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RIAA Backtracks After Embarrassing P2P Defendant
Harmony writes "When the RIAA sued Sgt. Nicholas Paternoster, it included a screenshot of a shared folder with over 4,600 files — some of which were pornographic images unrelated to the case. Last week, the RIAA got permission from a judge to, as a 'professional courtesy,' swap out the original exhibit for one with only the 350+ songs the defendant is accused of sharing on Kazaa. The RIAA's carelessness may come back to haunt it, however: 'After the suit was filed — and the exhibit made public — Sgt. Paternoster decided to fight back, filing a counterclaim accusing the RIAA of violating his privacy and seeking to "shame Counter-Plaintiff... into giving in to their unreasonable demands regarding their copyrighted materials."'"
In The Deathly Hallows by JKR there is this conversation: (nah, it is not a spoiler. Don't worry.)
"You don't understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with the goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is its maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs."
"But if it was bought ---"
"---then they would consider it rented by one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard. [snip] I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft."
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Vasquez believes that the RIAA could be vulnerable to charges of malicious prosecution, but even that would be difficult. "It would likely take someone on the inside testifying that the RIAA pursued people that it knew were innocent," Vasquez explained. "Then there would be a serious risk of malicious prosecution. But you've got to have them cold."
The article goes into why a RICO prosecution is really just good PR and probably wouldn't work in court.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
"Unknowing possession" is the argument put forth by every sneak thief and druggie who ever got caught with something illegal on their person. The courts are used to trying cases where that is used as an argument. In this case, if the computer really was commonly left unattended in a place accessible by a large number of people, it will be difficult to fix legal responsibility on the titular owner.
I think the fact that they intentionally put out images of content that they don't own the rights to, and have no legal standing to sue regarding, does put them in an actionable position, especially given the nature of the content. Their whole information gathering process is pretty shady already, but if they're routinely scanning content that they don't actually have rights to, that's much shadier.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
You bring up an interesting question: Specifically, the RIAA is suing for more than one man's share of the cost of creation of those songs, ie, they're 'recovering' profits that they 'would' have had. Profits being the key word. So if they use copyrighted (which you'd better believe all porn is) materials that are not related in a case with the intent to make a profit, have they actually gone out of the way to compensate the pornographers? I'd bet no...
I've said it once I'll say it again, won't somebody please think of the pornographers???
Or at least some sort of legal clause somewhere that says you're not allowed to sue for any grevance you yourself are actively commiting against someone else.
Perhaps musicians should finally understand that the era of recorded music having "intellectual property" has come to an end.
The time that a musician could play a song once, put it on a record, CD or whatever and sit on his ass while the money comes running in is nearly at it's end.
Little more than halve a century ago a musician had to play his music in front of an audience in order to make money.
It will not be long till this "normal situation" will return and we will remember the last halve a century as that ridicules time in which musicians usually were killing themselves with drugs or misbehaving due to the fact that they didn't have something to do.
If you think this is nonsense, then ask yourself the following question: do you think it is normal that people who sing a few nice songs make more money then the president of the US?
I've been pirating like a maniac for the past 8 years or so. I've got around 500 albums on my computer that I've never paid for. I used to feel bad about it in the past, but I'm having mixed feelings at the moment.
up until about 2 years ago, I always intended to legally purchase these cds someday (No, seriously) once I get out of college and into the real world. At ~$15 each it would come to $7500, which I suppose is a lot but spread over a few years, it wouldn't really kill me. The problem is I can't stand to contribute a single cent to the sleazy companies behind the RIAA. On the other hand, I am getting a bit tired of mp3 quality and I'd like to have actual cds to rip into a lossless format.
Any suggestions? Anyone else feeling the same way?
Interesting choice of words too. They're not interested in compensation. They want retribution. I have a feeling if they could extract the payment in blood they'd take that route.
Just yesterday, I started a download of a new release of KnoppMyth. Then I went and had some tea. When I came back in about twenty minutes to burn the ISO, I found that Firefox had renamed the file with a "(2)" - sure enough, I had already downloaded the same ISO previously, and just forgot about it.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
"A Porn Tester"
Co-incidence?! I THINK NOT
Digital distribution is the end of the gravy train for them; no more surge of customers buying the same content every time they change the format.
That isn't necessarily true.
Assuming you would discount the Rhapsody/Napster models of "pay subscription for unlimited access" and continue to sell music centered around media/format, there is still plenty of room for these companies to resell the same content to users over and over.
For example, you might have purchased the mp3. But, what about purchasing it again as FLAC? Or, after there is the nextgen lossless that is smaller than FLAC? Or perhaps the "extra special edition" with embedded video?
There are many "value-add" features that can be found to cause a consumer to repurchase; this is wholly independent of the format (digital vs physical).
All digital does is decrease the costs of distribution. So, profit margins can still be maintained, even if the price of the product drops.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Them wanting to keep the latest rap song off of P2P and internet radio is total crap. As Roger McGuinn of the early 60s band "the Byrds" said, the old illegal Napster revitalized his career.
The problem with internet radio and P2P is that the labels can't control it. They want to kill kazaa and bittorrent not because their stuff is on it, but because they can't keep indie stuff off of it like they can the radio.
Face it, if I want the latest pap from the RIAA labels all I have to do is plug my sound card into my radio and sample. I then have ALL the latest hits, at a better quality than the highest bitrate MP3.
They want internet radio and P2P dead because their competetion is on it. It's not about keeping their stuff off P2P, it's about the artists who have discovered that they can make their own CDs in a professional studio and have copies professionally duplicated and packeged for only a few thousand bucks (far cheaper than the labels would chargeback), and promote them via internet radio and P2P.
This is about killing the competition before it kills them, plain and simple.
-mcgrew (AKA "Three-eyes")
Personally, I'm more apt to believe that Vick is guilty because witnesses have come forward and said that he not only bought the property in Virginia for dog fighting purposes, he financed the entire operation. Obviously these witnesses have yet to be cross-examined, so who knows what will come out. He can't claim ignorance, because he attended dogfights. Attending dogfights, of course, is not a crime, but it does mean he knew damn well where his money was going.
For right now, the Sergeant does not have multiple witnesses testifying against him, and Vick does. This is why I am more likely to believe that Vick is guilty.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
"Another interresting choice of words : not the artist, but "the industry" ... A slip-of-the-tongue perhaps ?"
Nope -- the RIAA represents the recording industry. That's what the "RI" stands for. She's being honest and accurate.
Artists (composers and lyricists, at least) are represented by ASCAP/BMI. They also flex their legal muscle from time to time. When that happens the general tone around here is "fuck the greedy artists" rather than "fuck the greedy record labels."
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
For example, you might have purchased the mp3. But, what about purchasing it again as FLAC? Or, after there is the nextgen lossless that is smaller than FLAC?
You'd purchase it once in FLAC and then convert it to mp3 and next generation lossless format yourself. Why buy it again?
This reminds me of arguments I used to have with a musician friend of mine (who IMO, was a very good musician, but very computer illiterate at the time). He was a struggling musician type, He'd been in several bar bands through college, cut a few basement-recorded CDs that they would try to sell at shows, always hoping to "get a contract" and "have their shot," without ever making any money except for the few bucks that they would get from the clubs they played at. Well, he used to decry Napster as stealing from musicians, while I would argue that they aren't stealing from musicians so much as stealing from the record companies. He believed that record companies were there to help musicians make money, and that stealing from them, meant they couldn't pay musicians as much.
His attitude did a complete 360 when one of his band mates, who had done all their computer mixing and CD burning, created a website. It featured schedules, and club's sites linked to it. In addition, you could download their entire album in lo-fi, and two songs in hi-fi, and you could order a CD for about six bucks. They didn't get rich, but it was the first time they made any significant money off of their recordings (better than selling them at shows, anyway).
He had finally realized what I had been trying to tell him: the recording industry is a middleman, that makes their money connecting artists with consumers. Modern technology has eliminated the need for such middlemen, and that is why they are up in arms. They have carved out a niche as necessary parasites of artists, and seeing that necessity vanishing, are lashing out in any way they can to hold on to the position of power they held when limited technology made them useful.
This is always what happens when a middle-man sees their position becoming obsolete. Another great example is health care. Why does socialized medicine have no chance. Is it because the people don't want it? Hardly. Is it because doctors don't want it? Not really. Is it because the existing insurance companies don't want it? Bingo! After all, pass true national health care today, and every health insurance company (with their average 18% overhead, as opposed to Medicare's 2%) is out of business tomorrow (Ever wonder why, after Clinton's absolute failure with his plan for socialized medicine, Kerry came along with his plan that you could have any private insurance you wanted, but the government would pay the bill). Another example. Do you think defense lawyers who defend drug dealers want to see any drugs legalized? HELL NO! Illegal drug sales are their bread and butter. Legalize pot and many of them would have to go out and get real jobs.
You'd purchase it once in FLAC and then convert it to mp3 and next generation lossless format yourself. Why buy it again?
I wouldn't. You wouldn't.
But, I suspect we don't represent the mainstream users. Most people would need software that was dirt-simple to use to even begin considering doing these things. And even then, there'll be the "I don't want to think about it, I just want it to work" crowd that wouldn't want to hassle with converting their purchased library into XXX format.
Even among the technically inclined, there would be resistance.
For example, did you convert your CD's to mp3 when that became the "standard?" Did you reconvert to ogg? Or FLAC?
Too much trouble, right?
For most people, just "rebuying it" would be the "lazy tax" they'd be willing to pay.
Sure, there will always be ways around it for those so inclined. I just don't think the majority of the people fall into that category, hence, there'd still be a market when a new format comes out.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
The plaintiff in this case is in a position where he is conceivably likely to be judged with exceptional harshness by his employer when it comes to possessing perfectly legal porn
I don't think there is any difference under copyright law when dealing with porn vs music. Unless he made the porn, I find it highly unlikely that he owned copyright on it. In that case... his alleged distribution of porn is not any more legal than his alleged distribution of music. Possibly worse, because it's my understanding that distributing porn without verifying the age of the recipient is a federal offense.
The RIAA represents multiple media companies. Many of those media companies also deal with porn... Although the RIAA is chartered to deal with the music business, I would be very surprised if not one of those pornographic files was copyright by one of the media companies the RIAA represents, or perhaps one of their subsidiaries.