope is closer to stealing - since it restricts access. Whereas copying increases access (it _may_ reduce access to money but that's not really proven yet and it's a different matter).
No I'm not confusing the act of duplication with original creation. My point was that there did use to be value in the media itself, now there is not.
A fair point about the inflation but my original point still stands. The Music industry chose the path of digitization because it offered a premium over vinyl. In fact initial CD prices were closer to $20! (See http://www.azoz.com/riaa/pr/CDValueStudy2002.pdf ) when Vinyl was about $8. I'm not sure I would call the CD in "freefall" but you are right that it has decreased in real terms. Probably to the point of what Vinyl would be today which at the time of CD release was around the $8 mark. In real terms that would be close to $13 by now.
The thing is the price of creating digital music has been in freefall too. In 1983 virtually no one could digitally create a professional album in their home. Now almost anyone can create a DDD master with a PC or Mac!
No, these guys saw a chance to charge more for digital format and they took it. They let the genie out of the bottle and now want the law to protect them from this shortsightedness. It would be like displaying your content in the sky and expecting people not to look up unless they had paid. It's digital, it's virtually in the air.
Yes, thank goodness for Apple who has shown them that there is a better way, notice that the geniuses at the record companies want to change the pricing model for greater profits now.
As this post points out that section isn't one that we are overly worried about here.
I know for a fact that judgments are dischargeable because I'm in the process of getting them discharged! If judgments couldn't be discharged then all credit card companies would have to do to stop you from filing bankruptcy (or getting any advantage out of it anyway) would be to get default judgments against you for the amount of your credit card debt.
They can pretty much do that regardless of you showing up to court or not. And once they have a judgment they can start draining your bank account or garnishing your wages. Bankruptcy does discharge civil judgments. And if you don't have any non-exempt assets (equity in your home is exempt in many states, your IRA is exempt, cars below a certain value are exempt) then they don't get a dime of money out of Chapter 7.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Let's say all artists get together and say that they are going to charge 5 bucks a song, and they hold the line on that, *and* do not let their masters go *anywhere* until they have presold 1 million copies. That is, until they have been paid 5 million bucks, nobody anywhere gets that song in anything higher than 64kbps mp3 format. Since at that point, the song only exists in one place in lossless format, the public (as a whole) then has two options: 1) forget the song and nobody ever gets it; or 2) fork over the bucks. That's it, those two choices. No going to a P2P site and downloading it, no getting a friend to buy it and making a copy, all those choices gone, out the window.
Now think if every artist did this. Society would then collectively have those same two options. Forget any new music, or start forking over the money, and the product isn't released in any quality format UNTIL the money's been paid. E.g., you pay for the goods, and you pay first BEFORE you get the goods (other than 64kbps mp3s). In the past it's been, release a product and see how many you sell. Digital duplication could force artists into a new model: don't release a product (other than low quality trial format) until there's enough guarnateed money to make it worthwhile to allow society to have access to it. It's not like society could argue that point -- the creators have the control.
Take it a step farther. Artists decide to only sell their new music (or books, paintings, whatever) to ONE customer, for, say, $100k per song (book, whatever), and those who buy it are not authorized to release it, duplicate it, sell it, just to listen to it (read it, view it, whatever) for their own pleasure. New music suddenly attains scarcity value, and the rich (being the only ones who can really afford new music) become the ones who support what is left of the music industry, by establishing personal collections. Much like wealthy patrons of the past supporting and contracting sculptors or painters, before copyrights existed, for personal works. In this case, the public as a whole is left out of the picture entirely, except for the wealthy elite, who have their own personal private collections which they might trade among themselves. And really, once they've paid that much for something, why would they *want* to lower its value by reducing its scarcity? Rich people like rare stuff. If all musicians wanted to act cohesively, they could simply revert back to the ways of old, and have the wealthy of society be the benefactors, and sole beneficiaries of their work. Again, the public would have no choice in this matter.
If the artists act as a cohesive collective whole (which may not and probably will not ever happen, however possible it is), then really nobody has power equal to theirs, in terms of control over their products. Not the RIAA, not the public, not anybody. He who can destroy a thing has complete power over that thing, and when an artistic item exists in only one form (e.g. before it is digitally mass duplicated), it is the artist who created it who has that ultimate power.
If artists become so beleagured due to digitization and mass duplication of their works, they might just become such a cohesive whole, at which time they can decide their own destiny, regardless of what the RIAA or the general public thinks or wants. It would be interesting to see it get to the point where that happens. Unfortunately, I'm not one of the wealthy, so I might have to make due with stuff that's already available, and nothing new, but I'd still have the ability to *become* one of the wealthy benefactors/beneficiaries at some point and then partake in new books/songs/whatevers, and trade with other members of the wealthy elite.
That's absolutely disgusting. Any chance she could sue under whistle blower laws?
Perhaps. In her situation I think she's just glad to be done with it. If she had stayed at USAFA she would probably still in the service today. Which doubtless means she would be somewhere "over there" getting shot at right now.
In her particular case she was assaulted and tried to work within the system to get it addressed. When that failed she went outside the system. You thought what you've seen in the news media about the scandal there was bad? They don't know the half of it.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Thanks to BAPCA I'm an ex "debt relief agent" :p, but the provision you quote only applies to judgments for securities fraud. This stems from the S&L crash days. Butfor the exceptions noted one post above, judgments can in fact be discharged.
Very informative! I found it very hard to fathom that normal civil judgments couldn't be dischargeable. What would be the point of even having Bankruptcy laws then?
Until Oct 17th, and then all the new shit hits the fan.
I don't even think the BAPCA would change this. It doesn't modify Chapter 7 too much -- just makes it a little bit harder to qualify for one. In this case I think a 13 year old girl with no income wouldn't have a hard time qualifying.
The means test part of BAPCA doesn't really do anything anyway. If you make less then the median income in your state you are automatically assumed to be able to file Chapter 7. If you make more then that you need to justify your expenses. This was all going on anyway -- most Trustees would convert your case to a Chapter 13 if you had so much disposable income anyway.
There's also some sections of the BAPCA that will provide a benefit to smart consumers. The way they calculate your wages for the means test (six month average) would give an advantage to somebody who was unemployed and recently returned to work. Factor in the fact that secured debts always take priority (think: your house) and the credit card companies still wind up getting screwed for the most part.
The bad parts (from the consumer perspective anyway) of BAPCA are the parts that place more liability on your lawyer -- which means he is going to have to charge you more money for your case and there will doubtless be more paperwork. There's also the requirement for debt counseling -- which I find rather odd since most debt counseling agencies work for the credit card companies. In any case the bottom line is that it will cost more to file bankruptcy under the new laws -- but the end result for most people will be the same.
Going really OT here I would say that the real solution to the perceived bankruptcy problem (like the credit card companies are really hurting that badly) would be for the credit industry to stop issuing as much credit and encouraging the culture of living beyond your means that has invaded this country on every level (look at the Federal budget). As it stands right now they will continue to issue you credit until you owe so much money that you'll be paying the interest for the rest of your life. It's legalized loan sharking and that's the real source of the problem.
But that's just my humble opinion.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.