Judge OKs Challenge To RIAA's $750-Per-Song Claim

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In UMG v. Lindor, in Brooklyn federal court, the presiding judge has held that Marie Lindor can try to prove that the RIAA's claim of $750-per-song statutory damages is a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Constitution, since she has evidence that the actual wholesale price of the downloads is only 70 cents. This decision activates an earlier ruling by the Magistrate in the case that the record labels must now turn over 'all relevant documents' regarding the prices at which they sell legal downloads to online retailers, and produce a witness to give a deposition by telephone on the subject. Judge Trager rejected the RIAA's claim that the defense was frivolous, pointing out that the RIAA had cited no authorities contradicting the defense, but Ms. Lindor's attorneys had cited cases and law review articles indicating that it was a valid defense. See the Decision at pp. 6-7."

Comments

Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[eldavojohn]

I know this is slightly off-topic but I would like to point out NewYorkCountryLawyer's donations of legal stories and advice to Slashdot.

Recently, the user NewYorkCountryLawyer has provided us with many stories (bottom of the user page) that revolve around the RIAA & music suits. On top of that, oftentimes whenever a legal issue is being discussed, they reply with often insightful/interesting/informative posts (300 since July of this year) from someone who actually spends their entire day dealing with the RIAA & law.

All this despite the shameless way we treated him when they answered questions we had about RIAA suits.

On behalf of Slashdot, I would like to thank NewYorkCountryLawyer for bringing to light some of the cases that might not make it in mainstream news & providing us with a realistic view of how things work in the legal world. All too often it is an alien landscape to me that I cannot comprehend.

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[Rob T Firefly]

Hear hear! Well said.

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[A beautiful mind]

Finally an opportunity where a me too post makes sense.

Me too! Err...

Thank you!

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[BecomingLumberg]

I'll 'Hear hear' that thank you as well. On /., much like in the real world, the ratio of asshats to rational people is increasing. NYCLawyer has a lot to offer the /. community that often has to revert to IANAL.

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[SQLServerBen]

I second that. Thanks guys -- your work and information is appreciated.

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[WilliamSChips]

Thank you.
May your attempts succeed.

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[cerberusss]

I agree, but don't forget everybody, slashdot has a system to make them Friends, so you get comments from them automatically at +5.

Befriend NewYorkCountryLawyer

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

All this despite the shameless way we treated him [slashdot.org] when they answered questions we had about RIAA suits.

Shameless?!? Please share with us which one of the many "I don't know" answers they gave us in their responses will be helpful to anyone facing RIAA litigation in the future. For the record, my best friend of the past 22 years is a college buddy who is also an attorney, so I'm very familiar with the evasive "I don't know", "That depends", etc. language lawyers use and I do understand why they say those things, but asking them questions and just getting "I don't know" in response didn't make them any friends here. It was just a waste of time to ask them questions to begin with and their responses were just as pointless.

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

eldavojohn wrote: "I know this is slightly off-topic but I would like to point out NewYorkCountryLawyer's donations of legal stories and advice to Slashdot. Recently, the user NewYorkCountryLawyer has provided us with many stories (bottom of the user page) that revolve around the RIAA & music suits. On top of that, oftentimes whenever a legal issue is being discussed, they reply with often insightful/interesting/informative posts (300 since July of this year) from someone who actually spends their entire day dealing with the RIAA & law. All this despite the shameless way we treated him when they answered questions we had about RIAA suits. On behalf of Slashdot, I would like to thank NewYorkCountryLawyer for bringing to light some of the cases that might not make it in mainstream news & providing us with a realistic view of how things work in the legal world. All too often it is an alien landscape to me that I cannot comprehend."

Dear eldavojohn:

Thank you for your very kind words.

Truth is I love Slashdot, and I even loved doing the interview.

I come from a family where a good argument was the best thing. No doubt it's one of the reasons I gravitated to litigation.

If all the world's forums were as free and open and robust as Slashdot, the world would a lot better place than it is right now.

So it is I who thank you and my fellow Slashdotters.

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[hurting now]

I know its redundant, but Thank You!

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[Seraphim_72]

Let us not forget The good Capt either, I love everthing he writes.

Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy just cupped the collective balls of the entire Slashdot community! Jiggle jiggle!

Damages for companies?

[kria]

I can see the problem with $750 penalty for stealing a 70 cent download... isn't there some ruling that says for companies they can only "gouge" them for damages with a single digit ratio to the actual damages? So to follow that for individuals, that means the largest damages should be... 70 cents times 9... $6.30?

Just a pointless gibe about the difference between treatment of companies and individuals, I guess. Forgive me if I got some details wrong of the above information, even.

Re:Damages for companies?

[91degrees]

The law is out of date. It was written at a time when the possibility of an individual sharing several copies of hundreds of songs was inconceivable. $750 per title as damages for a company that's churning out hundreds of copies for sale at market stalls is hardly totally unreasonable, since they could easily be, and probably would be selling several hundred even if the exact amount sold is impossible to judge. Still not a brilliantly just law but that's another matter.

Re:Damages for companies?

[archen]

I'm pretty sure the "damage" that is claimed for a downloaded song because digital means you can hand off exact copies into infinity. Which means there could be a theoretical infinite loss to a music company. The reality is that even if you put songs up on kazaa I'd be surprised that it would be downloaded more than say 20 times by other peers. At $750, a 70c download would mean it had been downloaded 1070 times. I doubt anyone has ever handed out a song that much.

Re:Damages for companies?

[aadvancedGIR]

You lucky b*ard, in french law, for any number of song (theorically one is enough), you can be sentenced to 3 years in jail and 300.000E fine (and that is the penal part, so the SACEM can then claim their damages in the name of the artists).

Re:Damages for companies?

[Magada]

Hmm. Whoever modded this flamebait is not what I'd call an intelligent person.
However, if the number of copies distributed illegally cannot be determined, there is no way to compute damages, right? What if I sue you for "numerous incidents of toe-stepping, leading to loss of income in an undetermined amount due to inability to work brought about by physical and emotional damage suffered as a result of said incidents" and demand $1000k? Should you be forced by the courts to pay the requested amount, with no recourse?
Also, remember that it's a person being sued here, not a company. The defendant did not benefit in any way, because she wasn't selling the copyrighted stuff.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Billosaur]

Well, at first blush, the disparity between cost and damages is enourmous. It doesn't really seem reasonable. But the RIAA bases such things on the premise that if I download a copy of a song, I will only ever have the one copy. Their whole focus is to ensure somehow that I get one copy and only one copy for my money, and that I cannot simply crank out a thousand or more copies for myself, even if my intent is benign. They don't seem to understand that as technology has advanced, their ability to control content has slipped slowly away. DRM is the last shriek of the dying -- trying to control the content even when it is out of their control.

So they see $750 as a justifiable figure, and given their tactics and their attempts to cripple content, it would certainly seem they need that kind of wherewithall to keep doing it. But I think this will revolve more around how fair it is to be doing this in the first place. A new age has dawned and the RIAA is going to have to come to grips with that sooner or later.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Total_Wimp]

All good and fine, but if you can't compute exact damages, that doesn't mean that damage wasn't done. Although in your example we could never calculate the true cost of a toe stepping incident, reasonable people could assume that the cost would be much higher if you stepped on a dancer's toe rather than an engineer's toe. Similarly, the cost of a file sharer's damages would be greater than someone who simply downloaded the same song for personal listening.

The hard part is that whatever the decision is, it will be a guess. We have no psychic power and will never know the exact damage. That's ok by me. We're have to do the best we can. Sure, the $750 per song cost should be challenged, but the true cost should almost certainly not be a simple $.70 per song. The truth almost certainly falls somewhere in between.

TW

Re:Damages for companies?

[sholden]

If the law is out of date it's still the law, right?

It's not the like RIAA can't buy an update to it.

Re:Damages for companies?

[TapeCutter]

If you want both justice and a deterent, how about $1/track to the RIAA and $749/track to the court "poor box" (if you have them in the states?).

Re:Damages for companies?

[Hijacked Public]

I would be suprised if they didn't hand it out more than that.

Some of the torrent sites list the most popular torrents at any given time, virtually all of the top 100 or so are copyrighted material and they all have several hundred seeds and several hundred leeches. Given the relatively large number of users the more traditional P2P sites have I would imagine a good version of a currently popular tune could be downloaded thousands of times, particularly given the unlimited amount of time it could be made available.

Also worth considering that if this defense ends up working the next tactic by the RIAA will likely involve them downloading several hundred thousand copies of a single song and taking you to court with that.

Re:Damages for companies?

[FellowConspirator]

wrt "Similarly, the cost of a file sharer's damages would be greater than someone who simply downloaded the same song for personal listening."

It should be noted that in the US, one couldn't sue someone that simply downloaded the song. Obtaining a copy is not infringement, copying is. Case-law has already pretty much covered that the upload portion of the equation is infringing, but the download is not (nor is serializing the download from RAM to disk).

Also a point of interest with regard to calculating damages for infringement: copyright does not purport to support the making of money off copyrighted materials. The amount of damages (or lack thereof) or whether or not the infringer got financial benefit is immaterial. The testimony regarding revenue loss as a result of the infringement is basically a victim impact statement. Damages for infringement are at the discretion of the judge or jury and have certain statutory limits. If a record company loses a million dollars (and could prove it) as the result of infringement, it doesn't mean that they will get (or are due) a million dollars. Likewise, if the same company suffers no tangible monetary loss, they can still sue and receive damages.

People very often operate on the false assumption that "damages" in infringement claims are related to estimated financial loss of the rights holder. Copyright intentionally doesn't work that way. Keep in mind that the work has no owner; the only instrument here is a contract (copyright) bestowing limited monopoly rights on copies and derivatives of a work to a single party. It is the responsibility of the rights holder to argue that the accused infringer was subject to and then broke the terms of that contract (entered into by their representative, the state). Its then the court's responsibility to assess the seriousness of the infringement and seek a reasonable remedy (which isn't necessarily limited to monetary damages).

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

No it's not. The law increasing the amount significantly ($500 was changed to $750; $20,000 was changed to $30,000; $100,000 was changed to $150,000) was passed in 1999 when the possibility was not only conceivable it was what the law was directly aimed at.

Check the law next time, before you talk about whether it's out of date.

Re:Damages for companies?

[DJCacophony]

Obtaining a copy is not infringement, copying is.

And when you download a file, you are making a copy of the file, with the original being the network packets, and the copy being the file on your hard drive.

It may be semantics, but then again, so is law.

Re:Damages for companies?

[gundersd]

.. what I'm curious about is who checks that the RIAA hasn't already put a claim in for this particular song somewhere further up the chain? ie. person A shares a file that persons B,C & D download. RIAA files a suit against person A, claims $750 damages. Person A pays. RIAA now files suits against B,C & D (who are now also sharing the file) claiming $750 from each of them too, even though, in theory the claim against person A was for ALL downstream sharing too. Can someone explain the legalese behind that? I'm sure there's probably some reason why they would be allowed to get away with this, but it doesn't seem to make much sense to me at the moment.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter if you didn't receive financial compensation, you're still "profiting" off of the song's distribution via the barter system; you 'need' to upload a song in order to download, say, 3 other songs. This applies especially to torrent sites that mandate ratios.

There's quite a bit of caselaw surrounding this.

Re:Damages for companies?

[clambake]

The law is out of date. It was written at a time when the possibility of an individual sharing several copies of hundreds of songs was inconceivable.

By that logic, I'd say that the law protecting the songs is out of date as well. There is no reason why a single entity should be able to control a bit of information for more than 70 years, that's just crazy. She should get off scott free!

Re:Damages for companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have already covered the legal argument for this result here. I'd encourage readers to check out the article.

Re:Damages for companies?

[FellowConspirator]

The point was, of course, that case law already exists that stipulates that the copier is the provider, not the recipient. It has been argued that reading from disk into memory is a copy, to the point that the act of moving from one chip to another is a copy at each stage. Those arguments have already been heard and decided. Semantically speaking, point-to-point transmission is copying, receipt is not. Point-to-many transmission (multicast) is broadcasting (more or less, that's less settled). In the US, at least, downloading is not copying, but upload is (for the purpose of copyright considerations, anyway).

Re:Damages for companies?

[sobachatina]

As far as I have read no one has been sued yet for downloading a song. All the defendants have been accused of uploading copyrighted works.

Neglecting network algorithms, caching, etc. the uploader is the one who is making a copy of and distributing the work and so is the one in violation of the law. I've never read anything about it being illegal to buy, accept, or view a performance of a copyrighted work.

So if you are downloading a torrent and in the course of getting an album of 10 songs you upload the album 130% as well how are you liable?
1.3 * 10 songs * $(cost per infringement)?
Or 10 songs * $750?
I don't think it is defined yet. These cases where defendants fight back are interesting because they are defining the laws that we (Americans) will be held to in the future.

Re:Damages for companies?

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

That's how the BSA, etc screwed us computer users out of the right to make backup copies of our software. Their legal strategy was very smart--at first they put forth the idea that people were entitled to a single backup copy of software that they owned. Once this idea was accepted, they pushed the concept that loading a program into memory was equivalent to making a copy. Of course, this is completely ridiculous. However, in the 1980s there were not a lot of lawyers and judges with the technical expertise to make the distinction. Thus, computer industry bodies were able to set a legal precedent that might override the doctrine of first sale. What slimeballs.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, I don't buy any of that. The RIAA currently only *sues* people who upload, too, but that's just their way of proving who has been copying things (because they can download a copy from you to try and prove that you had it). Downloading *is* infringement (not "stealing") and what I've read from lawyers is pretty clear on that.

Don't misunderstand--the law is so out of whack that I care very little even about commercial infringement and I would gladly vote for the Pirate Party if anyone would start one around here, but I wouldn't want anyone to be fooled into thinking that downloading is legal.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Grym]

It doesn't matter if you didn't receive financial compensation, you're still "profiting" off of the song's distribution via the barter system; you 'need' to upload a song in order to download, say, 3 other songs. This applies especially to torrent sites that mandate ratios.

But the barter system falls apart when dealing with intangibles because, unlike physical objects, they are non-discrete, difficult to define, and, in some cases, replicated at virtually no cost. As such, there's no way to determine a fair trade. Would it make sense for me to trade you four apples for three copies of the same song? Why not four or five--or 1,000? Why then would you jump to the conclusion that me taking one copy of a song is worth an exactly definable amount (eg. 1000 songs)?

There's quite a bit of caselaw surrounding this.

I don't doubt that there is quite a bit of caselaw with regard to barter, given its prevalence in the past. However, that is irrelevant because it isn't applicable to copyright law which is distinctly different from property law.

-Grym

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

gundersd wrote: ".. what I'm curious about is who checks that the RIAA hasn't already put a claim in for this particular song somewhere further up the chain? ie. person A shares a file that persons B,C & D download. RIAA files a suit against person A, claims $750 damages. Person A pays. RIAA now files suits against B,C & D (who are now also sharing the file) claiming $750 from each of them too, even though, in theory the claim against person A was for ALL downstream sharing too. Can someone explain the legalese behind that? I'm sure there's probably some reason why they would be allowed to get away with this, but it doesn't seem to make much sense to me at the moment."

Good thinking, gundersd.

You're being intelligent. Let's hope the courts will be as well.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Sancho]

Why do you think that the claim against person A covered all downstream downloading? I've never heard anything even remotely resembling this argument.

If you're sharing, you're sharing. It doesn't really matter where you got the file. If Person A posts the entire contents of Terry Goodkind's latest novel to Person A's blog, and then Person B copies and pastes it into Person B's blog, Person B is still liable under the law. The fact that he got it from a non-licensed source doesn't change the fact that Person B is infringing on Goodkind's copyright.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Kjella]

It should be noted that in the US, one couldn't sue someone that simply downloaded the song. Obtaining a copy is not infringement, copying is. Case-law has already pretty much covered that the upload portion of the equation is infringing, but the download is not (nor is serializing the download from RAM to disk).

+4, Informative? No, -1 Bullshit. I quote A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.:

"We agree that plaintiffs have shown that Napster users infringe at least two of the copyright holders exclusive rights: the rights of reproduction, 106(1); and distribution, 106(3). Napster users who upload file names to the search index for others to copy violate plaintiffs distribution rights. Napster users who download files containing copyrighted music violate plaintiffs reproduction rights."

That is a 2001 case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Unless you got a conflicting opinion from the Supreme court (or at the very least other circuits) I call bullshit on you.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Dachannien]

All good and fine, but if you can't compute exact damages, that doesn't mean that damage wasn't done.

Well, on the People's Court*, that's the kind of situation where they do a little "rough justice".

In other words, the judge can make a reasonable estimate of the actual damage done to the plaintiff.

(*That's a Judge Milian line, not Wapner or Koch.)

Re:Damages for companies?

[twifosp]

So we'll never know how much damage they really caused? Then shouldn't the damage only be what is provable? If you can prove that X people downloaded the file, then you charge X * .70 cents. If you can't, you only charge .70 cents.

Chaos theory is not applied to crime, nor should it be to cival cases. If I hit you over the head with a baseball bat sending you into a coma for 4 weeks, I can be charged with a number of things. Assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, ect ect. I can not, however, be charged with crimes against humanity because in that intervening 4 weeks you may or may not have discovered the cure for cancer, or discovered a pratical way to develop free energy from cold fusion.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Robber Baron]

.. what I'm curious about is who checks that the RIAA hasn't already put a claim in for this particular song somewhere further up the chain? ie. person A shares a file that persons B,C & D download. RIAA files a suit against person A, claims $750 damages. Person A pays. RIAA now files suits against B,C & D (who are now also sharing the file) claiming $750 from each of them too, even though, in theory the claim against person A was for ALL downstream sharing too.

So maybe what P2P software writers ought to do is add a checkbox to their program that says "I've been reamed by the RIAA...you can now download all of my songs without fear of penalty as your right to do so has been paid for".

Re:Damages for companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but this is not what you think it is.

First, the judge is not saying he buys it, only that it is not a "frivolous" defense. That is a high standard. All she gets to do is make the argument that the $750 violates the due process / excessive fines clauses.

Second, this defense will fail. I run into this argument all the time in telemarketing and spam fax cases, where the law gives you $500 in damages if you are merely sent a spam fax or a telemarketing call. I have beat it in every case with simple legal arguments:

The US Supreme Court has upheld an analogous statute which imposed a $300 liquidated damage provision for overcharges of only a few cents, noting the "due regard for the interests of the public" and "the numberless opportunities for committing the offense." St. Louis I.M. & S. RY. Co. v. Williams, 251 U.S. 63, 67 (1919).

See also Bowles v. American Stores, 139 F.2d 377, (D.C. Cir. 1943) cert. denied 322 U.S. 730 (1944) (upholding mandatory $50 damage award (equal to $500 today, adjusted for inflation) for 4 cent overcharge.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

But see In re Napster, 377 F.Supp. 2d 796 (ND Cal 2005)

Re:Damages for companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I sort of danced around a few issues in my post, but I was thinking more along the lines of doing a 1 to 1 hand out of a song to another peer. I use bittorrent a LOT and I can only recall about 3 instances where I was the only peer handing out a file. Is it fair to single out one person from a swarm and claim that they handed out 1/32 of a song 100 times and that means say 3 exact copies? I honestly don't know. It certainly doesn't make sense in pressing charges for every partial connection given. By that math if 10 people give out parts to a song to each other RIAA math would sue for 100 copes of a song, not 10. Maybe that's a shaky area of law that's only now coming to grips with technology.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Dear gundersd:

My colleague Ty Rogers graciously pointed out to me, in reading your comment, the following excerpt from one of the Law Review articles we cited in our briefs:

"There are multiple ways in which we might measure the economic loss caused by a defendant's file-sharing activities. To illustrate one such approach, consider the following example. Suppose that file-sharer W illegally downloads to her computer Led Zeppelin's song Stairway to Heaven. The song is downloaded to a shared folder on her computer and thereby made available for others to copy. Suppose further that three other file-sharers, X, Y, and Z, subsequently download the song from W's computer. Thus, there are four people in this example who desired the song but who did not pay to obtain it. In other words, there are four lost sales. Because file-sharers are sued independently, we need a way to apportion this harm among the relevant actors. How might this be done?

A starting basis for apportioning the harm is to deem the person who initiates a file transfer (the downloader) as having caused harm by that action. This person benefits by receiving for free a work of music that must be purchased to be legitimately obtained. Allowing her to escape responsibility for causing harm is not consistent with her initiative in effecting the illegal transaction. Stated differently, this person's money would have gone to the copyright owner (if indirectly) in order for her to obtain the song, but now the money stays in her pocket as a direct result of her affirmative actions. In contrast, the file-uploader gets no economic reward from her outbound transfer and may be unaware of the sharing. [FN139] Thus, we can assign the downloader responsibility for causing one lost sale by illegally downloading the copyrighted song.

The other half of this transaction is the uploading of this song, so we might also assign to a person responsibility for one unit of economic loss per act of distribution--each time that the actor uploads a copyrighted music file, she is responsible for a lost sale. This seems satisfactory at first because the distribution of copyrighted works is illegal and is necessary for file-sharing to work. This conception, however, overstates the actual economic loss. In *547 our example, this conception would count seven units of economic harm (one for W's song download, three for W's uploads, and three more for each of X, Y, and Z's downloads). Yet the copyright owner in our example has suffered only four lost sales. This scheme, then, is flawed.

Instead, this Note adopts a conception of file-sharing's economic harm that attributes responsibility for economic loss to a person's instances of illegal downloading but not distribution. One person's distribution is another person's downloading, so counting economic loss as caused by acts of distribution, in addition to counting acts of downloading, would overstate the total amount of harm. While this Note settles upon this model of file-sharing's economic harm, it is certainly not a perfect conception. For example, this model does not account for whatever revenue is generated by persons who first illegally download a song for sampling and then later purchase it legitimately. Nor does it counterbalance this revenue by accounting for revenues lost due to a record company's impaired ability to market a collection of several songs as one unit, as on the typical album, or to collect licensing fees from online retailers that play short music samples to their customers. Thus, this Note acknowledges the existence of imperfections in its model of file-sharing's economic harm; it concedes that changes in this model will alter the separation of the punitive and compensatory portions of a statutory damage award and ultimately affect the outcome of substantive due process review.

Having explained why a file-sharer is held responsible for causing one lost sale for each copyrighted work that he or she illegally downloads, it bec

Re:Damages for companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see the problem with $750 penalty for stealing a 70 cent download.

But is that the case here? They normally sue for uploading, not downloading.

Re:Damages for companies?

[PitaBred]

Well, if I pay the damages, then no one that copied the music from me should have to pay, right? If they're pulling all the future possible damages out of one person, it stands to reason that the damage has been done and reparations have been made, so they don't have any right to sue anyone over that song in the future because it's possible/probable that it came from a source that's already paid damages. Right?

Re:Damages for companies?

[rootEToTheIPi]

That's all well and good, but you know that the defendant will subsequently partake of the poor box.

Re:Damages for companies?

[compro01]

Check the law next time, before you talk about whether it's out of date.

just because the law was written 7 years ago doesn't mean it can't be out of date.

by out of date, i mean that it doesn't match with the will of the people and/or common sense.

Re:Damages for companies?

[zcsteele]

I don't know french law, but here in the U.S. that could be considered "cruel and unusual". That sort of punishment would be quickly shot down by the Supreme Court.

Basically, U.S. citizens are "more free" than french citizens, in some sense of the term.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Total_Wimp]

If I hit you over the head with a baseball bat sending you into a coma for 4 weeks, I can be charged with a number of things. Assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, ect ect. I can not, however, be charged with crimes against humanity because in that intervening 4 weeks you may or may not have discovered the cure for cancer, or discovered a pratical way to develop free energy from cold fusion.

However, I can sue you for damages well above my medical costs. Pain and suffering, for example, can not be calculated. Similarly, loss of wages is at best a guess, if for no other reason than we don't know when you would have retired or died.

Yes, we should have fairly standardized formulas for the more common cases, but we rarely do, and we definitely don't have any standardization for file sharing. Once again, the lack of a measure does not mean that damage wasn't done and shouldn't be awarded. It just means we have to try very hard to come up with the best guess we can.

BTW, I very much realize that many Slashdotters find it easier to put ourselves in the shoes of the defendant in this case. I don't blame you. However, if you really were hit over the head with a baseball bat and went into a coma, when you woke up, I'm sure you'd feel entitled to more than just hospital bills already paid. I'm sure you'd consider recurring, violent headaches and dizziness to be worthy of compensation. Just something to chew on.

TW

Re:Damages for companies?

[Total_Wimp]

If I was a judge and could rule however I want, I'd calculate is as the number downloads estimated to come from the file sharer in question, minus the percentage of downloads that actually count as a loss of sales to the studios.

In other words, lets say Bob offers 100 songs for download and the average number of downloads per song is 10. That would be 100X10X.70. I'd then want to see a study that estimates that, say, only 20% of downloads result in a lost sale. 100x10x.70x.20 = $140 in damages.

How would I see the study? I'd let each side commission a third-party study or reference one that already exists. I'd then listen to arguments about which should be used, possibly agreeing on a compromise of the two.

BUT I'm not a lawyer and not a judge. That's just how I'd look at it if it was completely up to me.

Specifically, I would not think it to be fair to determine how others may have used or redistributed the files. That's their own legal problem.

TW

Re:Damages for companies?

[Saxerman]

But see In re Napster, 377 F.Supp. 2d 796 (ND Cal 2005)

This legal crap reads like Star Fleet Battles instructions. Can anyone translate into Newspeak?

Re:Damages for companies?

[jbf]

Pardon my ignorance as a novice in law, but since ND Cal is under the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit, doesn't the parent poster's precedent trump the reference you just gave? (Sorry for my laziness, I'm in the middle of something and don't have time to read the opinions).

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Yes but judge was following, not disobeying, 9th Circuit. She was well aware of 9th Circuit ruling in that very case, and did not interpret it the way the Slashdotter to whom I was responding interpreted it.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Ravatar]

In re Napster, 377 F.Supp. 2d 796 (ND Cal 2005)

The above wishes for you to check volume 377 of the Federal Suppliment, 2d, page 796.

The decision on the case was made in 2005 by the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Re:Damages for companies?

[pthisis]

I am not a lawyer; this is my personal understanding, not legal advice.

However, if the number of copies distributed illegally cannot be determined, there is no way to compute damages, right?

Right. That's the whole reason that there are statutory damages.

What if I sue you for "numerous incidents of toe-stepping, leading to loss of income in an undetermined amount due to inability to work brought about by physical and emotional damage suffered as a result of said incidents" and demand $1000k? Should you be forced by the courts to pay the requested amount, with no recourse?

No. But in this case, it's not the RIAA that picked the $750 figure; it's the law itself. The whole point of statutory damages is to deal with the cases where computing real damages is difficult or impossible. In general, it's a reasonable system; it saves time and effort from both sides and arrives at a reasonable figure.

In this case, though, the defense is arguing that the statutory amount is so unreasonable as to amount to a violation of due process (presumably unreasonable seizure? I'm not sure what the exact grounds for the argument is).

But the RIAA aren't the ones making up the $750 figure; the law specifies it. If the RIAA had picked a number, there would be no question that the defendant would be allowed to challenge it; this case is unusual because the defendant is mounting a constitutional challenge to a legislatively-chosen statutory amount.

See 17 United States Code s504 (c)(2):

1) Except as provided by clause (2) of this subsection, the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work.

Re:Damages for companies?

[pthisis]

what I'm curious about is who checks that the RIAA hasn't already put a claim in for this particular song somewhere further up the chain? ie. person A shares a file that persons B,C & D download. RIAA files a suit against person A, claims $750 damages. Person A pays. RIAA now files suits against B,C & D (who are now also sharing the file) claiming $750 from each of them too, even though, in theory the claim against person A was for ALL downstream sharing too.

The original claim was not for all downstream sharing. It was simply the minimum statutory damage specified by Congress when they wrote the law.

The issue here is not that the RIAA picked an unreasonable figure; the $750 is actually the _minimum_ statutory amount they can ask for. The issue is that the statutory amounts are arguably so unreasonable as to be an unconstitutional violation of due process.

The defendant is not challenging the RIAA per se, but rather the constitutionality of the law itself.

Re:Damages for companies?

[pthisis]

If I was a judge and could rule however I want, I'd calculate is as the number downloads estimated to come from the file sharer in question, minus the percentage of downloads that actually count as a loss of sales to the studios.

Actually, the law sets statutory amounts for how much a violation is worth that the courts are bound by.

In this case, the law specifies that unless you can figure out the actual damages, the damages have to be between $750 and $30,000 per work infringed--no other estimation is allowed. The RIAA weren't the ones who picked the $750 number, that's simply what the law specifies.

The argument here isn't that the RIAA picked some random high number without justification, it's that the law's minimum damages are so unreasonable as to be an unconstitutional violation of due process.

Re:Damages for companies?

[pthisis]

Well, at first blush, the disparity between cost and damages is enourmous. It doesn't really seem reasonable. But the RIAA bases such things on the premise that if I download a copy of a song, I will only ever have the one copy. Their whole focus is to ensure somehow that I get one copy and only one copy for my money, and that I cannot simply crank out a thousand or more copies for myself, even if my intent is benign. They don't seem to understand that as technology has advanced, their ability to control content has slipped slowly away. DRM is the last shriek of the dying -- trying to control the content even when it is out of their control.

So they see $750 as a justifiable figure

They may or may not, but the case isn't about what the RIAA thinks. $750 is specified by law as the minimum statutory per-work damage. See 17USC504 (c)(1) at:

http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate. cgi?WAISdocID=19805814327+0+0+0&WAISaction=retriev e

The challenge isn't to a random RIAA-picked number, it's to the law itself for specifying an arguably unreasonable amount in statutory damages.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Total_Wimp]

That's kind of a problem at both ends.

Low end: You gave the example yourself.

High end: If Steven Kings books get copied and sold to all of China, the damage could easily be worth far more than 30k.

Sounds like the law is due for an overhaul.

Re:Damages for companies?

[pthisis]

High end: If Steven Kings books get copied and sold to all of China, the damage could easily be worth far more than 30k.

The copyright holder always has the option of recovering actual damages instead of statutory damages, and in the case of the Steven King example they'd probably opt for that. Statutory damages are intended for cases where going out and determining exactly how many copies were made and what the market value of each was is infeasible or not worth the time of the plaintiff and defendant.

But yes, the statutory amount seems high here. Perhaps a low of $750 for all copyright violations stemming from one linked set of actions might be reasonable (so if someone puts up 400 albums to share, the RIAA can either go with $750 total or figure out real damages, rather than being allowed to go for 400 * $750 = $300000 without justification). Note that statutory damages are often intentionally somewhat higher than real damages, as they have punitive effects in addition to simply correcting the damages done; while $750 is a high amount for most file sharer's real impact on sales, it's not completely out of the realm of reasonable as a punitive figure (the law, of course, already operates under the assumption that file sharing is wrong and should be punished).

For more info (statutory amounts are in (c)(1)) see:
http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate. cgi?WAISdocID=19805814327+0+0+0&WAISaction=retriev e

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

But see 504(c)(2) offering the possibility of reduction to $200 if one did not know or have reason to believe it was a copyright infringement.

Re:Damages for companies?

[lskovlund]

Mark Giangrande wrote a brief description of citators for Groklaw. Check it out.

Re:Damages for companies?

[pthisis]

Yes, but AFAIK that's not at issue in this case yet; this challenge is simply to the reasonableness of the law itself. I'm not sure whether it's an open-and-shut "the defendant obviously did it" kind of case where the only thing they're challenging is the amount of the award, or if it's a more open-ended case and this is only one part of the defense.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

This defendant not only didn't do it, she doesn't even know how to use a computer.

Re:Damages for companies?

[SoberEmu]

And another interesting question arises when BitTorrent is thrown into the equation. In the scenario you describe, there is no guarantee that you have transferred to any one person or group of people a complete copy of the file. Does this have any legal relevance?

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

The earlier poster was saying that the law was out of date because "[i]t was written at a time when the possibility of an individual sharing several copies of hundreds of songs was inconceivable." I've shown that that isn't the case.

Whether the law is sensible, or reasonably represents the will of the people has nothing to do with whether the law is 'out of date' or not, and certainly isn't what the earlier poster was talking about. The idiom you want is 'out of touch.'

Re:Damages for companies?

[jonatha]

The RIAA weren't the ones who picked the $750 number, that's simply what the law specifies.

And who paid the Congress to pass that law, hmmm?

Re:Damages for companies?

[TapeCutter]

Section three, para 26: Limited to the value of the defendant's personal entertainment assets.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

how about someone who doesn't make any money from their product, suing you for damages after you copied their product? Specifically including "loss of income" ... lol

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

However, if the number of copies distributed illegally cannot be determined, there is no way to compute damages, right?

Not really, no.

You're talking about actual damages. In recognition of just this type of problem, and the fact that an infringer who kept lousy records shouldn't be allowed to get away with breaking the law and harming the copyright holder, Congress created an alternative remedy to actual damages: statutory damages. These are defined in the statute and don't require looking at the number of copies involved, but rather the number of works involved, which is a lot easier to determine.

In this suit, it looks as though the defendant is going to argue that statutory damages violate due process because they are excessive when compared to actual damages (at least in this case; that's not always how the numbers play out). Personally, I don't think it's going to fly as an argument, but it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

Perhaps I'm misremembering this one, Ray, but I seem to recall that the court there didn't have a problem with the uploading and downloading theories of infringement, and the interesting part of the case dealt with what constitutes distribution. Would you mind quoting what it is that you're thinking of with regard to the 106(1) reproduction right that is what downloaders are generally considered to infringe?

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

The point was, of course, that case law already exists that stipulates that the copier is the provider, not the recipient.

Would you care to cite that caselaw and quote the relevant bits? The Netcom analysis is leading, I believe, and it doesn't automatically assign liability to the party on one end of the wire or the other, but rather to the party that is most responsible for the reproduction infringement. Usually that will be the downloader, since the downloader most proximately caused the download to occur by making the request, and thus setting in action the automatic processes of the server.

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

What the hell are you talking about?

17 USC 117 is very favorable toward backups, and lets you make all the backups (of computer software -- not anything else) you like. The problem with 117 is that it only allows owners of copies to do this, and EULAs attack the idea that ordinary users operating under a EULA are owners that qualify for 117 in the first place.

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

Napster -- and others -- have been sued for just that. Basically they were sued for helping their users break the law, and that mean proving that the users broke the law. One type of lawbreaking activity is making copies of copyrighted works without permission or an applicable exception, and your garden-variety downloading is generally just that. Since downloaders are the ones who cause this to happen (the uploader isn't forcing you to download that song), they're the ones liable for it.

Anyway, I wouldn't get your hopes up much on this case. The law is pretty settled and this is a very bold and unusual argument. I don't expect it to fly.

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

That's true, Ray. But also true is that you have to contend with 401(d), which kills your innocent infringement argument if your client even had access to a copy that had proper notice attached to it. It makes things tough.

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

You don't know US law either.

Under US law, given the right circumstances, downloading one song could get you a federal prison sentence of ten years and fines of $250,000. And that's the criminal punishment; a civil case could also be brought. And it pretty certainly wouldn't be considered cruel and unusual, given that there are criminal copyright infringement suits fairly frequently, allowing for the rather low priority it gets from law enforcement.

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

There's nothing that says that they can't sue for downloading; it's just as illegal. They don't normally for tactical reasons, rather than legal ones: downloaders are harder to find, and since they don't supply anyone, the effort of getting rid of one yields less of a reward than if you got rid of an uploader, or better yet, an entire network.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

According to their complaint, they're also suing for downloading.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize that you'd prefer we simply overhaul copyright law, but the fact of the matter is that the situation is hopeless. Short of a revolution, the only respite we'll get from copyright law is if we can win in spite of the system. Trust me, Kangarooski, I am your biggest fan, but what I'd like to see from you is some sense of hope, beyond the false idea we can ever hope to change the law legislatively. Our only hope is fucking with them in the courts. We won't see a fair copyright law until we have a revolution. Until then, YOU have to be creative so we can defeat these fucks. I'm sick of your defeatism.

Re:Damages for companies?

[91degrees]

That's not quite what the law says. The law says that the plaintiff can elect specific damages.

I agree that this should not be constitutional. Amendment VIII has the phrase "nor excessive fines imposed", but I believe precedent goes against that one.

Re:Damages for companies?

[pthisis]

Yes, $750/work is the minimum statutory damages as I said. Plaintiff can always opt for real damages in lieu of statutory damages, but in most civil cases it's rarely worth either the plaintiff or defendant's time to do that for smallish claims--that it _would_ be worth defendant's time (not that they have the option) in this case is a sign that the statutory damages are out of whack.

Re:Damages for companies?

[strikethree]

If I understood all of that correctly, it is clearly conceded that the penalties are not compensatory in nature but rather they are punitive in nature. Therefore, there is no reason to lower them despite the fact that they are grossly out of line with the actual damages caused.

Correct?

strike

Re:Damages for companies?

[cpt kangarooski]

I wouldn't call it defeatism, I'd call it realism. Remember how Eldred turned out? Or Grokster? The courts are generally going to uphold whatever copyright law Congress passes, and are themselves willing to go even further in some instances.

This is because the courts can only overturn a copyright law where it is unconstitutional, which is pretty rare. They don't get to create more copyright laws, and can't particularly change what we've got. Given that they've found that Congress has tremendously wide latitude to enact whatever copyright laws Congress thinks are best, we can expect judicial reactions to be roughly on par with that of Commerce Clause laws in the post-Lochner era.

While it might be possible to win a bit here and there, significant change can only come from Congress.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Dear Captain:

I don't consider, and I'm sure you don't consider, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to be a radical lunatic fringe. See Parker v. Time Warner Entertainment Co., 331 F. 3d 13, 22 (2d Cir. 2003), cited in our brief at page 4.

And I find the reasoning of In re Napster and of the law review articles cited in our reply memorandum, as to why Parker should be applicable to aggregation of statutory copyright damages in p2p file sharing cases, to be most compelling.

Neither do I find Judge Trager to be a radical lunatic fringe, nor do I for a moment think he would have permitted us to add issues to the case which he had already resolved to be futile.

Nor is your assumption correct that we are asking the Court to find the statute unconstitutional. We are asking the Court to find the RIAA's absurd interpretation of the statute to be unconstitutional. I have total confidence that the Court can find a way to interpret the statute in a way that would not lead to an unconstitutional result in these p2p file sharing cases.... I personally can think of a number of such interpretations.

The judge's decision signals to you that he is aware of that important distinction, because on the subject of Attorney General notification, he indicates in so many words that he will notify the Attorney General if and when he feels we're asking for the statute to be struck down.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Technician]

I can see the problem with $750 penalty for stealing a 70 cent download... isn't there some ruling that says for companies they can only "gouge" them for damages with a single digit ratio to the actual damages? So to follow that for individuals, that means the largest damages should be... 70 cents times 9... $6.30?

The copyright holders are no arguing the defendant has downloaded a few songs worth about 70 cents a song and are entitled to trebble the damages.

The copyright holders are arguing the defendent has puplished the content where the entire world may download it for free. Unless the defendant has kept detailed records of the number of people who downloaded the song, they get nailed for the maximum for distribution.

The fact the defandant downloaded a few songs is not the issue. It's the making posting them freely to the DL community which was the probelm. This alone may crater the defendants case.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Sorry you didn't understand that correctly. Awarding penalties that are wildly disproportionate to the actual damages is, according to legal authorities, unconstitutional.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

And how is the RIAA going to prove that the defendant 'distributed' the song to anyone? Do you want the Court to speculate?

Re:Damages for companies?

[Technician]

And how is the RIAA going to prove that the defendant 'distributed' the song to anyone? Do you want the Court to speculate?

That's the fun part of the lawsuit. You don't have to distribute the song. Simply posting it for distribution outside of the copyright owners control is the infringement.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

So the RIAA would have you believe.

The fun part is that you and the RIAA are dead wrong, and don't know anything about copyright law.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Breakfast Pants]

Jaywalking gets you a fine, not a night in jail. And yet the constitution garuntees you a trial that hinges on 'beyond a reasonable doubt', even if it was just a fine. Punitive damages are a a form of punishment that get by the much less strict: 'preponderance of the evidence'. In some states this may mean that they only have to proove that there is a 50.000....1% chance that you did anything and you would have to pay up 100% of 1000% of claimed damages.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Technician]

The fun part is that you and the RIAA are dead wrong, and don't know anything about copyright law.

Quite possibly true. In our courts, this what the lawsuits are all about. If you are correct, I hope a judge will agree with you. However, so far this is not the case. Try reading some of the lawsuits so kindly posted online and see if you can help the lawyers in these cases where the RIAA, myself and the judges don't know the law.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

We're working on it. It's early in the game.

Re:Damages for companies?

[strikethree]

Excellent. Thank you for clearing that up for me.

strike

Re:Damages for companies?

[sobachatina]

Thanks for your comment.

I said: "no one has been sued yet for downloading a song" And you replied: "Napster -- and others -- have been sued for just that."

Has it really been established that a person requesting a file (ie. the downloader) can be held liable? In the case of Napster I understood that they were at fault for facilitating illegal distribution- that is helping the uploaders.

"Since downloaders are the ones who cause this to happen (the uploader isn't forcing you to download that song), they're the ones liable for it."

Court cases that were used as precedent in the Napster case where people were found guilty of simply making copyrighted material available. Offering a file for download is considered distribution so people hosting the material were liable even though another party initiated the request. Incidentally the linked case judgement talks a lot about distribution and indexing but doesn't seem to concern itself about the users doing the downloading.

On more of a logical level- as opposed to legal which seems rarely logical to me - how can the audience of a distributed work be held liable? Couldn't they just claim to not know it was illegally distributed? Are the customers of illegal street dvd vendors or the audience of an illegal public performance guilty of copyright infringement?

Again none of this discussion is meant to excuse a person infringing copyright. I want a better understanding of the current state of the law in this regard.

Re:Damages for companies?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

In BMG v. Gonzalez a defendant who admitted to downloading 30 songs without authorization was held liable for copyright infringement.

Englsh translation?

[Eudial]

Can anyone fluent in Legalese translate that into English, please?

Re:Englsh translation?

[Gr8Apes]

Basically - $750 fine for $0.70 theft is considered unconstitutionally severe, or something like that. (IANAL etc, blah blah blah) Next the RIAA will be wanting to cut off hands....

Re:Englsh translation?

[Aladrin]

Like, yo, da judge said da chick what was dissed by da RIAA can try to prove her case, you know? The RIAA tried to make da man drop the hammer on her, but in a rare twist of fate, da man let da sister have her say. Da judge said this cuz da RIAA didn't back up it's shit, and da chick did.

Disclaimer: I'm not African-American, and I have never been to Africa or the less affluent regions of any major city.

Seriously. It WAS in English.

Re:Englsh translation?

[stoolpigeon]

I'm not African-American, and I have never been to Africa or the less affluent regions of any major city.
 
you didn't need to tell us that- it's self-evident.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Hijacked Public]

Yes, +5 Funny.

I'm sure that will go over as a real knee slapper at the next Klan rally. Good to see racism is alive and well even outside the less affluent regions of major cities.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Log from channel #BrooklynCourts

MarieLindor has joined the conversation.

RIAALegalWeenie has joined the conversation.

[RIAALegalWeenie] You ripped our stuff, beeyatch! Give us like 1,000x wot it's worth, or else.

[MarieLindor] Harsh, man. Ur stuff ain't worth it. Anyway u have 2 have Due Process and stuff under the CONSTITUTION! D'OH!!!1!1! Gimme all ur records.

Magistrate has joined the conversation.

[Magistrate] Fair 'nuff. You gotta do it.

[RIAALegalWeenie] No way. We're gonna go to a higher court.

FederalCourtJudge has joined the conversation.

[FederalCourtJudge] I am THE LAW.

[MarieLindor] Yo, Mr Judge Sir. Here's legal stuff that says I'm right. You got my back?

RIAALegalWeenie puts his fingers in his ears.

[RIAALegalWeenie] Not listenin'. Not listenin'. Nyaaaaah nyah.

[RIAALegalWeenie] And 'sides, she's just makin' sh*t up.

FederalCourtJudge has activated a purple lightsaber.

[FederalCourtJudge] This party's over. Go do what my man da Magistrate said, luser.

MarieLindor smiles.

RIAALegalWeenie has left in a huff.

There, I think that about covers it.

(With apologies to the poster who first made this joke, probably much better, but whose post I can't find to credit it.)

Re:Englsh translation?

[compro01]

i see A LOT more white people talking in that manner than i see black people talking in that manner.

Re:Englsh translation?

[itlurksbeneath]

Wow.. Nice to see people whip out the racism card as the first response. My first thought after reading it was "Ah.. an oblique 'Airplane' reference". Are you saying Airplane was racist as well?

Re:Englsh translation?

[Hijacked Public]

Me too.

You can find white kids in the Hamptons who speak like that, but the disclaimer specifically asks that everyone forgive the poster's poor parody of some garbled version of English because he is not poor or African, which means he cannot possibly be a native speaker of the garbled English, because only the poor and the African are, which is an untrue stereotype of the racist classist variety.

Re:Englsh translation?

[rpjimmypop]

Is that you Ali G?

Re:Englsh translation?

[Dog-Cow]

Actually, you are the ignorant one.

You are ignorant of the meaning of the word "humor".

Re:Englsh translation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't give them any ideas.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's touchy assholes like you -- of all colors -- that keep racism alive and well.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Hijacked Public]

I've never seen Airplane so I have no idea.

Re:Englsh translation?

[itlurksbeneath]

It's funny. Rent a copy.

Re:Englsh translation?

[schabot]

I'm sorry, I'm Canadian, racists aren't humourous here anymore I guess.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Maxo-Texas]

Everything is funny.

Death.
Adultery.

Hell I have a friend who jokes about Aids and he had a few of his friends die of it.

Laughter is the best medicine.

Re:Englsh translation?

[ak3ldama]

I don't think racists are humorous either. I have been to the inner city, Chicago & Minneapolis-StPaul (though only Chicago was bad). Having seen the shit hole of a situation the inner city poor are in, in the usa, i have a slightly different outlook. but people are racist no matter where you go, but usually their racism is just misdirected anger. in the end though, all of us replying to the original stupid comment doesn't help anything. from my view there's this analysis:
* the indians are still pissed because we took their land and never treated them right.
* the blacks are still pissed for too many reasons to say.
* the euro-whities are pissed because the other two haven't assimilated yet and our plans to breed them out failed. and we're just plain racists most of the time.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Cos like ..... wearing socks with your trainers looks dead poor, innit? I never wear socks with my trainers and when they gets all stinky I has a new pair, innit? Excep' that they won't get stinky at all anyway, innit, cos my feet don't smell. See?

Re:Englsh translation?

[Dunbal]

but people are racist no matter where you go,

      Especially in the US. Whoops, was THAT a racist comment? :)

Re:Englsh translation?

[ajs318]

Indeed. I think the problem is not so much with the colour of people's skin, as with the thickness.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Maxo-Texas]

Airplane:

Randy: Can I get you something?
Second Jive Dude: 'S'mofo butter layin' me to da' BONE! Jackin' me up... tight me!
Randy: I'm sorry, I don't understand.
First Jive Dude: Cutty say 'e can't HANG!
Jive Lady (a 60ish white lady): Oh stewardess! I speak jive.
Randy: Oh, good.
Jive Lady: He said that he's in great pain and he wants to know if you can help him.
Randy: All right. Would you tell him to just relax and I'll be back as soon as I can with some medicine?
Jive Lady: Jus' hang loose, blood. She gonna catch ya up on da' rebound on da' med side.
Second Jive Dude: What it is, big mama? My mama no raise no dummies. I dug her rap!
Jive Lady: Cut me some slack, Jack! Chump don' want no help, chump don't GET da' help!
First Jive Dude: Say 'e can't hang, say seven up!
Jive Lady: Jive ass dude don't got no brains anyhow! Hmmph!

Re:Englsh translation?

[amchugh]

Sure airplane was racist, but it was funny racist, not hateful racist.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Anonymous Coward]

how is trying to speak like someone else racist? am sure you tried to imitate and laughed at the American accent before? not everything someone of another culture does concerning other cultures is racist, get over it and stop being too politically correct, because that in itself is racist. its like assuming all white south-africans are racist, that is xenophobic and racist also.

Re:Englsh translation?

[schabot]

It wasn't racist in the imitation, it was the last sentence. Read the post again, and watch him stereotype a certain way of speaking as poor and uneducated.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Blue Stone]

> Hell I have a friend who jokes about Aids and he had a few of his friends die of it.

Laughter is the best medicine.

Maybe he shoulda told them some of his jokes?

Re:Englsh translation?

[vinn01]

I like this sig better:

"Like God's Own Chocolate, I'd Lick Her Shadow off a Hot Sidewalk,"
-Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore

Re:Englsh translation?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny. Download a copy.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Maxo-Texas]

I'm sure he did. And I'm sure they laughed with him.

He is that kinda guy.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Jambon]

Disclaimer: I'm not African-American, and I have never been to Africa or the less affluent regions of any major city.

I didn't know Ali G. was black.

I'm sorry, I'm Canadian, racists aren't humourous here anymore I guess.

Yes, you are Canadian for apologizing immediately without having any reason to. As far as "racist" things not being funny in Canada....what are you, Québécois?

Re:Englsh translation?

[schabot]

As far as "racist" things not being funny in Canada....what are you, Québécois?

Yes

Re:Englsh translation?

[megaditto]

Bigots are funny.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Aladrin]

Wow, I didn't expect the fools to come out in force so strong.

I am not racist. You don't have to be racist to know what your own skin color is. You also don't have to be racist to notice that certain people talk certain ways.

Open your ears for a second here. This is important: Only poor African-Americans talk that way, except for a few confused others. That is FAR from saying 'all African-Americans talk that way' and just about as far from 'most'. It's just a simple fact that if you talk like that, you are most likely African-American. Similarly, if you talk with a Chinese accent, you are almost assuredly Chinese. Indian, Irish, English, whatever. They each have their own way of talking. If you are not of that ethnicity, the likelihood of your speaking like that is about nil.

But none of that has anything to do with my disclaimer. It was simply an added bit of a humor and an attempt to stop all the 'you don't know how to talk the slang' comments that were sure to come.

In fact, the prejudiced one here is actually YOU. You assumed, from a little humor, that I am racist. Prejudice. Look it up.

I have friends from many different ethnicities, and I enjoy their varied outlooks on things. Having all friends that are 'whitebread' like me would be extremely boring and confining.

So next time you want to scream at someone, consider whether you are preventing prejudice or spreading it.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Hijacked Public]

If you are trying to point out that I am prejudiced against racists then I suppose I will have to agree.

The thing about your original comment, and why your ham fisted attempt at a metaphor doesn't fit, is that your premise of poor African-Americans (and presumably actual African natives, since you disclaim having been to Africa the continent as well) being the only people who talk that way is incorrect. I've been to Africa more times than your mom has told you to put on clean underwear and I can assure that you'll find very few actual Africans who speak that way.

I've also actually been to many poor areas of major cities, in dozens of different countries, and I have met far more poor blacks who speak proper English than otherwise. If I were to just guess I'd say the greatest concentration of kids who speak the kind of slang you took a wild swing at in your original post was in Tokyo. In the right areas you'll be overrun with iPod toting Japanese teenagers shouting a version of English they heard their favorite rapper using into their cell phones.

Which brings us to where your problem lies, the fact that continue to perpetuate the stereotype of only poor African-Americans speaking in street slang. Indeed the particular slang you use was most likely invented by the manager of a rapper in an attempt to build his rapper's 'street cred'. The manager realized that TV had convinced the middle class white kid demographic that poor African-Americans have a particular way of speaking and if he could get his client to speak that way as well, these middle class white kids would buy more of his music. A self-perpetuating stereotype because many poor African-Americans became convinced that in order to be considered authentic poor African-Americans and build their own personal street cred, they needed to start speaking the kind of street slang that middle class white kids expected them to speak.

So next time, if you want to expose less of your ignorance yet make the same point, just reply with "No yuo".

Re:Englsh translation?

[Aladrin]

"very few actual Africans who speak that way."

I didn't SAY Africans. I've -never- heard an African that speaks that way.

You really should learn to listen.

I live in the South. More African-Americans talk 'that way' than don't, rich, poor or middle class. It doesn't matter here. There are fewer in the upper classes that speak that way, but still more than don't. I'm not looking down on them for it any more than I would anyone with an accent. It's just the way they speak. You, however, appear to be.

Your theory about 'street cred' is absolutely ridiculous, too. Why would some rapper try to build 'street cred' by not talking like people on the street? Amazingly dumb idea.

Examine again who's the prejudice one here and I think you'll find you can't stand the thought of people that talk 'that way', not me.

Re:Englsh translation?

[Jherek Carnelian]

Laughter is the best medicine.

Said by someone who has clearly never had gonorrhea.

Does this mean..

[MyNameIsEarl]

Does this mean that the "legal" music downloads are going to cost close to $100 now? Killing the digital music market and ending any chance of "legal" downloads. This is all part of the music industry business plan, sell cheap, low quality songs that do not generate much profit and sue the hell out of the people who download "illegal" high quality versions to subsidize the cheap low quality sales.

Woohoo, that's cheaper than Wal Mart!

[Jay Tarbox]

I can get a lot more songs for .70 than .88 or even .99 cents. Cool!

$750?

[dlc3007]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a song that was worth $750. There are some really good songs out there, but I can't imagine paying $750 to listen to any of them.
Well... I did get laid to "Stairway to Heaven" in high school, but I'm not sure it was worth $750 -- sex included.

Re:$750?

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

now if only you included a PS3 into the price. . .

Re:$750?

[Ogive17]

At least it was a lengthy song and not something like Blur's "Song 2" (or 4, whatever number) that was a whopping 39 seconds long.

Re:$750?

[Anonymous Coward]

He only said he got laid to the song. He didn't say he got to the end :-)

For all you know, the two of em coulda been done before the vocals began...

Re:$750?

[Anonymous Coward]

song 2 is exactly 2 minutes long.

Re:$750?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how much *did* you pay? (Please answer in original 1970's dollars, or adjust for inflation)

Re:$750?

[Atheose]

Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal." Not worth $750, but considering how awesome the music video is I would say it's as close as you're going to get.

Stairway To Heaven is pretty damn close too.

Who's the pirates, again?

[jandersen]

And they call us pirates? A decent, fairly honest, average person or a dishonest, greedy juggernaut of a company - who would you rather deal with, legalities or not? I know who I wouldn't want to turn my back on.

Re:Who's the pirates, again?

[aadvancedGIR]

Since they obtained the right to do so by the government, you should call them corsairs.

Re:Who's the pirates, again?

[Jestrzcap]

I like "privateers" better.

Re:Who's the pirates, again?

[KDR_11k]

A paramilitary force? Will they count as enemy combatants in twenty years?

Re:Who's the pirates, again?

[eltonito]

I think the PC term is "Buccaneer-Americans"

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive.php?s=148

Re:Who's the pirates, again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The $750 is what they are basically asking a JUDGE TO FINE YOU for doing something that the law considers to be BAD. Read the note above from the guy who seems to have some modicum of legal training. This is not a payment, any more than you would be asked to pay the ticket price for the jewelry that you just stole from the jeweler to make things 'all square' if you were caught. (Yes, i know IP infringement is not the same as theft of physical objects in general, but in this particular case the distinction is irrelevant and my analogy is apt. I know this paranthetic is required before some idiot pops in and tries to throw up smoke and mirrors to that effect)

Re:Who's the pirates, again?

[Red Flayer]

Well, I got a RIAA warning letter when I downloaded Good Vibrations... I guess you could say they gave me a letter of Marque-mark and the Funky Bunch.

So now who is the corsair and who is the pirate?

RIAA defense...

[John Betonschaar]

Of course the RIAA's defense will be along the lines that "by downloading using P2P she enabled an estimated ~1000 other people to get the content, which translates to ~$700 in lost revenue". Nevermind anyone could have downloaded the same song from the same source that the Ms. Lindor downloaded it from, nevermind the people who downloaded the song will most likely not have paid for it if they weren't able to download it, and nevermind Ms. Lindor cannot be held responsible for the people who downloaded the song from her PC. But hey, its the RIAA, so most likely they will just settle for half the amount of damages and get away with it, with the guarantee that they cannot be sued afterwards for people who already paid their extortion settlements.

Re:RIAA defense...

[styryx]

This is how I originally understood they were able to get away with charging $750 per song, because it counts for all the people who then go the song from them.

There are a couple of questions I have about this:
1. Why 1000? Why not everybody with a modem considering they all in theory could potentially download the song? It seems to me this number is fabricated and I think it's about time the RIAA went back to school and lost marks for "not showing their working"! Also
2. If 1 person pays for the downloading of 1000 people plus themselves. Then 1000 people haven't broken the law because the music has been paid for?

Re:RIAA defense...

[rsilvergun]

Their argument is likely to be that she _can_ be held responsible for people who downloaded the song from her computer, because then she's distributing it herself. What's interesting about this is, if she proves that song downloads are only worth .70 cents, the RIAA will have to prove that 1000 people downloaded the song from here to get their $700/song, and they'll have to do that for each song. OTOH, this is all kind of moot, since copyright infringement is now a crimnal offense, they can still do plenty of other terrible things to her besides ruining her financially. So even if this works out we're not out of the woods yet, and aren't likely to ever be.

Re:RIAA defense...

[FuzzyDaddy]

This is how I originally understood they were able to get away with charging $750 per song, because it counts for all the people who then go the song from them.

That would be true if the song was some sort of one of a kind trade secret. But given the availability of these "bootleg" copies, I find it hard to believe that her downloaded copy led to ANY more people not buying the song. The prevalence of this music on the internet, and the ease of making and sharing unprotected copies, means that her download of a single copy almost certainly did NOT make it available to a single person to whom it was not available before.

If you broke into my company and stole our designs and posted them on the internet, then yes, I can make a claim for huge damages. But the cat's out of the bag already - she didn't pay her $0.99, but I find it hard to believe she contributed to even a single person not paying their $0.99.

Re:RIAA defense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, lets consider that but use all the facts. This is P2P, so...

1000 people got PART of the song .70 / 3MB = .23 per MB
P2P probably got 512KB each (assuming not many shares) from her and the rest from others.
So that's 11 cents per person per song.

That comes to a whopping $110 per song. Where is the other $640 coming from? And this comes from an unpopular song with few shares. what about the more popular stuff with 30+ shares? price comes down from there.

Re:RIAA defense...

[Maxo-Texas]

So then on the little private sites where you have 5 people sharing from you, the damages would be $3.50?

Re:RIAA defense...

[styryx]

I completely agree. I wasn't trying to validate the RIAA's point, I was merely reiterating what I understand to be their argument, and the flaws associated with it.

Re:RIAA defense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... but once they've finished going after this girl, are they not also going to go after the 1000 people that downloaded the song from her and claim $750 from each of them too? Doesn't that sound like double (or, in this case, 1000-fold) dipping? am I missing something?

If they're only targetting uploaders maybe it's not quite so bad, but even then, what checks are there going to be to ensure that they haven't already received compensation somewhere further up the chain?

Re:RIAA defense...

[91degrees]

It will prboably be more along the lines of the cost fo a licence to distribute is substantially more than $750.

Claiming nested damages may well backfire since the defendant could then demand the RIAA sue whoever she downloaded it from instead.

Re:RIAA defense...

[Anonymous Coward]

so what happens if she is a leechy type that doesn't share any files?

Re:RIAA defense...

[ak3ldama]

2. If 1 person pays for the downloading of 1000 people plus themselves. Then 1000 people haven't broken the law because the music has been paid for?
that's the part i never figured out. for the price they make people pay for these songs, it seems like it would only work if this upload was propogated on and you were charged for subsequent uploads. but since when is person A made to pay the penalty for the actions of persons B and C? And how come they are allowed to go after people that have allowed large numbers of uploads, they allowed other people to commit (B and C) a crime, but person A didn't actually commit it. {snip out more rant here} me personally, i don't care - i buy my music, and i don't let others upload it.

Re:RIAA defense...

[drewtown]

I'm not a lawyer but can she even be held accountable for things that other people have committed? That doesn't make sense to me. If she downloads the song then she should only be able to be blamed for her one infringement not the 1000 possible infringements, which of those 1000 people they could all be taken to court and sued for helping 1000 other people steal.

Re:RIAA defense...

[Sancho]

Unfortunately, as another poster noted, the $750/instance is a statuatory compensation, which has nothing to do with the value of the song.

Re:RIAA defense...

[pthisis]

Their argument is likely to be that she _can_ be held responsible for people who downloaded the song from her computer, because then she's distributing it herself. What's interesting about this is, if she proves that song downloads are only worth .70 cents, the RIAA will have to prove that 1000 people downloaded the song from here to get their $700/song, and they'll have to do that for each song.

They won't have to prove any such thing. The $750/work is specified by law as the minimum statutory damages for copyright infringement, it's not a number that the RIAA came up with or needs to justify. The argument is about whether the law is an unreasonable violation of due process; the RIAA aren't the ones who picked the figure.

See (c)(1):
http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate. cgi?WAISdocID=19805814327+0+0+0&WAISaction=retriev e

Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[Hamster Lover]

A song that sells for $.70 wholesale should not automatically trigger damages of $750 if the same song is "stolen" or misappropriated. If I understand correctly, his Due Process argument is that the damages are grossly disproportionate to the loss, 70 cents or so. Another example would be if a car is valued at $10,000 and is somehow damaged or stolen, the raw value of goods stolen or damaged is $10,000, the cost of the car, not some arbitrary amount set by law.

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[aadvancedGIR]

There is a major flaw in your argument:
-when someone steals your car, you loose it, therefore the damage you suffer is easy to determine (the current value of the car, usually only a portion of its initial value).
-When someone downloads a song, the real damage is determined by the objective of the downloader:
*He wouldn't have bought the CD because he doesn't have the money, let's say it's free advertisement with potential long term payback (it was my case when I was student, and I then bought many CDs).
*He already has the CD but fears to put it in his PC because of the fear of rootkits or other malwares (that's currently my case), no real harm.
but of course, there is also:
*He burns CDs and sell them for a couple of bucks on markets to finance Al Quaida thermonuclear program, possible harm: millions of deaths + thousands of billions $ of damages.

So the 750$ is just the weighted average of the real potential damges, the only thing I don't understand is why the money doesn't got to the DHS.

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[Grym]

Another example would be if a car is valued at $10,000 and is somehow damaged or stolen, the raw value of goods stolen or damaged is $10,000, the cost of the car, not some arbitrary amount set by law.

I argue that the greatest victory of the content industry, contrary to what most would say, was not extending copyrights to 75 years or establishing the draconian protections of the DMCA. Rather, the their greatest triumph has been to define the terms of the debate.

Instead of talking about temporary monopolies, we talk about "intellectual property." Instead of focusing on the "promotion [of] the progress of science and useful arts" (both the wording and the intent of constitution), we exclusively consider the so-called "property rights" of the creator(s).

And because of this, the content industry is able to conflate established property law with completely unrelated areas of law: plagiarism and government-granted monopolies. The result is not surprisingly inconsistent and the source of confusion all-around. Illegal downloaders are labeled as "thieves" instead of what they really are, copyright infringers. The public domain is not viewed as a benefit to society but as a loss of potential profits.

And they even manage to benefit both ways. They can accuse downloaders of theft, BUT THEN use the strict penalties of copyright infringement (originally intended to punish commercial infringement) against non-commercial and non-profiting individuals.

The entire issue is the ultimate triumph of sophistry over justice. Due process is violated when the punishment ($750 per song) doesn't match the crime (non-commercial copyright infringement). The intent of the constitution lays at the wayside when our arts and sciences are actually hurt because of the increased cost and difficulty of actually bringing a product or innovation to the market. The right to free speech is trampled upon when the DMCA is used inappropriately to take down embarrassing internal memos or other evidence of public fraud/deception(ex. Diebold voting machine code).

-Grym

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[Shelled]

You seem to have forgotten the part the judge didn't, or shifted it elsewhere: burden of proof. If the RIAA can demonstrate the majority of defendants download with intent to sell CDs, they have a strong case. Since it's ludicuous at face value though so is $750.

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[Jerf]

He [steals X] and sell[s it] for a couple of bucks on markets to finance Al Quaida thermonuclear program, possible harm: millions of deaths + thousands of billions $ of damages.

That's a null argument; it holds equally for all X and is not special to downloaded music or other intellectual property.

Moreover, the law in this case is not specifically concerned with "damage to society", it is concerned with damage to the property holder. (There is a reason it's called "intellectual property"; that some people don't like the moniker, including me, doesn't make it any less true. The law treats it a lot like property, including some inappropriate ways.) Thus, the issues that arise from downloading come about from lost income, either real or potential*, from the downloading. The law cares little about the objective.

(The law is generally concerned with "damage to society", but that's a value that is generally impossible to work with.)

If they can establish that that the wholesale value of a song is three orders of magnitude less than the statutory damages, and demonstrate that for the essentially-victimless crime of downloading a couple-hundred CDs you face total economic ruination, they've probably got a good case here, at least in theory. As long as we're going to have these laws (and I personally still support some form of them, just of a different form), they need to be reasonable. Wholesale value per song + $10,000 I could see, but pretty much any per-song charge gets absurd very quickly. (Don't get too attached to the exact number; up, down, I don't care, my point is a constant punitive fee instead of a monstrous per-song one.)

*: The argument that someone who downloads something illegally probably wouldn't have bought it anyhow applies to analyzing the inflated damages claimed by the industry; the law says that if you can't afford something, you don't get to have it. For computing damages "potential" is fine.

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[apt142]

*He burns CDs and sell them for a couple of bucks on markets to finance Al Quaida thermonuclear program, possible harm: millions of deaths + thousands of billions $ of damages.

Yeah, but consider the probability of this happening into the cost of damages. It's quite likely that those CD sales are crippled by the availability of mp3's on the web. Also consider the likelihood of said financed event happening. Contrary to what the Bush Administration would like you to think, the chances of dying in a terrorist attack are quite low.

I'm confident the profits from your scenerio one would more than make up for the costs of the other scenerios.

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[Dunbal]

If the RIAA can demonstrate the majority of defendants download with intent to sell CDs, they have a strong case.

      They will have a hard time doing this, however. Because it's simply not true.

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[jt418-93]

welcome to the new u s a.
we don't need those rights anyway.
the new and improved u s a

from New USA - Amber Donut of Truth

yea, we are truly fucked. government/commercial entities are in control, and we are nothing but money doaners to them.

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[Blue Stone]

> Instead of talking about temporary monopolies, we talk about "intellectual property."

Very good point. I've been thinking about this myself, and I think simply re-naming such things as "Intellectual Monopolies" might help the debate - 'temporary monopolies' doesn't quite define the nature of the monopoly - maybe "temporary intellectual monopolies", but that seems like a little too unwieldy.
Usage: "The corporation is protecting it's intellectual monopoly rights."
"People are increasingly becoming aware that intellectual monopoly rights are too restrictive and punitive to those who breach those monopolies."

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[pdq332]

I see. So the damage caused by downloading a $0.70 song is $750.00 for the same reason that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause thunderstorms on the Great Plains. Forget the DHS, let's send the money to the Weather Channel!

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[cibyr]

*WOOSH*

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

*He wouldn't have bought the CD because he doesn't have the money, let's say it's free advertisement with potential long term payback (it was my case when I was student, and I then bought many CDs).

He doesn't have $0.70 for a song, despite having all that money to own a computer, and subscribe to an internet connection?

The supposition that a downloader "Doesn't have $0.70 for a song" doesn't make much sense.

Probably reasonable damages would be 10x some estimate of actual damages, that would be something like $10/song uploaded.

If you upload 70 songs worth, then $700 by this metric is easily fair, anyways.

Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me.

[strikethree]

So the 750$ is just the weighted average of the real potential damges, the only thing I don't understand is why the money doesn't got to the DHS.

Actually, let's go back to the stolen car analogy (as poor as it is). The thief is required to compensate you for the car (damages), however, the thief still has to spend time in jail for his crimes ($750 per song).

In other words, the $750 is not to compensate the RIAA, but rather it is to punish you. The law does state that the copyright holder gets those punitive damages so in that respect, the law is kind of odd.

strike

It's about damn time!

[BCW2]

A judge has figured out that there is no basis for the RIAA's damage claims. Took long enough to find a judge with enough brains to see that all the RIAA has ever done is intimidate and extort. I hope they do something really dumb and get fined big for pissing off the judge. Every attorny defending one of these cases needs to be informed of this step. It really could put an end to this stupidity.

Re:It's about damn time!

[Zelucifer]

That isn't at all what even the Summary said. The judge basically said that there may be merit to the defendants claim that damages of $750 dollars per song violates Due Process.

I highly doubt it will end the lawsuits, however it may keep the RIAA from suing file shares with fewer than say... 5000 songs. That's about $3500 at 70 cents a song.

Re:It's about damn time!

[UnknowingFool]

A judge has figured out that there is no basis for the RIAA's damage claims.

Not quite. A judge found that the amount of damages should the RIAA win can be contested. The defendant is pointing out that $750 a song in automatic damages may be unconstitutional if the actual wholesale cost is $0.70 per song. All the judge said is that the defendant can challenge this. What the judge found that had no basis was their defense of the $750 per song guideline challenge. The RIAA didn't present the judge to any real reason why it couldn't be challenged. The court might decide eventually that $750 is fair. But the RIAA hasn't told the judge legitimate reasons why the court can't decide on this.

Re:There goes the RIAAs "legitimacy" :-)

[powerlord]

No law firm is ever going to work cheaply enough to make this worth their while.

Sure they will ... all the RIAA need todo is sue ALL of their customers (sort of a reverse Class Action suit).

I'm sure there is a lawyer being hatched right now that will take the case (for T&M plus a small contingency).

70 cents a song?

[emil10001]

From TFA:

attesting that popular music sound recording downloads and consumer license to use same are lawfully obtainable to the public at 99 cents per song, and of that 99 cents, roughly 70 cents per song is paid by the retailer to the record label.

I don't understand where this $0.70 comes from. There is the Chinese site which has legal downloads cheaper than allofmp3.com, and they have the support of the IFPI. So, my question then is why does a $0.70 sale in the US equal a $0.05 sale in China? And, if they offered a legal service like that over here (without the DRM) wouldn't piracy dissapear overnight?

Re:70 cents a song?

[neozenkai]

It just shows how incompetent the RIAA is. They're so happy with all the money they're making right now that they fail to see that a system like the one you describe would actually work. An American-based AllOfMP3 that was actually backed by the RIAA, or, at least, the artists themselves, would be quite successful. I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay $2.50 for an album than spend an entire day downloading it from eMule or BitTorrent.

Re:70 cents a song?

[iainl]

That 5 cent sale from China is not an RIAA sale, what with the second A being for America. The RIAA itself (well, its members) have negotiated with Apple to sell tracks for 99 cents, and some of the Microsoft-based vendors for 79 cents. So they themselves are saying they should cost that much to buy in the US.

Re:70 cents a song?

[emil10001]

I understand that it isn't the RIAA itself, however the IFPI is the international body to which the RIAA belongs. So, I don't think that it is an unreasonable comparison.

I also don't understand why instead of looking at a broken system (the current distribution/pricing scheme) and doing something about it, they choose to prosecute people. My suggestion is that they can get their bills paid on less than $0.70/song, and if they tried to seriously compete with the prices of allofmp3.com that they might ramp down piracy and start turning a better profit because of increased sales.

Another thing about that $0.70/song price point, wasn't there a ruling that the record industry was fixing the prices of CD's distributed (about $17/album retail), and that the prices should be lowered to reflect the actual costs? The $17/album is only a couple of dollars above the $12/album that you get on iTunes, where the cost of distribution is significantly lower, and there is little overhead compared to a retail store. So, my argument is that $0.70 is a pretty high price, especially when there are other systems that sell music for much lower prices and are recognized by the appropriate international bodies.

Re:70 cents a song?

[Anonymous Coward]

The $0.70US is the wholesale price of a song. Which in turn is a number that some suit decided would maximize revenue from the US.

The same song could sell in China at $.05US because the people that sell these songs are practicing price discrimination. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination [wikipedia.org])

The record companies understand that they are "the only game in town" and actively prevent consumer arbitrage via lawsuits - I can't sell/give you the MP3 I just purchased. Also, the markets, both US and China, are naturally segmented by geography and segmented by willingness/ability to pay.

So since there are multiple market segments for the same commodity, and the above conditions exist, they profit more by doing exactly what they are doing.

Re:70 cents a song?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised someone hasn't taken this to the WTO -- US music distributors are obviously "dumping" their music on the Chinese market.

Re:70 cents a song?

[iainl]

Everything you say is reasonable, but you're arguing that the wholesale price of tunes should come down, not that it is anything other than 70 cents in the US currently. It's the latter that is the source of the argument.

Re:70 cents a song?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, my question then is why does a $0.70 sale in the US equal a $0.05 sale in China?

Because it's China.

Shoplifting...

[Sqweegee]

Wouldn't just shoplifting the CDs cost less in fines if you were caught?

Re:Shoplifting...

[narduk]

Taken from: http://www.state.nj.us/lps/dcj/agguide/shoplift.pd f

Disorderly Persons Shoplifting is a disorderly persons offense if the full retail
Offense: value of the merchandise was less than $200.00.
N.J.S.A. 2C:20-11c(4). A disorderly persons offense is
punishable by a term of imprisonment not to exceed six
months (N.J.S.A. 2C:43-8), a fine not to exceed $1,000 or
both (N.J.S.A. 2C:43-3c).

However, I have read that the likelihood of this penalty being imposed on you for the first offense is low.

Re:Shoplifting...

[yellowdragon]

Nahhh, not worth it. You would be fined for the one song you really like and the 12 or so crappy songs included in the CD. ;)

Re:Shoplifting...

[Anonymous Coward]

plus you'd get all the songs on the disc, rather than some screwed up version of one or two of them.

Frivolous, frivolous, FRIVOLOUS!!!!!!

[StarWreck]

Judge Trager rejected the RIAA's claim that the defense was frivolous

The prosecution for a frivolous lawsuit is calling the defense frivolous? Isn't that like the pot calling the sheet of white paper black?

Re:Frivolous, frivolous, FRIVOLOUS!!!!!!

[ifitzgerald]

In civil suits there is no prosecution. The term for the party that initiated the suit is "plaintiff."

Re:Frivolous, frivolous, FRIVOLOUS!!!!!!

[Vengie]

quiet you! soon you'll be talking about the distinction between law and equity, citing neri v retail marine, and joining owen fiss in having an apoplectic fit over the RIAA's tactics. pfft. real legal knowledge on slashdot. ;-)

-b

Re:Frivolous, frivolous, FRIVOLOUS!!!!!!

[WilliamSChips]

But that doesn't make it any less like a pot calling a sheet of white paper black.

Re:Frivolous, frivolous, FRIVOLOUS!!!!!!

[danpsmith]

The prosecution for a frivolous lawsuit is calling the defense frivolous? Isn't that like the pot calling the sheet of white paper black?

Whose pots are still black? I know mine are silver or gray in color...as are most...so is the kettle. WTF is with this analogy.

Re:Frivolous, frivolous, FRIVOLOUS!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be completely bizarre in nature, but by gosh it's exciting, eh? :P

RIAA is too Greedy.

[Slagged]

I think this just shows that the RIAA's policy of running thousands of cases at a time is causing them to be sloppy. I give this tactic about another year. After that, there will be enough case law to make prosecuting these cases unprofitable for RIAA.

Yes, but she dowloaded one copy?

[TapeCutter]

I could have some sympathy for your argument if she were uploading but how is 1000X the damages reasonable for a download?

RTFA Disclaimer: I only read the summary, it states: "wholesale price of the downloads"

Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth

[Dr_Barnowl]

Upstream bandwidth (kBit/s) 128 (this is my own bandwidth rate)
Time to upload 1 MB (s) 64
Average song size (MB) 5
Time to upload average song (s) 320

Wholesale cost of song (USD) $0.70
Sue-value per song (USD) $750.00
Number of instances req'd 1071.43

Upload time per song sue-value (s) 342857.14

Or just shy of 4 days (3.97).
So 2 days for 256 kBit/s
And 1 day for 512 kBit/s


So basically, a value of $750 means that, if the sole means of distribution is via the network, for each and every count, the plaintiff should have to prove that the defendants computer was on, connected, and maxing it's upstream bandwidth for a period not less than 1 full day, multiplied by their upstream bandwidth divided by 512. I'd expect that also to be tempered by some reasonable fraction accounting for computer downtime, other uses of bandwidth, network overheads, etc.

Has anyone ploughed through the legal documents and found out how many counts they are sueing for, and what Ms Lindors' upstream is? Because if she has 128kBit/s and it's 1,000 counts, they should have to prove that she had her computer uploading music for 11 years straight without a break. (To quote Billy-Bob Thornton in Armageddon, "Most of us don't even have cars that old."). I doubt that much upstream was even available in most places 11 years ago....

Re:Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth

[Red Flayer]

Except, of course, that if one uploads to a third-party site, then the person doing the uploading doesn't need to use the bandwidth. They've provided the copy to potentially limitless downloaders, while only maxing out the upload for 320 secs. This is, after all, the whole point of uploading the file -- so you don't get bogged down in p2p data transfer but still manage to make the content available.

Re:Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth

[gtmaneki]

They may be trying to take into account other people receiving it and spreading it around further. Kind of like a virus. Or an obnoxious chain email.

Re:Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth

[superm401]

It's based on statutory damages, not a specific number of infringements. See http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#504

Re:Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth

[laffer1]

Yes, but wouldn't they need to sue each person uploading. Once she distributes it to x people, she is no longer in control with what they do with it. How does that work legally? A similar example would be if i burned a track i bought on iTunes onto a cd, gave it to my mom and then she sold it to everyone she ran into at work. Who would be liable? Do I have to pay for all of those incidents or is my mother liable? (no i don't distribute to my mom, i give her gift cards to buy her own damn music which I hate anyway)

Re:Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth

[Red Flayer]

Well, why not apply the ratio of downloads to uploads to the legal purchase price?

In your example, whoever does the distribution is liable... you'd be liable to passing it on to your mum, she'd be liable for passing it on to the others.

Re:Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth

[SpectreJCB]

Not sure if someone brought this up yet (and I'm Canadian, so my US law knowledge is sketchy at best). How do these lawsuits even work in the first place? When you share a file in a P2P application such as Limewire, while you are sharing the file, if someone attempts to transfer the file from you, does it not only send parts of the file if others are sharing it as well? Ie/ You have 5 sources available for the file, so the file is split in 5 parts, each part being sent from a source. The file is only working and complete if you have 5/5 parts. If you don't receive all 5 parts, then you basically have a useless file that doesn't contain anything of substance. How can you be sued for distributing only seemingly random parts of a file?

Re:Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth

[geoffspear]

You're think of BitTorrent, not Limewire (unless Limewire became a BT client in the 5 years since I actually looked at it).

In any event, the law doesn't care if you're technically only sending people "useless" bunches of data if it's entirely obvious that your intent was to provide a copyrighted song and the person downloading had the clear intent to receive one. Try getting 5 people to each give a nonlethal dose of a drug to someone at the same time as you, with the cumulative effect of a fatal overdose, and come back after you're acquitted of murder.

$750 sounds right

[qwertphobia]

Well, I'm not a supporter of the RIAA's tactics, so don't take this the wrong way. However I get involved on the receiving end of these complaints at times.

In every situation I have been involved, the complaint from the RIAA or MPAA has been about providing content to others, making it available for others to download from them, actually distributing the content.

The complaints are not about downloading material.

Suppose some individual only shared a file four times. And each of those four downloaders shared it four times. And so on. After only four levels of sharing, there's 256 incidences which could not have happened (theoretically) if that first individual had not shared that content.

Furthermore. we're probably not talking about iTunes-like DRM-enabled content. It's probably a bare, unencumbered media file, which is arguably more valuable than a DRM-restricted file.

Re:$750 sounds right

[LordEd]

After only four levels of sharing, there's 256 incidences which could not have happened

So are you saying that after the RIAA gets its money from one person, it won't go sue those other people?

Re:$750 sounds right

[qwertphobia]

Suppose some individual only shared a file four times. And each of those four downloaders shared it four times. And so on. After only four levels of sharing, there's 256 incidences

To correct myself, it would be 340 incidents of copyright violation. Each level adds n^4 incidents, so the total number of incidents involved would be 4^4 + 4^3 + 4^2 + 4^1 + 4^0 for a total of 341, assuming the first individual didn't have the right to copy the content to his/her computer in the first place.

Re:$750 sounds right

[qwertphobia]

Sure, because the RIAA may never have a way to recover from those other people. This happens all the time in other sorts of situations, like loss of potential income due to injury, etc.

Re:$750 sounds right

[Elminst]

Suppose some individual only shared a file four times. And each of those four downloaders shared it four times. And so on. After only four levels of sharing, there's 256 incidences which could not have happened (theoretically) if that first individual had not shared that content.

The problem with this statement is that the law does not work in supposition. The Law depends on FACTS (as defined legally, look it up). I present my facts. You argue my facts and present your own facts. I argue your facts. Rinse, repeat.

So if the RIAA wants to prove damages this high, they have to PROVE that the defendant distributed the song over 1000 times. And if (hopefully when) they are asked to do this, then we'll see their cases stop. The only download they can PROVE is the one they made themselves to confirm that the defendant actually had the file!!

You can't prove how many times the song was downloaded, thus the 750 figure is inordinately high. And when the penalty per song falls to the single digit dollar range, their lawsuits become UN-profitable. No profit, no reason to sue.

Re:$750 sounds right

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like the RIAA is attempting to make money by forcing themself to the top of a pyramid scheme. Multi-Level-Litigation!

Re:$750 sounds right

[Dr_Barnowl]

But you're trying to make one person pay for the crimes of a geometric progression of other people. This is analagous to the Roman Catholic concept of "Original Sin".

While the person has responsibility for what they personally allow to be uploaded from their machine, you cannot hold her responsible for what other people do with that data after they receive it. That is their responsibility, and if the RIAA want recompense for those activities, it is that geometric progression of people that they should chase.

Re:$750 sounds right

[Coleco]

Err.. Isn't their such a thing as burden of proof? Otherwise the damage claim is based on what someone may have done, and what others may have done who have their own free will.

Re:$750 sounds right

[qigong]

That argument doesn't hold water for me.

Suppose Joe is sharing a song he downloaded. It gets downloaded four times, as you suggest. One of the people who downloads it is Mary.

Joe gets sued by the RIAA and they compute damages based on their guess on how deep the tree is below Joe.
Mary gets sued by the RIAA and... wait a minute... now the RIAA is double-dipping on the damages for all of the people below Mary!

Re:$750 sounds right

[styryx]

Ah, so it's a pyramid scheme. Whoever made the song available first is therefore, by that argument, responsible for ALL of the piracy that occurs subsequently.

Let's now assume that someone, say 3 steps down the hierarchy (person B) also get's sued as well as the person at the top (person A). However, the damages for all the people below person A, including B, have been paid by A. So for everyone that B also pays for, the RIAA gets twice the money it is entitled to.

If you want to sue people for indirectly influencing piracy by making the song available, shouldn't ALL the record companies be held the most liable. Obviously they own the copyright, but if they aren't willing to admit that indirectly, by their own argument, they cause piracy completely, surely they could be held as hypocrites.

They key word is indirectly! Surely, the 'pyramid' argument can't be used?

Re:$750 sounds right

[Anomolous Cowturd]

Ah yes. The argument that you ought to be punished for what somebody else did. Er... maybe did. Sounds pretty fair to me.

Re:$750 sounds right

[anandsr]

Please learn some mathematics, it is useful. ^ (carat) is the sign for exponentiation, in Pascal or maybe some other languages as well. It does look more intuitive than ** of Fortran. And anyway it should have been obvious that it is exponentiation he is talking of 4*4*4*4 is 4^4. And you must add people at each level so you get what the GP was saying 4^4+4^3+4^2+4^1+4^0. BTW anything finite to the power of 0 is 1.

Re:$750 sounds right

[swillden]

Suppose some individual only shared a file four times. And each of those four downloaders shared it four times. And so on. After only four levels of sharing, there's 256 incidences which could not have happened (theoretically) if that first individual had not shared that content.

I disagree completely. You can't hold the first sharer liable for the actions of the downloaders; they're responsible for their own actions and should be sued individually for those actions.

The first sharer should be liable only for his or her own actions, which in your example means sharing the song four times, for total damages of around $2.80. IIRC, willful infringement is subject to triple damages, so the RIAA should be awarded $8.40. Note that in the case of sharers who serve up multiple copies of each of thousands of songs, the legitimate damages would be significant.

I have no problem with the RIAA suing people who infringe their copyrights, but they approach it as a purely civil matter, and in civil matters awards are limited by actual damage. I understand that the record labels have a problem that aggregate file sharing may be costing them a great deal, but that still doesn't justify allowing them to pick out a few people and slam them for many hundreds of times the amount of damage that individual did, in the hope that making an "example" will deter others.

Criminal law is all about deterrence. Civil law is primarily about compensation, with some small multiples being applied to awards in order to help keep the number of court cases down.

If the labels want, current copyright law does have some criminal provisions, which will allow them to slam the sharer very hard ($250K per infringement, IIRC, plus jail time). Of course, they'll have to accept the higher standard of proof ("beyond a reasonable doubt"), and they'll first have to prove that the damages exceed a statutory amount ($1500, IIRC), and those damages calculations had better be provably correct.

Re:$750 sounds right

[anandsr]

Or at least they have to prove that he was the originator of all the copies available on the network. Anybody should not be given this high penalty. Actually the high penality is the reason why RIAA is able to conduct this racket.

Re:$750 sounds right

[Macthorpe]

Because he knows math better than you do?

Original user: 1 = 4^0 = 1
1st level: 1*4 = 4^1 = 4
2nd level: 4*4 = 4^2 = 16
3rd level: 16*4 = 4^3 = 64
4th level: 64*4 = 4^4 = 256

Same damn thing as you said, he just put it in a different order, adding 4th level to 3rd to 2nd to 1st to original user.

Re:$750 sounds right

[Overzeetop]

The retail value of UN-DRM's files for about the same as DRM'd files ($12-20 Amazon prices for a CD containing 11-16 tracks), so you could say that an unencrypted, uncompressed file is also close to $0.70 at the wholesale level.

And, of course, you should only be liable for the songs you distribute, not those which are subsequently distributed. Those damages would need to be litigated against the other distributers.

Re:$750 sounds right

[arootbeer]

Now, consider the fact that the RIAA is known to prosecute those on whose computers it has found songs that an agency retained by the RIAA has tagged with some sort of digital signature, and then shared.

Is the RIAA now responsible for all of the downloading of that song that has taken place?

Re:$750 sounds right

[Dachannien]

After only four levels of sharing, there's N incidences which could not have happened (theoretically) if that first individual had not shared that content.

If that's the theory, then legally, the participants are all jointly and severally liable for the damages. That means that (a) the plaintiff can choose to sue any (one or more) of the participants for the full amount of the damages; (b) the people who get sued can then sue the other participants so that the damages are eventually split N ways; and (c) the plaintiff cannot claim further damages from any of the participants, because the plaintiff has already been compensated.

So, for each suit the ??AA wins, there's some large number of other file sharers whose liability has already been resolved.

Re:$750 sounds right

[qwertphobia]

It's a civil case. They don't need to prove anything.

Re:$750 sounds right

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

What you're saying is simply not so. Every complaint alleges "downloading, distributing and/or making available for distribution".

Re:$750 sounds right

[qwertphobia]

My point is that it could be argued before the court. You know how this stuff goes when neither the judge nor the jury understands what's happening here.

In some people's minds (like the **AA) if the defendant hadn't made that content available, that content might not have been available, and therefore the defendant enabled the loss of income to happen. It is possible (under what conditions I don't know, since IANAL) under civil law, to sue for future damages and for consequential or third party damages.

Re:$750 sounds right

[LordEd]

I don't see how that compares. With the RIAA setup, person A is sued. Person A shared a file with person b who shared with C who shared with D.

A --> B --> C --> D

Persons B, C, and D are still open to lawsuits. Person A has no control of the actions of B, C, or D.

With an injury claim, A's action directly causes damage to B. If the loss of B causes side effects to occur to C or D, then there might be reason for a claim. However, the root cause is the actions of A. With a file transfer, once A transfers the file to B, it is up to B to do something with it (share, remove, etc). B now has control.

Re:$750 sounds right

[Elminst]

Oh yes they most certainly do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof
In civil law cases, the "burden of proof" requires the plaintiff to convince the trier of fact (whether judge or jury) of the plaintiff's entitlement to the relief sought. This means that the plaintiff must prove each element of the claim, or cause of action, in order to recover.

http://www.forensicmed.co.uk/burden_of_proof.htm
Legal Burden of Proof - Civil Cases

The general rule is that "he who asserts must prove", i.e., the burden rests with the plaintiff (the party bringing the action).

The exceptions to this rule include an allegation of frustration where a plaintiff sues for breach of contract. In this situation a defendant would have the legal burden of proving that he was unable to complete the contract due to the fault of another person, or another act, e.g., fire etc.

http://www.ogc.umich.edu/faq_judicial.htm
The plaintiff goes first because the plaintiff has the burden of proof. The burden of proof in a civil case is a preponderance of the evidence, often characterized by attorneys as merely 51%.

And finally;
http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/democracy/u.s._legal_s ystem/civil_cases.html
The burden of proof in a civil case is lower than in a criminal trial. Instead of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" -- the criminal standard -- jurors or judges render a verdict on the basis of the "preponderance of the evidence."

Still, the burden of proof rests with the plaintiff. Although most civil defendants present evidence, a defendant has the option of simply arguing that the plaintiff did not meet the required burden of proof. (emphasis mine)
------------------

So the defendant in this case is essentially saying, "Prove this number is valid." instead of rolling over and paying the RIAA their extortion money. It is the RIAA's responsibility to PROVE their case is worth it.

What was that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... I did get laid to "Stairway to Heaven" in high school, but I'm not sure it was worth $750 -- sex included.

Did somebody say "premature ejaculation"?

Thanks, but...

[Just Some Guy]

I certainly appreciate the legal insight, but did you actually read the interview? I'm too lazy right now to search that article for posts from you, but I certainly read it.

It was awful.

They may be wonderful, open people in person. They might also be world-renowned legal experts for all I know. However, the answers given in that interview were terse, dismissive, and generally not well targeted to their intended audience. I thank them for their contributions to our knowledge pool, but I don't think you can honestly read the article you cited and use it as an example of an ungrateful readership.

Re:Thanks, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly think you can. In case you're not aware, the law is a very complex maze that very much depends on the exact specifics of each case. Throughout that interview, people were bitching at him because he didn't give them a yes/no answer to complex questions that needed more information--a lot more information. If you can't understand that, then you can be lumped into the group of ungrateful assholes, as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Thanks, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

"My computer's doing funny things. If you can't tell me exactly what's wrong with it based on that information then you have no business working with computers."

This is exactly the attitude that many readers took in the interview.

Re:Thanks, but...

[Builder]

I fully agree. At one point he made statements to the effect that the RIAA was an international body (despite one of the As standing for America) and that there were only 4 companies involved.

When I pointed out that it was an American organisation made up of hundreds of companies his response was along the lines of 'boy are you technical'.

Yes, I can be a little technical, and I'd hope that a lawyer discussing his field of expertise would also choose to be technical in his discussions.

Re:Thanks, but...

[ejtttje]

Right, and my reply, particularly if I was doing an *interview*, would not be just "i don't know, need more information." and that's it.

It was supposed to be an interview -- you discuss the question, give some of the main issues involved. It's not an yes/no answer that's needed, it's some kind of insight or information about what's involved in answering the question, to introduce people and enable them to follow up on their own. Even if it *were* just yes/no, you should still give a bit of background/analysis because thousands of people are going to read it.

So to continue your analogy, here's how I would answer your question:
"Doing funny things" isn't very descriptive. If you're getting popup windows when you're not doing anything, it's probably because you accidentally installed some adware [provide links for removal]. If the mouse is moving on it's own, someone is probably pranking you or remote controlling your computer [disconnect internet, etc.] If files are being corrupted, you hard disk may be going bad [how to test]. etc. Or if it's something else you'll need to provide more information, but those are commong problems.

Re:Thanks, but...

[Just Some Guy]

I certainly think you can. In case you're not aware, the law is a very complex maze that very much depends on the exact specifics of each case.

That's exactly the kind on condescension that readers were most complaining about. Yes, we're familiar with complex systems - we deal with them every day. We were hoping to get insight about a system that we're generally unfamiliar with, even if we get the basic gist of it.

Throughout that interview, people were bitching at him because he didn't give them a yes/no answer to complex questions that needed more information--a lot more information.

Look at this answer:

"It's hard to generalize about that, because each person's facts, each person's personality, each person's intellect and ability, are different. Generally, there is no real good way to handle these cases, so anything anyone does is a mistake, in that sense. But in another sense, there are no mistakes, because there is no right answer."

Well, no kidding. That was utterly and positively content-free. It imparted no information. If they couldn't or didn't want to answer the question, then they should have just said so.

Which leads back to my original position: that interview was awful. It's not fair to say that Slashdotters were overly ungrateful for their input in general, but you can't reasonably hold it against us for not swooning over the wonderful, in-depth answers they didn't provide.

Re:Thanks, but...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

3 of the 4 members of its litigation cartel are foreign corporations. Do you work for one of them? Or do you work for their attorneys?

Re:Thanks, but...

[Builder]

No... I work for a bank, but thanks for asking.

Try not to accuse everyone who picks on you of being an RIAA stooge, it just makes you look silly.

Re:Thanks, but...

[rohan972]

That's exactly the kind on condescension that readers were most complaining about. Yes, we're familiar with complex systems - we deal with them every day. We were hoping to get insight about a system that we're generally unfamiliar with, even if we get the basic gist of it.

Have you ever had to deal with an end users question that didn't make sense because of their lack of understanding? I've certainly heard questions that effectively had no sensible answer without giving the asker some education first.

Also, in this case (lawyers), they may have to ensure that they can't be sued for what they say. Some of the questions, if answered directly, could definitly be construed as legal advice, or possibly even breach of client confidentality.

Re:Thanks, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute. First you say:
However, the answers given in that interview were terse, dismissive,...

And then you say:
If they couldn't or didn't want to answer the question, then they should have just said so.

But then I suppose you would have accused him of being terse and dismissive. Oops...you already did that anyway.

Re:Thanks, but...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Yes I confess to being terse and dismissive to two of the questions in the interview, which I believe were the work of RIAA trolls, and to several comments posted in the ensuing discussion which were disrespectful and troll-like. I don't think I'm a "wonderful, open" person in person. I'm the same kind of person you saw in the interview. I have zero tolerance for phonies or for liars, and I have very little patience with people who ask questions but only accept answers that fit their preconceived ideas of what they would like to hear.

I think it is more important for a lawyer to be clear than to be cuddly, at least if he's more concerned with his clients than himself.

As to targeting my target audience... well I don't play games like that. I didn't have a target audience. I don't talk up to people or down to people. I assume the people I'm talking to are no better or worse, and no smarter or dumber, than I am. I just try to be straight with people.

People who don't like that wouldn't like me, and wouldn't want me as their lawyer. That's ok. I am what I am.

Re:Thanks, but...

[squiggleslash]

Do you work for the RIAA? I'm just trying to work out why someone would be so intent on discrediting those trying to reform copyright by painting them all as apparently paranoid, given the above comment and many of the statements you've made in the past about the other side, supporters of freeloading.

Re:Thanks, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Question: (From Anonymous Coward): My computer keeps shutting down for no apparent reason. A box appears on screen warning me it'll shut down in thirty seconds, and there's no way to cancel it. Do you have any idea of what the problem is?

NewYorkCountryTechie: Thanks and that's a great question! I think what a lot of people forget is the Microsoft/Dell/HP alliance, which basicly controls pretty much 100% of what goes on on modern computers. Nobody has any idea of how powerful these groups are, in my experience. What they can is change pretty much anything and you have no way of doing anything about it. If they want to reboot your computer, and I assure you, Michael Dell and Bill Gates and whoever it is who runs HP are people who really want to do nothing else but reboot your computer every day because it forces you to buy more computers and demonstrates their total control over you, I mean, it's about power and money, and they want both, these people are like 100% greed, and plan to install DRM and X-BOx 360s on everyone's computers, then, er, what was I saying?

--- Comments ----

From Ordinary Slashdotter:

WTF? Look, if you don't know the answer, you could have just said that.

• From TEH RIAA SUXORS!:

  Dude, stop complaining. This isn't a simple question with a simple answer, it could be any number of reasons why his computer was crashing. NewYorkCountryTechie was merely highlighting how hard it is to come up with a specific answer.

From Ordinary User:

Erm, isn't it more likely to be that virus, what's the one, Blaster or something?

From NewYorkCountryTechie:

That's it, you're foed!

...continued ad-nausium...

Re:Thanks, but...

[yakovlev]

I read the article, and for the most part I think you gave reasonable answers.

For the allofmp3 question, you at least appeared not to be farmiliar with what the poster was asking, which is fair.

I think the question that really made people mad was the multi-part question, the Gray Area one. If I read it correctly, your fundamental point was: You have no established legal right to make .mp3 copies of CDs that you have legally purchased, even for personal use. I think that simple sentence was the only one that really needed to be said. I think the rest of your answer was based on that, but distracted from this fundamental point. I'm fairly confident that I knew what you were saying, and even I was a little confused. I could definitely see someone less willing to accept that uncomfortable truth having a harder time understanding that answer.

Just to clarify, did I understand you correctly on that point?

Thanks!

Re:Thanks, but...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

For people who might not be aware of why you are asking this, you are going back to the September 14th interview, and the ensuing comments. There were about 10 parts of the multi-part question. I don't think they were serious questions, and they were all off topic. I believe the user who posed the question, Four_One_Nine, was an RIAA troll, as that question was his first and last Slashdot post. If you have any questions about p2p file sharing litigation, I will be pleased to answer them to the best of my ability. Otherwise, I am not going to take public positions on unsettled questions of law. That is precisely what the RIAA would love for me to do.

No wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you can't understand that, then you can be lumped into the group of ungrateful assholes, as far as I'm concerned."

No wonder our representatives are so confrontational and thoughtless. The people they're represent are the same way.

I too thought their comments were not terribly helpful, but that doesn't make them bad people. You, on the other hand, see things as either completely supporting that these guys are wonderful or if you don't, then you're an asshole.

I'm guessing you don't get along with about 1/2 the people you meet.

Re:No wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

I too thought their comments were not terribly helpful, but that doesn't make them bad people.

I never said that these lawyers were bad people. In fact, I think my comment fairly clearly shows that I appreciate them taking the time to try to answer our questions, even if they are not able to due to lack of information.

You, on the other hand, see things as either completely supporting that these guys are wonderful or if you don't, then you're an asshole.

No, I don't view it as either completely supporting these guys or not. I appreciate their time and understand that there aren't simple answers to complex questions. Many other readers seem to understand that, too. However, I view the people who were bitching about the lawyers not giving yes/no answers to their complex questions (and more importantly, who fail to see the situation as such) as assholes. And there were quite a few of them.

It establishes a price point

[rsilvergun]

once you get people used to paying at a certain price point, it's hard to raise it w/o adding significant new value. Take .99 cent hamburgers. Prices rose to the point were they weren't profitable, even if you got people to buy frys and soda with them. But it took years for the larger burgers to come off the 99cent menu, and every major Fast Food joint is still obligated to have a value menu to compete. .99cents/track is overcharging now. It probably won't be 10 years from now. Certainly not 20 or 30 years from now.

Re:It establishes a price point

[emil10001]

I think that the issue is that the system is broken right now, and the RIAA isn't willing to deal with it in a realistic manner. If they dropped the prices to something reasonable, and then raised them with inflation, just like many, many other products sold today, I think they'd be fine. Instead, they overcharge today, and tomorrow, they will either still be overcharging, or they will be out of business. My guess is the latter.

Re:It establishes a price point

[Dunbal]

once you get people used to paying at a certain price point, it's hard to raise it w/o adding significant new value.

      I dunno, here in the medical profession we raise it all the time...

Ad infinitum...

[fiendy]

Suppose some individual only shared a file four times. And each of those four downloaders shared it four times. And so on. After only four levels of sharing, there's 256 incidences which could not have happened (theoretically) if that first individual had not shared that content.

Ad infinitum, or bounded by what? The total population of the world? The % of the population estimated to have computers? That have computers connected to the internet?

I mean, you can't argue for second generation damages, you should have to go after the next person who shared the song after you, its their infringement, no longer yours.

Ideally, if you're going to have such ridiculous copyright damages, the onus should be on the plaintiff to prove a specific number of infringements (uploads) multiplied by a reasonable damage claim (which should likely be nowhere near $750).

Re:It's so simple...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Stop downloading music that you aren't paying for, and the RIAA will go away."

Well the RIAA has been around before you could download files (did you know they developed the so-called RIAA Equilization Curve?), so their existence isn't dependent on file sharing.

If you mean, the RIAA will stop becoming involved in lawsuits and restricting rights of people if downloading magically stopped, I can't prove or disprove this, but I offer the following thoughts:

1) At this point, it's impossible to stop downloading. It's like saying "if all people were fair and true, the police would not be needed".

2) Times change. Nobody will be satisfied with the model of buying "records" at the "record store" any more. And electronic downloads are now coming with restrictions that didn't exist just a few years ago. More to the point, the RIAA as a political entity has been actively involved in altering the political landscape to restrict users fair use rights

3) That doesn't make it correct that people download songs. However, when a person downloads a song, morally, it's the equivalent of parking at a meter and not putting in $.50 to pay for the meter. This generally results in a ticket and a fine of a few dollars. We're not in the habit of bankrupting people who park illegally, and we shouldn't be in the business of doing the same over a CD.

And the truth of the matter is that I don't mind Sony and other record companies putting rootkits, and all kinds of restrictions on their music. I just don't understand why the government is doing it's best to prop up a revenue model for these guys at the expense of individuals.

Slight problem with that argument...

[Azureflare]

If the defendant never downloaded this hypothetical song, it would make no difference on the number of times it was downloaded by everyone else. If a song is up on the network, it's going to be downloaded regardless of one individual's efforts. It doesn't make sense to blame one person for an entire file sharing network.

Not going to fly on appeal

[russotto]

A substantive due process claim in a conservative court system, when the defendant isn't sympathetic and the plaintiff is viewed (by the legal system if no one else) as good guys who support the American economy? Forget about it.

for free ?

[Anonymous Coward]

But if you're merely a leech, what then?

What they could do is put it down as "70c per song in the shared drive they don't have a physical valid media for". That still means either

a) she has 1070 copies of each song
b) it isn't $750 per song, but it may be $750 for 1070 songs

Unless a reciprocal shared song is worth 1070 times more than one you share...

Also, note that if it is the reciprocal, then actually the RIAA gets $1.40 per song: 70c off the copy the current defendant has because that is the copy they got for sharing other files, and 70c off the putative other defendant who they could sue and get that money off.

2x the cost reibmursement seems more than fair. Any reduction in that would be because the RIAA aren't persuing sharers assiduously enough and is their fault and not the defendant.

Consider the liability

[Acy James Stapp]

He is only liable for the four people to whom he uploaded the song. All those other uploads are attributable to different people, each only liable for four uploads. The RIAA will have to go after all of those themselves.

Follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that these people can hang tough with this argument. If so, I conjecture that if they last long enough, then the RIAA will PAY THEM to settle! Sounds far fetched? My hypothesis: This case will force the RIAA companies to present a set of accounting books to the court in order to justify their claims. The books, at the discretion of the judge, would become public. That set of books can be examined and compared to other sets of books by investment people, shareholder rights activists, customers of the RIAA, artists and so on. I believe that the comparisons will demonstrate major discrepancies between the court books and the financial statements "officially" submitted to shareholders, artists and other interested parties i.e. that the books presented to the court and others are "cooked" (opinion here). Furthermore, since records outside the RIAA companies go back decades, the potential for a pattern of RIAA corporate "cooking the books" could be established (opinion here). The potential losses to the RIAA companies from the litigation of "cooked" books are immense. Therefore, if my hypothesis is correct, the RIAA will be forced to do anything to end this case before having to submit accounting data, even pay the defendant.
Personally, I'd prefer the books be made public. Understand, I don't believe that there is a long term multi-company conspiracy to "cook the books" across the industry. I believe that there have been a lot of very greedy RIAA company executives that have "cooked the books" for their short term gain. Thus there is no cohesive organization to the financial manipulations, ergo, it is a financial house of cards. Once the books are opened up (even a crack), a lot of very interesting things will be found and then happen.

Just a query

[simm1701]

Without having to wade through several tonnes of legalese... Are they being sued for X number of downloads or for X number of uploads? (the former being easy to prove, the latter a lot harder to prove or even quantify) Or is it a general suit of you've downloaded this and we think you've also uploaded it - so $750 per song to cover both....?

in any case...

[ejtttje]

but regardless, thanks to NewYorkCountryLawyer for all the information and news they have provided -- maybe you didn't really want to do the interview or were short on time, that's understandable. Who are we to complain, it's not like we're paying you for it, yet generally you obviously do put time and effort into informing people, and I applaud you for it.

Re:in any case...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I did want to do it, and I put in lots and lots of time on it. I just have no patience for phonies, trolls, and people who only want to hear what they want to hear.

Acutal court transcripts

[d0sb00t]

RIAA: What happen ?
RIAA Lawyer # 1: Somebody set up us the frivolous lawsuit.
RIAA Lawyer # 2: We get signal.
RIAA: What !
RIAA Lawyer # 2: Main screen turn on.
RIAA: It's you !!
Judge: How are you gentlemen !!
Judge: All your "relevant documents" are belong to us.
Judge: You are on the way to destruction.
RIAA: What you say !!
Judge: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Judge: Ha Ha Ha Ha ....
RIAA Lawyer # 1: RIAA !! *
RIAA: Take off every 'attorneys' !!
RIAA: You know what you doing.
RIAA: Move 'attorneys'.
RIAA: For great injustice.

Proper Damages - Doing It Right

[chiaria]

I think the Judge is right, and a constitutonal challege should be allowed. IANAL (who is?) but take this example: In Canadian tax law, if you are caught cheating on your taxes, the typical penalty is equal to the amount of oustanding taxes. (I.e. if you cheated the government of $5,000 in taxes, you pay that $5K taxes, PLUS a $5K fine.) Most other such damages are similar - 1 or 2 times the actual cost tacked on as a penalty. If you are speeding - a potentially lethal act, far more egregious than copying a song - the fine for the act is $150, say. Some proportion is in order.

So what are the real damages? If we assume there are 50M people in N. America who download songs (1/6th population) and typically they download 50 songs a year (that seems a little high as an average) and the songs in question, subject of the litigation, are about say 10% of the usual downloads since this is a hit-based business - then we come out with the typical song/trader total being 5. This indicates a damage estimate of about 50 songs * .10 * 70 cents = $3.50. But, let's say 90% are leeches - then the damages would be $35. I'm pulling numbers out of my hat, but you see where the argument can go.

It seems to me that public song offering/trading should be something like speeding or not wearing your seatbelt(where required). A simple fine, a quick ticket written once the appropriate proof is presented, and - ta da - you get a ticket for $50. High enough to discourage, low enough that it doesn't break the bank, but high enough to get the message across, low enough to make it not worth fighting unless you really want to make a point - don't download, don't jaywalk, don't litter (All offenses of the about same caliber of "badness").

A standard burden of proof should be set and required. With speed radar practices, it's pretty difficult to fight and win a speeding ticket against radar. (Not impossible, but you better have a good argument...) Very rarely do the police get away any more with the "in my estimation he was doing 70mph in a 60 zone,your honor..." The same should be required for a "downloading" fine. And, if the level of reliability of the evidence begins to slip below "satisfactory", the judges and lawyers can certainly let the RIAA know quickly through a lack of enforcement of the fines.

Re:Proper Damages - Doing It Right

[Sancho]

The point is to discourage breaking the law. It's a cost-benefit issue.

If I can pirate a song that costs $1, with a 1% chance of being caught and fined, and the fine for that song is $30, then on average, piracy wins. I can pirate 100 $1 songs, get caught once on average, and pay $30 for what was "worth" $100. It's a good deal, and that doesn't begin to consider legal costs of the copyright holder (which I guarantee are more than $30) or the liklihood of being sued (probably less than 1%).

Rootkits FTW! ..?

[LikeTheSearchEngine]

And the truth of the matter is that I don't mind Sony and other record companies putting rootkits, and all kinds of restrictions on their music.

Emphasis mine. That's like saying that you don't mind people downloading malware (viruses or just spyware) to your computer if you visit a site or open a link in your e-mail. The big deal was that Sony never told you it was installing a rootkit, didn't give you the option to uninstall it later, and if you found it (done by a Ph.D. in CS), you would wreck your OS by removing it (unless it was done by someone with a Ph.D. in CS).

Do you really think that's ok?

As far as other DRM, fine, its their product, but any song or CD you buy should be obligated to come with a full disclosure of exactly how you can use the music, and what it will do to your computer if you play it. If you buy a song, you should know whether it will only play on v1.08a7 of GreedyJukebox.

Why is one responsible for the actions of others?

[SuperKendall]

Let's say someone sells a gun illegally, and that person they sold to shoots someone with it - who then hands it off to someone else.

By your logic the original gun owner is responsible for every murder. That is not right, a person is responsible for the actions they take and not the actions of those who receive what they distribute. The RIAA needs to find those other downloaders and sue them in turn.

This also fits with a reasonable model of punishment, where only mass piracy is really punished and people sharing a song or two face little in the way of fees.

I think another good tactic to take with the RIAA might be to store logs indicating how many total times a song had ben downloaded (share ratio for bittorrents I guess). Then you'd have hard proof that only ten people had acquired a song from you, and could argue you should pay only the wholesale price, minus perhaps a small fee for providing the bandwidth used to transmit the file for them.

So we can download with impunity?

[guidryp]

"The complaints are not about downloading material."

So we can download without worries. It is just uploaders that have to worry. Cool. :-)

Even on the uploading side. Why is uploader responsible for what other uploaders do.Do we have the death penalty or life in prison for speeding. I mean some other speeder kill people occasionally, so lets charge all speeders with murder?

And your argument about the DRM version vs the non DRM version difference in price. We have non DRM CDs and the cost per track is probably in the same ballpark, not to mention full quality and not some tinny 128k mp3.

I have alway wondered why no one challenged the reasonableness of the fine before.

Re:So we can download with impunity?

[qwertphobia]

Well, you've taken me out of context. I was talking about all the situations with which I've been involved. It's possible there is litigation involving downloading material, as someone who downloads is committing a copyright violation just like the person who is making the material available for download.

And no, I did not give you permission, I don't have that authority.

New Measure of Damages

[KallosEsq]

Great job on this one. A new measure of damages will change the legal landscape on copyright claims. If you pull this one off, Eastern District (Brooklyn & LI) will be safe. They won't appeal, better off loosing a District than loosing several states. If they do, lets hope it holds up in the 2nd Circuit, and if not, NYCountryLawyer can look forward to admission to the Bar of the Supreme Court. Good Luck.

Forgive me if i'm wrong but...

[ubercam]

doesn't the RIAA actually prosecute people based on UPLOADING songs and not downloading them? IIRC they catch you by observing you uploading songs to others (ie. you have sharing enabled) and download songs from you as evidence, then subpoena the ISP logs, etc, etc. Then that leads to the question: If you disabled sharing, wouldn't that protect you from their lawyers? I think it'd be pretty tough for them to pretend to be a regular user sharing lots of songs on, say, Limewire, offering them freely for download, then subpoenaing the people who download them... actually that's entrapment, isn't it? I'm glad the judge in this case isn't a pushover. Americans deserve a better justice system than that. Cam

Re:Forgive me if i'm wrong but...

[Atheose]

Entrapment is only if the law-enforcer or plaintiff initiates the actual 'transaction'. When police do sting-operations for drugs or prostitution, they have to let the druggie or perv actually ask them for the weed or sex.

It would only be entrapment if the RIAA initiated the upload to you, or messaged you saying "Hey, wanna download some of this rap?" The RIAA may be standing on the street corner wearing fish-nets, a short skirt and clear heels, but it's only entrapment if THEY offer YOU the blowjob.

Ahh, picturing the RIAA as a street-hooker really puts a smile on my face.

Re:It's so simple...

[6ULDV8]

"And the truth of the matter is that I don't mind Sony and other record companies putting rootkits, and all kinds of restrictions on their music."

If they offered full disclosure prior to sale, I would side with you. My recourse as an informed consumer would be simple; don't buy from that producer of goods.

Sony/BMG hid their efforts at supplying a rootkit and that rootkit was later exploited. So Sony, aside from the crime of secretly installing software on my computer, created a method for others to compromise my data. DRM is similar in their lack of disclosure. I have several CD's that refuse to play on my preferred media device because of their method of control. Had I been made aware of that restriction prior to sale, I would have made the informed decision to save my money for a product that works.

It's their product and they can impose whatever restrictions they wish with the exception of the covert installation of software. And it is my right to refuse to purchase those goods.

Re:It's so simple...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay for the work of others as they ask, or do without you retards.

      Hi. I charge $5000 to read Anonymous Coward posts on slashdot. According to what you just said, you must pay me for this service, or you may opt out of future readings at your request. Since I have already read your comment, however, you owe me $5000.

Re:It's so simple...

[Anonymous Coward]

>3) That doesn't make it correct that people download songs. However, when a person downloads a song, morally, it's the equivalent of >parking at a meter and not putting in $.50 to pay for the meter. This generally results in a ticket and a fine of a few dollars. >We're not in the habit of bankrupting people who park illegally, and we shouldn't be in the business of doing the same over a CD.

How about someone who has already paid for the music in some other form, say on vinyl, and just wants a copy on his computer for convenience?

>And the truth of the matter is that I don't mind Sony and other record companies putting rootkits, and all kinds of restrictions on their music.

So you don't care if an honest person, who pays for all of the music he has on his machine, has his computer infected by spyware, invading his privacy and possibly damaging software on his system, simply because other people make illegal copies?

Get out of jail free ticket?

[future assassin]

Wouldn't this work? Get sued by the RIAA for some downloading. Find out what song you are accused of downloading. Go buy a used album that the song is on. Put the cd into your cd rom when they ask for your hard drive. All you have to say then is that its faster for you to download then rip the song off the cd.

Linear vs. Exponential Spread Responsibility

[gtmaneki]

You've hit on the point exactly. The RIAA is indirectly arguing (through its high damage calculations) that if you upload a file, then you are responsible for its exponential growth in sharing -- not just what you directly shared, but the shares made of the song by others in each succeding generation.

The argument made by the parent and great-grandparent is that you should only be responsible for only your local circle of sharing, and not the further sharing of the people you shared with in the first round. In other words, just the linear spread of the song.

Something tells me the law is probably unclear on where the cutoff on responsibility lies, since the exponential spread of perfect copies is a relatively new issue. And since the RIAA cannot or will not determine what generation in the exponential spread you are, everybody is treated as if they were the primary introducer for sharing the song and hit with the high damages. That's a great example of trying to have your cake and eat it too!

Re:Linear vs. Exponential Spread Responsibility

[pthisis]

The RIAA is indirectly arguing (through its high damage calculations) that if you upload a file, then you are responsible for its exponential growth in sharing

The RIAA is not doing any damage calculations. The law specifies $750 as the minimum statutory damage. See (c)(1) at http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate. cgi?WAISdocID=19805814327+0+0+0&WAISaction=retriev e

Re:Linear vs. Exponential Spread Responsibility

[gtmaneki]

Thanks for the info! That seems to indicate that the law is on the side of the exponential model. And if $750 is the minimum, well, it could be worse.

Followup: he foe'd me

[Just Some Guy]

I have a new freak on my list as of when I wrote the above. It's apparently pretty easy to make NewYorkCountryLawyer dislike you. I wonder if he comes to hate everyone who disagrees with him in court?

That's a shame. I thought I was being pretty civil.

Re:Followup: he foe'd me

[hkmwbz]

You attacked the guy for not answering complex questions to your satisfaction. As explained in his profile, he adds people like you to his foe list to keep track of people who do the kind of pathetic low blows that you just did.

Re:Followup: he foe'd me

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

No offense. If there was a way to do it privately, I would, but there isn't. I just need to keep track of people with whom I'm wasting my time.

Re:Followup: he foe'd me

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Thank you for coming to my aid, hkmwbz. I wish Slashdot offered a private "foe" list. I really don't want to offend people by labelling them as "foes", I just want to be able to remind myself which users I should (a) suspect of trolldom, or (b) just avoid.

Re:Followup: he foe'd me

[Anonymous Coward]

...to keep track of people who do the kind of pathetic low blows that you just did.

Don't you think that's a little bit of an over-exaggeration? And don't you think that foeing anyone who disagrees or expresses a negative opinion over one thing you've done is just a little bit of an over-reaction?

Re:Followup: he foe'd me

[Anonymous Coward]

There's something wrong about a lawyer who immediately flags anyone who expresses a disagreement with him "someone I can't reason with."

You must suck at settling out of court.

No 'poor box'

[Kadin2048]

We don't have those in the states. At least not that I'm aware of.

Although a judge can, I believe, force you to donate money to a charity (this is infrequent but I've heard of it happening a few times, usually when they want to eliminate someone's 'ill gotten' gains but can't really give it back to whoever it was taken from, generally stock-market stuff); that would be closest that I think you could get.

The U.S. legal system was designed so that, theoretically at least, the "system" wouldn't benefit in any way from the number of cases that it sees, or how they're adjudicated. This is so you don't get into the Spanish Inquisition-like situation where if the court "does not burn, they do not eat."

Fines, etc. that people are required to pay to the State, go back into the General Fund at the city/state/federal level, and the expenses of the courts, including court-appointed attorneys, are paid out of same by the legislature. Having the courts be self-funding in any way risks creating a juggernaut.

Re:No 'poor box'

[cyberworm]

Off topic, but similar to a situation close to me. In the state of indiana, if you file a bad faith claim against an insurance company, the state gets 50% of whatever judgement issued (assuming the insurance company loses and has to pay out).

Re:No 'poor box'

[TapeCutter]

A poor box is not a court cost, it goes to charity. Like everything else that involves money, there is the opportunity for corruption but usually the money involved is "small change".

Re:Why is one responsible for the actions of other

[qwertphobia]

If I serve you too many drinks, and you kill someone, I'm partly responsible. However these cases are civil cases, not legal cases.

This is somewhat interesting...

[HeavenlyBankAcct]

I could just be reading too much into things here, but $750 per song seems very interesting to me when you consider the fact that the standard mechanical royalty rate for recorded music is 7.5 cents per song (unless the song exceeds five minutes in length). If this figure of $750 is somehow based on this rate (a concept to which simple mathematics provdes some serious weight), I'd be very interested in how this would affect intellectual property issues in general. The idea behind mechanical licensing is that it's a compulsory license paid to a music publishing entity and is routinely provided to entities that want to re-record, embellish upon, or redistribute a piece of work. While I understand that this suit is geared more towards the distributors of music, and not the consumers, if the company is expected to raise their price points and we pay more for these songs (and, as an direct effect, contribute to this mechanical licensing fee), does that mean everybody who purchases a song now has a legal right to redistribute and/or modify it?

I know very little about copyright law and things of that nature outside of the machinations of the "music biz", so if there is anybody who could explain this in detail, I'd love to hear about it. Of course, this entire argument is conjecture based on the similarity between these two numbers -- However, it seems a little too coincidental to me. Thoughts?

Would this extend past copyright?

[vcalzone]

I don't know much about the law, but if she was able to use Due Process to claim that she can't be charged much more than what costs were actually incurred by the plaintiff, wouldn't that also put an end to lawsuits where someone slips on the floor somewhere and sues for several thousand dollars?

And if so, wouldn't the purists on the Supreme Court leap at the chance to sidestep tort reform laws to put a stop to that kind of thing?

Re:Would this extend past copyright?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Actually it's in the personal injury cases that the issue first came up. The US Supreme Court said that jury awards for punitive damages which greatly exceeded the actual damage were violative of due process. The 2nd Circuit then held that the same analysis could be applied to statutory damages, and the district court for the Northern District of California held that it could be applied to statutory damages under the Copyright Act in p2p file sharing cases.

Copy of a Copy?

[Plekto]

One thing that they also forget is that this isn't a case of Cd-audio being copied and shared, but MP3s. 128K MP3 isn't close to the original(640K). It's closer to taping something off of the radio, which is why even 70 cents a copy seems high to me. Doubly so considering all of the recent $19.95 a month all you want legal download sites that have popped up recently.

Re:Why is one responsible for the actions of other

[Atheose]

I agree with your point, but your analogy is a bit off. In most states if someone sells a gun illegally to an unregistered person, they would be held responsible for negligence; there are laws against that sort of thing (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/i s_13_22/ai_61645216).

Also, the parents of school shooters have been successfully sued in the past for allowing access to the guns used in the shootings. Illegally selling someone a gun is essentially the same thing. http://149.48.228.121/wgbh/pages/frontline//shows/ kinkel/blame/

But like I said I agree, the RIAA is pretty much bonkers.

You must not deal with law much

[db32]

Having been dealing with lawyers lately on a variety of subjects. You certainly seem to have never really dealt with a lawyer. Our complex systems and their complex systems don't even begin to compare. At least in our complex systems there are right and wrong answers. In law there really isnt. Law simply is not cut and dry. The laws are vaguely worded and complex and left to the interpretation of judges (whose opinions, methods, and backgrounds in relavent fields all vary greatly). The lawyers job is to take your money, take the law, and make a best attempt at convincing the judge that the law reads in your favor, in the mean time, the other lawyers job is to take the oppositions money and try to convince the judge that THEIR interpretation is the correct one. In the meantime there are a bunch of lawyers in the legislative end of government deliberately writing vague and confusing law to ensure lawyers remain employed and that law will never be cut and dry and comprehendable by the common man. That anytime anything comes up you will be forced to get a lawyer to talk to a judge, because anything else is courtroom suicide due to the complexity and vagueness of the law. If you have a lawyer telling you things are cut and dry and its a no brainer, then you probably have an inexperienced lawyer or a dishonest one (well they are all basically dishonest, but you want them to be honest with you at least). Do you honestly believe that if law was so cut and dry easy lawyers would get paid $200+/hr to do terribly little? Do you honestly believe that if it was so simple there would be so many stupid cases constantly clogging up our legal system?

In the meantime you should start charging a $2500 retainer before fixing anyones computer. See how far that goes.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[husker_man]

A possibly better way of looking at it (for the bulk of us) is to consider that the Law is an analog device, and what it does depends on a number of analog variables (i.e. the actual laws, judges, lawyers, juries, etc.). Most of us here are innately familiar with digital/binary systems, where the answer is either yes or now. Law is not analog at all (and yes, I know that I just made a binary judgment on what the law is).

Re:You must not deal with law much

[Just Some Guy]

The lawyers job is to take your money, take the law, and make a best attempt at convincing the judge that the law reads in your favor, in the mean time, the other lawyers job is to take the oppositions money and try to convince the judge that THEIR interpretation is the correct one.

While that's true, that's still not an excuse.

My job is extremely technical, and my boss, while intelligent and educated, would not understand the low-level details of many of the things I do. And yet, when he asks what I'm doing or why I'm doing it, he expects me to answer him in terms he can understand that reasonably accurately explain the situation.

My wife is a doctor. She has to explain complex medical issues to patients in terms that are mostly accurate, but that they can understand.

So why do lawyers get a free pass? Is arguing a traffic ticket really that much more complex than setting up a multi-homed VPN? Does arguing against the RIAA require much more subtlety and strategy than convincing a patient that they really, really need to have a surgery or they'll die?

There are many difficult, complex fields of employment. Professionals in every other field but law are routinely expected to summarize their work in layman terms. Isn't it reasonable to expect the same from a lawyer? After all, they hack language for a living.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[db32]

Lawyers write the laws to keep lawyers employed. There is a specific reason law is difficult. If law was simple lawyers and lawmakers wouldn't have much of a job now would they? Again technical stuff and even medical stuff isn't anywhere remotely the same as Law. Go deal with a custody case sometime. "The child's best interest" is the biggest factor, and there is NOTHING ANYWHERE that defines that in any meaningful tangible sense. So its just a bunch of nonsense getting tossed about with lawyers and judges getting paid. Go try to deal with a fraud case, its a mess of legal technicalities that can be interpreted dozens of ways. As a lawyer once told me "Interpreting court orders and the like is more of an art than a science" How the hell can that make sense in any other profession? Something like a contract our court order should be pretty cut and dry and not require "artful interpretation" to make it work right.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[aaarrrgggh]

Just because it is hard, vague, and subject to interpretation doesn't mean you can't offer a meaningful response.

I'm an engineer and get paid $200+/hr to help clients understand their problems. I am constantly given questions like "have we eliminated all risks?" or "Could anything go wrong?" My responses are always a reflection of my understanding of their situation, and subject to change with the situation, or as more information is divulged. I understand that there is bias in what information I am provided with, and work hard to balance that in my decisions.

If I give the "wrong" answer, there is a good chance that I will either get sued... or just never have my bills paid.

This is what makes me a professional. I expect the same from anyone else that claims to be an experienced professional. When I ask a Doctor a question, they do a pretty good job at this (despite the infinite set of unknowns in their field). A lawyer has no more unknowns than a doctor.

If the honest response to a legal question is that "It comes down to the judge on any given day," or "you can be sued for anything," or "depends on how good your lawyer is," then we aren't really dealing with Professionals in law. (All parties-- lawmakers, judges, lawyers, and police.)

Re:You must not deal with law much

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If the honest response to a legal question is that "It comes down to the judge on any given day," or "you can be sued for anything," or "depends on how good your lawyer is," then we aren't really dealing with Professionals in law. (All parties-- lawmakers, judges, lawyers, and police.)

It seems to me that the most important development in all of legal history - codification of the law (popular history marks it as the creation of the Code of Hammurabi) has been eroded into non-existence. Essentially, we are right back were we started with "the law" being whatever the various authority figures say it is at any particular moment.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[db32]

I don't really disagree with the not dealing with professionals part. My traffic record is insane, filled with things like "Curtsey" tickets. I am assuming that a "Curtsey" ticket is a Courtesy ticket, but maybe I really was observed giving polite little bows in a skirt or something. Then there is the fact that everything on there was doubled, because they dismissed whatever insane charge they put on my ticket, and put in some meaningless charge so they could still collect their money from the ticket.

You really can't compare Engineering (which has a large set of knowns and a relatively small set of unknowns) and Medicine (Which has a moderate number of knowns and a relatively large set of unknowns) and Law (Which has virtually no knowns and an growing set of unknowns). Unfortunately that is how law works, there is no concrete answer. If you do this you get that. Go look at how sentencing widely varies for any given charge. Technically they are still professionals, because without them you would be totally screwed in case of court action. If the other party gets a lawyer , and you try to go alone without an intricate knowledge of the little court games, you are pretty much doomed. All parties have made this system worse. Uneducated judges with weird personal opinions governing their job makes lawyers engage in stupid little dances and cops can't just do their job because they know the legal theater will likely destroy anything they actually would get done.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[Evan]

Neither lawyers nor lawmakers deliberately write laws to keep lawyers in business, as a rule. You seem to think that it would be easy to write a law or a contract so that it is utterly clear under all circumstances. You are mistaken. Clarity is, in fact, the (unattainable) goal of every good lawyer; If I write a sloppy contract, promissory note, or other legal document then my client is probably going to sue me for malpractice once it blows up in their face. I do my utmost (within the constraints of my client's patience and willingness to pay) to anticipate problems while drafting, and to head them off.

There are two approaches to writing laws. Civil law (see Louisiana and France) tries to capture every possible corner case and extreme circumstance in the written statutes, leaving judges and lawyers to "merely" read and apply them. Case law (see the rest of the U.S.) tries to keep statutes relatively simple expressions of the intent of the legislature, deferring decisions on corner cases and extreme situations until they arise in practice. Some areas of law, such as tax, finance, and commerce, *do* lend themselves to very specific and mechanical rules. In family law, torts, and other areas we are more concerned with flexible but fair rules than we are with rigid-but-simple "bright line" rules. It sounds like you would prefer civil law, but I expect that you would complain bitterly about its (necessary) density and complexity.

Let's look at your example, the "child's best interest". Phrasing it this way makes the fundamental intent pretty clear, doesn't it? We're obviously focusing on the child, to the exclusion of what the parents, grandparents, friends, or anyone else might want. You want a meaningful tangible definition for what this means in practice? This effectively means that you want someone to sit down and thing of every possible set of circumstances we might find a child in, in advance, and decide what the outcome should be. It isn't possible, and to the extent that civil law tries to do it, it results in huge expenditure of time and energy that *still* doesn't make the resolution of actual cases any easier. So instead, when the "best interest" is unclear, we let two teams of legal experts argue over what the best interest is given the specific facts before the court, and another legal expert (the judge) tries to craft a new rule based on the arguments presented. This rule may be sweeping, or may be very specific to quirks of the case, but it is now part of the law. That *specific* issue is settled (in that jurisdiction) and the new rule can be used in future cases.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[db32]

Well this nonsense has me and my wife in a situation where we can be extorted by the grandparents due to them having a larger bank account ("our offer is we wont force you to pick him up after our minimum visitation, we will just keep him until you can afford it"). So we rightfully said no you cant have him. They aren't in the custody agreement themselves, their son (my step son's father) is currently in jail. They seem to be under the impression that because we agreed they could see him in court (however, again its not in the final court order signed by her ex husband and the judge) that they can take us back to court over this. Her ex also apparently believes that a power of attorney allows his parents to take his visitation in his place. They have already tried this PoA nonsense and the grandmother tried to refuse to turn the child over to us. Now in about a month they are going to call the cops because we are going to not allow them to take the child, we are going to be going back to court, paying another lawyer $200/hr or so, and guess what...we don't have the money to keep up that kind of fight, but deep pockets grandparents do. Hooray for our legal system protecting the parents and the kids.

That doesn't even begin to touch the legal battle involved in Phoenix of University fraud. I hope they are found guilty as sin on their reopened False Claims Act case...I want to see heads roll in that place.

You cannot defend yourself in any manner (aside from criminal where you get a nice free public defender) without spending a fortune on a lawyer. This has made the situation very nice in the US for the people with deep pockets to just attack you until you can't pay and have to default. And either way all the lawyers involved will get their $ before you are forced to fold when you run out of cash.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[Evan]

You have my sympathy, for what it's worth. You have obvious cause to feel screwed over by the legal system. I can't offer legal advice, and I suspect that you won't like the advice I do offer: if you haven't already, consult with a lawyer *now* rather than waiting for the grandparents to make the first move. There is such a thing as a declaratory judgment in which *you* get to sue to have your rights decided, allowing you to choose the venue and frame the issues. You also might be able to persuade a judge to send you all to mediation in a local dispute resolution center, which can be a *lot* cheaper than court. Best of luck to you.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I think this kind of anti-lawyer rhetoric plays into the hands of the big corporations. As I said in responding to question 5 in my September Slashdot interview:

"Lawyers are just like any other people. There are good people and bad people. The people who come out the strongest against 'trial lawyers' are the big corporations' PR departments. They want the 'common folk' to think ill of lawyers, because the law -- as imperfect as it is -- is the only equalizer left. And it's being eroded rapidly. And people dissing lawyers all the time helps that process."

Re:You must not deal with law much

[db32]

Well my opinion of lawyers only has to deal with the lawyers that I have dealt with or friends and family have dealt with, and while I absolutely agree there are good ones and bad ones, the vast majority I have ever had any contact with have been questionable at best. This has nothing to do with corporate anything, it has to do with a string of really shitty lawyers, and lawyers that cannot or will not give solid answers or work for what they are charging me for. If mechanics gave such vague answers all the time, you can bet there would be lawsuits over their charges (surprise more lawyers). Now aside from this attack, I actually defended the good lawyers because the system is so jacked up, the good lawyers really can't give any solid answers because so much goofy crap can happen. Some areas of the country are worse than others as well. Back home I can do most of my basic legal interaction with the court myself, filling out forms, singing stuff, etc...out east here, I can't do crap without a lawyer, I can't file anything without paying a lawyer $500 to draw it up because "the judges are picky".

Re:You must not deal with law much

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

You are right that there are terrible problems with the economics of litigation in the United States. These problems can be corrected by the Courts and by the Legislature, not by the practicing lawyers. We have to (1) play within the rules we're handed and (2) try to make a living.

The big corporations and the wealthiest people in our society want it to stay the way it is right now. If poor and middle class people and small businesses had equal access to legal representation, it would take away the big guys' advantage.

There are a few equalizers left -- such as class actions and contingent fees. Which is why the wealthy and the insurance companies are constantly lobbying, mostly secretly, against "the trial lawyers" who bring class actions or who receive contingent fees, i.e. the trial lawyers for the little guy. When Bush and his cronies attack "trial lawyers" they mean trial lawyers who represent the little guy. They're not attacking the $500-and-up-per-hour trial lawyers that protect their interests.

In my personal opinion, every well meaning disgruntled person like yourself who rails against lawyers is just playing into the hands of the fat cats in our society. If you want to help them, keep on saying stuff like that. If you want to change things, start writing to your legislators, and stop disrespecting those who making a living by trying to preserve the rule of law.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[db32]

I think there was some underlying confusion here, possibly in the semantics. When I say lawyers write laws to keep lawyers employed, I don't mean the average lawyer. I am referring to the fact that the Legislative end of our government frequently has a rather large number of lawyers/law grads running about. I am directly refering to the exact problem that you are talking about. My issue with lawyers goes beyond that, in that a great number of the ones I have had the 'pleasure' of dealing with are little more than carrion feeding on a rotting corpse of justice. I have known a few good people who are lawyers, but the same problem applies, because they were unable to give me anything other than very vague advice because of differences in law based on where you are practicing and the typical fickle ways of judges. (You think I don't like lawyers, I REALLY don't like judges...was even assaulted by a judge at 15 at my sisters school at parent teacher conferences for looking suspicious...drug me outside by the arm too shout about drugs... I apparently just looked too hoodlumish to be standing outside HIS school.)

In fact there is a lawyer that I have been talking to (free of cost even) that has been helping me fight a fraud thing for my wife. Has been a great help, and is exactly the type you are talking about, class action/false claims act stuff. But this is 1 out of something like 8 that hasn't been an expensive pain to deal with.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[tinkerghost]

Is arguing a traffic ticket really that much more complex than setting up a multi-homed VPN?

Well, when you do 2 installs of the same multi-homed VPN on 2 identical spec systems from different MFGs, you can expect that with a few tweaks of names etc, they will work. Changing the name on the case doesn't change that much. Change the name of the Judge & everything changes, so in that case, it seems that law would be a lot less easy to explain in absolutes.
For IT 2+2=int(4) every time. With the law, it should work that way, but until it's over, it's anyones guess.

Re:You must not deal with law much

[ccp]

It seems to me that the most important development in all of legal history - codification of the law - has been eroded into non-existence. Essentially, we are right back were we started with "the law" being whatever the various authority figures say it is at any particular moment.

You know, you're absolutely right. I'd never realized it.

Thanks,
CC

Faulty logic

[BeerCat]

Suppose that file-sharer W illegally downloads to her computer Led Zeppelin's song Stairway to Heaven. The song is downloaded to a shared folder on her computer and thereby made available for others to copy. Suppose further that three other file-sharers, X, Y, and Z, subsequently download the song from W's computer. Thus, there are four people in this example who desired the song but who did not pay to obtain it. In other words, there are four lost sales.

Just because 4 people shared the song, doesn't mean that all 4 would even have considered buying the track. It is just as likely that W decided to download to avoid paying, while X and Y downloaded it in a similar vein to "users who downloaded 'Whole Lotta Love' also liked 'Stairway to Heaven'", and so might consider actually paying for the song after evaluating it.

The logic is similar to putting a $1 bet on number 7, which comes up, putting the $36 winnings on number 2, which doesn't come up, and then claiming that you have 'lost' $36. You haven't. You've lost $1. (Since you didn't cash in after the first win, but immediately put it back in play, it was never yours)

Re:Faulty logic

[Magnet Steve]

No, this is faulty logic:

"The logic is similar to putting a $1 bet on number 7, which comes up, putting the $36 winnings on number 2, which doesn't come up, and then claiming that you have 'lost' $36. You haven't. You've lost $1. (Since you didn't cash in after the first win, but immediately put it back in play, it was never yours)"

You absolutely did lose $36, because your $1 bet did not necessitate the subsequent bet. They are two completely seperate occurrances.

1. You make a $1 bet and win. Now you have $36 that are YOURS (albeit in the form of Roulette chips that must be cashed twice before they are in a form worthwhile to you).

That occurrance is now over. You start life fresh, with $36.

2. You make a $36 bet and lose. You have lost $36. It doesn't matter if the bet you made is 5 seconds after, or 5 years after, your first bet. You are still wagering the $36 that belong to you on a new bet.

Just because the money belonged to you in an inconvenient fashion, and making a bet was the only thing you could do with it without having it converted, does not somehow conjoin the two bets into one action. Neither does that fact that you bet on the very next spin of the wheel. It simply shows your inability to walk away from the table ahead (or your inherent laziness).

Either way, you had $36, and you lost it playing Roulette. Congratulations, you have a gambling problem.

Hey! We wanted an ARGUMENT!!!

[A nonymous Coward]

None of this gratitude nonsense. We paid for an argument, and that's what you'll give us, or we want our money back.

So take that!

Re:Hey! We wanted an ARGUMENT!!!

[innerweb]

Oh sorry, this room is abuse. Argument is next door.

-innerweb

De minimis non curat lex

[flyingfsck]

Cool, the obvious next step will be for the judge to dismiss the matter as a waste of time.

Fair damages

[Ticklemonster]

Heck, all anyone is out for downloaded songs is 99 cents anyway. Be hard asses and fine them double the amount and let the big corporations stew.

Actually.

[falsified]

Due process motions are extremely unlikely to be overturned on appeal because they tend to be so obvious (in one direction or the other) to the court that most appeals courts wouldn't even accept the case. If damages can't be mathematically demonstrated, there's nothing to appeal, today, tomorrow, or two years from now.

Furthermore, as far as I can tell, there's no argument being put in place yet that says the material facts in the case are incorrect, just that the requested damages are frivolous. (In some states, if a judge finds something to be frivolous, it cannot be appealed anyway.) Appealing for MORE damages never, ever, ever works.

And on an ironic note, my "To confirm you're not a script" word is "appeal"!

Proscribed?

[TrashGod]

From TFA: "Foremost, plaintiffs can cite to no case foreclosing the applicability of the due process clause to the aggregation of minimum statutory damages proscribed under the Copyright Act."

Shouldn't that be prescribed ?

Re:RIAA Defence?

[MacWiz]

"the $750 is actually the _minimum_ statutory amount they can ask for"

If they are unable or unwilling to produce a timely copyright registration, $750 per song is the maximum.

Caution: Hot Potato

[Frodrick]

It looks like another case is going to get dropped.

Upload/Download ratio

[Anonymous Coward]

The average Upload/Download ratio in any P2P network and for any particular song is 1 plus some network overhead. So average filesharer is responsible for downloading the song and passing it to 1 (ONE) peer. How could numbers like $750 be even considered?

you can't have it both ways

[oliphaunt]

grym, I agree.

It would seem that if the victims of these lawsuits could afford the time and effort to hire competant counsel, the RIAA would lose most of them. Especially if, as they imply at Recording Industy vs. The People, there is no personal jurisdiction over the defendants in the courts where the lawsuits are filed.

It's also very interesting that the RIAA are able to conflate the civil and criminal penalties together in their theory of these cases... I would think that the court would eventually force them to choose one or the other.

Re:you can't have it both ways

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

It's not a question of "time and effort". It usually takes money to hire competent counsel.

There are a few lawyers who have handled cases for free, but even they can probably not afford to take one case at a time. Litigating with the RIAA bullies and their shameless lawyers is a very costly process consuming a lot of lawyers' "time and effort". The RIAA buries the defendant in all kinds of discovery demands.... stonewalls against any attempts by the defendant to get discovery from the RIAA... refuses to negotiate... refuses to compromise.... refuses to consent to routine amendments... fights to shroud the discovery process in unusual secrecy... makes frivolous arguments of "privilege". A lawyer who took 2 or 3 cases like that pro bono could easily go broke.

a proposal

[oliphaunt]

I have a proposal for you. Not fully formed yet, but I've been thinking about this for a couple of months now and your post crystallized it for me.

Q: Where is the largest repository of pro bono legal labor in the US? A: Law schools.
Q: Have you ever looked at partnering with a pro bono program to farm out some of the work?

I'm a 1L right now, getting ready for my first set of exams. I'd love to take 6 minutes of your time to chat about whether or not you might have any use for for me and some of my classmates, and if so, how we might go about setting up a relationship. What we lacked in competence, perhaps we could make up in numbers and enthusiasm... and if these lawsuits are as similar as you suggest, at some point it just becomes a numbers game. I'd like to add some more people to your team.

Re:a proposal

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I think every university and law school that operates a legal clinic should be in the business of defending RIAA suits against poor and working class people, for the reasons enunciated by the ACLU, Public Citizen, Electronic Frontier Foundation and others. See http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDF.asp?filename=capi tol_foster_amicus and, for an example of a law student's contribution, see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id =660601 (whole Note available on Westlaw).

Re:a proposal

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

For my thoughts about what the universities are not doing and should be doing you might want to see my comments in this interview by the University of Maryland student newspaper: http://www.diamondbackonline.com/media/storage/pap er873/news/2006/11/03/News/Riaa-Cracks.Down.On.Ill egal.Downloading-2437467.shtml?norewrite2006111611 51&sourcedomain=www.diamondbackonline.com