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RIAA Drops P2P Lawsuit Strategy, Goes Local
An anonymous reader writes "Wondering why the RIAA hasn't announced 800 lawsuits per month any more? Well, they're still suing people, but have developed a new strategy according to Slyck.com. Instead the RIAA is looking to be more localized, focused and personal with its new strategy."
As another reader puts it, the RIAA "will opt to file lawsuits on a weekly basis and work with local media to give it a more geographically relevant feel." Perhaps they'll also pick their targets a bit more carefully.
Great.
"more localized, focused and personal?"
What, are we talking warm, fuzzy, happy, huggie-time lawsuits from your friendly neighborhood big-brother cartel?
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
Translation : In national press we're getting made to look like the bad guys, so we're going to keep doing it but focus our attacks. So instead of it being in the big news papers it'll only make the local ones and we'll look like better guys instead of villians.
We see this in the UK when police raid places, it's ignored on the major news channels but local ones make if their main feature.
Either way it's the same shit, different day news wise.
I like muppets.
piracy had been contained!? Is the RIAA talking out of both side of its mouth again. Or, does one hand of the RIAA not know what the other is doing? Hmm.
idm owns me
Ha. This is a repost, but I thought it good enough to give another chance - I really think someone should run with it.
...
Boycotting the RIAA will only result in more cries of, "Pirates! Pirates!". I think a different boycott is in order.
On the RIAA page, there is a list of labels that associate themselves with the RIAA - remember, the RIAA is a group of labels, and other music related 'entities' that like the lobbying power that the RIAA gives them.
Not buying CDs, videos or DRMd files is not going to hurt the RIAA - they make their money from 'dues' from the individual labels. Not buying CDs will only help the RIAA make a case that it's due to piracy, and make that case to those who make the laws.
However, if a boycott was organized that picked, let's say five, (smaller) labels from that list, and let them know that no CDs from them will be purchased that month or year by the organized boycott, calls of piracy hurting sales could be refuted on that smaller scale,(Not that they can't be refuted now...)
Labels who think that calling their customers thieves, handing out lawsuits, restricting fair use, and lobbying for the demise of independent music is ok will get a message that their customers will not stand for it.
Issues with this:
In order to work this boycott has to be big, organized, and educated. Big, so the set of music the particular few labels include intersect with the boycotting group. The boycott doesn't work if no one was going to buy that music anyway. Those sales 'lost' to apathy will be blamed on piracy, and used to lobby for more restrictions and copyrightholder power.
Oraganized, so that the chosen labels (picked by size and choice of music: see above) get an actual message : "You are being boycotted by x number of people who have agreed that they will not buy your labels offerings until: (insert ultimatum here - hell freezes over, a year passes, or my favorite, disassociation with the RIAA) This notice should be sent anywhere that would reproduce it, and those not 'signed up' should be
Educated, so that they know what the RIAA is (not a company per se, but a collection of companies), why the boycott is happening, and how they can help.
There are certainly other things to take into account, such as the 'list' is by design, not accurate. There have been cases where the RIAA has claimed membership by some small (and suddenly successful) lables, in order to present a 'united front' and spread the message that RIAA=success/no RIAA=obscurity.
I'm convinced that the only way to kill the RIAA is to go after the legs - small and medium labels that support it. Once these smaller labels have severed their connection with the RIAA, the RIAA will have less money to lobby for DRM and the extention of copyrights, less money to pay lawyers to sue your dead grandma, less money to push their skewed facts, figures and arguments to an uneducated public.
Remember, the RIAA's money comes from labels and manufacturing, whose money comes from you. Small, focused strikes by a large educated group are the only way to win.
They turned off their automatic lawsuit generator.
Wondering why the RIAA hasn't announced 800 lawsuits per month any more?
World Cup?
839*929
Or the RIAA/MPAA are so befuddled that they sue people who aren't guilty of much of anything. If they think this is somehow going to put a better face on their draconian tactics then they are even more egotistical and deluded than I had previously realized. If nothing else, it will rally local P2P groups and rouse them into action, and the local publicity the RIAA/MPAA is seeking will not be as friendly as they imagine. In fact, i see this backfiring on them in the long run, as the average customer begins to wonder why they are paying so much for this content.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
You know, at first I thought that the attorneys who work for the RIAA were blood-sucking leeches for going after all of those people like they do. However, the more I think about it the more I think that they truly are brilliant. They have tapped into a seemingly endless supply of cash at the RIAA by trying to accomplish something that will never work: shutting down file sharing entirely.
If they ARE blood-sucking leeches, they are very smart blood sucking leeches. Bravo!
I guess I won't be needing that Swedish piracy insurance now.
Yes, the threat of legislation and consistent bullying tactics are a surefire way to get me to "enjoy" my music legally. Basically all they want to do is make it look like they are catching people every day (and I'm sure they are) and then publicize that in local papers. I don't care if Robert Vaughn in Washington D.C. gets caught for file-sharing, but if Jimmy across the street gets a fine, well then I'd better be scared.
I wonder if the RIAA has done any public image surveys since they decided to start terrorizing their consumers? It's one thing to try to protect your intellectual property; it's another thing entirely to shake down every person with an internet connection. I can't think of one person nowadays who thinks the record industry is anything but a pack of devils; I just wish there was some way of translating that revulsion into serious market reform. They're just jackals, plain and simple.
..for a more localized, focused and personal experience.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
So why are the local papers and stations acting as PR shills for the RIAA? Are they stupid or just getting cash?
Does any ./er read local news?
So they're adopting the Business Software Alliance model, right? Will they adopt it fully? Will they allow for retroactive purchase and penalties to be paid in an extralegal manner rather than pursuing the manner in courts?
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
If you want some music, I'll sing. I'm not very good, but at least I'm free. You can pirate me all you like.
If i cared what was on digg, I would be over there, instead of here.
"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties," Justice David H. Souter wrote in court's decision.
So Dell, Gateway, Microsoft, Apple, etc, all need to specifically have a disclaimer stating "don't use our stuff to infringe copyright"? Currently, it looks like Dell, Gateway, Microsoft, Apple, etc are all guilty...after all, their products are all used to "infringe copyright". Same with hard drive manufacturers, cd/dvd burner manufacturers, burning software manufacturers, etc.
That and, of course, we wouldn't want to hold individuals responsible for their own actions. It seems to me that gun manufacturers could now be held responsible for murder wouldn't it? Maybe a bad analogy, but is a gun really manufactured to specifically murder people? I agree with the lower courts decision completely - it just makes logical sense. But the fact that it was overturned 9 to 0 by a higher court tells me that a few people were bought and paid for.
Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
I guess you are either flamebaiting or you must work for the RIAA -- anyone who pays attention to the world knows that the RIAA is a pile of garbage. Just look into some of the crap that they've done (hint: the article summary had 3 cases where the RIAA was playing the role of a tool).
Going after 12 year olds for "violating" intellectual property rights is bullshit -- when was the last time you asked a 12 year old about intellectual property rights and got any answer other than a headscratch and a "huh?".
Telling a 15 year old she has to lie in court otherwise she will be tried for perjury is not only unethical but brutal. If you're religious, placing your hand on the bible and swearing to go that you're telling the truth and then having to lie because the RIAA told you to is "just protecting intellectual copyright"?
Suing a woman who has never used a computer in her life... doesn't that just scream "I'm the RIAA and I don't look into things before I try to ruin peoples' lives by suing them into the poorhouse"?
They're NOT protecting the artists that they suppossedly represent (via the record companies that they represent):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riaa
"In 1999, Stanley M. Glazier, a Congressional staff attorney, inserted, without public notice or comment, substantive language into the final markup of a "technical corrections" section of copyright legislation, classifying many music recordings as "works made for hire," thereby stripping artists of their copyright interests and transferring those interests to their record labels. Shortly afterwards, Glazier was hired as Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Legislative Counsel for the RIAA, which vigorously defended the change when it came to light. The battle over the disputed provision led to the formation of the Recording Artists' Coalition, which successfully lobbied for repeal of the change."
"In 2006, the RIAA claimed that ripping CDs and backing them up does not constitute fair use, because tracks from ripped CDs do not maintain the controversial DRM to protect the music file from copyright infringement. They argue that, there is no evidence that any of the relevant media are "unusually subject to damage" and that "even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices.""
That's right, they want you to buy a new CD when yours breaks... after all, they're "unusually subject to damage", right? Those thing pieces of plastic scratch more easily than my ass! Ripping the CD to my computer (and not sharing it) is not fair use? They don't want me putting it on my mp3 player so I can take my 800+ CD collection wherever I want without hiring a personal music assistant? Damn, well I guess I could employ one of the people the RIAA sued into the ground for pretty cheap. By the way, about 20 of those cds no longer work due to scratches, thankfully I have all my music ripped to my computer so I was able to burn myself a backed up copy -- I store all my cds in the cases they come in or in proteced and padded cd booklets so it's not like I'm mishandling them.
The RIAA is not in the interest of protecting rights of the artist or the consumer -- they're in the interest of making themselves rich and powerful.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Even music artists on smaller labels don't see much money from their record sales. Of course, the more money their label makes the more the label wants to use on their next album for production, promotion, etc.
After speaking to an artist on a small label I was told that the most money they see and retain is from merchandise they sell at concerts, excluding cd's.
Even cd's sold on websites don't necessarily put more money into the pocket of the artists, because the same percentage goes right to the label.
If you really want to piss of the RIAA and the record companies, while you're downloading the album illegally, just go to that band's website and purchase a t-shirt or some other piece of merchandise that does not contain their music.
(even if their label is associated with the RIAA or not)
I wonder if someone could come and sue me for NOT listenning to music. After all, they already TAX me when I buy blank media (I live in Canada,) and I never use this media for any music, data backups only.
You can't handle the truth.
Grind out a really shitty product, then charge everyone for upgrades, particularly the made-up security upgrades that seemingly fix imaginary holes.
Ignorance is not a defense...if this little rant is the best you can come up with, I wish you luck in FPMITAP (federal pound me...)
Why go fast when you can go anywhere? O|||||||O
If you bought some adverts, they'd shill for you too (Advertorial). Also how about leaving Slashdot alone for a day and writing a letter to your local paper - they're probable desperate for free local content, so maybe they'd print it.
I'm more worried about publicising the personal details of alleged sharers. It's not safe when there are so many loonies out there. How would the *AA would react if individual record company execs were named and shamed like this?
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Looks like it will be time to sue the RIAA for libel when they start doing this. They are not just trying to scare the general public (there should be something illegal about the way they are doing this), but they are going to ruin individual's names in the process.
Time to copyright my name so that when they try to use me in the news I can collect from them and counter sue every time they put it in print.
Cheesy Movie Night
Hmm. I've always suspsected that the goal of DRM is to make you pay for the same thing over and over. This confirms my suspicion.
Interestingly enough, this is still on the RIAA's website:
Robert Vaughn is currently abroad in England, filming his excellent con-man series Hustle. :) You don't have to worry about him getting sued in the US at all! (I'll bet that's a load off your mind, I like the chap too.)
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Let's see, 800 lawsuits a month, at $1,000 per suit, comes to a little under 10,000,000 per year in legal fees. So instead, they want to file fewer lawsuits and twist the arms of the local media to publicize their (five, twenty?) local lawsuits, and make it sound just as punishing. Score one for the bean-counters who were making the suits justify that budget. I mean, does anyone think they've been effective at stopping piracy?
Ibid.
They have no right, until an artist gives them that right in return for money.
Telling a 15 year old she has to lie in court otherwise she will be tried for perjury is not only unethical but brutal.
Wow. Haven't heard of that case. Can you provide a link?
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
So if Ed McMahon shows up at your front door early in the morning with a camera crew, you might
think back to whether you actually returned the Publishers Clearing House entry before opening the door...
Instead the RIAA is looking to be more localized, focused and personal with its new strategy.
Hey, it's Web 2.0 lawsuits!
That's not really the case, though. It's not that I like to steal music, or software--I freely admit that I did it when I was younger and did not have much money. Now that I'm employed, I buy my software legally (although I try to go open-source whenever I can) and I do the same with my music. My issue is not with the RIAA protecting their copyrighted property--I'm all for it. I just think they're doing it ass-backwards. If they really wanted to fight piracy they would fight tooth and nail to get all record sales online, secure, and easily accessible. Piracy is a matter of convenience for 3/4ths of those that engage in it. Instead of getting up, going to a store, finding the CD, waiting in line, etc., you just open up KaZaa or Limewire and download an album. Look at how successful iTunes, as an alternative way of retrieving music, has been--they continue to make giant leaps in profitability. There very clearly is a market for legally obtained online music. But the RIAA doesn't care about pouring its resources into modernizing its business model; it would rather kick and scream and throw lawsuits around. They sued someone who doesn't have a computer, and then they sued a 12 year-old. You're really going to try and tell me these guys are just trying to protect their property? They're f*cking morons. I hope the entire industry goes belly-up, so maybe recording artists, instead of their labels, can decide how they want their music to reach the masses.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/30/20 57243&tid=123
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
They can not get the music a different way. Copyright is by it's very nature a legal government enforced monopoly. The only thing you can do is convince them that the music is uncool, so that they don't buy the music at all.
since no one is getting sued, since the major ISPs, charter, time warner and Ameritech told the RIAA to go get bent.
Hopefully more ISPs just tell them to FUCK OFF, nasty letter to follow. The lawsuits come to a crashing end because judges simply dont give a shit to bother signing off on a REAL subpeona, not those fake ones the music industry gets to write themselves.
If ISPs were smart they would just say "hey we dont keep logs of who was at what ip for that long, those logs may exist in our backup vault, but that will cost a considerable amount of money, we will be sending you a bill for 90,000 dollars payable before you get your info"
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
How is it not a defense? How about coming up with a good argument against it, rather than your own little rant. Google for Candy Chan and the RIAA and this is one you'll get. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2005 /09/priority-records-v-chan-riaa-case.html
Since it wasn't the mother, she had no knowedge of computers, they moved right on to her daughter.
"The RIAA sued the defendant Candy Chan, who had no experience or knowledge of computers. It was possible that her 13 year old daughter may have had a file sharing account.
The RIAA continued to argue that Ms. Chan was indirectly liable for providing a computer to her teenage daughter. After taking Ms. Chan's deposition, the RIAA moved to add the 13 year old child as a defendant.
Ms. Chan's attorney, John Hermann of Berkley, Michigan, objected, arguing that the daughter was a minor and that the Court would have to appoint a guardian ad litem to protect the interests of the child, before for the child before they could proceed.
In the meantime, Mr. Hermann indicated that he would make a motion for summary
judgment on behalf of Ms. Chan.
The RIAA then immediately moved to withdraw its own case against the mother."
Do the RIAA and MPAA realize they're a joke? Maybe not to the unfortunate people who get sued (a good friend of mind among them), but to everyone else? In some countries you can get RIAA insurance! They sue people who have never used a computer, little girls, dumb parents, and pretty much anyone they happen to randomly pick.
This is not going to work, anymore than their initial batch of lawsuits did. There needs to be some serious discussion of how to reform the music and movie industries and create a system where:
1) Customers know what is and is not right/legal and why.
2) Customers WANT to get music and movies legally.
Neither of those things is ever going to happen as a result of restrictive DRM (which actually punishes customers who obey the law) and lawsuits (which generate extremely bad publicity and create a rebel/pirate underground that only intensifies the file sharing culture).
I'm not going to pretend that #2 is easy, but no matter how you look at it that's the way it's got to be unless you want to sue or put on trial a huge percentage of the US population including the majority of college students.
Haiku for you!
I doubt that a boycott against **AA will accomplish much. On the other hand, a better business model might just wipe them out completely. There ARE companies out there that use a better business model. For instance http://www.magnatune.com/ -- check them out! You can listen any number of times for free before you buy, you can decide how much to pay (within limits), half of the price goes to the artist (unheard of in **AA labels!!!), and the TOS allows you to share your download with up to two of your friends. Disclaimer: I have no relationship with Magnatune.com, although I wish they had an affiliate program (they don't), so I get no monetary reward for mentioning them. But I think they are the wave of the future.
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RIAA CHOOSES YOU.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I agree to a point. Despite being a huge Apple fan I despise the iTunes Music Store because of the low audio quality and restrictive DRM on songs purchased from it. However, if someone were to offer lossless audio quality non-DRM songs with a pricing model that actually gives some of the money to the artist I would not only be willing to pay, I'd be willing to pay a lot. Why would I drive to a store, search to find what I want, pay $25 for a crappy CD with one song on it, then drive back when I could go to an online store, find the song I want almost instantly, and download it for $3.50 in a matter of minutes? Hell, if the artists actually got some of the money I'd buy some songs just to support them! Of course, I'd never be able to use the service unless I could somehow link it to a bank savings account (I don't believe in credits cards), but that's a personal issue.
Haiku for you!
Actually, if you were hacked, it would be a valid defense - presupposing you made a best reasonable effort to prevent said hacking.
If I loan my car to Bob & Bob runs over Alice, Alice can sue me as the car owner and probably win a settlement from the insurance company. If however I locked my car and Bob stole it - running over Alice in the process, she shouldn't be able to win the case. (not that she can't sue, and not that some jury won't feel sorry for her & give her something)
In short, you're not criminally responsible for the criminal activity of others if you took reasonable efforts to prevent them from using your possessions to do so.
Technically, showing that bits of a botnet program were left in your PC after it was cleaned up, should show that your PC was owned at some point and therefor it is reasonable to assume that the illegal access to your system was used to perform illegal actions. Ergo: the fact that your PC was illegally compromised creates, by it's existance, reasonable doubt that the owner of the PC performed an illegal act with the PC. Obviously this could be overcome with a preponderance of other evidence, but it's certainly damaging to any case.
Hmmm. This kind of sounds like, well, terrorism. I guess those guys are better funded than the news might have previously led one to believe.
I cannot believe they made me use the "T" word.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Going after 12 year olds for "violating" intellectual property rights is bullshit -- when was the last time you asked a 12 year old about intellectual property rights and got any answer other than a headscratch and a "huh?".
Why is that any different from going after a 12 year old trying to steal candy from WalMart w/o paying for it? Either way, police and parents will be alerted. I'm not flamebaiting - I really think you people are on a hair trigger to go ape-shit over an organization enforcing copyright protection, which is THE LAW. Smoking a joint used to be an innocent, harmless activity, but business and politicians made it so it ruined many people's lives. So be it with copying stuff that the creator doesn't want copied. Once you guys change THE LAW so that an artists work can be casually ripped off, great. Untill then, that's the way it is and all the jumping up and down and stomping and crying about what nazi's they are is totally useless.
Godwin's law - end of discussion.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I would, if properly convinced the defendant was guilty, fine him thus:
$3 for every song on his computer ($1 Itunes price, $2 punitive), minus $36 for every physical CD he owned ($3 a song, figure an average of 12 songs a CD).
It's enough to make the kid feel pain for violating the law, without being absurd. While a $20,000 judgement against you would suck, it's not unpayable.
Of course, a $20k judgement may not make such a law suit a net financial loss for the RIAA, but they can cry me and the rest of the Jury a river.
Also remember that the Jury is the ultimate arbriter of both the defendant and the law- even if the law says he's to be fined $1000 per song or such nonsense, a jury does not have to follow that in setting an award.
IANAL but you can read about Jury Nullification yourself.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
One of my favorite **AA tactics is ye olde 'CD sales have been going down' argument. You bet they have; around 1999 we all finally finished re-buying the crap we had already bought. It's basically the same argument as that dumb argument that global warming stopped in 1998
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
The scope of the punishment. Sane fines and community service for stealing candy, if it even gets past the law enforcment officer on scene to using a 'teachable moment' to scare the kid straight. Compare to $150,000 per song damages waved at the parents as pressure to settle for thousands in a copyright action.
Yes. What do you think they teach at Col's Ledge these days?
This has been my personal experience as well. Just to reinforce:
I've had the luxury of being a part of a band signed twice to a small labels. We made absolutely nothing, despite experiencing moderate success.
Since then, we've purposely avoided label interest so we can control our own music and merchandise (and destiny). We record everything ourselves and release all music under a creative commons license. So far, it's working well.
We have broken even on our bar tabs, equipment, promotion, and gas... we never broke even under a label.
I don't buy a bit of this "RIAA helps musicians" crap.
http://syriusjones.org/ - Shameless plug - see and hear for yourself.
Wait, I though tthat the RIAA had already won the battle over Piracy?
....
Well, I guess there is precedent for prematurely claiming "Mission Accomplished!"
In other stories we see that the Justice Department is trying to change the laws to require ISP's to keep records for two years of who goes where and does what. The reason given is to trace unloaders and downloaders of child pornography. The other reason given it to fight terrorists. The two year period would allow prosecutors to subpoena the records. It would also allow the RIAA to subpoena this same database and I think that the overwelming majority of subpoenas would be from the private sector and not by public prosecutors. Look for many more lawsuits if this legislation is inacted.
You MUST work for the RIAA if you're comparing downloading music to stealing candy. Candy is tangible, it costs money to produce, store, and sell EACH one -- mp3's are just bits of information stored in 1's and 0's -- "stealing" an mp3 doesn't hurt anyone's profits IF YOU WEREN'T GOING TO BUY IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong to "steal" music by filesharing, but I am saying that the RIAA is ridiculous for prosecuting a 12 year old for doing so.0 .html]).
She's 12 -- no 12 year old I know has money & transportation to go to the store and buy a CD, so by her downloading it's not like it caused her to not buy the cd and therefore hurt any record company's profits (in fact, maybe her parents would hear the music she downloaded and go out and buy her similar artists, therefore helping increase record companys' profits [CD sales actually increased in recent years http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,35848,0
You say it's like stealing candy -- WRONG. Every 12 year old I know has been informed by their parents that stealing is wrong -- they've also been taught that "stealing" involves tangible goods. I don't know any 12 year olds who have been taught (by parents OR by schools) that filesharing is wrong -- it doesn't say "the activity you are about to participate in is illegal" when you download unauthorized files in bittorrent or any another p2p program. A 12 year old KNOWS not to steal a candy bar because it is wrong, a 12 year old does NOT KNOW that they're doing anything wrong when they click on a button to download the song they heard on the radio.
What is the point of the RIAA suing this 12 year old? To gain back lost profits? Again -- I point you to the fact that she is a fucking 12 year old and not a trust-fund baby. No job, no money, nothing to be had from suing her (maybe they wanted her Barbie[tm]s). The amount of money they must have spent on legal fees (with their evil lawyers direct from LawyerMart [LawyerMart is a copyright of Hell Enterprises]) alone would have been more than enough to give a "File-sharing is wrong and hurts people and kills puppies" presentation for THE ENTIRE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL the 12 year-old attended.
If the point is to persuade people not to file-share, the lawsuit is moot -- just because a 12 year old downloaded 1 song and you sue her does not mean anyone is going to say "hey, maybe I shouldn't do this", the only result will be people saying "The RIAA is full of tools!"
Remember, this is not a network of teens/adults swapping thousands/millions of songs or burning pirated cds and selling them; it's a single 12 year old girl. If she was the only person in the world to commit the horrible act of downloading some bits of information that are considered protected by "intellectual property right" laws then by all means -- sue her little tutu off... but while there are huge fish to fry yet the RIAA targets a 12 year old, I say "bullshit!".
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Have someone take a picture of you sitting down surrounded by all your legit CDs. Be giving the camera the finger. Snail mail that picture to the RIAA with an explanation, what you said, you stopped buying CDs when they started suing the customers. You could go through your collection, pick out the "artists" who are represented down the line by the RIAA, and send them the same letter.
If it was me, I'd add in if they just dropped prices down to really really cheap they could pick business back up. There is NO reason for them to be charging what they charge for stamped disks anymore besides greed and (drug and alcohol induced most likely) insanity.
Personally, I just stopped buying disks except very very cheap and used and not very many of them either. I just don't care anymore, I flip on the FM if I want music, I like oldies geezer rock anyway, plenty of that on OTA radio.
When CDs hit and they didn't drop prices and charged the same as cassettes or 8 tracks, well, I just went FU to them in my mind, I will not support gougers like that, and,like you, stopped buying. They have *yet* to drop prices, and no way in hell does it cost them as much to make copies as they used to, it is just a tiny fraction of what costs used to be, yet they think people are supposed to keep paying the same prices?? What for? Computers have gone from three thousand to three hundred dollars in roughly the same time frame that CDs have gone from $15 dollars to $15 dollars. What's wrong with that picture?
that might work, but how is that defense going to work when they raided your house and confiscated your hard drives?
"Our favorite villian, simply out protecting the rights of recording artists."
Do you really believe that? The share the recording studios pay to artist's is minuscule. Nearly all artists find the most lucrative part of their business are the live performances which would benefit from great circulation of their work.
"I guess the RIAA fills the role that the 'Narcs' and DEA agents played in the 1970's, they're fun beat up on, mischaracterize, draw cartoon conclusions about, etc."
In the 70's? Heck they are still at it with bigger budgets than ever. It is interesting that you choose to relate one horribly failed quagmire with another doomed to the same fate. The drug war and the laws and methodology used to enforce them are a total failure in their efficacy, and a damn train wreck in regard to our civil rights. What adults do to themselves is no business of anyone else's. If their actions in doing so place others in harms way, like say operating a vehicle under the influence or running meth labs, there are plenty other laws to charge them for violating. I have to agree with ole Abe here.
"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." Abraham Lincoln
"So lets get the posts going expressing outrage and rightous indignation over the RIAA just because you like to steal music."
I don't steal music nor do I wish to, I have as to yet download a single track I have not paid for on some type of media. Yet I have several problems with the RIAA. One is about their attempts to circumvent the "fair use" rights via DRM technology which was merely used as a stalking horse for the creation of the DCMA. On the same subject line I have a problem with them negating the spirit of Democracy and the Republic with their bribes, oops sorry contributions to the politicians that voted the DCMA into law. They failed to update a business model in the face of new technology. Instead of moving to correct this they have choose instead to buy the legislation to legitimize and support the flawed business model of what is basically an organized criminal consortium.
Even if I supported the idea of violating someones privacy by allowing a commercial enterprise to hire legal whores to go fishing their ISP's logfiles, the punishment is way out of line with this petty crime. In my view the $1000 per song violates Amendment VIII (1791) which states: Prohibits excessive bail or fines and cruel and unusual punishment. This is a fine, a punitive measure because the price of the music itself is what, 1.00 per title, ok maybe 2.00 on over priced CD's at max.
Matthew