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RIAA Says Accused Students Are Settling
As we've been reporting, the RIAA has been offering settlements to college students suspected of sharing music online. Reader Weather Storm notes that more than a quarter of the alleged music pirates have accepted the RIAA's offer. Quoting: "...an attorney Ohio University arranged to meet with its students... said $3,000 is the standard settlement offer, though cases have settled for as much as $5,000."
What choice do they have but to settle really? Unfortunately the RIAA can throw mountains of money into any legal proceeding, what's Joe Pirate to do :) ?
Many college students live off of credit cards and have no time for anything else. Consequently, without neither the time nor the financial resources to defend themselves, they are a vulnerable group. As former college students, the RIAA attorneys almost certainly know that.
Do you like German cars?
Mr Orwell, you were right.... sadly
FTFA:
"Reasonable data retention policies are essential," he said. "Lawsuits for music theft are just one example, but there are a host of other crimes regularly perpetrated on computer networks.
"As services providers, one would think universities would understand the need to retain these records."
This only goes to highlight what I believe is the governments complicity in the **AA litigation activities.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
...what now? Options:
1) Find a lawyer to defend you; worry about the final verdict; worry about legal fees; worry about what your friends think; worry about possible ramifications from your school administration/student government...ad nauseum...
2) Pony up the money, which, upon consideration, is probably less than the credit card debt you've managed to rack up.
Honestly, I'm not sure I can blame them for their choice.
Even the innocent will settle. The only people who stand a chance are those who are so obviously innocent that the RIAA case against them is ridiculous. If you're a 95 year old illiterate, non-computer-owner there is still a chance that the RIAA will come after you because somebody with the same name lives within twenty miles of you. The RIAA will continue to push the charges even after they should know they have no basis because most people won't/can't afford to fight back.
If there is ANY chance that you could be guilty, you don't stand a chance no matter how innocent you are.
copyright infringement is not "stealing".
If you'd actually take a moment to educate yourself on the long history of artistry and creativity and the comparatively short history of copyright, you'd understand how the recording industry has twisted the law to its own evil purposes. Using bribes to have legislation passed which fences off huge swathes of our common culture from us, so they can charge admission. Copyright is supposed to be a limited time monopoly of copying, not a perpetual right of complete control.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The thing I can't figure out is if you're talking about the RIAA or the pirates.
You know something you are almost convicing, however, the most likely scenario is:
1. The people involved knew not to do it.
2. The stuff copied was recent release Top 40 type material that has no connection our common culture or public commons.
3. There are legal alternatives that cost a trivial amount of money to access.
4. Even if copyright was unchanged since the 1800's the activities involved would have still be infringing.
I detest the RIAA, but really, let's take it down a notch here. Out of everything the RIAA is involved with this is the least objectionable. When Napster was the rage the cry was "don't punish us that are following the law and shut dow nthe service, just go after the infringers". Well, that's what is going on here. Pretty much anyway you cut it that involves having a copyright these people are screwed.
What a choice - give us all yer money now, or we'll grind you into poverty for the next x years of your life.
Yeah - I'm sure I'd be ready to sell out quick for a few grand - beats the hell out of working for the RIAA for the next twenty years of my life!
From the AC, good points:
1. They knew it was against the law; but it is the law that is in question
2. There is a good chance of that. Would your opinion change if they were downloading Mozart?
3. Again, it is the laws themselves that are in question. If downloading a file is effectively free, then why should they pay for it?
4. If the laws were unchanged since the 1800s, it would be high time for a change. Copyright laws were written to prevent unauthorized commercial copying. Technology has made it possible for individuals to copy works for non-commercial purposes. The law should keep pace with technology.
1. Fair enough. But if you violate a questionable law, don't be surprised when you get hauled (unliterally) to account.
2. Depends vastly. It was a modern performance or arrangement, performed recently, no. My opinion would not be changed. If, for example, it was a reproduction of an antinue performance, than yes, my opinion would be vastly different. If I play a Mozart piece and record it as my own arrangement than I should have control over my versions distribution. I would be an artistic leach, but still, it would my peroggative.
3. The main is reason is because your action is anti-American in the most true sense. The purpose of copyright is to promote the creative arts. That is in our national interest. Making it so that the creative artists are unable to make decisions about the use of their own work creates a disincentive to pursue the creative arts, which is damaging to the country long-term.
4. Your point #4 is factually incorrect. The purpose of copyright being built-into the constitution is that the promotion of the creative arts is in the national interest. Copyright promotes the creative arts. The technology to make non-commerical copies has been around for a lot longer than you think. Regardless, however, the entire purpose of copyright is to allow people pursuing the creative arts to maintain a lifestyle that allows them to continue this pursuit. Elimination of the ability to charge for "non-commerical" copies, or to depend on the good-will of customers puts artists back into the caste they used to be in - able to subsist only via the graces of the the elite and wealthy.
Sure. But who are we supposed to vote for?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The difference, despite your cleverly constructed textual parallelism, is that the mafia threatens you with violence or arson which are illegal and no fault of your own as the victim. The RIAA is "threatening" to enforce their rights under our laws. It is your fault if you are illegally infringing on their copyrights. You don't like it, protest it, but calling it "extortion" is muddying the waters in the same way that equating theft and copyright infrigement do.
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Crudely Drawn Games
One day a RIAA employee asks his manager,
"Who is the most vulnerable and liable for pirating software, music, etc?"
The manager replies, "Well...college students of course."
And they both have a good laugh.
Truth be told it's not funny, it's real. Here is where the RIAA have separated themselves from the norm
of all those who are strongly opposed to the idea of Internet freedoms, most prevalently piracy. However this
is the worst mistake the RIAA has made, the reason is that college students are their number one customer. The
greed and capitalist values have consumed the RIAA past any rational thought process. Essentially the RIAA has
cut off the hand that feeds them. The sad part is that college students are at the mercy of it all. They can't
afford a lawyer let alone pay their rent. I think we fail to recognize who really are the pirates.
The problem with your reasoning, though, is that many people don't believe the RIAA would win in court (most of the time), and I don't think the RIAA is too confident either. They are basing entire lawsuits on a single IP address with little more to go on, and some of their methods are very questionable. And indeed, in the cases where people have refused to settle and gone on to try to put up a fight in court, the RIAA has often backed down.
However, most people fear going to court against the RIAA because of the high costs of defending themselves. They know the RIAA is capable of dragging it out and making it very expensive for them. This is where the "extortion" comes in. They are basically saying "settle, or you're going to end up with an even bigger legal fee than the settlement amount - whether you're innocent or not." They ARE threatening taking the person to court, as you said, but NOT because they think they can win the case. The RIAA doesn't really want these cases to go to court. They want people to get scared and take the settlement. Again, not scared of losing, but scared of the legal fees.
Suppose I'm innocent. Suppose I never did what they claim I did. There's all kinds of reasons why they could improperly target me. Maybe the P2P program identified the wrong person as the source (Kazza was known to do that), maybe the ISP gave them the wrong IP to person information, maybe my computer was hacked, and so on. So let's say one of these is the case. What am I to do? Defending myself is hard because this is civil court, not criminal court. This means that I don't get a free lawyer, and that the burden for proof is much lower. It isn't beyond a reasonable doubt, only to a preponderance of the evidence.
So the problem is that I am stuck having to prove my innocence, and that I have to pay a lawyer far more than $5,000 to do it.
THAT is what is wrong with this. We don't know that these people ever broke the law. All we know is that a company who gets paid when they find someone, like BayTSP produced a screenshot from a program that claims ot be a list of files that are allegedly from some IP. I can poke a bunch of holes in the chain of evidence right there:
--How do we know the company isn't lying? They get paid to find these people, it'd be in their interest to make it up if they can't find someone.
--How do we know the information from the P2P program is accurate? These are not vetted, approved forensic tools and some of them are known to make mistakes.
--How do we know the songs in the list are what they claim to be? P2P networks are full of fake material, how do we know these are real?
--How do we know that this is the correct IP address? What if the P2P program or something else reported the wrong one?
--How do we know the ISP gave us the correct person behind it? What if a hacker hand altered the records to cover their tracks? What if an employee at the ISP did?
--How do we know that it was a computer owned by the owner of the connection that did it? What if someone hopped on their wireless network?
--How do we know that the computer that did it wasn't hacked? There are over a million botted computers out there, how do we know this wasn't one of them?
This kind of thing would likely not even make it past pretrial in a criminal case, but in a civil case, you have to pay to defend yourself.
Then, of course, there's also the issue of the whole 8th amendment thing, you know "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Specifically the "excessive fines" part. They ask for statutory amounts vastly exceeding any real harm caused. You can't tell me that downloading a single tracks causes tens of thousands of dollars of harm and yet that is the kind of amount they ask for, and they are allowed to because of a statute they pushed for. Seems damn unconstitutional to me.
So yes, it IS extortion. They don't care if you are innocent or guilty, they force you to pay because it is too costly to defend yourself, and you risk losing too much. It may be wrapped up in some legislation, it is still extortion.