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

This sort of thing...

[CdBee]

..only reinforces my determination not to pay for content.

Am I a thief? yes. but it sits easier with my conscience than paying an industry which shows so readily all the worst tendencies of big business

Re:This sort of thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Any other questions?

Yeah, I've got one: are you from Soviet Russia or something?

Unless you can prove that all the people who downloaded the work would never have paid for it, arguing that downloaders would not have bought the music does not stand.

Um, not. The burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused.

In addition, I've read a number of articles that suggest that a non-negligible percentage of the stuff that people download would not have resulted in a lost sale. Furthermore, many people who commit copyright infringement via illegal downloads in fact *do* spend a lot of money -- according to this, 350% above average -- on legitimate purchases. So it is exceedingly unlikely that many of those downloads were lost sales.

Burden of proof's on you, pal.

-HJ

Re:This sort of thing...

[bentcd]

When someone cuts your hair, there is an actual person spending his own time attending to you specifically. When you run off, his time was spent for naught. This is why such an example might be called theft. When it comes to copyright infringement, it is usually you spending your time to make a copy onto your storage media. Noone has spent any of their time or resources on you specifically and so not paying them is nowhere near what can be called theft. The word is only used in an attempt to evoke an emotional response in the audience.

Re:This sort of thing...

[sjwaste]

in IT you are tought truth. in the legal profession you are tought to lie your ass off at every chance you get. and who drives these legal suits against people? Lawyers. do the world a favor, vote to have all lawyers killed today!

I'm a law student, and let me tell you, we're not taught to lie. And in the end, its the RIAA management that drives this first, then the lawyers involved. The bottom line is there'd be no litigation if RIAA management didn't want it. Besides, the lawyers here are working for the RIAA to stop people from downloading music they didn't pay for. The RIAA may be all that is soulless and wrong in how it operates, but you can't sit here and tell me that their desire to have people pay for their music is wrong. Suing a kid might be wrong, but the parent should've taken responsibility long ago.

Would I personally choose to plead this case? Absolutely not, I don't think its right to sue a family into oblivion for this. That would be economic waste, in my opinion. So while I disagree with their method of action, I don't disagree with them trying to prevent filesharing of their copyrighted works. If I were the RIAA's counsel, my advice to them would be not to sue, but to get with the times and update their business model. It's quite outdated, and that's what's driving this.

Re:This sort of thing...

[Dashing Leech]

"And, in the processes, depriving the copyright holders of income."

And this is where this argument always fails for a variety of reasons. Income is only deprived if the person receiving the "free" copy would have paid for it in the first place had they not been able to get the free copy. I would love to see someone argue that a 14 year old kid with $10,000 "worth" of songs would have paid $10,000 for them had they not been able to download.

Also, depriving potential income is not theft. People are deprived of potential income all the time, from the city doing roadwork in front of a store, to boycotts, to simply a new competitor moving in. Deprivation of potential income is not a valid argument because it relies on an invalid assumption of what people would have intended under different circumstances. It's the deprivation of the property from which the income is derived that matters, and that's the difference between theft and copyright infringement. The former deprives the owner of the use of the property. The latter just means you violated their right to decide how something is copied.

One other point. There is no inherent right to earn income from a creative work, and that is not the intention of copyright law. For example, this post I am writing is actually a creative work, and usually something like this is automatically copyrighted under the law. Should you guys pay me? The intent of copyright law is to encourage content creators to share their works publically. The "limited time" (which it isn't really anymore) protection is merely the incentive for sharing the work. It's not a bad concept for promoting cultural development, but has become too distorted and abused to be a useful anymore.

Re:This sort of thing...

[chrismcdirty]

So does that mean children under the age of 18 do not have to pay for a haircut, since they legally cannot enter a contract?

Re:This sort of thing...

[SillyNickName4me]

I'm not arguing that it always results in loss of income for the record company, because that's demonstrably false.

Ok, clear.

What I'm arguing is that the value for people who download comes in the fact that it costs them nothing to do so. The moment that it costs them something, it's no longer "worth the money".

For me the value is in being able to judge if you want to spend money on something. Try before you buy etc. That indeed means that the try should not cost. If it does, then you get to another model, which might be as valid, ut whiich I am totally uninterested in.

But it's completely related. The argument that you're putting forward - and it used to be one that I agreed with, totally - was that people were justified in using illegal downloads to sample music, and they then went on to purchase more music. The second half of this argument is true: people who download lots also purchase lots.

I am not arguing that people are justified in 'illegally' downloading things for trying them. I am arguing that the RIAA and the like are makign a bogus claim when saying this is costing them money.

However, there now exists services that, for a minimal fee, let you sample pretty much everything you could possibly want to - and all completely legally. This means that there's no longer any need to use illegal downloads as a method of sampling new music (and if you can't afford $5 a month, you probably can't afford to buy any music anyway). So, the argument that people have to use illegal downloads as ways of sampling new music no longer holds, unless your tastes run to obscure stuff that never shows up on legal services.

Now to clarify something here, in most countries, and definitely where I live, the downloading part is LEGAL, let me repeat it so that it is completely clear, THE DOWNLOADING IS LEGAL.

What may not be legal (and in fact is not legal in most cases) are the sources you are downloading things from.

What this means is that as long as I do not upload things, it is perfectly legal for me to sample things in this way, and indeed Yahoo is just a more expensive alternative, that might not even have everything I am looking for.

This reinforces my point, above: unless the kind of music you're downloading isn't available on the likes of Napster and Yahoo Music, the only reason that you continue to download comes down to cost, and the fact that it's "for free" - NOT because you can sample stuff before buying.

I do not see why I should have to pay so that others can promote their product in the hope that I buy it. If they want my business, that is about as silly as the 'downloading is stealing' argument. Yes, there are cases where it makes sense, but generally it does not. You want my money? then you pay for promoting your business to me, plain and simple.

That there exist people who don't mind paying for such a thing, well, that is fine of course, but I do not see why I should.

Re:This sort of thing...

[dwandy]

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."

Since the link points to law relating to counterfeit of gov't seals, I can only assume you've given up, and live the United Republic of the Recording Industry.

Long live the Republic!

Re:This sort of thing...

[JesseMcDonald]

The RIAA may be all that is soulless and wrong in how it operates, but you can't sit here and tell me that their desire to have people pay for their music is wrong.

Actually, while I would agree that a desire to be compensated for the opportunity cost of creating or performing music is perfectly normal, the desire to make people pay to listen to music is a fairly new concept, and still quite controversial. Not that long ago, the only way to listen to music was to pay someone else to perform it, or to perform it oneself. Without the ability to record the sound, each performance required separate compensation. However, that is no longer the case. Current technology allows a single performance to be heard by an arbitrarily large number of people, at nearly the same total cost as just one listener would incur. It is the composition, songwriting, and performance that are important now, not the distribution.

In a sense, we have improved upon the concert hall to the point where it can hold a nearly infinite number of people at once without additional cost, every one of whom can hear the music as well as if they were in the front row. The cost of the performance (including the composition of the music and the writing of the lyrics) is constant regardless of the number of listeners. Therefore, the price of a ticket should approach zero as the number of listeners increases. Even under the copyright system, a CD price of $10 (or less) should provide more than sufficient compensation for a typical band selling 10**6 or more "records" (which would be more likely with the lower price). That's about $10**6 per person, assuming no more than ten people in the band. That's more than a typical band actually makes even before expenses. Where are the extra several million dollars going? The RIAA, perhaps? "Promotional expenses" that the Internet renders unnecessary? There is far too much wasted effort in the current system, waste that copyright encourages due to its monopolistic nature.

Re:This sort of thing...

[cpt kangarooski]

Activist judges are the ones who think that lawyers writing recording contracts and conglomerate organizations like the RIAA/MPAA qualify as authors and inventors with respect to the work in question.

This might have been a fair point prior to the 1909 Act, but since then Congress has been codifying the work for hire doctrine, and you can't be an activist judge when you're upholding statutory law.

Incidentally, lawyers are known to claim copyrights on their work product. The degree to which they can enforce them is often limited by other concerns, at least against most people who would care, and they're likely weak given the merger doctrine, but I've heard of it happening.

Re:This sort of thing...

[frost22]

leaving a lack of copyright that may be just as dangerous as the current overbearing copyright.

I disagree. Erasing Copyright completeley from the books is maybe the only thing that could bring those gangsters tho their knees.

Once the content industry understands - and that means realizes deep down in their heart as true - that we the people are perfectly willing to remove them from the face of the earth and bury them all if they continue their current behaviour - only then can they be persuaded to play nicely and socially acceptable in the future.

Contradiction?

[DrEldarion]

Wait a sec, the other article says "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.".

What gives?

Conveniently aged

[LiquidCoooled]

It appears as though all the children getting sued are of the age when internet access is used and their peers are all downloading.

Theres not been many younger kids sued, and we don't hear about the older ones because they are responsable for themselves.

I haven't actually heard about a real suit yet where they were truly wrong about the downloading habits.

The suits themselves are wrong, but their targetting seems spot on.

Slitting their own throats

[echostorm]

If they think for a second that the masses are just going to roll over on this one they are crazy - this is the exact type of thing that could get people burning their products in the streets.
      The outrage of them suing unwed mothers without computers (not to mention the deceased) is a mouse fart compared to whats going to happen when they start suing children.

Re:And this surprising how?

[KiloByte]

Well, we already had a precedent for this.

Wait...?

[Devistater]

Wait, I thought that the kid sued ended up doing pro RIAA tv commercials? Did they decide they still wanted to go after her? Or was that another 12 yo sued by RIAA?

Guardian Ad Litem

[Dachannien]

I thought the point of the guardian ad litem in the original case was that the RIAA was suing the mother, the mother claimed she didn't do it but her daughter admitted to it, and the RIAA then amended the suit to include the daughter. Since the mother had a conflict of interest in acting as the girl's guardian, a guardian ad litem could be appointed. But the RIAA dismissed the suit against the mother, and so now there is no conflict of interest. Does that mean that there is no longer a conflict of interest, and hence, no need for a guardian ad litem?

Re:I can see the headlines right now...

[cluke]

I admire your optimism. More likely it will be stories about "10 signs that your child is an illegal downloader" and advice about how to turn them in for their own good before it's too late.
As far as the media goes, it's only "won't someone think of the children!" when the kids are at risk of being affected by outside forces. If it is the kids themselves offending, it's "try 'em as adults, and throw away the key."

Re:Uhh... who should they target?

[eMartin]

I got caught stealing music when I was that age, except it was CDs from the local music store.

I got a smack in the head from the clerk and was told not to come back. I can't imagine how my parents would have managed to pay for a lawsuit.

Re:And this surprising how?

[iapetus]

There are more recent precedents, in fact. In the UK, a letter threatening an ASBO (Anti Social Behaviour Order) was sent regarding Dominic Brown's abuse of his motor scooter. Which came as a surprise to his mother, because he wasn't due to be born until September.

The full story.

Re:The Enemy

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I have run a company that developed commercial software. And yes, I do know of instances where this was 'pirated'.
In instances where a company used the code in live sites, to make money from it, I requested that they not do that, and could they please stump up the cost of a license.
This was done by polite contact first, and invariably we came to some mutually agreeable solution, without first setting lawyers on them (that would be step two).
I also know of developers who had nabbed the code produced, and run it to see how it worked, and had it on home boxes.
Really, I don't give a rats about the latter.
The money that was made, was made from the people who could afford it in the first place, and the ones who had more than a passing interest.

This is called the art of diplomacy. You keep a tight rein on the areas that you know are going to support your sales, because there is money to support them.
You don't pull a scorched earth tactic, and try and get every penny you can. That way you end up looking like a tight fisted arse. And you tend to drive people away from your product.

I don't download MP3s, I use iTunes. If however, I did download unpurchased music, I would have no doubt I was infringing someone's copyright, which is in the regions of being a tad on the naughty side. Immoral, if you will.
I would not, however consider myself a thief. Because I wouldn't be. Not anymore than you taking an antibiotic makes you a murder for mass killing of a bacterial infection.

Now, if the market behaved as you postulated, where two CDs got sold, and hundreds of thousands of people had the content from it, yes, I would say that there would be a problem. Basically at that point, the industry would suffer, and not be able to afford to produce content.
Which means that there would be a rewind to live performances, and musicians would be in demand again, meaning more exposure for small time bands, and less for the manufactured 'superstars'. The mode of distribution would change: almost free/completely free distribution of the music online from shows, pay at the door for the live shows. More money to the artists in general at that point. More diversity.

However, the music industry, as you can see by looking at their real yearly profits, is doing VERY well indeed. They are in little danger of losing their grip on distribution (unless they make it so that people can't share a little bit, and give a copy to their friends to try, and see if they want to buy the album).
As iTunes and the other legitimate download places show, people, on the whole, actually WANT to pay for what they consume. There's the innate instinct to keep the system as a whole going. Conscious or not, most people know that if you jerk the system around too much, it falls apart.
Large scale infringers (the ones who cut thousands of CDs and sell them for a couple of dollars/polunds/whatever) know this, but don't care. They're the ones industry should chase.
The industry itself seems to forget that if you jerk the system around, it falls apart. They're currently playing the jerk by clamping down too hard. That scares people. And a 'bad feeling' about an industry will lead people away from it (c.f. the sales record of SCO).
This is doubly a bad thing if the product is non-essential, and relies on people 'feeling good' about the product (i.e. entertainment).

In every industry there is the concept of 'acceptable loss'. In bars, this comes into the figures as wastage. Beer spilled.
It takes into account that no system is perfect. You make enough money to cover those losses to keep things working.
In bars where the 'acceptable loss' becomes too low, the good staff leave, the overstressed stay, and the customers no longer come to a place that 'feels good'.
Thus more money is lost than recovered by reduced custom.

P2P is still way in the 'acceptable loss' bracket, because the loss is mainly to those that can't afford the price of much of the volume they have.

P2P Defaults and Stupid People

[arthax0r]

Upon noting the fact that the girl also was sharing songs, I realized something I've always hated about the P2P crapware, and that is by default most of them are automatically share the songs you've downloaded, or your whole library. Most lusers (especially today) are too dumb to a)find the preferences in a program, b) understand those preferences, and c) change those preferences.

More than likely, the girl did not even know she was sharing. The creator of the ghey program should be sued.

Stick to IRC or IM and just trade amongst friends using scrambled archive files w/irrelevant names... or just stop listening to pop shite in the first place.

Lawyers and fault

[typical]

I'm a law student, and let me tell you, we're not taught to lie.

I agree. But you *do* work in a field where it is very beneficial to use loaded rhetoric. This is not your fault -- as long as juries are going to respond to emotional arguments instead of being coolly factual, if you don't do it, the other side is going to do so, and there's no mechanism in the legal system to dissuade lawyers from using loaded rhetoric.

The real complaint (why people tend to transfer a lot of their anger onto lawyers) is that it's fucking hard to build a perfect system for resolving issues between people. Pull juries out of a system, and you establish a class of judges as incredibly powerful. So, given that, it's really hard to take Joe Average and make him intelligent, analytical, and thoughtful to the point where a guy whose professional is to convince Joe Average of one side of a case can't make his point. Now, what's the guy on the *other* side of the case going to do? Be purely factual and keep losing cases? No -- that's an unstable system. He's going to use rhetoric too.

The masses see that something isn't perfect and choose to focus on lawyers, because they're the most visible target. Hence, "Lawyers are Evil". It becomes a common mantra after a while.

If I had to make one suggestion that would improve the quality of our legal system immensely, it would be to change two things (both of which lawyers would oppose, so not likely to happen):

*) Plaintiff never gets punitive damages above a certain (small) amount. Any punitive wins in this class get used by a state-run organization to help avoid future problems of this sort. This eliminates the massive, multi-million dollar "lottery" wins for plaintiffs and lawyers that make abuse of the legal system so profitable.

*) Indirect and direct profits to lawyers in class action suits get capped. Yes, in very extreme cases, this *could* limit the likelihood of some independent law firms going out against some big corporate-backed lawyers with tons of funding, but, for instance, the Big Tobacco lawsuit was absurd. Class actions should not be a lottery system for lawyers.

I'm not against lawyers making a good living -- they work in a highly specialized field and have to be knowledgeable and skilled. They're important to the functioning of society. What I *don't* like is that a select few make phenomenal amounts of money through abusing the legal system. Putting social pressure on lawyers to not do this is useless, because it doesn't matter what the masses of lawyers do; only what the few that cause problems do.

This litigation is a RICO act violation

[crovira]

It is a blatant abuse of the statutes. (And it will continue until we find some unsigned band who distributes their music WITHOUT them over the internet and THEY SUE the RIAA, with our help, of course, for depriving them of their business model. Say a band who distributes their music and collect micro-payments over PayPal.)

Any takers? Any band out there? (Maybe an amateur klesmer band. Or maybe an 'eeffin' jug band?) Something so out of the realm of anybody's top-40s playlist that the RIAA's client list, the ones BEHIND the law suits, the ones behind and part of the payola, the corrupt practices, the disposability of artists, the lack of promotion, the scum under the soap.

Most of these people deserve unemployment. Lets give it to them.

Re:The Supreme Court disagrees

[Kobayashi Maru]

I have to wonder whether it might just BE morally okay to download music? When you have millions of people that doing something that is clearlly illegal, it generally leads to debate on the subject. I don't want to state whether music should actually be free, but there is room for discussion.

Look at other issue: abortion, prohibition, drug use, speeding, underage drinking, etc. All of the issues are rather actively debated -- whether they should be illegal, to what extent they should be permitted (if any), and what the penalties should be if they are found to be illegal.

I think this is what you're seeing with P2P. There is a system and set of laws in place that is not entirely in sync. with society. Hence we are debating what, if anything needs to be done. Should we revise copyright law? Should we sue the infringers? Is this a new extension of "theft?" Should penalties be reduced? What kinds of alternative distribution exist? And so on.

I think it is a fascinating process to watch, if only because real progress is made through the extremes; the RIAA powergrab, for example, or widespread infringement by college students. Time will tell what the appropriate solutions look like.

I share cleanly

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to promote the RIAA's wares by including any of them in my "share folder." Instead, there are hundreds of very good songs by very good bands who desperately WANT their music to be shared.

I also include freeware, shareware, FOSS, etc.

I download anything I damned well please, and thanks to the No Electronic Thieft Act I can download "$2000 worth" of content in a six month period and be perfectly legal.

Note that downloading is illegal in some locales (e.g. UK, Australia).

A friend of mine found a huge box of 70s rock cassettes at a yard sale for five bucks, and it's going to take quite some time to sample them all, so I won't be doing much downloading for a while.

Note that this, too is illegal in some places. I understand that in the UK you can't even make a copy of a CD you have bought for your own use, while in the US you can make as many copies as you want so long as you don't sell them or broadcast them.

When giving something away is "stealing" you know that Orwellian doublespeak is the norm.

(obligatory /. joke: "In the USSA, YUO watch Big Brother!")

Turnabout?

[lowe0]

So how would everyone react if a 14-year-old decided to willfully violate the GPL, start their own business based on your code, and then admit to it all?

Time to influence those who can influence

[keraneuology]

This kind of thing has to stop, but won't stop until people start to care. Pressure needs to be put on the artists, and this development gives arm to something that might actually work:

Metallica certainly doesn't care if RIAA goes after a kid, but Amy Grant and Jewel might. If everybody sent emails to the various artists who might take offense at their RIAA trying to have a guardian appointed for a 14 year old for downloading music (essentially the RIAA is trying to have the mother declared unfit and is trying to make this as painful for her as possible for daring to stand up to them) they might raise a stinking stink stinky enough to make RIAA reconsider.

Some artists who might actually care:

Reba

Jewel

Amy Grant

LeAnn Rimes

Tricia Yearwood

Re:Stop giving them money

[almostmanda]

I get the feeling that unless any boycott is very wide-reaching and publicly discussed, the RIAA are going to see any drops in sales as further justification to sue everyone they can. Their skewed studies are going to point to rampant evil piracy as the cause of dropped sales, not repeated PR nightmares, intentional boycotts, bad music, etc etc. I agree with what you're saying--I never buy RIAA cds new either--but it's gonna take a tremendous drop in sales, as well as consumers consciously saying "you are a terrible business and that is why I won't buy your product" to let these guys know that they won't get their sales back up by suing little girls.

Consider this:

[Ub3rT3Rr0R1St]

I've been reading through these posts and some of their replies, and I have come up with an interesting little scenario that will hopefully spark some more doubts/arguments as to what can be considered "theft". Note that I am merely a neutral party here, so don't take things out on me. Here we go... You're walking down the street one day, and as you stride past the local pharmacy, you see a bum sitting down next to the entrance. This is no ordinary beggar though, this one is "working" for his earnings. He has a guitar in his hands, and he's strumming a catchy song he wrote, and singing along. Infront of him is his hat which holds a few coins, and a crisp dollar bill. Standing by him, you listen to his playing and tap your foot along, while singing the song in your head. Glancing again at the hat, you shake your pockets and hear the familiar jingling of loose change, but the long walk has left you mighty parched, and you instead decide you'll just go inside the pharmacy and buy yourself a drink. You get your refreshment, walk out, and continue to wherever it is you were heading...Still singing that song the bum was playing. Later that day, you meet up with your friends. You tell them of the bum infront of the pharmacy, and sing to them the song he was playing. They enjoy it as much as you did, and spend the rest of the day singing it to themselves...They tell their friends of the song, and their friends tell their other friends, ect., and they all enjoy the song, but NO ONE ever decides to go to the pharmacy, to the bum, to give him some spare change. Now, based on the definitions of "theft" that I have read here, I ask: Does this count as theft? Keep in mind: 1. The bum is doing this as a form of work. 2. The bum wrote the song himself. I.E. It's original. 3. Everyone enjoyed the song, and continued to enjoy it at their leisure (sp?). 4. Everyone had plenty of spare change.

Re:Stop giving them money

[OneSeventeen]

I used to listen to a band called Pillar that posted every single song in full length as MP3 on their website.

Now that they signed with a RIAA label, all of their MP3's were taken down. I still like the band, but I just listen to them on the radio and live now.

Boycotting isn't the solution though, that's like the hippies that hold posters to protest petrolium use in the United States. Why do that when you can start a company that provides an alternative?

What we need is a GNULabel, something that allows the GNU community (which would be increased to include music fans, not just linux fans) to help with advertising and promoting bands. Artwork for posters could be cheap, if not free, and as much money as possible would go to the artists, with a little saved for GNULabel to start producing other bands. But not enough for anyone to get rich, because it should be about good music, not getting rich.

And let me correct myself, I do not mean to start a label, but an association of labels geared towards producing bands that want to make more money, while spreading their music further at the same time. (and yes, we would still charge a decent amount for radio play, TV, and movie spots.)

Re:The Supreme Court disagrees

[Anonymous Coward]

"As if it's morally okay, as long as nobody is allowed to call it theft."

Interesting point - I believe what you are getting at is that there is general consensus that laws to protect physical property are a Good Thing. We all agree that theft is and should be illegal. And, that there is far less consensus when it comes to intellectual property law. Most people don't understand copyright law, and of those who do, a large number don't agree with it as it stands. If there is consensus on what it should be, the law will change to match that. Calling it "theft" suggests that the issue is settled in the eyes of the public.

Mass Spoofing (think fake japenese airfields WW2)

[Truth_in_Nothingness]

Has anyone considered the legal ramifications of civil liability if the RIAA can be proved to have sued over nothing?

Maybe someone can tell me better, but in my limited knowledge dont they just check filenames and number of offending files? I would think this sets up a huge opportunity for a person to set-up this trade group.

First off I checked http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=search&state =31r9fc.1.1

None of the filenames are trademarked so no one needs worry about being sued for trademark infringement.
The Idea:
Ever gone duck hunting, or seen cartoons with it? One of the common ideas is to lure the ducks in by making them think things are as they appear. Perhaps with fake ducks.
Well I'm suggesting making fake ducks. Seeding a college network, or company network with spoof files. Now correct me if I'm wrong but my limited understanding of these share search engines they (RIAA) use is they look for filenames and filesize. Once they determain there are enough infinging (or so called) files they then notify a pencil pusher who starts the legal suing process.
No real investigation, as has been proved by some of the people that they have sued. (Not cost effective to them)
I'm sure that with all the coders and other people out there somthing like this could be done easily. Make a text document with the filename.mp3 of a new release and tracked theft title. Fill it with a message that states "If you checked this file you would see that it isnt real. Sue me, and expect a countersuit to cover harrassment, and my legal fees" Fill the rest with enough random hash to make up the appropriate filesize.
The first couple of times they start suing people with files like these, they are not only going to get laughed out of court. They may end up being forced by a judge to start utilizing proper evidenciary proceedings. That will just start to kill their search & sue efforts.
My idea, my two bits. Tell me what you think.

Re:Stop giving them money

[MadMoses]

I haven't purchased a single cd in almost five years. I'm still waiting to see the effects of my boycott.

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." -Mahatma Ghandi

At the very least, your money isn't used to pay a lawyer to sue a child.

Boycott

[infiniter]

It's really too bad that more people don't hear about this sort of thing.

I've recently stopped buying commercial music. I had been buying it from the iTunes music store, but the actions of the RIAA have been so asinine as of late that I've turned to buying only from independent artists or taking what's free. I'm not downloading copyrighted material in violation of law; breaking the law is not the solution. I am, however, listening to a lot more Harvey Danger (to whom I'm sending money. Got to support a good thing.)

If more people would move towards this model - the "screw-the-man" model of music acquisition - without breaking the law, I think change could happen, gradually. As it is now, though, it's hard to speak from the moral high ground because there are so many out there who are, in fact, breaking the law. If just 10% of the population started getting their music only from non-RIAA sources, it could be a huge blow to the evil side of the music industry.

Re:And this surprising how?

[(H)olyGeekboy]

The full story. [ananova.com]

Just as a heads up, Ananova has about the same accuracy record in "weird news" stories as, say, the "Weekly World News." (Now with twice the Bat Boy!)

In other words, most 17 year olds write more believable fiction.

Re:Clarification

[symbolic]

Legislating to create value where there is otherwise none is an abuse of law and government, plain and simple. This is obviously not "theft".

Clarify then, if you will. If it has no value, why would people be interested in aquiring it? If people want it, it quite obviously has value.

Re:Mass Spoofing (think fake japenese airfields WW

[evilviper]

I'm sure that with all the coders and other people out there somthing like this could be done easily. Make a text document with the filename.mp3 of a new release and tracked theft title. Fill it with a message that states "If you checked this file you would see that it isnt real. Sue me, and expect a countersuit to cover harrassment, and my legal fees" Fill the rest with enough random hash to make up the appropriate filesize.

Nah, that's just no good... Here's a better idea.

A friend or family member of a independant musician illegally shares the copyrighted music, misleadingly named to look like a much more popular RIAA artist.

The RIAA eventually downloads these songs and files a lawsuit. The person who shared them gets out of the lawsuit because it's not material RIAA owns the copyright on. Then, the independant musician who actually owns the copyright can use the RIAA trial as incontrovertible proof that agents of the RIAA illegally downloaded his music, and sue them for truck-loads of cash...

Re:Wrong argument - need a better solution

[cpt kangarooski]

Copyright law must favour those who would create content enough that they are willing to share it.

I agree to a limited extent, but I don't like your wording at all.

Copyright must favor the public, not artists. But in order to best serve the public, we might confer some benefits on artists. Not because they're artists, but because the benefits are part of the overall scheme by which the public receives the most benefit for the least price. Because we're interested in what will best serve the public, which is not the same as maximizing creation (you don't want to know how much copyright we'd need for me to be incentivized to rearrange stars into creative patterns), we must accept that some artists won't be incentivized enough and some works won't be created. As long as the net public benefit is at maximum, we just have to live without works that cost more than they're worth.

They hold all the aces,

No, not really. Remember, we don't need to grant copyrights at all. If we do, and to the extent that we do, it must be for the public good. As it happens, artists are actually pretty easy to exploit. This is because they're highly optimistic. They have to be; most creative works have such a low economic value, if any, that you'd be better off just putting the money in a simple bank account. Additionally, virtually all the economic value of a work will be realized immediately upon publication in a given medium. Movies, make most of their money just when they hit theaters and just when they hit rental stores. Books do it in a couple of months. Computer software ages so fast that it's never of value for long, even if it's awfully successful. This means that we could reduce copyright terms to a couple of years and see no significant reduction in creation, while gaining huge public benefits.

The public has no default moral or legal right to any content created by others; they must offer up something as their side of the bargain in exchange for sharing in the benefits of others' work. It's been that way since the dawn of time

Quite false.

Until 1710, and then only in England, anyone had the right to republish what anyone else created. (Within limits because most of these societies weren't all that free, but that's a totally different issue) Most countries didn't have copyright laws until the 19th and 20th centuries.

Also, furthering the spread of creative works, and in so doing, helping to ensure their long term survival, are moral acts.

Frankly, this is essential in order for copyright to make any sense to begin with. If the default position is that everything is in the public domain, only then can the offer of copyright by the public to authors be attractive to them. But in order to serve the public, the copyright must be as limited as possible, and end as rapidly as possible, while best serving the public. Thus, in the end, it's a quid pro quo: the public will trade a limited copyright if the authors will create works.

benefit society by promoting the creation and distribution of works

That is beneficial, but it's not enough. Firstly, too much copyright will actually harm the creation of works (since works are highly derivative and established authors will try to expand their rights by always claiming that other works derive from theirs and thus should be under their control). Secondly, the public only really starts to benefit when the works are in the public domain, reducing their cost, increasing their availability, increasing the number of derivatives of it, and so forth. Artists cannot be relied upon to provide sufficient public benefits themselves.

since almost all of the problems I have with copyright today stem from the fact that it can be assigned to others who do not themselves create works, and various industries have more-or-less forced this to be the default action by those who do

I'd disagree. That's not a big problem, and at any rate, they are forcing no one to do anything. Seriously, think