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Record Company Collusion a Defense to RIAA Case?
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Is collusion by the record companies a defense to an RIAA case? We're about to find out, because the RIAA has made a motion to strike the affirmative defense of Marie Lindor, who alleged that "the plaintiffs, who are competitors, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and of public policy, by tying their copyrights to each other, collusively litigating and settling all cases together, and by entering into an unlawful agreement among themselves to prosecute and to dispose of all cases in accordance with a uniform agreement, and through common lawyers, thus overreaching the bounds and scope of whatever copyrights they might have" in UMG v. Lindor."
Just settle or admit that you are wrong. The RIAA is doing the right thing by protecting their intellectual property. Even though the only record label represented by the RIAA that doesn't try to sell all crap is Warner Bros. (Madonna is the only musician with any talent and by far the best singer ever), it is still wrong to make unauthorized copies. It is like stealing from a thrift store. It is mostly junk (except for Madonna, she is the best!), but it is still wrong. Downloading music without paying *does* cut into the profits of the labels and artists (all of the artists deserve further pay cuts for low quality product except Madonna). If you couldn't obtain it for free, you would pay for it. It is capitalism working without proper regulation such that those who invest time and money (time is money) into a product can't earn a profit. I think there is somewhat of an inelastic demand for music. If you raise the price by cutting out the free stuff, you will still see demand.
Anonymous Coward Sig 2.0:
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Madonna has the best voice and content creation ability.
Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.[1]
- Nothing to see hear.
As far as I remember, each of the music piracy lawsuits have been brought by individual record labels, and not the RIAA. It seems that the claim here is that the labels are unfairly colluding under the RIAA umbrella, each pursuing suits in the same manner and using the same attorneys, but at least nominally acting as separate entities.
Perhaps an alternate track(sic) might be to high light the publisher involved in each civil suit as well as the greedy self serving worthless artists whose content is being cited for those civil cases.
Should not an effort be made to pursue those artists to see how they feel about their music being used to terrorise children and bankrupt their parents, I wonder what share do the so called artists get of the uncontested civil suits ;).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Labor unions have exemptions from the anti trust laws and such. Several other industry/arenas do to like Baseball and the likes. Class action lawsuits can only be a class action if a judge allows it so there is somewhat of an exemption there too.
But this isn't really like a Class action lawsuit or trade union. This is more like all the grocery stores in a town deciding one day that too many people are stealing milk. So they create a fictional association to protect themselves that goes into each home with or without permission to see if there is milk and if the milk was properly paid for. And then if it wasn't, they determine what kind of container the milk is in, the store who sold it (or should have sold it) sues that person for an obscenely large amount of money and offers to settle for a smaller large amount of money. But both sums of money are more then the value lost by the actions.
Currently, something like that is probably against the law. The defense being offered using colluding isn't going to say "i'm not guilty", it is going to say the evidence was collected illegally by companies acting in an illegal manor against US law for profit above the amount of actual damages and it cannot be entered into this trial. So then UMG says this person distributed our copyright covered materials and here is the evidence which is all gone because of the collusion, so you go, They have no evidence, can we just dismiss this and get on with our lives, The judge says sounds like a good idea and bangs the gavel.
Now this doesn't really touch on their right to sue or anything the accused might have done, it touches on the entering computers in a questionable manor and then attempting to extort funds from people, some of which didn't even have a computer at the time they were accused. So the question is, did the record labels and RIAA collude in a way that was against the law (if it harms one person/consumer, it probably is) and if so, can the evidence they gather when working in that manner be admissible to the cases that they brought about? Generally evidence is evidence except on occasions when civil rights were violated or it was obtained illegally by a party that would benefit.
While I agree with some of the sentiment expressed in other posts, especially to the effect that this is similar to a trade group, there seems to be one defining aspect in this case, namely the tying together of separate copyrights to pursue litigation.
While on the surface, it might be argued that the RIAA is nothing more than an aforementioned trade group (something that is both legal and desirable in many cases), tying ones copyrights into a collective pool is a bit more of a sticking issue.
The companies represented by the RIAA represent 99% of the major American labels (the only reason I do not say 100% is there may be one or two, but the majority are). Upon tying their copyrights together, they effectively stifle competition. How so?
Well, to use a (likely flawed) analogy, imagine if Microsoft and Apple decided to pool all of their resources and patents and copyrights. Now suppose a third party (for profit) company tried to get into the market. Apple may not have prosecuted initially since they did not have access to the patent/copyright pool, and probably wouldn't see this interloper as a direct competitor to be worried about. MS, however, would. So they open up the full force of the patent/copyright pool of both companies and cherry pick the most grievous ones. The company is financially sunk. This couldn't happen without the help of Apple's patents/copyrights too.
Now, I know patents != copyrights, but in a way, it is very similar. The RIAA has access to every song in every catalogue to every major artist. This allows them, by default, to prosecute across borders. It isn't BMG, Sony, and Dreamworks each launching separate suits, it is one company that can attack with a full frontal assault. Essentially, the power has been centralized, which gives too much power to the RIAA, and makes it impossible to resist against them reliably.
Essentially, while we are dealing with intellectual property (ugh, I hate that term) theft, and some of these people may well be guilty, the spirit of the law that was enacted was meant to deter those from doing this, not to crush the offenders into oblivion. And I think that last point is quite important, and also something that many have lost sight of. The laws were created as a deterrent, and as a method of punishment, much like the stocks were of yore. The laws were NOT created (in this country) as a method to crush the individual offenders into the ground (at least, save execution... and that is another issue altogether).
My 2c
Except, it's more like someone bought some milk and then magically made more, free duplicates of that milk and gave it away to neighbors. But now the grocery store doesn't get your money. And then they claim to be doing it in the interests of the dairy farms, but (not so secretly) aren't really giving much of the money for the milk to the farms and sure aren't giving any of the lawsuit money to the farms.
All I'm really trying to say is that there's no theft involved. It's just copyright infringement.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
I somehow doubt the courts see illegal file-sharing as "trade." If they were suing rival record companies for certain reasons, yes, but I don't see that prosecuting copyright cases jointly as a restraint on trade.
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. -Henry David Thoreau
Many are crying fowl that this sort of behavior is perfectly legal, but I would like to point out one thing (I mentioned this in another posting, but thought it deserved an entire post for I believe it to be a very scary point).
Imagine if you will the beginning of the free market's existence. Individual companies and groups barter for goods and services. If someone steps on the toes of another, the person who is wronged takes that person to court, and the transgressor is perhaps found guilty, irrespective of anything else he may or may not have done or is doing at the present. Fine.
Fast forward to the present. Now, instead if you step on the toes of one company (because so few major companies are one person alone), an industry group comes in with a warrant, and searches your computer. Not only do they find infringing material for the original plaintiff, but they also find about 500 other songs belonging to other members of their trade group. Well, they simply have the warrant expanded to search the rest of your network and proceed to sue your pants off for those 500 songs that they found. This means that the process has become streamlined in favour of the companies. This is not good.
Now, go a little further into the future. Not only are there trade groups, but Super-Trade-Groups. Perhaps ones dedicated to the entire entertainment industry (MPAA-RIAA-Shakespearean Theatre Company AA-ad nauseum AA) or perhaps there is just one big-super group. Think of it as a catch-all group that includes the MPAA-RIAA-Microsoft-Apple-Book Publishers-Knitting Pattern Companies-Recipe authors-TV broadcasters-GE-GM-IBM-and any other acronym in any industry).
Everyone has broken the law in some way or another. Imagine though, if a super-group could walk into your life, find all of those transgressions, and can now say: pay up (in installments of course, and there might even be an interest-only version of the payment schedule). This would mean a guaranteed source of income, and not only that, but it would also assure them that they could treat you like a criminal at any point.
If such behavior became common, it might even pose as a catalyst to lower the requirements for a warrant -- to the point where the super group can simply have a catchall carte blanche that they can use as they see fit to protect America from pirates and terroristas...
Welcome to 2084, Orwell's sequel.
If the RIAA labels were actually competing among themselves, then any one of them would be happy to see the others suffer alleged loss of sales. Paying RIAA lawyers to safeguard their alleged competitors' profits is therefore direct anti-competitive collusion, rather than mere pooling of legal costs: they pay shared lawyers to perform actions which they know will support their "competitors".
If real competition between labels existed, then individual labels would reduce their own prices to make official purchases as attractive as file sharing, and they would provide vast band sites to attract the purchaser, and broaden their music spectrum away from the incredibly narrow current crap, and entice fans into buying the physical albums and accessories later for profit, as fans like to do. (Often much later in life, when they have more money.) In a nutshell, they would compete on product.
If you stand back from this whole scene and try to see it through the spectacles of a free market and competition analyst, you'll find none of those elements present in their music marketting. RIAA labels simply do not respond to drop in sales by reducing their prices or raising their quality and music coverage, like indies do.
It's often described as a cartel, but some cartels are relatively shallow and defensive, whereas this one effectively has the entirety of public media in its grasp and the ears/wallets of politicians too, and has a strategy based on offence and intimidation. It is about as malevolant and anti-competitive as you can get without breaking kneecaps. And while they don't break kneecaps, they certainly have no compunction about destroying lives economically, based on legal theories which they lobbied to create.
Their slimy lawyers will probably slither out from under a charge of anti-competitive economic collusion because the legal system is driven by technicalities rather than substance. But the RIAA labels are certainly guilty as sin of it. They lost any concept of competition between them long ago.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I, personally, drink Regal Cola. It's made locally (Australia) and costs about 40% less than Coca Cola. It tastes closer to Coca Cola than it does to Pepsi Cola, and I've found it has a crisp taste that I haven't found in other cola varieties.
If it was found that Regal Cola had similar ingredients to Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola, the law would provide no "protection" to any of these players. As such, I have the choice which product I want to buy. I can choose which I prefer because they are essentially the same. This can't be said for music.
How we know is more important than what we know.