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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."
So, download MP3's -> lose your mother??
/target RIAA
/spit
/repeat ad infinitum
Remember that RIAA public service anouncement where zombie warriors would kill an entire family if you downloaded music from the internet? Is that really how far the RIAA would go in their avarice?
Bah... the usual problem, when people repeat something false often enought it subconciously become true, in an hypnotic way...
See WMD, video games consoles are all sold at loss, Apple is dying, BSD too and others that I have forgotten...
Life is getting soooo boring...
Hey now, hold on, are you comparing the RIAA to an organised crime syndic... ah...
Several mistakes:
1. The copyright holder is only deprived of *potential* income. As neither of us knows if a specific person would have paid for the crap he downloaded and never listened to, you can't say that he was deprived of any real income. He only lost something he never had.
2. No matter if he would pay or not, the correct term is still "copyright infringement". The word "theft" covers *removing* something from a person, and to remove something, he had to have it in the first place.
3. Disagreeing with using the word "theft" is not the same as agreeing with illegal copying. Personally I would be happy if illegal copying didn't exist at all, but that doesn't mean that I want the RIAA and their fans (that includes you, apparently) to pollute the language by using the wrong words to deliberately confuse the case. In the normal usage of words, it is not theft, it's copying. In the legal sense, it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. It's only theft in your fantasy, and the fantasy of the RIAA.
4. Two people disagreeing is not called a hypocrisy. Slashdot is not a person, it's a message board with lots of different people who have different oppinions, and who post on different topics. The GPL fans who don't care about the RIAA-topics have one oppinion, and the Kazaa-fans who don't care about the GPL-topics have a different oppinion.
5. In conclusion, how about learning the language before you post? Let me just list the words you have confused in your post:
Income vs Potential income.
Theft vs Copyright infringement.
Hypocrisis vs Different oppinions.
Please learn the differences. Then you'd be able to sound like an intelligent person and not just an RIAA marketing guy.
A friend of mine asked my opinion on a DVD he was about to purchase. At my suggestion he came to my house and watched it. He subsequently decided it wasn't worth purchase.
So in effect I have deprived artists and studios of potential income too.
As does every reviewer who dissuades a potential purchaser.
If we are saying it is perfectly acceptable to sue anyone who takes potential income from you then society would be in a lot of trouble. The lottery would have to go, as would interviewing for jobs....
[)amien
"Music thieves" are admitting the work is not theirs. They are giving away a product that is not theirs to give away.
That's still not theft.
And, in the processes, depriving the copyright holders of income.
I'm doing the same thing by not buying their pap. Contrary to coprorate belief, that's NOT EVEN ILLEGAL.
This is one of the problems I think with society today. As much as we are against it, and as much as we preach that they're horrible, not one of us will do anything. We'll just go on our day downloading music. A bunch of us will even still buy their cd's.
I know I haven't done much, but I have refused to purchase / download any RIAA backed music for the last 4 years. It's not much, but I do know that my money isn't funding this piece of shit organization. They're ruthless in getting their money and whether you are downloading or purchasing, you are supporting them. How? You are spreading their work.
The worst part is that no judge has stopped them. What ever happened to the 'for the people' part of this country? The RIAA is for the people? What people? The ones getting sued for thousands when they don't have it or the ones getting the thousands to purchase fuel for their private jet?
I think people need to realize that the RI fucking AA is nothing without us. If we all stop buying their music they will fade away. In order for them to live, we have to continue to feed them. By downloading or purchasing music we are doing just that; feeding the beast. Let it starve and they'll be forced to figure out some other way to distribute their songs or quit while they're ahead.
Of course, this will all fall on deaf ears because as soon as the next article comes out we have to debate that. But hey, at least I tried something right?
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
This arguement does not stand because once the person downloads the song, the copyright holder is deprived of the income the downloader would have paid for the song.
This claim does not hold.
Firstly, It has yet to be shown that RandomDownloaderX would have paid for it, rather than just never hearing it at all. RIAA propaganda, nothing more.
Secondly, unless the money or something tangible was IN their possession already, it is not theft (see below). They are not providing "services." By their own propaganda, they are selling "licenses to listen to music." Doing something without a license may be illegal, but is not theft.
Income is a thing. Theft also incompasses services. If you wish to play with strict interpretation: The original poster wished to know when he became a thief. A thief is one who steals (To take (the property of another) without right or permission) and as you said, it is intellectual property.
"Intellectual property" is a term invented by the people you're shilling for. It's not a real thing that can be removed from someone's posession, thus is not a valid target for "theft." "Income" is only such AFTER it is in the hands of the one earning it. Until that point, GP is right, it is "*potential* income," so unless the downloaders are reaching into the RIAA's pockets and pulling out wads of cash, they aren't committing "theft" there either.
At the moment all you are is a thief with (IMO) a piss-weak justification.
You want to wake up, son. These coke sniffing, hooker humping, lawyer loving, backhander taking, oozing cankers on the arse of humanity are threatening to take away a woman's child because she downloaded some MP3s. I don't know what you would call a strong justification. Maybe they should ritually defile her while chanting verses of the copyright law?
If these wee shites want to play hardball, I suggest that we return the favour. Hire a private detective or five to take pictures of them on their weekends. Track down the mistresses, the drug connections, the dirty laundry. Filter through their trash. Compile a tasty dossier on each and every one of them, and the record company execs, too. It can't be that hard. And then, well, downloaded music will be the very least of their worries.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
It seems to me that the RIAA is only the enemy because they are the face of the body which has made it inconvenient to steal music
:) - check out Wumpscut, Wolfsheim, Alec Empire, Panic DHH, VNV Nation and just check it out. There's really some untapped gems in there.
:)
Lies.
I am one of the most anti-RIAA people you could find, I despise the whole concept of their business model, suing people for downloading music - especially children - for thousands of dollars, literally thousands of times the amount the person would have paid for the content had they bought it, while at the same time overpricing physical content (CDs, etc) and trying to force digital outlets (iTunes, for example) to do the same. Not to mention their attempts to 'sanitize' American radio (boy am I glad I dont live over there) so you can always find 500 different stations playing the same 10 pop tracks in rotation. That is why I hate the RIAA; they are destroying creativity and showing a complete lack of morals or decency. I understand their members have a responsibility to maximise profit for the shareholders, but if they win this case, how much are they going to get? a few thousand? What's that compared to the PR damage caused by suing a 14-year-old girl? If I was a shareholder in an RIAA member company I'd be screaming at them right now to stop making themselves out to be the Devil and go back to suing people who are at an age to know exactly what they're doing (yeah yeah, at 14 some kids do, some kids don't - but at 14 you *should* give them the benefit of the doubt, not sue them for thousands).
I don't hate the RIAA because they make it 'inconvenient to steal music', simply because I have no interest in 'stealing' (I dont care about the supposed definitions, semantics is an argument you can take up with some other poor Slashdotter) any of their music - it's crap, pure and simple, commercial crap. I'm a fan of European EBM, not a particularly profitable genre, especially not for American labels, and so even if I did download the content (I don't, I buy - the artists are generally part-time and need the support, and I feel good giving it if they deserve it) I could do so without RIAA interference - I don't think I've bought an RIAA-member-label CD in the past five years, let alone downloaded any of it.
If you like dark, gothic electronica or metal, try out European EBM - it's electronic stuff, but it's mostly RIAA-free, sounds good and is made by artists not looking for the current breakup-rock dollar, so, you know, you can tell one band from another
The RIAA members piss me off for a number of reasons,
- Their content is repetitive crud.
- They seem bent on spreading that content to drown out everything else in earshot.
- They overprice their content and try to force distributors to raise prices to increase their cut like record profits aren't good enough for them.
- They sue small children for thousands of dollars for stealing a few songs.
*Not* because they 'make it inconvenient to steal.
I have a new suing model for the RIAA, I wonder what they'd think;
I agree that people should be fined a few hundred dollars or 3 or 4 times the retail cost of what they downloaded, whichever is (get this) higher, but no more. This would hit the serious pirates (sharing thousands of songs/albums) hard and give the minor downloaders a smack on the wrist that, if they kept doing it week after week, would lead to serious expense and make it a lot cheaper for them to just buy the content.
Would they accept that? No, it's far too sensible
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Haha, I love how people will debate to no end whether it's theft or not. As if it's morally okay, as long as nobody is allowed to call it theft.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
If you release a program and a 100.000 people copy it and you only make 40$ of it, you have the wrong bussiness model.
Same with the RIAA members - how about giving away the songs (it's really just an ads for the artist - that's why the record companies are willing to pay radio stations to have their crap played) and then make you money on the concerts and t-shirts?
Trying to stop people from copying something digital is a battle you'll never win....
TC - My Photos..
We have:
theft...criminal
copyright infringement...civil
So:
Murder = criminal and jail time
Theft = criminal and jail time
Running a protection racket = criminal and jail time
Copyright infringement = civil no jail time
You can not talk about copyright infringement as "theft" because it is not a criminal offense.
vi +
First of all, I really wish somebody would file a class-action suit against those RIAA nitwits and end it all once and for all. Really, this is not acceptable. The technology of the 21st century does bring up issues regarding intellectual rights, and I do believe that an appropriate balance will eventually be struck, but a bunch of people acting like thugs simply don't help matters.
Second, there seems to be a lot of confusion about how copyright infringement hurts authors and creators. It does hurt them, but not in the way that most people have posted here, and not in the way that the RIAA is contending. Here's how it works:
I'm an author (this is true). Now, let's say that Tor Books buys the manuscript that I've had on one of the editor's desks. At this point in time, I sign a contract with them. The contract states that Tor has exclusive rights to publish the book for a certain period of time, at which point the publication rights revert back to me. In return, Tor will give me an advance on royalties, and a royalty for each copy they sell.
So, the book goes into print. Now, let's say that somebody with far too much time on their hands and a piratical disposition scans the entire novel into their computer and uploads it onto their site for people to download. And let's say that 1,000 people download it (it's a nice round number). Well, those people may or may not have bought the book on their own if it wasn't available for download - they may or may not buy the book because of the download. But, the fact remains that there are now 1,000 unsanctioned copies floating around. Odds are that the lion's share of the people who downloaded won't actually buy the thing (hell, they might not even finish reading it). But, those 1,000 copies (and we're only talking about the electronic copies here), had they been distributed through legimate channels, would have generated royalties for the author, making it easier for me to buy food and keep a roof over my head, and making it easier for me to write my next book.
The size of the damage is very difficult to estimate, simply because no money is actually changing hands. Yes, people who would have bought the book won't now that they have a free copy. But, other people who might not have bought the book otherwise might just use the download as a sample, and decide that they really want the book on their shelf. Well, some damage is probably done - but it's also probably fairly minimal. Until somebody actually does some solid academic research into the numbers, nobody will be able to tell. And, to make matters even more cloudy, not that many people actually have the technological know-how to download the thing anyway - the majority of readers will just go to the bookstore. That's a similar situation to what the RIAA is looking at.
Now, let's change the scenario a bit. The book comes out, and somebody with a piratical disposition scans the book into his computer, and then posts it on the Internet. But, this time, he charges $3.00 per download. And let's say that there are 1,000 copies downloaded. So now you've got money changing hands, just like a book sale. And, not only is the publisher that I actually gave the rights to print the book being cut out of the deal (and basically being competed against using its own product), no royalties are coming my way for any of these books that are sold. THAT is where the serious damage is done, and from the news I've read, it's done by criminal organizations and groups in third world countries.
Now, who is actually the pirate here? Well, it's not the people who downloaded, truth be told, even if they paid for it. It's unfortunate that they aren't downloading/buying a legitimate copy, but that also raises the question of how they can tell if a copy is legitimate or not. Let's face it - most people don't have that great an understanding of the Berne Convention, and if a copyright notice appears somewhere, they might assume that it is legitimate, even if there are signs it
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Ummm, violating copyright is not "wrong". It is simply illegal.
Don't confuse morality with legality. Their separation is at the core of our legal system's methods for making itself fair and impartial--the rule of law evaluated by balanced minds.
That said, I don't think the existing copyright regime is morally justifiable either.
My copying of another's work costs them nothing, it's not like stealing their car. You do not have a right to be reimbursed by what you percieve to be an opportunity cost. Simply put, the opportunity wasn't there. Legislating to create value where there is otherwise none is an abuse of law and government, plain and simple. This is obviously not "theft".
Once you make something public, you lose control over it. Copyright used to balance the public's interests with yours by giving you limited protection. As usual it seems people have extrapolated this to mean that it's a "right", that they're "entitled to", that duplicating "intellectual property" is theft, and basically missing that loss of control of published works is a fact of life.
Current law extends some copyrights to the author's lifetime plus ninety years. Current law protects "work for hire" more than work you do for yourself. Current law doesn't limit copyright protection once the work is no longer owned by its creator. It is not balanced and blatantly designed to turn information into a commodity.
This has nothing to do with your rights. This has everything to do with Disney keeping their mouse. Just face that in the world of modern publishing, the original terms of copyright might actually be too long. If you can't make your money off of your work in five to ten years, I don't find anything that compels me to keep it out of the public domain. I think that this has benefits beyond compilations of Back Street Boys songs and old women trading cookbooks. How different would your world be if Microsoft Windows 95 had just gone into the public domain in 2005 (not necessarily the source, just the binary even)? We're increasingly giving people (and unfortunately corporations) more control over one another when we should be doing the opposite.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)