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EFF Calls RIAA Tactics 'Reign of Terror'
nanday writes "What happens when the RIAA prosecutes people for alleged illegal music downloads? In an article on Newsforge (also owned by OSTG), lawyer Ray Beckerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains the RIAA's favorite tactics, and why they play fast and loose with the law. Beckerman also explains why two of these cases may stop the RIAA in its tracks - and what you can do for help." From the article: "In UMG vs. Lindor, the defendant 'is a home house-aid who's never even used a computer,' according to Beckerman. 'She's never operated a computer, she's never even turned on a computer. The only connection she has ever had to a computer is that she has on occasion dusted near the parts that she believes are a computer. And yet she is being pursued as an online distributor in peer-to-peer file sharing.' Since Beckerman became involved in the case after it had gone to federal court, he has tried to learn the details of the charges -- so far with little success. 'The RIAA is trying to conceal the information about how it conducts its investigation,' he says. 'They have stalled every discovery request we've made' -- presumably because to reveal this information would also reveal the weakness of all the similar cases."
This will obviously lead to anti-dusting legislation shortly.
Case in point from the article:
It would be nice to think the courts and the justice system (the jurists) would apply due diligence but for myriad reasons they don't or won't. Considering technology, the RIAA, and the gazillion combinations of playing with digital media it isn't clear a judge could ever be educated enough to understand the technical issues. Instead, the deepest pockets win because they can afford the biggest megaphone -- they've convinced the legal system via FUD that consumers are evil and piracy is rampant and must be stopped.
Problem is, customers aren't evil, piracy is not rampant (yeah, it exists, but it's not the monster the RIAA claims it is), and it doesn't need to be stopped.
My biggest fear is the momentum is too strong, the RIAA has gotten too far along and has won enough battles it's beginning to look like they may win the war. And, the prediction in the article:
is likely to be the outcome.Of course it seems obvious to me the ultimate result of all of this nonsense is the buying public either is so angry at their treatment, or confused by all of the rules and regulations, the promising landscape of new and great electronic gizmos will suffer its own (and hopefully temporary until all the goons leave town) recession. To quote the scathing Paul Thurrott's outrage against Microsoft's false positive to his "piracy", "Ah well". ;-)
This is what happens when you have a government that can be purchased. Make no mistake about it, in the US laws/justice/rights/people/myself is for sale and the RIAA/MPAA is buying. As long as they have money they will be able to manipulate any system set up in the US to serve their needs.
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How come non-RIAA labels can't form an "anti-RIAA" coalition? Most labels not on the RIAA are pretty hip, they have tracks for download without DRM on their sites, they're real big on freebies and artist promotion, and they're generally more about the music itself than the big labels.
So why can't they generate some sort of composite publicity for their activities? Why can't they call themselves soemthing fun like "AWESOME" (Association of Wedding Evil SOBs Out of the Music Enterprise) and run press releases like the RIAA? Donate some money to the EFF? Have some benefit concerts to Kill the RIAA?
Get your acts together, people! Let's synergize our paradigms, or something! Go go go!
You fail to understand the enemy, and that is why you will lose.
The RIAA and MPAA are not fighthing this fight because they believe piracy is a problem now. They're not spending all this money fighting it because they want to get a couple extra bucks in sales.
They're fighting it because they recognize that p2p has the potential to completely decimate their supply channels by allowing every Tom, Dick, and Harry to interrupt their entire business plan with a mouse clicks.
This is a fact. Whether you believe it will actually happen or not is up for debate, but the RIAA and MPAA do believe that it will, or that it's likely enough that going on this campaign now is in their best interests.
Of course, like any other company that mistreats a cusomter, the simplest solution is to simply cease doing business with them. However, since the majority of people who are aware of this problem seem to be comprised of either theives or theif sympathizers who would rather just keep fueling the fire by stealing music, there's nobody really out there with any effective grassroots campaign to expose this disgraceful behavior.
If you want to put an end to this, the simple answer is to cease all activities involving consumption of the product. Don't steal it, don't buy it, don't listen to it on the radio, and make sure you let everyone know your position and explain why you're taking that position WITHOUT making it sound like you're just whining that you're coming under fire for wanting to steal things.
No income = dead cartel. Very simple equation.
If you haven't foed me yet, what are you waiting for?
Given how much money it would cost to go after the RIAA I'm not too surprised that no one has filed a countersuit yet. However, so far every story I've heard about the RIAA sueing someone has been that the person was either a child/teenager or a family that doesn't much cash. It would be interesting to get demographic information about who the RIAA has gone after so far.
The development is not a good one, neither for the efficiency nor the reputation of our courts. The tactics are always the same. First, accusations are peppered all over the net to people who might have something to do with it. Now, the average person is no lawyer and can't afford one, so one of two happens:
1. They pay, because the accusation says "Pay or it gets more expensive", even if they didn't do anything.
2. They go to court where the case is immediately dropped by the RIAA unless they REALLY hold some evidence.
Now mix in that the average judge knows jack about internet or the way it works (I only say "tubes". Ok, no judge but a politicians, but similar species and cranium). To make matters worse, many judges refuse to hire experts to get an informed input about it and instead rely on hearsay or what accuser and defender claim would be true. It's stunning that the judges don't even bother considering that either of them could be lying to win his case (again an example where in the presence of computers usually intelligent people turn into gullible morons).
This makes trials more gambling than anything resembling justice. Justice has the problem, like many parts of the legal branch, that the advent of the internet and computers in law and crime changed a lot of parameters. Most of all they changed that a lot of the things happening in and around computers cannot be grasped with "common sense" (not that it was all that common in court rooms... but I ramble).
In "normal" cases where everyday things are happening, judges can cast a sound and sensible verdict even if they don't know too much about the underlying matter. If a customer and a mechanic are going to court over breaks that should've been fixed and weren't, a judge can make a fair decision based on looking for parallels that he can understand.
Those parallels don't exist in a world that is very artificial and virtual, where property can be multiplied without any quality loss, immediately and inifinitly.
That's why judges are out of their league when dealing with the 'net, computers and IP. And that's why we get unjust and unsensible court orders. And that's why companies who can afford pepperspray sueing do it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you dissosciate yourself completely from the RIAA's music, you deliver the message loud and clear that it is the music, not the company that you object to. Sure you can "make sure you let everyone know your position and explain why you're taking that position", but that level of detail doesn't reach the sales figures of the RIAA. Show demand for the music (if there is any demand for it), just not the company's "Reign of Terror". So called piracy boycotts the business model thrusted upon us every time we want to listen to music, but still retains the demand for the music. I know everyone has said it, but give me a good-quality, DRM-free system (read: the system allofmp3.com uses), and I will be generous with my hard-earned cash.
Please note also that boycotting music (or movies for that matter) is not easy for everyone. I love my music, and I couldn't imagine my life without it. Right now, the RIAA could boycott me and I'd come crawling back, humble and submissive, within weeks.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
If my impression of the ..AA is right, the intent is NOT to curb "piracy" but to eliminate ALL legal exceptions to copyright (e.g., Fair Use) and eliminate ALL limitations of duration (e.g., no more limited monopoly, no more social contract under the constitution which gives useful inventions and arts to the public domain) on copyrights. They want to make it so Mickey Mouse NEVER goes into public domain, while they're allowed to re-interpret shakespeare, grimm, aesop, and so forth ad-naseum and yet have their reinterpretations of those public domain works to be protected by copyright for all of eternity.
They KNOW they cannot prevent this so-called "piracy" but they want to brainwash me, you, politicians, and of course the children to believe that fair use does not exist, and copyright should never, ever, ever expire and works should never, ever enter the public domain. We don't grant a 10-year, 20-year, 30-year, or even 70-year monopoly on works now. Thanks to DRM and the DMCA, they now have a de-facto state-authorized-yet-unconstitutional unlimited copyright, and they want to reeducate us all to believe that this is how it should be, despite what the constitution states in black and white about the limited duration monopoly.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50