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RIAA Announces New Campus Lawsuit Strategy
An anonymous reader writes "The RIAA is once again revising their lawsuit strategy, and will now be sending college students and others "pre-lawsuit letters." People will now be able to settle for a discount. How nice."
Tom Cruise delivers them in a cool black jumpsuit.
Demanding money with an accompanying threat is still EXTORTION, whether there's an actual lawsuit or not.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Is this true? Does anyone have sales or statistics?
Slashdotters are once again revising their RIAA strategies, and will now be sending RIAA extortionists and barrators "pre-letter responses." Barrators and extortionists will now be encouraged to go fuck themselves sideways with a bowling pin. How goatse.
wetted my pants laughing!!!1
Well I got hit by something similar. I downloaded a torrent of Green Street Hooligans, didn't even watch it. Recieved an email from the campus computer folk, told me that Universal informed them of my "copyright infringement", and if I delete the file immediately and tell them that I did so, nothing would happen, but if I did it again, I would lose my Internet connection.
I don't remember if they said what would happen if I didn't delete the file (which I did, I'm not going to stick my neck out for the principle of it) but I'm sure it would have been ugly. I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA is doing this too - intercepting communications out of your friendly campus and then telling the campus to enforce their restrictions. Way to scare your customers. How do they stay in business?
Any other people get busted/almost-busted/pseudo-busted at their university?
I haven't really been following the whole RIAA suing people thing - have they won any court cases, yet?
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Se habla español.
Dear RIAA,
I feel that I must point out that the quality of the music distributed by your members has sunk to such depths that if I have to listen to any more of it, I might just gnaw my own leg off in desperation. Of course such a situation would be grounds for an inmediate lawsuit by myself against your members for the sum of $3,000,000 US. I ask that you kindly desist from producing such self-mutilation inspiring music and, failing that, I am willing to settle for ten percent ($300,000 US) in advance in order not to pursue the lawsuit in the event of my loss of a leg. Thank you.
Sincerely...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It might not be nearly as convenient, but I've been hearing that in the dorms my fellow students are posting the names of songs that they would like to "buy". Some cheap 32-128MB memory tokens float around; discreet messages are sent telling them to keep an eye on "the SanDisk with a sticker on it" or the "green Dell one that has a crack in the casing".
Buddy you're a boy, make a big noise
Playing music in school, gonna be a big man some day
You got music on myspace
You big disgrace
Kickin your ipod all over the place
We will, we will, sue you
We will, we will, sue you
Buddy you're a young man, pirate man
Shoutin' in the school gonna take on the MAFIAA some day
You got music on myspace
You big disgrace
Wavin' your napster all over the place
We will, we will, sue you
We will, we will, sue you
Buddy you're an old man, poor man
Pleadin' with our lawyers gonna make you pay today
You lost your court case
You big disgrace
The MAFIAA kicked you off of myspace
We will, we will, sue you
We will, we will, sue you
although i believe it was actually 'from' the university.
apparently the university (pueblo) was getting people to try to break into peoples boxes (or just looking at random xp shares that just love to be found).
the weird part? he had at least 80 gigs of movies, some of them still in theatres, but the university didnt crack down on him for those-- ive got the paper here, look at some of the weird stuff they got him on. (the format of the paper is below with other verbose information)
they got him, MAINLY, on old snes/nes/sega roms?!
mega man, duck hunt, super mario bros, metroid, zelda
why they went for that, i dont know. only 3 movies are listed. and they werent even new at all.
-----
"Summary of "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (DMCA) Infringement Incidents associated with user "xxxxxxxxxxx"
Student: xxxxxxx,xxxxxx (xxxx) xxx-xx-xxxx
Incident Case# | Date | Time | Entertainment Site | Acting on Behalf of | Infringement Title
xxx-xxxxx | xxx | xxx Entertainment Software Association | Numerous Companies | Metroid
the only time the 'entertainment site' field changes from ESA its to 'NBC Universial' 'BayTSP, Inc', 'Buisness Software Alliance (BSA)'
the only time the 'acting on behalf of' changes from 'Numerous Companies' is to 'Subsidiary and affiliated companies', 'paramount pictures corporation', 'member companies'
Really, this is just another incarnation of the 'I'm anonymous on the Internet.... What? I ain't?' You can't just flaunt the law and expect to get away with it forever. Doesn't matter whether you 'feel' you should be allowed to share music/video with a couple million of your best friends, the law in most countries says you can't.
So admit you are breaking the law and do it like a criminal, out of the open and looking over your shoulder. Swap with people you KNOW. If you are doing it online do it in closed groups with crypto and in cells to minimize the damage from infiltration.
With a little thought put into it there could be almost as much file sharing as now, and if the natural urge to go for a hub/spoke arrangement can be curbed there wouldn't be much that could be done to stop it.
Democrat delenda est
And if you call now, we'll throw in this knife set absolutely free! That's a $400 value!
This offer won't last long, so call now!
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
They could just send a letter to every student and figure the ones with guilty consciousness are going to settle. With all the popups I am getting about winning various sweepstakes, it may even be legal.
From TFA, it seems to me that one of the new aspects of this strategy is: So the student gets a letter delivered through the university. It's not clear if some kind of university action is implied or explicity stated in this letter, or if the universities have agreed to cooperate with the RIAA. Either way I bet getting the university to communicate with the student is a way of providing additional leverage. Perhaps now you are not only threatened with financial damage but with your educational status being revoked?
None of this applies to RIAA's actions in this case. Threatening you with a civil suit for the commission of a tort is not a crime; it happens every day.
Threatening you with a civil suit for the commission of a tort is not a crime when all you demand is a cease and desist. Demanding monetary compensation I would think would be a different matter. If not extortion, how about blackmail? "We know you've committed a crime. Pay us to keep quiet about it or we'll see to it that it goes on your criminal record, which you'll have to disclosed to any future employer preventing you from getting any well-paying job in the future."
And such payment won't be legally binding, so they could still press charges, and your payment will be used as evidence of your guilt.
IANAL.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Way to scare your customers. How do they stay in business?
/. love to hate the RIAA but that only matters to them if they are losing paying customers. If the 1.8 million /.ers actually sent all of these rants to the PR dept of the RIAA, they might care. If they thought they could win us back by stopping.
You are only a customer if you buy something. Have you sent the RIAA a letter telling them that because of this tactic, you will be boycotting? How much did you spend on CDs last year? Here at
We are all just people.
I know what you're talking about, we did that a lot in the 90's and it was a lot more social
meeting face to face with people. And you know you get to meet people and you help them out
and then they help you out.. Like with my notebook lately, it has sometimes problems starting
up with new tunes and a friend of mine will hook it up to his notebook with what I believe is a
starter cable and jumpstart the music machine or the movie engine. Then sometimes its his
laptop that has novelty stalls from time to time and then we hook them together again with the
starter cable.
People will now be able to settle for a discount.
It becomes more and more apparent that this is now part of their business strategy, and not primarly to defeat piracy this way. Tomorrow... Local shops with RIAA reps where you can settle lawsuits without going to court for convenience? Advertisements on how to best lower your lawsuit expenses? Lawsuit insurances?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
How long is it going to take before the public has had enough of this garbage and put a stop to it?
it could be stopped tomrrow.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Tag this article: usewifi
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Great! Now do it while sitting on a RIAA pre-lawsuit letter!
I wonder if students can get financial aid to help with this...
Please share with the poor who will never see this stuff any way. Copying isn't stealing, it's sharing ideas. Don't let these dying businesses try for force their old ways upon you. Make them get with the digital age and employ different business practices if they want to continue to have a business. Of course, even with sharing, as we all see, they will still continue to make millions of dollars from their crappy uncomfortable ad-ridden theaters. Don't let their greed fool you.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
You are only a customer if you buy something.
More from the chorus. Thing is, we ARE customers. Someone may not have paid for every movie on their computer, but most of us DO rent DVDs (often to rip them to our drives), most of us go to movies and a great many even go to concerts.
The problem isn't that the copyright holders are suing their customers - the problem is there's so little opportunity for the competing voice to reach the folks affected by this - to remind them that, while Universal and Sony may sue them into oblivion for helping distribute their content, there's a whole world of stuff out there by folks who WON'T do this. If the people being sued would realize this and look for alternative content they would surely find something they like - but they don't. Everyone seems to want a change, but hardly anyone seems willing to do what it takes to put meaningful pressure on these media conglomerates.
No "crime" has been committed. The action is a tort. The violation of the Copyright statute for non-monetary gain is a civil matter, not a criminal matter.
;)
So the wronged party (RIAA in this case) is approaching the wrongdoer and saying "look, we can sue you for $X in damages, but we'd like to spare you and us the trouble of a court proceeding to collect said damages. Sign here, pay us $N in reduced damages to cover what we feel are reasonable damages in this instance, and in this contract you are signing you will see that we voluntarily give up the right to sue you for this particular infringement in the future."
Just as if your kid broke one of my windows accidentally with an errant baseball. I could sue you, but I'd probably propose that we settle out of court for reasonable damages. Hardly a crime for me to propose that. And if you choose not to pay, I can of course take you to court.
No "crime" is being swept under the rug. Just because you wish it was extortion or blackmail does not make it so. You ANAL and all of the moderators here clearly ANAL
Ok, I think I can guess the Powerpoint Slide that led to these letters:
1. Get postal addresses of students accross the U.S. via their University
2. Send them pre-lawsuit letters
3. Wait for a fraction of the students to take up the discount offer
4. PROFIT!!
Note the absence of both an ??? and an "prove that the individual is infringing copyright" steps.
send a rebate to get a discount?
"Pirates" can not be blamed for the failure of media companies to adapt to and profit from the Internet.
DRM was an attempt to put the Internet back in the bottle.
People expect to be able to download stuff at a reasonable cost, (and some amount of information people expect for free).
People expect to to their play and copy purchased media without barriers.
College students will "copy tapes", as they have no spare book or beer money to spare. if you use legal threats or take money from them, this will not increase sales, or create new fans.
The story has not changed since the days of Naptser and mp3.com. People would buy DRM-free media over the Internet for a reasonable cost.
But if MAFIAA refuses to sell unencumbered media, it is hard to buy it.
People do not want to go back to CD's and people do not want to go forward with DRM.
At my college they paid to give us all free Napster (the legal version) to keep us from downloading illegally. It sort of sucked, had a limited selection, and the DRM was so f'ed up that it revoked my rights and no one at the company could figure out how to fix it.
RIAA you worthless bunch of monkey retards. Just give up. You aren't going to win this. How about spending money on making better albums? How about spend money on advertising your artist? The only way you guys are going to get any huge amount of money is start suing major websites or companies like apple for everything and anything. Eventually you will get a judge that is not tech savy and then you will win, but that only goes so far. The reason why your sales have fallen so much is because your PR campaign against your OWN buyers. Music is just entertainment. I can live with out the next hiphop bullshit album that comes out but you can't live with out your money. Consumers have a lot more power and you will lose. Take a hint and stop annoying your customer base. It goes with the saying, treat your employees right, then you get treated right.
I really would love to see the boardroom meetings you guys have. You guys got some major problems on your hands and you guys just keep digging yourself into your grave. Good luck with that. Haven't bought a CD in years and will not buy one ever. I will not waste my money on you worthless people.
"You may already be a litigant!"
What if you could actually do pay off potential lawsuits.
What if you could buy freedom for your media for the next 12 months, how about monthly?
There would be no fear of prosecution just because we happen to like something so we save it.
If doesn't matter where we get it from, it doesn't matter what quality or how often we transcribe it.
Come on media companies and software developers, how much would that cost us?
I want music and ebooks and movies as well - infact just the whole job lot. I might even want to try Vista or OS X.
What price?
Incidentally, I am 100% in favour of a simple payment method for authors and artists and developers and even movie execs where we get what we want and they do too.
I would never want these folks out of a job, as fat and evil some of them are - they have families to support just like us.
liqbase
I'd say to mod you up, but you posted AC... jeez...
the college i attend doesn't require the students to log into the network on the public computers--which is where everyone downloads music from.
how would the riaa handle that one? hah.
Not to mention the "punishment" by the school is stupid anyway. "Delete your program, and you can have your internet connection back."
Welcome our independent artist labels, err, overlords. Maybe national CD sales aren't down, just "RIAA member" sales are down. I've purchased nothing mainstream for almost a year. I buy all of my CDs straight from the artists. Support your local talent. In New York City Subway, concerts come to you.
We are all just people.
"Threatening you with a civil suit for the commission of a tort is not a crime when all you demand is a cease and desist. Demanding monetary compensation I would think would be a different matter. If not extortion, how about blackmail?"
Listen to the AC; he's right on this one. Settling out of court happens all the time. Even "good" companies and people do it.
The trouble with calling this "blackmail" or "extortion" is there may be a day down the road when you think you've been wronged, or you know you've wronged another person, and settling out of court is the quickest and cheapest way for you to get things right.
""We know you've committed a crime. Pay us to keep quiet about it or we'll see to it that it goes on your criminal record, which you'll have to disclosed to any future employer preventing you from getting any well-paying job in the future."
Huh? I've read TFA; the RIAA isn't threatening (either explicitly or implicitly) to ask the feds to press federal charges in these campus cases. While the amounts of the purported infringement may technically fall into criminal infringement territory, the feds have better things to do; they tend to go after cases where the amount of infringment is in the high five figures and beyond. You know this; I know this; the RIAA knows this and the kids doing the file sharing probably know this.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Webster, Dictionary.com, and The Free Dictionary all use the term "extortion" to define blackmail.
licet differant, aequabitur
Not that everyone here doesnt already know why they arent doing as well as they were before the internet is because they are barely able to get any really good artists out to market. Real music fans are tired of crappy airhead pop and unoriginal wanna-be rock and we see no reason to buy their crap or to support and buy any product that assists the RIAA. Intelligent consumers are tired of being told what we should listen to or what we should think is cool. Let the artists do what they want. The only thing labels have to do is get the product out some way and that is increasingly easy with the net and free advertising/word of mouth/myspace...
What if you post your garage band music that may or may not have a similar title to or cover version of something the RIAA would be after? When they send you a notice, you could then point out that their letter is an admission of unauthorized downloading of YOUR copyrighted works? You were just making them available on a shareware basis, right? And didn't their tech read the legal disclaimer on your web page indicating that by downloading this file they agreed to remit $49.95 to your paypal account?
My rights don't need management.
Does any know if the RIAA has targeted Usenet?
The RIAA's Department of Pre-Infringement sends you a letter warning that they know you were planning to infringe and demanding a settlement.
(Oops, I just infringed on the work of Philip K. Dick).
[Insert pithy quote here]
Okay, maybe I'll get modded down for this (or get modded up for writing that old cliche), but what exactly is wrong with this? The RIAA is locating pirates via IP and, instead of suing them, offering them a quick and easy settlement.
Back in 2000 during the Napster lawsuits, every Slashdotter including the editors said the RIAA should go after individual infringers rather than P2P networks. Well, now they're doing that, and you don't like that either. What's changed? Are you just opposed to the RIAA protecting its own intellectual property period?
"Sufferin' succotash."
The article states that the normal settlement is between $3000-5000. I would gladly pay as much, and voluntarily, for carte blanche with regards to the P2P networks. Damned shame they don't offer it. $5000 today, compared with $20/month for the rest of my life, 'cept in those instances where I'd still want cover art and liners and what not.
There's a compelling argument to made for it. Look at the ~$400,000 2 year annuities that people always give in lieu of $1,000,000 prizes.
All this discussion seems to miss the point about what happens if the MPAA actually is successful at stopping downloads of 'product'.
Since all the downloading results from an inability to come to an agreement of what price people will pay to watch MPAA product, then if people can't watch MPAA product then they will watch something else.
MPAA product is in its most basic form a sequence of video images edited together in standard film 'grammar' devised over the past 100 years that tells a standardized story (one of the 100 basic plot variations that literature and drama majors study). That's it. It's what all the fight is about.
The greatest misconception of the MPAA is that they are the ONLY source of quality video entertainment available and that all people will naturally chose to 'steal' their product when given any opportunity and technical means to do so. This is actually true at the present time for most people but will, within a decade, not be true given the incredible advances in video games.
Within a decade, games will cease to be only limited first-person shooters and cartoonish extensions of ZORK-style fantasy scenerios. They will take on the characteristics of MPAA product such as photo-realism, emphatic actors and characters, complex story and plot development, and scene editing that approaches standardized film grammar. Plus they will be fully interactive and allow multiple viewers/players to develop the plot line and dialog with each other. Basically 21st-century interactive synthetic cinema (it doesn't even have a real name yet, except for term 'video games') will be to the 20-century MPAA product what movies are to photographs. A completely different dimension and experience only historically and superficially related to the previous media.
When this begins to happen then the MPAA comporations will really be up shit creek. Because they will have alienated all their potential customers and supporters back when their could-have-been customers were young as a result of their clumsy and repulsive gangster tactics that used on college students back at the beginning of the 21st century. By the time that interactive synthestic cinema begins to really take off, the MPAA will have created such a wall of hatred and repulsion between themselves and their former customer base that they will not be able to make any connection between the corporations that they represent and their former audience. They will be as obsolete as 'white-only' drinking fountains, with the same general public repulsion.
This general extortion campaign directed against college students will eventually backfire in a big way when the MPAA comes to realize that they can't get anyone (except media history majors) to download their precious product. By then it will too late for them.
That's the thing. Most college students share files. It's been happening since people could record - Reel-to-reel, 8 tracks, cassettes...it's just on the internet now. By the RIAA's definition, they are actually guilty. The jury is still out on whos side the law supports (no pun intended).
If I sat down with 100 college students that had a P2P program running on their machine and files in their upload directory, I'm guessing that 100 of them would have swapped files with other users on the network. If I tried 10,000, I might find a dozen who haven't, and just forgot they installed it.
We're not talking about grandma who had a precoscious 7 year old over for the weekend a couple of months ago. This is the prime demograpic for the wares the RIAA is selling.
I think the current usage of copyright law totally defeats the purpose of copyright in the first place, but we're not talking about innocent bystanders or people who 'just don't understand computers' here.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
10 years ago, I was one of the first people at IU to receive a threatening letter from the RIAA because one of my users on suso.org was hosting copyrighted mp3s. So how is this really a new tactic?
What? How is it extortion or blackmail? They send a letter saying that they are going to take you to court. In the same letter it has an offer to settle out of court. Importantly, the matter goes away if you pay up. It is settled. The RIAA agrees to not go after you again unless, of course, you violate their members copyrights again.
In the case of extortion and blackmail, the matter is not settled. The extortionist can come back at any time and hit you up for cash again.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
/. is a pirate's lobby.
They should have been notifying everyone they've sued, or threatened to sue, that legal action was pending. The fact that they are only now being (ahem) "reasonable" doesn't excuse their past behavior one whit.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Anyone remember when music was played for the simple idea that it was music? What about the days when rock stars made it rich through concerts, not through selling millions of copies of their 'great' album. You actually had to have talent to make it.
Now any Britney can make it to the top only to be pulled down by the onslaught of millions of dollars. I want to be able to listen to music again and enjoy it for what it is, art. Not how much I had to pay for it, not how many hours of work at the local ice cream stand I will have to put in to pay off the credit card bill of my enjoyment.
Lets stop being stupid consumers and begin to demand quality music. I would gladly pay for music that was inspirational or had some real feeling behind it, not something that was made just to get a few more dollars. Maybe the RIAA would see their sales go up if they would stop allowing mindless crap to be their weak foundation of a possibly great empire.
Ok turn on your mp3 recorder right now and record a copy of your voice.
Start out with this content is copyrighted by "Your Name"
Then you can just spend some time saying la, la, la, la, la, la, la or whatever
trips your trigger. Now put it on a p2p network share folder changing the name to metallica.mp3 or whatever trips your goat. Place a sniffer on the connection, when the goons grab your file
trying to figure out if you are hosting copyrighted tunes you slap them with a big ole fat lawsuit
for copyright infringement.
Got Code?
This story reminds me of this http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/11/riaa_lawsuit_fa mily_pack.html
LOS ANGELES Feb 22, 2007 (AP)-- A man who allegedly uploaded a copy of the film "Flushed Away" onto the Internet after getting a copy from an Oscar voter faces a felony charge.
Salvador Nunez Jr., 27, was charged with copyright infringement and faces up to three years in prison if convicted. He was scheduled to appear in court March 1.
Prosecutors said he obtained a copy of the movie after it was sent in advance to his sister, an Oscar voter and member of The International Animated Film Society.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received a tip in early January that someone put "Flushed Away" on the Internet, and a digital watermark identified it as an Academy screener film.
When interviewed by FBI agents, Nunez acknowledged he uploaded "Flushed Away" and the Oscar-nominated film "Happy Feet" onto the Internet, court documents said. However, investigators only found a copy of "Flushed Away" in his computer hard drive.
It wasn't immediately known whether Nunez has retained an attorney.
Man Charged With Uploading Movie to Web
There are many points of interest here, but most significantly the feds decision to prosecute the uploader on the felony charge. That would be a first and a major change in policy.
If you don't care enough to buy the shit, don't give them a reason to claim that nobody's buying because they're stealing it.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
And this has ZERO to do with RIAA, or RIAA's letters to infringers, or any of the 20,000 RIAA civil lawsuits (not a single one is a criminal case), or TFA
But other than that, you are spot on
Personal responsibility and ownership of one's actions goes a long way here. Having that fast Internet connection sure makes it tempting to build your music library with P2P, but it's essential to understand the potential consequences and to also understand that you don't need to have that music -- and if you just can't do without music, there are plenty of free and legal sources. Trust me: I got through all seven years of college without once firing up a P2P app. Those kids could have, too.
I can certianly see a few pissed kids wanting to share the damage back to the RIAA. Somehow I see entire external hard drives loaded with MP3s being passed down the dorm hall for everyone to take a copy and add to the library just to spite the RIAA. The sneaker net will be back in full force. I remember those days with 12 inch LP's and cases of blank cassette tapes.
Portable hard drives are like cassette tapes on steroids. I have a 400 gig one. Too bad I'm no longer in a dorm.
The truth shall set you free!
This is no different from mafia style extortion. How about turning the mafia on them? We should respond with a resounding "fuck you, suck my dick", ... well strike that, I wouldn't want to get sixteen types of colorful diseases.
This is one of those times when I wish the USAF would sort of miscalculate with their armed tomahawks and bunker busters, instead of blowing up Chinese embassies in Yugoslavia!
Slashdot is an army of trained moneys working for the CIA to destroy freedom in the US.
Wait, you said slashdot, not congress. Nevermind.
From: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6162729.html
... nobody has ever paid for music. Think about it. Music has always been freely available, from your church choir music, to your drunk Uncle Henry singing his lungs out at a family party, to your buddies jamming on instruments in your basement.
NEW YORK--The discussions at a music conference here Tuesday started with an all-around bashing of Apple CEO Steve Jobs before moving to the plethora of issues plaguing the music industry.
Apple, digital rights management (DRM) and the public's willingness to pirate music were discussed, debated and lamented once more by attendees of the Digital Music Forum East conference.
"We're running out of time," Ted Cohen, managing director of music consulting firm TAG Strategic, told the roughly 200 attendees. "We need to get money flowing from consumers and get them used to paying for music again."
But
No, what people have paid for over the years are things like packaging, convenience, better quality (yeah, Britney Spears sucks, but probably sucks less than your Uncle Henry), copyability, and portability.
The RIAA is so freaking stupid. Don't try to monetize the sale of music. Monetize those other things. Make it more convenient, more aesthetic, more copyable and portable, etcetera, to use a paid service than DIY CD-ripping or what have you. People don't buy music. They buy other things which are packaged with music.
I'd like to see them actually squeeze any money from my broke college ass, it'd be like magic.
This is what amazes me...at the same time as piracy was first accused of driving down CD sales, what else happened? DVDs, that's what happened. Does Sony BMG ever complain that they've lost a billion in CD sales, but oh by the way, we made two billion in DVDs that same quarter? I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, buying a $20 DVD means not buying a $20 CD with the same $20 note. Sure CD sales have dropped, but the same companies are making enormous DVD sales, which they weren't ten years ago, when CD sales were still high. It's a bullshit argument made by greedy pricks. End of story.
You spent all those words to say "you cannot be a customer and a thief at the same time." So I guess if I go to k-mart and wear a pair of boots out the door i didnt pay for while I go through the checkout for the pants a shirt I want to take home, I'm still "not a customer."
Uh huh. Right.
The violation of the Copyright statute for non-monetary gain is a civil matter, not a criminal matter.
What?
I thought it was theft, just like stealing purses or DVDs or money.
Are those MPAA anti-piracy commercials lying to me?
Well, when paying blackmail you would ideally get the physical evidence of your indiscretion, such as film negatives, documents, stained dresses, bloody knives, etc. The blackmailer faces the risk of his victim deciding that killing him is the best solution otherwise.
The comparison is flawed, similar to "infringement to theft" comparison. When a glass is broken, there is a clear damage inflicted, and I would be required to pay money to fix it, and it is clear how much money that is and what "reasonable" means. In case of downloading music, it's entirely up to RIAA to decide what "reasonable" is.
Another problem with this comparison is that broken glass cases are taken to small claims court where no lawyers are allowed. RIAA's power largely comes from the vast amounts of money they spend on lawyers. RIAA's luck might be quite different if its cases are considered in small claims court.
What part of "felony" is compatible with "not a criminal matter?"
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Purdue had around 40 notices from the RIAA when they were paying for the stupid Rukus music site for all freshman to have access. When they dropped the service because it was dumb(and I think it didn't even work on ipods), the next year they get over 1,000 notices? It shows the RIAA is just trying to extort colleges into signing what are probably expensive contracts with crappy and useless download services.
I prefer the term extortion the x makes it sound cool.
No one actually says that, at least not in Mexico.
Tried it, the latency is terrible.
Will someone just bitchslap these shitfaced cockmasters with RICO already!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
IMHO there is no reason to risk it when you can get the music for free legally. Just my $.02
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Great, wonderful, society will never be the same. There are such things as 100% anonymous networks. Even the data is encrypted on your harddrive. Unless they keep a gun to your head, you can deny any existance of anything you did or have. And once you know you're 100% anonymous and 100% safe, people will do very strange things, like download very questionable and highly illegal content. At least, with the torrent stuff, people refrain from looking for really weird stuff. But now the RIAA harassing people, people are going to look for things like i2p. Myself, I attached to i2p once, just once, and saw the titles of the material they have available there. I immediately disconnected, and I never want to see (just the titles even) ever again. Anywhere from young skin to nazi stuff to people getting killed on camera, and all kinds of other weird strange bizarre stuff I literally can't understand and don't want to understand. I will never sink that low. But other scumbag sleezbags will. I'm totally uncomfortable with this. Thanks RIAA, for pushing people into these totally unacceptable networks. I will forever *HATE* you - you sags of sh1t.
As much as i hate the RIAA, as i am sure everyone else does....they are using a major loophole with these letters. I'll explain why. First off, if this WAS illegal...the RIAA wouldnt have publicly annouced it...they would have just done it and saw how much money they could make before someone blew the whistle on them. second, the definition of Extortion (accounding to britannica) is as such: Unlawful exaction of money or property through intimidation or undue exercise of authority. It may include threats of physical harm, criminal prosecution, or public exposure. Some forms of threat, especially those made in writing, are occasionally singled out for separate statutory treatment as blackmail. now, the loophole lies in the wording that the RIAA chooses to use. By calling the money they want from the person in question a DISCOUNT makes this not extortion sadly. By saying its a discount, they are saying that the person in question has a choice to pay this fee or not; and if not then they will sue. By definition, extortion is FORCING someone to pay money and/or property...so by calling it a discount gives the user the right to ignore it and take it to court or chose to pay it. In no way is this forcing the Receiver to pay, its giving him a choice to. Thats why these shanangians are legal, as of now. Using a loophole like that is terrible IMO. the fact that the RIAA is targeting specificly college students with this new strategy is extremely shrewed as well. They are targeting college students...not because of the access to broadwith or because The RIAA wants to ruin thier lives...its because they are the most likely to pay this insane fee. Thats right, they are picking on kids that are typically ages 18-23 because they are easy to scare into pay by sending them a possible law suit. On a general role, the average college student music downloader knows nothing about the RIAA and its scare tactics. So imagine you are kid, newly on your own in college...and one day after downloading the entire internet music database...you get a letter of impending legal action from the RIAA. In a huff, you carefully read over the letter hoping that it is a joke. But it isnt...but as luck would have it...the RIAA is offering that you pay a fraction of what they would estimate you'd pay...a god send for the average college student. And college students would pay the few hundread dollars so that they arent sucked into paying awhole lot more. The RIAA pretends to bring down the hammer on the average college students, and uses the fact that most students are either on ficantial aid or their parents money as a legal way to extort them. The RIAA offers a choice, and uses the recievers self-dought to excerise legal extortion. I hope this is stopped, this flagerent disregaurd for fair law must be stopped. But as i see how these letters are worded, and though it seems to be absolutely illegal, i'll bet all my illegally downlaoded music that its 100% legal as of now. I wonder if they would actually persue the people who dont pay if there is enough people that do actually pay up.
this will be interesting. In states that allow a defense for a claim of right, the RIAA might get away with it, but they would have quite a burden to prove. I wonder if their legal counsel has finally decided to commit legal suicide.
Actually both terms apply to the 'derivative work' above, as parody is usually a subset of satire, i.e. parody is used by satire to criticize and ridicule the intended target. Technically both are covered by the fair use clause which protects works used for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.
Of course, if someone does decide to sue it's up to the judge/jury which interpretation(="loop holes") of the clause to apply. (These loop holes are the four sub-points of 107)
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
That's probably true. I don't see any "we speak English" signs here in New York. Yet most places do have a "se habla español" though.
The RIAA vs. John Doe, a layperson's guide to filesharing lawsuits
While it's more general than for just the college-student lawsuits, it's still an eyeopener for the layperson on how this scam works. What's especially interesting is how to fight this in the earliest stage. But you need a lawyer quickly.
I'm posting this in the hopes that, if more people know how to fight this extortion, the harder it will become for the RIAA to continue
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Students who don't have the money or time to fight the mafia are a easy target.
"Never say Never."
What's really interesting about their new method is this:
Previously, they would file a lawsuit against a John Doe to identify the alleged downloaders and then contact them offering out-of-court settlements. Now they are negotiating agreements with colleges and ISPs, where providers willingly forward letters from the RIAA to their students/subscribers
The RIAA's benefits are clear: they can fire off a significantly (read: insanely) higher number of letters. They have to prove absolutely nothing to send those.
The article assumes the settlement amounts will be lower, so (in the RIAA's minds) the student/subscriber copyright offender benefits.
But how does the ISP or college benefit?
I wonder if you could fire back a pre-lawsuit threat to countersue them for legal fees and offer to let them settle for a discount...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
When you listen to the Radio, walk into a Mall, etc you will hear music. Radio especially you get to listen to what payola allows.
This means that the OP will hear their music, causing such mental anguish as to cause him to self-mutilate.
No need to steal music. Unless you want to count "listening to a broadcast" as being "stealing"...
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Snowden and Manning are heroes.
You need to download approximately $3000 worth of non DRM-ed music and the end-consumer finally has what they want - bill to be forwarded soon!
I can't help thinking that this is becoming just another revenue stream for the music industry in a legal wrapper. I wonder if the artists see any of these 'settlement' amounts...
Nothing witty
Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer extortion. The X makes it sound cool.
Apart from the answers listed above, I would like to point out that the current legal atmosphere is in favour of the guy with the deep pockets.
If you get sued by the RIAA and you go to court, there is a chance that you'll win. This will cost you a lot (a LOT) of money and time, sometimes even years of your life. Sometimes you'll get cost awarded to you as in a recent case, but the RIAA will appeal, taking more time and more money. If you win without being awarded legal costs, you will most likely have spent more money than the RIAA was going to settle for.
Then there's the chance that you'll lose, and you'll have to pay everything the RIAA asked for, plus your legal cost and if you're very unlucky theirs as well (I think, IANAL).
So, basically, going to court will cost you, even if you win.
The RIAA knows this. That's why it's a little cynical that they're offering a "discount" now, don't you think?
[warning: rant]
I think it's more like this:
Some kid breaks one of your windows with an errant baseball. You threaten to sue the kid's father (and drag your feet in court until the father is ready to settle) and then go after all the kid's friends that have a baseball. Because the baseballs are dangerous things and could break windows, so the kids that have baseballs are clearly guilty (in your eyes) for breaking windows.
</rant>
Is like suing third world countries for the most part. Most of the time while I was in school, my bank account lingered around the $9.00 - $37.00 region; at times, I was lucky and had +$50.00. They'll be lucky to get $5000 nationwide out of this.
And this is to enforce the law? Aren't there laws against doing such things?
Furthermore, what shitty evidence is an IP address. IP addresses do not equal individuals, for several reasons.
Gizmodo is calling for a one-month boycott of the RIAA sponsoring music labels: Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal, and Sony BMG. Don't buy anything during March 2007 to let them know what you think of these tactics.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Both the music industry and the movie industry are oligopolies (http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2003/06/28.html) and as any good economist knows, this has a natural tendency to cause pricing over equilibrium, which in turn causes there to be a drive towards a black market in goods. So, in conclusion, this is just the natural short term effect of a long term correction in the market, and the industry is fighting it tooth and nail. When I can go out and buy a 3 hour long record for much less that a similar length DVD, then well know we are heading in the right direction. Bring on the free market, lower costs of entry, or just bring on the future.
-41stdawn
Lars is that you ?
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"