Motley Fool Says RIAA Hitting a Brick Wall

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Motley Fool business site says that the RIAA's litigation campaign is in the end game. Monday it reported that 'the music industry's lawsuit crusade against defenseless college students and housewives appears to have hit the skids,' predicting that the RIAA's tactics are 'all about to change.' Today the Fool confirms that 'the change is happening in Internet time, which is somewhere between "instantly" and "yesterday,"' noting that the RIAA's abandonment of its 'making available' theory shows that the end is near. And this is before the RIAA faces its first jury trial, set to begin Oct. 2 in Duluth."

Comments

Re:Motley Fool... RIAA

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Takes a fool to know another, perhaps?

Yes and no. The RIAA is a bunch of small-f fools. The Motley Fool strives to be a bunch of Big-F Fools.

From the linked page:

Motley Fool was founded in 1993 by brothers David and Tom Gardner. Our name derives from Elizabethan drama, where only the court jester (the "Fool") could tell the King the truth without getting his head lopped off. We're dedicated to educating, amusing, and enriching individuals in search of the truth.

A big-F Fool is one who sees, among other things, people being small-f fools, and isn't afraid to say it.

Re:They've created a pirate culture

[Frosty Piss]

There's a whole generation out there now that's grown up with piracy, and that's totally comfortable with it. Because this fight has polarized people so much, it's pushed a lot of people into the pro-piracy side who wouldn't have been there otherwise.

Actually, the Record Industry had the same opinion of cassette tapes, it's just that they couldn't track the copying as you can with Interweb p2p. But "back in the day" there where "public service" campaigns against cassettes, and they tried many times to get laws and taxes passed on cassettes as well.

Wait. I'm sorry, most of you don't know what cassettes tapes are... Here's a linky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette

Re:I Wonder

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I'm forced to wonder, is the RIAA coming out ahead at the end of all of this? Did enough people settle that, despite all the garbage, they're still in the black? And, if they aren't (as I suspect is the case), why would the client-companies of the RIAA keep the RIAA legal staff employed? I know, were I in charge of a mega-media corporation and a team of lawyers screwed the pooch as badly as the RIAA legal team appears to have done so, I'd be handing them all their walking papers... I'm pretty sure they're losing a couple of million a year on the litigation campaign. They make money on settlements, lose money on default judgments, and lose a lot of money on any case where the defendant fights back. And as public awareness grows, more and more people are fighting back.

As to the "walking papers", I imagine the shareholders are on the verge of doing that pretty soon.

Re:Scare tactic

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Even if you understand that it's wrong and agree that the RIAA should be compensated when they do sue someone who is guilty, that doesn't mean you agree that they're asking for reasonable compensation. $750 per song? Do you really think that every time a person puts a song in their shared folder, they deprive the RIAA of an average of 750 legal downloads? Particularly if no one has to have ever downloaded the song from you to get sued? If they were asking for $5 or $10 a song - and being more careful about who they sued - sure there'd still be some people claiming they should never ever sue anyone, but I think many people would be at least a little more sympathetic. At least I'd only think they were being silly and self-destructive for clinging to an outdated business model, rather than seeing them as extortionists and fear-mongerers. And given that they're settling for $3000, you can't tell me that they actually need the whole $750/song for legal fees, etc. They use it as a scare tactic, plain and simple, so they can get their $3k with no fuss and muss. Hence the defense that the RIAA's $750-per-song-file damages theory (2000 times the actual damages per song) might be a wee bit unconstitutional, since, as Judge Trager said:

[P]laintiffs can cite to no case foreclosing the applicability of the due process clause to the aggregation of minimum statutory damages proscribed under the Copyright Act. On the other hand, Lindor cites to case law and to law review articles suggesting that, in a proper case, a court may extend its current due process jurisprudence prohibiting grossly excessive punitive jury awards to prohibit the award of statutory damages mandated under the Copyright Act if they are grossly in excess of the actual damages suffered.....Furthermore, Lindor provides a sworn affidavit asserting that plaintiffs' actual damages are 70 cents per recording and that plaintiffs seek statutory damages under the Copyright Act that are 1,071 times the actual damages suffered. Aff. of Morlan Ty Rogers, ("Rogers Aff.", [pars.]5, 6. See also Aff. of Aram Sinnreich, ("Sinnreich Aff."), [par.] 2, 3 (attesting that popular music sound recording downloads and consumer license to use same are lawfully obtainable to the public at 99 cents per song, and of that 99 cents, roughly 70 cents per song is paid by the retailer to the record label). As FRCP Rule 12(b)(6) requires that this figure be taken as true for purposes of the motion, Lindor has alleged a factual basis supporting her affirmative defense."

Re:Scare tactic

[Svartalf]

The problem is... You are applying the concept of "theft" to the wrong thing.

It's NOT theft. Congress delimited it quite correctly. "Intellectual" property isn't property in the normal sense.
It's a State (as in the Union of States) granted Monopoly over the right to produce copies of the protected work(s).

In the case of Copyright, it's the right to produce copies or derivative works of a piece of music, literature, or
other art- and to distribute said copies or derivatives to other people.

In the case of Patent, it's the right to control the manufacture of a device that meets the description of the Patent
grant or to make derivatives thereof.

In the case of Trademark, it's the right to use a given phrase or illustration to represent your work, company, or product.

These are given for everything except Trademarks for a limited time to encourage the development of more works of
similar or different nature.

They're NOT property. They can't really be "stolen" in the sense of the definition of theft. When I steal (theft)
something, you are deprived of the use thereof of the item in question. With infringement, you are only
deprived of the right to control the replication or derivation of a protected work. You are not deprived of the
use thereof as you still HAVE the item in your possession.

You might be able to apply the theory that when I infringe on one of the aforementioned right grants from the
government, that I'm stealing money from the party being so infringed. Unfortunately, the law doesn't see that
this way. With the so-called "intellectual" property, there are no guarantees you will see a dime from it, no
matter what you might say to the contrary. All that has been done is that your rights to reproduce something has
been infringed upon, which isn't theft.

Please refrain from conflating the two- it's part of the problem everyone's having and it's the same type
of games the media companies and their representatives, RIAA, MPAA, etc. have been at. Right along with this
lawsuit BS that's hopefully coming to an end.

Re:My outlook

[NeutronCowboy]

Just because I feel like nit-picking: it's spiel, not speil. It's derived from the German word "Spiel", i.e. "play". It's used most often in the context of games - board games, football games, etc. Hence our use of spiel in the context of someone engaging in a routine where the rules are well-known and completely artificial, and where stuff is for entertainment only.