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U.Maine Law Clinic Is First To Fight RIAA
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "'A student law clinic is about to cause a revolution' says p2pnet. For the first time in the history of the RIAA's ex parte litigation campaign against college students, a university law school's legal aid clinic has taken up the fight against the RIAA in defense of the university's students. Student attorneys at the University of Maine School of Law's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, under the supervision of law school prof Deirdre M. Smith, have moved to dismiss the RIAA's complaint in a Portland, Maine, case, Arista v. Does 1-27, on behalf of two University of Maine undergrads. Their recently filed reply brief (PDF) points to the US Supreme Court decision in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, and the subsequent California decision following Twombly, Interscope v. Rodriguez, which dismissed the RIAA's 'making available' complaint as mere 'conclusory,' 'boilerplate' 'speculation.'"
it was a stupid idea to sue university students, especially universities with law schools.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
"still stealing music?"
Still don't know what you're talking about? Fucking RIAA executives.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Soon, I'll have stolen ALL the world's music!! No one will get so much as a treble clef without going through me!
But don't think I'm ALL bad...if you buy a C and an E, I'll toss in a G for free. Same octave only, no exchanges if you decide to change key.
Most schools with legal departments seem to have simply backed down. The RIAA still gets much of their purpose accomplished.
I give this thing twelve months before the federal government stops allowing student loans and federal aid of any and all kinds from being spent on students and services for this school.
You see, the RIAA could focus their efforts on developing innovative ways to market music. What if they could come up with something even more convenient and irresistible to millions of consumers than Apple's iTunes store? What if this innovative marketing brought in so much money that piracy would represent only an immaterial portion of their bottom line? They would look like heroes and every company would flock to imitate them.
But, you see, they fell into the trap of thinking that lawyers and litigation could solve their problems. They declared legal war on an entire population. Whenever there's a war, whether a legal one or a physical one, everyone knows how it begins, but nobody knows how it will end. Nazi Germany started war on the entire world, thinking they were big, mighty, and unstoppable. And what happened? In the end, there was devastating destruction throughout Europe, tens of millions of lives destroyed, and the country in the worst shape of all was Germany. Why?
Slightly off-topic, but I often see people mentioning Harvard hasn't been targetted by the RIAA.
It's not for legal reasons. If you use any P2P software, Harvard IT shuts off your access; you're blocked on a DHCP level. You get three "strikes" before this happens- unless you're on wireless, in which case, you're booted right away.
Please help metamoderate.
I don't care if they call it stealing or what it really is. copyright enfringment.
I'm still going to STEAL every damm song i want. And never ever buy another ANYTHING they sell.
ever.
and i will continue to help other people STEAL music.
I dont care what they say. be it that it's wrong, illegal, immoral. ect. I still havent been busted for price fixing and i dont screw the artists out of cash no matter what they claim. the music mafia still has a lock on being that immoral, illegal, and wrong.
fuck em. they can never get me back as a customer. ever. i want to see them all broke and have to get real jobs.
No, the RIAA is a coalition of record labels and distributors, not artists. (It stands for "Recording Industry Association of America".) They're the middlemen in the music industry, neither creators nor consumers.
What a university provides to students is usually geographically restricted high speed access to the Internet. There's a heavy investment in wire and routing, but the university doesn't necessarily put a lot of file servers and storage in sync with that. Most often the university's own research computers are behind firewalls, and their administrative systems invariably are. Some mail services are frequently offered, but the storage amounts are generally much smaller than even free sources such as Google or Yahoo. So in that way, a university network is more similar to a common carrier's systems, like the phone company or snail mail, than is a commercial ISP's. It's designed to deliver information, not to be a static source.
Wouldn't it be interesting if, a few years down the road, all this gets thrashed out in the court system, and the legal decisions are essentially that the university systems don't enjoy any of the protections of common carrier status, but commercial ISPs do? All carriers are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Who is John Cabal?
But, all I gotta say to this is, I wish I were this brave (I'm just a lowly boycotter). If you can get away with it, more power to you!
My wife wants me to steal music for her so she can figure out what to buy, (although she bought ten times more CDs than I have). I have been reluctant to help (I have static IPs at home that would be easy to trace and don't have the time to spend time keeping updated a TOR router).
Should I spend the effort to help her out?
(here's the quoted post, just to show my agreement and pull it out of the anonymous coward bins of most people:) I don't care if they call it stealing or what it really is. copyright enfringment.
I'm still going to STEAL every damm song i want. And never ever buy another ANYTHING they sell.
ever.
and i will continue to help other people STEAL music.
I dont care what they say. be it that it's wrong, illegal, immoral. ect. I still havent been busted for price fixing and i dont screw the artists out of cash no matter what they claim. the music mafia still has a lock on being that immoral, illegal, and wrong.
fuck em. they can never get me back as a customer. ever. i want to see them all broke and have to get real jobs.
There is a world of difference between the law school and the law office.
How about we wait until we get definitive victories on appeal and in Congress?
The federal criminal code was revised to remove any doubt that an infringer could be prosecuted even when there was no financial gain.
The statues could be just as easily revised so that "making files available" to the P2P nets becomes sufficient to establish infringement as a matter of law.
Neither law enforcement nor big business understands that respect is a mutual affair. The fully expect us to respect the law, and to respect their rights under that law ... and they just can't seem to figure out why we do not. Unfortunately, they have treated us so poorly that there is no longer any respect possible from our perspective. Not until they clean up their acts and become deserving of it again.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'll take you up on that.
{Later, on Flyer}
"New Band starting. We have the C, E, G set, the D,F,A set, and some of the flats. We're looking for a fresh new talent who specializes in B, Minors, and Sevenths. The local law firm has sponsored us with a left over "Treble" from a Treble Damages suit. We can't afford a Bass Clef, so we're using the open source version 'Atlantic Bass'.
We have purchased Octaves 3 and 4. We use Pitch Altering software when someone wants us to perform the US National Anthem. However, we're in a squabble from the owner of Octaves 2 and 5, who says our shifted notes sound exactly like theirs, and they want us to stop."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
And that is their biggest obstacle. They are protecting their bottom line and nothing else. However, if you listen to them, they consistently cry that they are trying to protect the artists, despite the fact that historically more money has been withheld or denied by record labels than by our downloading. No matter how relevant the RIAA's claims may be, a campaign built upon deceit only makes them look less deserving. A rock-solid way we can compensate the artists directly (and the labels reduced to being recording studios and nothing more) is the best outlook for the future, IMHO.
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
Uh... it's a pretty obvious troll, given away by saying "if you couldn't get it for free, you'd be paying for it". We all know that isn't true for nearly all cases, although it may be true for some.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
"Should I spend the effort to help her out?"
In my opinion, I don't think you should for two reasons. First, don't risk it. Yes, we'd all like for people to take a stand against the RIAA, but it's a lot easier to back when someone else is doing it. Second, they'll use those numbers to prove that anti-piracy legislation needs to be strengthened. I don't believe that mass-downloading and mass-not-purchasing can bleed the RIAA fast enough to prevent them from sinking ridiculous amounts of money into the pockets of politicians. To me, that's a no-win scenario.
I have an alternative, though. You could try a music subscription service. For $10 a month, you could get Rhapsody. You'll have instant access to all of their music. You don't get to keep it, but for less than the cost of a new CD a month you have something like 4 million songs. If you pay an extra $5 a month, they'll sync up with certain MP3 players, so you can take care of your mobile needs, too. I am a Rhapsody subscriber, so if you have questions about specifics about it, feel free to ask. I'm reluctant to say too much initially, though, for fear of being branded a Rhapsody shill. I don't know much about the other services like Napster so I cannot tell you which is the 'best'.
I think this suggestion might be a solution to both your problems. One of my main attractions to Rhapsody (besides not having gigs of MP3s to try to keep synced across all my machines....) is that I've broadened my tastes in music. That sounds like something your wife is looking for. It also proves the point to the RIAA that you actually are willing to spend money on music, but that you need their business model to be modernized. I could save a few bucks and just go download a bunch of MP3s. But I don't because I'm happy with the service I'm getting. If money's being made this way, they're more likely to be open to alternatives. But if money is being 'lost' (by lost I mean their silly definition of it... like billions of dollars evaporating into kazaa smelling vapour even though their sales are higher than the previous year's) they're more likely to fight back via lawyers. It's the carrot vs. the stick. Tempt them with the possiblity of generating revenue instead of scaring them with the threat of losing it.
But, that's just my opinion. Other suggestions would include purchases of DRM-free music that's starting to appear. Purchases towards indie labels are potentially a win, too. If indies make money and the RIAA isn't, it's hard for them to claim that losses are due to piracy as opposed to boycotting. I don't personally back this option, though, simply because I haven't been all that impressed with indie offerings. Still, though, I'm at least a year or two overdue for re-examining that option so I really don't want to state that opinion too strongly.
Cheers and have a good weekend.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, it's not absolutely true that people will buy that which they can't get for free, thus the AC was deliberately lying (or stupid, take your pick), thus trolling. Thus, your original indignation was kinda pointless.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I think the blog post on p2pnet gives this motion to dismiss a lot more credit than it is due. The basic crux of motion's the argument is that Bell Atlantic v. Twombly (Decision Here) raises the pleading standards for what a lawsuit must allege to a level that the RIAA's complaint, as currently written cannot meet.
The argument used does not challenge law suit on any substantive legal ground (i.e., the law underlying the complaint), but rather on procedural grounds. That basically means that the motion alleges that that RIAA/MPAA failed to meet a proper standard of proof with respect alleging enough facts to merit a suit.
I externed at a Federal Court this summer, and we saw plenty of these motions with this same argument for many different types of cases. Most of the time this procedural error was the fault of some idiot lawyer forgetting to check the validity of the case law cited in some boilerplate form complaint that the submitting firm had in their document library. The cases were usually dismissed, with leave to amend the complaint and refile one a sufficient complaint could be drafted. This is not "groundbreaking" will not stop the RIAA cold in its tracks. They will file another suit once they tweak their complaint to meat Twombly's new standard of proof.
I wish the students luck in fighting the suits against them and hope they win, but this is nothing more than a legal pothole, not the roadblock that the summary makes it out to be.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
It was a nice brief, and this is not meant as a criticism of their abilities; for law students they're operating at a very high level. But now what? Even if the Court dismisses, the RIAA will file an amended complaint that meets the Twombly pleading standard (which with a little effort they could probably do, it isn't that much higher a standard than Conley). At that point your "attorneys" are a few months closer to graduation, and you're back where you started.
As unfair as the law is on this point, and as ridiculous and inept the RIAA has been in its lawsuits, it's fairly likely the students in question did violate copyright law, and it's quite likely if they did they'll be on the hook for significant money (the motion makes a constitutional argument that is not very convincing, with the sole case they cite not anywhere near on point). The students they represent are risking a lot.
There is a reason why no amount of amending can cure the RIAA's problem. It is that the RIAA simply does not have evidence of a copyright infringement by the defendant.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
The RIAA is trying to maintain control over content distribution. That control is more important to them than the bottom line. But that control does not serve the purposes of the Copyright Act or the Constitutional authority thereto, which is to increase the public's access to content. The evil cabal controlling the mainstream media doesn't want to lose their precious monopoly for fear that the human spirit will rebel against them. But their Machiavellian approach will be their undoing. They treat people like cattle, and as a result, they'll be destroyed themselves in the end.
Those willing to look to "indie" music ought to try putting "Creative Commons" MP3 download into Google.
There are far too many sites to list. I happen to find a lot of music at Dance-Industries to my taste, but somewhere in that Google list there's probably a Creative Commons site catering to almost any taste in music.
And better yet, set your Creative Commons music folder to share in some P2P program.
That is the most powerful way to torpedo the RIAA battlefleet. Well that, and of course actually creating/releasing more Creative Commons music yourself.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.