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."

Comments

A Rose by Any Other Name...

[Bonker]

Demanding money with an accompanying threat is still EXTORTION, whether there's an actual lawsuit or not.

Re:A Rose by Any Other Name...

[shark72]

"Except when they target students on financial aid, whose very education could be depending on the few thousands of dollars they're demanding! If anything, the RIAA is going to create a whole generation of people who could've afforded school, but thanks to those annoying bastards can't really finish their degree, are left with huge loans and don't have a degree allowing them to pay their debts. The RIAA is really pissing me off, they're not helping educate people, they're helping them drop out of school and get even further into debt!"

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.

It's like anything else: if you participate in any illegal activity, there's a chance that you will get caught. I hope that most people understand this before they get to college. In this case, if your financial situation is such that paying a ~ $3.5K settlement would force you to drop out of school, then think very, very carefully before deciding to get heavy into P2P. We can't directly control the RIAA's actions, but we sure can control our own.

Re:A Rose by Any Other Name...

[NtroP]

I can see this as being a big opportunity for Phishing.

1. Set up a fake RIAA/MPAA settlement site
2. Send fake threats
3. ...
4. Profit!

Re:A Rose by Any Other Name...

[therobloe]

A friend of mine received a letter from the University, notifying him that the RIAA had his information and was accusing him of file-sharing. He was provided a number to contact them and settle out of court. This was three years ago, so it's not a new tactic. As to what happens when you do not respond? Apparently, nothing. He's not heard from them since. Rob

Re:A Rose by Any Other Name...

[misterhypno]

A threat of litigation without litigation happening is not extortion. It is actually barratry. Barratry is also illegal.

Look up the term. They are demanding money "or else we will sue," without bothering to even interview the person that they BELIEVE to be the culprit. That's barratry as I understand the term.

In today's world of homes where several family members, dorm mates, roommates, cohabiting parters or whatever other domestic situation is present in a residence, happen to SHARE a computer, there is NO way for the RIAA to actually know for certain WHO is actually using a specific computer at any given moment, especially when people can have multiple user accounts under one master billing name.

And while liability may be attempted to be tied to the master account holder's name, this could prove problematic if the master account holder is a deceased GI in Iraq whose twelve year-old kid is actually using his own user account, UNDER the master account, to do the downloads!

What are they going to do? Dig up the dead GI?

From what has gone on so far, this is not all that far-fetched a scenario...

College student feeling the wrath

[kiyoshilionz]

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?

Re:Piracy is hurting?

[hooded_fang]

Interesting. The Canadian music industry has actually benefitted from downloading. Even my cat knows that an MP3 is not the real thing and Im not planning on shelling out any money for a cd with 1 or 2 good songs. I end up test driving a lot of stuff before surprise, surprise I end up buying it. It just makes sense. This whole thing could have been done differently if the RIAA hadn't listened to the "wisdom" of people like Lars Ulrich. Sell Mp3s super cheap right off the start with a online purchase coupon that gives them a discount on buying the cd copy. Incentive marketing but the RIAA would rather be a fat old dinosaur. And we know what happened to the dinosaurs... Okay Im out of here before that Archangel Michael guy gets all preachy and self-righteous on me. I can already hear him saying "be a good boy and stand in line, individual thought is bad"

Sneakernets: The Original P2P System

[bluemonq]

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".

Are they still bothering to obtain evidence?

[iamacat]

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.

Re:ReRetaliation under the wire.

[Gerzel]

That's why Microsoft is going to enforce an environment where all music and possible "Premium Content" has to be vetted by someone who has legitimately bought governance like the music industry. If you can't afford to buy the government then you should pay like the good little serf you are.

Re:What is wrong with this?

[queenb**ch]

The RIAA and protecting intellectual property are almost oxymoronic. If the money collected was going to the artists, no one would really have much to say. However, it does not. It goes to "feed the beast" that is the RIAA.

Flip on your local radio station. Anything that gets played gets pre-approved by the RIAA. If you're an indie artist, you can kiss air time goodbye. You don't get any.

Most people still get exposed to new music and artists on the radio. That means you get zero publicity for your work while the lastest Brittany Spears song will be played until you're ready to gouge out your own ear drums with a cocktail fork.

Then, if by some miracle you do get signed, the record label-RIAA cartel fronts the money for the production of an album, foists off a producer on to the artist that will get the "right sound" based on what the record label executives think you & I like, and then bill the artists out the ass for "production costs" which have been know to include things like hookers for the label executives. Honestly, you'd be better off charging the production on your MasterCard since, with the fees and such the equivalent interest rate is about 41% APR, whereas your credit card has a maximum of 25% in most states. Keep in mind that it takes a minimum of 2 years to bring an album from concept to distribution. $100,000 at 41% = 141,000 (year1) 141,000 at 41% = 158,000 (year 2) 165,000 by year 3. That's just for a low budget CD. Now that money plus a bunch of fees comes out of anything that the artist might get.

Recording contracts have this clause in them called recoupment. What that means is that the artist doesn't get a dime until the record company gets all and I do mean all of it's investment back. Record contracts are usually 20-40 pages of legalese describing what the artist owes the record company and how the proceeds from any sale of anything from T-shirts to CD's are to be distributed. Typically, artists get less than $1.00 of the $16.95 you pay for a full price CD. If you buy the CD from a discount store (read Wal-Mart) or a club (e.g. BMG Music Club), it may only be a few pennies per CD.

Next, since you have an album you have to go on tour to promote it. Guess what, the label fronts the money again and takes it out of your hide later, along with interest. It works roughly the same way as your recording session. And yes, Virginia, recoupement comes into play again. If the tour doesn't make money, you don't get paid.

Now add that to the fact that they routinely cheat the artists out of the comparative pittance that they're due. Then consider that this entire industry would be completely and utterly non-existent without the artists, do you really think that they deal fairly with anyone? Sympathy for the RIAA? Hah, more like sympathy for the devil.

2 cents,

QueenB.

Yeah...

[Greyfox]

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...