Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
If "More than a quarter of the alleged music pirates have accepted the RIAA's offer", what are the other 74.9% doing?
Let's just start a big campaign to email RIAA members songs to the execs of the RIAA. After a few million from domains/users that don't even exist, that should exaust a lot of their time/money. They'll never see it coming.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Maybe the RIAA should advertise their pricing scheme to the students, give them some flexibility in their settlements.
"Now see, you can settle for the average $3,000, but if you wish to upgrade to our premium settlement plan of $5,000, we'll also throw in a one-month litigation immunity from our friends at the MPAA. Think of the savings!"
The thing I can't figure out is if you're talking about the RIAA or the pirates.
Today I was in a bar and a middle aged couple I know were asking me about their computer. She works for a local public school and needed to access her school email account. She thought since they were Apple and she had Dell she needed some sort of specialized Apple software to check ger mail (hang in there, this really is on topic). She uses Yahoo's web based mail at home. I explained that email was email and computer brand had nothing to do with it and she just needed an email client and suggested Thunderbird.
Then she asked about Kazaa. I suggested Morpheus because you can download your music into a folder other than her shared folder, and explained the RIAA lawsuits and how the music industry had the world's sleaziest people.
They had been bar owners and had had dealings with ASCAP, who wanted money from both them AND the kareoke people. They wanted money even after they got rid of the bar!
Amyway, it turns out that they were using iTunes at her school; she thought iTunes and Kazaa were the same! Most normal people (not you or me, obviously) have no clue about any of this shit.
They know all about how our government is for sale to the RIAA, though, having been bar owners before.
Don't these damned college kids vote? Look, if you don't vote, get off my lawn you damned kids!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
You are breaking the law, Jimmy. It's a sad thing, when a man breaks the law: can't get a job, gets kicked out of school, hell, what if he has to go to jail? A man could go away for a long, long time, couldn't he? But maybe, if you work with us, we can make sure that you don't get convicted of breaking any law, eh Jimmy?
Create a situation in which the illegal alternative is preferable to the legal alternative. Sue those that break the law. Convince them to settle, using the rest as "examples," to get other people to fear you.
Why hasn't anyone used RICO and extortion laws against the RIAA? Am I the only one that sees this? Yeah, these guys are breaking a law: but the RIAA is running a racket here, and is exhtorting and blackmailing these kids. So send em to court, get the law changed to something sane, and sue the pants off the RIAA under RICO, or something similar.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
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!
As these CRIMINALS should - guilty - pay the piper or don't do the crime
This is a civil matter, not a criminal one. No crime has been committed. No one will be found 'guilty' of anything. If they refuse to settle they could be found 'liable' for copyright 'infringement' in court.
Try not to get too emotional about this. It's irrelevant what one thinks is wrong or right. The RIAA cannot go on indefinitely suing the whole world. And file-sharing is not going to go away any more than the Internet. It's likely that as more artists target their audiences directly, online, the less we'll have need for an organization like the RIAA. History and a new economic model will defeat them.
What choice do they have but to settle really?
75% decided not to settle. I'd say fighting is the overwhelming popular choice.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The problem is that nobody knows how many innocent people the RIAA has extorted money from. What about those who don't own computers? What about the 10 year old girl they just attacked? What about the dead woman? ...
The only reason the college kids are paying up is because they can't afford to defend themselves. It is a lot like the protection racket used by organized crime and gangs today. Pay us or we'll really hurt you.
There was a deposition on Groklaw that pretty much sums up the fact that the RIAA identification techniques probably wouldn't stand a chance in court. There is a LOT of Doubt about the accuracy of the RIAA tactics. More than reasonable too.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
Please understand the definition of the word "Crime" before posting such idiocy.
There is nothing "criminal" about copyright infringement. Someone can take you to court
and sue you, but there is nothing criminal about that. It certainly isn't considered
"theft" by the laws of this country: never was, never will be.
Secondly, how do you feel about being robbed? Because you were robbed. Something
was taken away from you that is worth an enormous amount of money and it was taken
away from you by the RIAA. When copyrights are extended indefinitely, instead of
entering the public domain as they were originally deemed by law -- what is actually
happening is that the RIAA is stealing from the public for their own interests.
Did you have a say in that? Did you agree to give up what was rightfully yours?
Or was it just taken away from you with the stroke of a pen? Because that, my friend
is theft. Plain and simple.
Copyright infringement is not theft. But taking public property for personal gain
is absolutely theft. Now who is the guiltier party?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
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.