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RIAA Goes for the Max Against AllofMP3
Spad writes "Zeropaid is reporting that as part of its ongoing lawsuit, the RIAA will be seeking the maximum of $150,000 per song for each of the 11 million MP3s downloaded from the Russian AllofMP3.com between June and October last year. This amounts to roughly $1.65 trillion, probably a tad more than AllofMP3 has made in its lifetime. A representative of AllofMP3 stated: 'AllofMP3 understands that several U.S. record label companies filed a lawsuit against Media Services in New York. This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3 does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3 operates legally in Russia. In the mean time, AllofMP3 plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws.'"
$1.65trillion is a fair bit more than the GDP of Russia as a whole.
How fucking ludicrous and excessive. Jesus.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
AllofMp3 offers 20% bonus untill January 14, 2007
Russia's yearly gross domestic product is $1.576 trillion. RIAA's claim is little more than that, $1.65 trillion.
Where do they get these numbers? This is over 10% of the GDP of the USA, and 333 times the amount gross retail music sales in 2005. I wonder if the US court will take this companies .com domains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_music_market
Indeed. According to the RIAA's stats: http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/pdf/2005yrEndS tats.pdf (warning: PDF), the total industry is something on the order of 12 billion $US per year. How can they claim with a straight face that the *damages* are about 100 times greater than the size of the industry being damaged?
As you said, I hope this gets publicized because it really demonstrates how ridiculous the dollar value associated with infringement really is.
11/29/2006 http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061129-831
The short version:
The U.S. wants Russia to join the World Trade Organization.
One condition is that Russia changes its copyright laws.
Russia agreed.
Whether or not AllOfMP3 is going to get shut down by the Russian Gov't is seemingly still up in the air, but the RIAA got what they wanted: IP reform in Russia.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
AllOfMP3 gives their required amount as required by Russian law to the Russian equivalent of the RIAA, who then is supposed to distribute it to all the needy artists under their wing. While the method is considered a loophole as such, it's still perfectly legal under Russian law.
And I believe the Record Industry Association of America is just a little bit out of it's jurisdiction here. Hence the stupid filing in an American court. Try that kind of scare tactic in Russia and as people have already mentioned, AllOfMP3 would simply pay the local mafia a small sum to make the problem.... disappear.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Not sure why you got moded down.
Dollar's been falling steadily against rouble for the last four (4) years and currently is at the lowest level in seven years:
$1 = 26.28
>isn't Russia getting lots of money from the IMF and/or World Bank anymore? No, they do not. They have a positive trade balance bigger then china and foreign reserves larger then Taiwan. Every time you fill up your car, somebody in Moscow smiles.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
They're suing them for... 1.65 TRILLION dollars. Last I checked the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for the ENTIRE country was about 750 BILLION dollars. Now this is where it even gets better... this only includes the songs from June to October 2006. They're charging $150,000 per song. If they had applied those numbers since the inception of AllofMp3.com which according to a quick whois lookup of the site name, is June of 2000... using the same numbers of sales each month as they have for the time period of J-O then they'd owe roughly the GDP of the entire world. What a joke.
Shadus
Fuck, you fucking people are giving me a brain haemorrhage with this shit.
Works are fixed in media (see 17 USC 101). These media are called copies. So music and software are fixed on CDs and DVDs (and harddrives and RAM), and novels are fixed in hardcover books, etc.
When you buy a CD, you buy a CD. Period.
When you buy a book, you buy a book. Period.
You can lend your book, your CD, to someone. You can rent it. You can sell it. You can burn it. Etc.
You do not buy, and do not need, a license for the work on the media unless you plan to do something with that work that would violate the copyright holder's exclusive rights (see 17 USC 106).
THERE ARE NO EULAs FOR CDs OR DVDs.
You are buying media. Period.
You have to understand that. You can do anything with the media you want. That doesn't entitle you to the "work." The work is an intangible thing. It is unownable and unpossessable and therefore nobody owns nor possesses it.
Copyright grants copyright holders certain rights assoicated with the work -- FROM WHATEVER SOURCE -- but this is separate from the work fixed in a medium: which is a physical thing, just like any other physical thing.
The reason you can't do whatever you want (eg, make copies) is because the copyright statute says you can't. It's not because a license says you can't. You need a license in order to make copies*, sure, but you're not buying one when you buy a CD.
* you can also make copies if you have one of the few exceptions under the law, etc.
If you're allowed to make backups, btw (about which there is no brightline rule, only the fair use test), you're allowed to keep them when you resell your CD, etc. But since there's no general exception to make backups generally (software is an exception IIRC), the whole circumstances have to fit the four factors of the fair use test. So, e.g., if you intended to sell your CD, and made a backup so you could keep the music knowing you planned to sell it tomorrow, that's probably not a fair use.
They're not claiming that at all. $150,000 wasn't a random number, nor was the fact that it was called "the maximum" in the article summary just word choice. In fact, anybody at all familiar with copyright law--even just the little trickles that make it through on sites like this--will have their ears twitch in recognition at hearing the number.
$150,000 is the maximum allowed statutory damages according to US copyright law. It has nothing to do with how much their losses were.
Further, realize that damages come in two parts: compensatory (what you actually lost) and punitive (punishment for the act). Punitive damages are almost always substantially higher than compensatory damages in situations like this. Even if they only claimed $11 million punitive damages ($1/download, the iTunes price), the law says they're perfectly free to claim the other $1.649+ trillion.
Will they get that much (if they get anything)? Almost certainly not, but that doesn't stop them from asking for it.
That's ridiculous. If you have a legal right to a file in another country, and posession of it in this country is not otherwise illegal (e.g., it's not kiddie porn or something), there's no sane reason you can't copy it across the (virtual, and therefore nonexistant) border.
Well, the law says you are not allowed to copy it across the border, but you may be allowed to physically move a pre-existing copy across the border.
You might disagree with it, or find it silly, but that is actually what it says. I'd rather you disagree with it, knowing that, than to deny that it exists altogether. I'm a firm believer in the idea that we'll never get these laws fixed until people know what they really are, and what the policy goals for the laws are meant to be. Misinformation and erroneous 'common knowledge' don't help.
Let's use an analogy: imagine you're on vacation in Europe, and you buy a CD, burn it, put it on your iPod, and bring it back home with you. Is that illegal? Of course not, that would be absurd!
Actually, it is possible that bringing in the CD itself would be illegal; it would depend on its origins. But in any event, your example is faulty. Allofmp3 involves making copies across a border; you're talking about making a copy and then bringing it over the border. That's not the same thing. There is a world of difference between moving a tangible medium over the border (e.g. a CD, a hard drive, an iPod), and moving intangible information over the border (e.g. reading from a server in Russia and writing to a hard drive in America). The former is importation (a form of distribution), the latter is reproduction. Different exceptions apply to each.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.