How the RIAA has Dodged RICO Charges

Gerardo writes "Wondering why the RIAA hasn't been hit with racketeering charges over its shady legal fight against file-sharing? Ars Technica looks at why the RIAA has been able to dodge RICO charges. '"Right off the bat there are some problems with the predicate claims for RICO," explained IP attorney Rich Vazquez. "You have to have a pattern of racketeering activity: either criminal acts where there is a one-year jail penalty, or mail or wire fraud." Any RICO action brought against the RIAA would have to focus on the wire fraud component, likely accusing the record labels of poking around someone's PC without permission.' That's going to be a difficult argument to make, given that Kazaa's default settings give users no reasonable expectation of privacy."

Comments

Re:Shouldn't they be asking ...

[2names]

I would much prefer getting my advice as to whether I have a case from the person who spends their time finding ways to get cases thrown out of court than from a prosecutor.

Presumed guilt?

[gstoddart]

Any RICO action brought against the RIAA would have to focus on the wire fraud component, likely accusing the record labels of poking around someone's PC without permission.' That's going to be a difficult argument to make, given that Kazaa's default settings give users no reasonable expectation of privacy."

This argument presupposes that you actually had Kazaa installed and actually traded the files.

If some idiot^H^H^H^H^Hexpert from the RIAA gets my current IP address as the ID of someone who has shared music (I've never personally neither shared nor downloaded music .. ever) if the RIAA spends time trying to break into my computer to prove that I did something I've never actually done ... that sure as hell sounds like they'd be poking about my PC without permission.

We have yet to see any good evidence that the stuff the RIAA uses to launch these suits even remotely passes muster for the legal requirements. Their experts keep saying it does, but a screen shot of data gathered through dubious measures isn't to be trusted. I'll mock up a screenshot showing anything you like if you give me an hour or so.

I mean, what if the RIAA starts pre-texting to get information about my account once they figure out that I don't have any open ports on my machine and there is no evidence I've ever done anything? Their assertion that an IP address is legally tied to an individual is a completely weak argument. Next they'll claim my firewall is an attempt to prevent them from breaking into my computers to collect the evidence they believe should be there.

I think there's a lot of evidence to support the fact that they're doing some pretty shady things. I mean, how many times have we heard about people who don't even own computers being sued? The RIAA just quietly drops the suit and moves on, hoping nobody will say anything.

Cheers

Re:both

[Macadamizer]

With the big group, why aren't there any noticeable pricing differences? Cost of copies is negligible,so there's only one answer, most likely collusion.

Just because everyone charges the same price for a CD does not mean there is collusion. The problem is, CD's are not fungible -- you can only get a U2 CD (legally) from one source, the record label that works with U2.

If you could get U2 CD's (legally) from multiple sources that were in competition with each other, and they still all charged the same price, then THAT might be evidence of collusion.

If people didn't care about which CD they were buying, and only want any old CD, and all CD's were still the same price, that might be evidence of price-fixing as well.

But neither of these are reality -- the fact that a U2 CD and an Usher CD cost about the same amount of money simply means that the record companies can sell a lot of CD's at the current price, and that's what they are priced at. Actually, you can probably get an ABBA CD a lot cheaper than the U2 CD, because the market sets the price, and it's hard to sell an ABBA CD for the price of a new U2 CD. But the fact that the Usher CD and the U2 CD are the same price is not evidence of price-fixing -- if the label selling U2 CD's dropped their price by $2 a CD, you wouldn't expect all of the Usher fans will become U2 fans. Musical taste doesn't usually work that way. Simply put, there isn't a competitive market for CD's like there are for many consumer goods -- each CD is represented (usually) by only a single record label, so there is a single source for the CD, so there CAN'T be collusion on price, at least not for any particular CD.