RIAA Sues a Child

dniq writes "You may remember the previously posted story about a case against a mother, which was dropped by the RIAA right after her lawyers moved to dismiss the case. Well, guess what? The RIAA has brought a lawsuit against the mother's daughter - now a 14 year old girl - and moved for appointment of a guardian at litem."

Comments

Re:This sort of thing...

[KiloByte]

Am I a thief? yes.

Tell me again, since when copyright infringement became theft?

Re:Contradiction?

[Kjella]

Well, the last artice on slashdot was gross misinformation. The judge basicly said "Continuing as the same case is more complicated and has no advantages. If you want to do it, file a new case." Which they did.

Stop giving them money

[MadMoses]

If you don't want to support this kind of thing, don't buy any more music from RIAA labels.

Use RIAA Radar to find out if an album is published by an RIAA label. If that's the case, and you want it anyway, don't buy it new, but used (for instance at ebay, amazon marketplace or even a used records store).

Support independant labels and artists by buying their stuff!

If you'd still like to support a band that's signed with an RIAA label, go see them live (and maybe buy a t-shirt there).

The Supreme Court disagrees

[Mr2001]

It's theft in the same way that declining to pay for, say, your haircut, is theft of services; and it is indeed illegal. Check section 2319 here, the bit titled "Criminal infringement of copyright."

Wrong. "Theft of services" is an actual defined crime. "Criminal infringement of copyright" is not theft - see how the word "theft" doesn't appear anywhere in that phrase?

The Supreme Court ruled that copyright infringement is not theft in a 1985 case, Dowling v. United States :

Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud.

Re:I like the idea of breaking up families.

[thaddjuice]

Wow, talk about spreading FUD! A guardian ad litem is "A guardian appointed to represent the interests of a person with respect to a single action in litigation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_ad_litem.

No one is taking this girl from her mother.

Re:The Enemy

[Solandri]

I think the majority of people who are hopping on the "I Hate The RIAA!" bandwagon are forgetting some crucial information. The RIAA is a trade organization. They represent MEMBERS of that organization. They are suing on behalf of their members, not on behalf of themselves. They're not the top of the chain, they are in the middle of the chain. The artists who join, support, and ask the RIAA to represent them are the ones at the top.

Yes the RIAA is a trade organization, but for the most part they represent the music studios, not the artists. See, the studios got an exception put into Copyright law which says that musical works performed by an artist belong to them, not the artist. Normally copyright is assigned to the creator/author/artist, unless it's a work for hire - I commission you (pay you) to create a piece of text, software, music, and it belongs to me even though you created it. Except the music studios didn't want to pay the artists so they bribe^H^H^H^H^Hlobbied some Congressmen for a change in copyright law which says that audio recordings are a work for hire even if you don't pay the artist. That way they get the copyright, the artist gets "paid" a percentage of the album sales, and the costs of producing the album get taken out of the artist's cut. In other words, the artist pays for making his own album, but the studio gets the copyright.

So yes the RIAA is composed of members, but the members aren't the ones creating the music. They're simply the ones distributing music, and they're scared out of their wits because the Internet drops the cost of distributing music so close to zero that they children they're suing can do it.