RIAA Wants $1.5 Million Per CD Copied

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Not content with current statutory damages, the RIAA is pushing for higher damages for infringement, damages that would total $1.5 million for copying a CD with ten songs. It's all part of debate over the proposed PRO-IP Act. William Patry, a lawyer who wrote the seminal seven-volume reference on US copyright law, called it the most 'outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US.'"

Comments

$1.5 million?

[KublaiKhan]

I knew that 'going gold' meant a lot to an artist, and I knew the price of gold was high, but $1.5 million sounds just a little high...

Or is this just for the ones that go platinum?

Re:$1.5 million?

[MozeeToby]

This is a classic case of asking for more than you can get to give yourself bargaining power. They'll ask for 1.5 million then say "oh well, we'll just compromise at 750k and call it good"

Re:$1.5 million?

[PopeRatzo]

I just copied Icky Thump by the White Stripes and Parsifal by Richard Wagner, conducted by James Levine. The Wagner is 4 CDs, so does that mean I owe them a total $7.5mil?

Let me get my checkbook.

Strange, because the last time I was in a record store (a few years ago, honestly) the price tag was only about 14 bucks.

What a bunch of wankers the RIAA is. Talk about having an inflated sense of worth.

Re:$1.5 million?

[teasea]

Gold is 500,000 copies and platinum is 1,000,000. So if you go Gold, that's a net of $7,500,000.00. Now the company spent $100,000 to $250,000 recording, $3,000,000 in marketing (mostly payola) and another half million or so on incidentals (hookers, bail). Oh, and stamps. Add a half million.

The artist on the first album will 1 to 3% of the net, so with the remaining 3 and half million or so, that means the artist only owes the company an additional $150,000.00. Luckily there are 4 or 5 members in the band, so it's relativly painless. You should be able to make most of that back on your next album assuming you can come up with quality material in 9 months when the first album took 12 years of writing. (It's easier to just use the same songs with different lyrics.)

Have a cigar!

Re:$1.5 million?

[thatskinnyguy]

You should be able to make most of that back on your next album assuming you can come up with quality material in 9 months when the first album took 12 years of writing. Bon Jovi said it best,"You have your whole life to write your first album and only six months to write the second."

Re:$1.5 million?

[KeyboardMonkey]

To put this in perspective, the entire US GDP in 2006 was $13.13 trillion. That's 8.7 million copied CDs.

I wonder what that is in Libraries of Congress.

Re:$1.5 million?

[rapturizer]

I think we should let them, only with the stipulation of a $1.5 Billion penalty when they file a lawsuit against the wrong person. Of course, this would be payable in cash to the person they sue. I would think that this would be an equally justifiable fine and would encourage some top tier lawyers to defend the public for a marginal percentage.

Re:$1.5 million?

[aztektum]

Meanwhile each CD only sells for 10-15 bucks. Somehow they feel copying that CD and losing them that sale is worth fines that are many orders of magnitude what they actually "lost" (using their definition of lost).

Re:$1.5 million?

[Fishead]

Buddy of mine was working on a yacht with a schnazzy sound system. Once they realized what they had access to, all the technicians bought portable harddrives and made themselves a copy.

Good thing I didn't copy the 50Gigs of mp3's from CD, or I could be on the hook for a lot of money!

Re:$1.5 million?

[hondo77]

You realize that you just quoted Jon Bon Jovi...in public?

Re:$1.5 million?

[Anonymous Coward]

Might want to check the numbers. Last I heard most major artists were costing 1 to 5 million in the studio, that's ignoring the Michael Jackson 25 mill per album in studio expenses. That's an average and some are more. Low end artist may be in the 100K to 500K in studio time. I'm talking major labels not Jim Bob buying a few hours of studio time or doing it in his garage. The actual studio cost is a tiny part of the expense the majority going to expenses and demands of the artists. Some expenses are legit like studio musicians and engineer time in post processing and mixing but the bulk tends to be conditions artists demand and their small army of people that are around them. Also for a major album 3 mill would be on the low end for advertising. They don't spend film money but they spend north of what they spend on producing the albums, once again ignoring Michael Jackson, in his case he just shows up in public sporting a new nose or weird outfit. The real expense though are the five or ten albums that tanked to get the hit one. Now that sales for even established artists are dropping like rocks they are going to be far less likely to go with new talent. Kind of the irony of the situation. Companies like to play it safe when things get tight. Better to spend 5 or 10 mill cranking out another Brittany album than give ten unknown artists a shot at it. With a lot of the singers these days it's in the post production anyway. Ole Paris Hilton helped let the cat out of the bag on that one. She can't sing a note but her album was passable once they got finished filtering it. It's why so many young artists don't sing live, you'd never recognize their real voice. The excuse is the dance numbers and difficulty getting clean sound. The real reason is a good share are there for looks and can't really sing.

Re:$1.5 million?

[mrdarreng]

Have a cigar! nice reference! ;c)

Re:$1.5 million?

[Dirtside]

He didn't say Jon Bon Jovi, he just said "Bon Jovi". He was referring to the well-known Italian architect, Dr. Giuseppi Bon Jovi of the Milan Institute of Design.

I mean, duh. Of course, I have no idea why an architect is bloviating about music, but who can understand Italians?[1]

[1] No one, not even other Italians.

Re:$1.5 million?

[MacWiz]

I heard somewhere that you can't always get what you want.

Re:$1.5 million?

[djupedal]

The Library of Congress contains about 20 terabytes of text.

If a CD contains, say 700mb; 8.7 million copied CDs = approx. 300 LOC's

Re:$1.5 million?

[sm62704]

who can understand Italians?[1]
[1] No one, not even other Italians.

My sister's husband is Italian, you insensitive clod.

Nobody unbderstands him though.

Re:$1.5 million?

[Desco]

You realize if you stole-- PHYSICALLY THIEVED-- and in doing so denied someone else their ownership by removing the album from their car... it would be petit misdemeanor theft ($100), which has a maximum sentence of about $1000 and/or 90 days in jail. Doing a quick scan of the web, most petit thefts gets $300-$500 fine and a year of probation. But no, you're right, copying a CD which doesn't deny the original purchaser's ownership should be in the millions.

Re:$1.5 million?

[Vr6dub]

Yeah, but how many Cadillacs per dog year is that?

Re:$1.5 million?

[PopeRatzo]

They say a CD is worth $1,500,000 and you can get it for $14. (First of all you are apparently getting one hell of a deal at the store)

Sorry, but it's been a while since I bought a CD in a store.

Not that I never buy CDs, though. I've purchased quite a few CDs last year (or at least CD's worth of music) directly from the artists. I really like dealing directly with artists when buying their work. Not only is all the money going directly to the people who did the hard work, but it creates a personal relationship with the artist. You'd be surprised how many of my favorite musicians have corresponded with me personally just because I bought their music directly from their website. In at least two cases, they've sent me free previews of their next releases, and one even put me on the guest list at an upcoming show in my area (naturally, I declined and paid my way). Hard-working musicians really appreciate it when their fans think enough of their work to lay down a few bucks which goes right into their pockets, without doing a detour through several colonies of leeches and skimmers, none of whom have done a goddamn thing to help, and in many cases have made life harder for them.

I love music and musicians. I make a significant portion of my own livelihood by making and selling my music. The RIAA, MPAA, intellectual property lawyers, record company execs, A&R people, radio program directors, Clear Channel, major concert promoters, etc etc do nothing but hurt the quality and quantity of music. More and more creative people are realizing there's a better way. God bless 'em.

Re:$1.5 million?

[shellbeach]

I just copied Icky Thump by the White Stripes and Parsifal by Richard Wagner, conducted by James Levine. The Wagner is 4 CDs, so does that mean I owe them a total $7.5mil? Normally, yes. But I'd imagine that listening to four CDs of Wagner would be considered punishment enough ...

Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist?

[Steeltalon]

I ask because I want them to be safe. It has to be painful pulling garbage like this out of their asses.

Re:Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist?

[spun]

It has to be painful pulling garbage like this out of their asses. Not when you're THAT big of an asshole. The RIAA could pull a dump truck out of their asses and not feel a thing.

Re:Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist?

[VultureMN]

You are, indeed, correct.

I think this is the first, and probably last, time on /. where a link to the goatse guy would be ONtopic.

Re:Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist?

[Malevolent Tester]

The digestive system isn't a dump truck - it's a series of tubes.

Re:Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist?

[blind monkey 3]

It looks like they are attempting to reverse a tow-truck up our asses to look for the dump truck.

Re:Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist?

[mindwanderer]

It's not garbage; it's Intestinal Property.

Re:Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist?

[MastarPete]

interestingly enough a similar opportunity opened up in the comments for
"CSS of DVDs Ruled 'Ineffective' by Finnish Courts" http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/25/1653209

"That might have been true in the past. In the age of the Internet, cracks can almost instantly become widespread."
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=236211&cid=19273729

heh

[Captain Splendid]

RIAA Wants $1.5 Million Per CD Copied

And I want a pony. Somehow, I think we're both going to be disappointed.

Re:heh

[mcmonkey]

RIAA Wants $1.5 Million Per CD Copied

And I want a pony. Somehow, I think we're both going to be disappointed.

Somehow, I think the RIAA have better lobbyists than you have.

And I think the point is not to actually get $1.5mil per CD, but to have that statute on the books as leverage to get more settlements.

Re:heh

[Hatta]

Give as much money to politicians as the RIAA has and you'll both get your wish.

Re:heh

[KublaiKhan]

Cheaper just to buy the pony.

Re:heh

[TubeSteak]

Somehow, I think the RIAA have better lobbyists than you have.

And I think the point is not to actually get $1.5mil per CD, but to have that statute on the books as leverage to get more settlements. Whenever you see legislation like the PRO-IP Act, you have to ask yourself two questions:
1. Who is sponsoring the legislation?
Sponsor:
John Conyers [D-MI]

Co-sponsors:
Rep Berman, Howard L. [D-CA]
Rep Cohen, Steve [D-TN]
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [D-TX]
Rep Schiff, Adam B. [D-CA]
Rep Wexler, Robert [D-FL]

Rep Chabot, Steve [R-OH]
Rep Feeney, Tom [R-FL]
Rep Goodlatte, Bob [R-VA]
Rep Issa, Darrell E. [R-CA]
Rep Keller, Ric [R-FL]
Rep Smith, Lamar [R-TX]

2. Where did the model legislation for this Act come from?

Re:heh

[eiapoce]

Excellent piece. BTW: Republicans = Democrats = Sold out. And I mean it, here is proof: http://www.politicalmoneyline.com/ - http://opensecrets.org/

I'd suggest american friends to change from a Duocracy system to a real democracy. As much is proven that a duopoly is not effective in favouring the consumer, why whould a duocracy do any better in the political field?

Re:heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever you see legislation like the PRO-IP Act, you have to ask yourself two questions:
1. Who is sponsoring the legislation?
Sponsor:
John Conyers [D-MI]

Co-sponsors:
Rep Berman, Howard L. [D-Hollywood]
Rep Cohen, Steve [D-Nashville]
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [D-TX]
Rep Schiff, Adam B. [D-Hollywood]
Rep Wexler, Robert [D-Disney]

Rep Chabot, Steve [R-OH]
Rep Feeney, Tom [R-Disney]
Rep Goodlatte, Bob [R-VA]
Rep Issa, Darrell E. [R-Hollywood]
Rep Keller, Ric [R-Disney]
Rep Smith, Lamar [R-TX]

Fixed some typos for you.

Re:heh

[TubeSteak]

Excellent piece. BTW: Republicans = Democrats = Sold out. I disagree with the notion that Republicans = Democrats = Sold out
There are real and serious differences between the two parties and anyone who tries to marginalize those differences is usually agitating for a 3rd party or giving in to apathy.

The +5 Funny AC below me made an insightful commentary that I had thought about saying, but decided to avoid editorializing.

Basically, the people sponsoring this bill are:
Disneyland x 3
Hollywood x 3
Texas x 2
and Nashville Tennesse, the home of country music

People always seem surprised when they realize that their Representatives consider Big Business to be part of the constituency.

I'd suggest american friends to change from a Duocracy system to a real democracy. The founders of these U.S.A. were against a Duocracy (nice word, only 434 results on Google), but they were also afraid of a direct Democracy.

Re:heh

[pclminion]

I disagree with the notion that Republicans = Democrats = Sold out There are real and serious differences between the two parties and anyone who tries to marginalize those differences is usually agitating for a 3rd party or giving in to apathy.

Indeed. Back when I was getting my feet wet in the field of data mining, I decided to download the voting records of the US Senate, at least for the last 20 or so years. This data is publicly available on the government web site. A few Perl scripts later and I had reduced the entire voting record to a single CSV file. Each "issue" (an item being voted on) was represented by a single row. Each column represented a specific Senator, and the values were either "For," "Against," or "No Vote."

I also created a perpendicular data set, where each row represented a Senator and each column represented a specific issue, with the values again being "For," "Against," and "No Vote."

I loaded these data sets into a general data mining tool and ran some trials. Among other experiments, I ran J48 to produce decision trees to predict vote values for each Senator, based on how the Senator voted on some specific "model issues," such as gun control legislation. In other words, based on how a Senator voted on certain issues I could predict how they voted on some target issue. If somebody voted against a pro-life abortion bill, how would they vote on a matter of pollution control? Etc. I also ran the perpendicular analysis: based on how other Senators voted on issue X, how would any given Senator vote on the same issue? These decision trees achieved predictive accuracies of greater than 80% in standard cross-validation testing.

The decision trees are also very informative in that they describe the political influences between Senators. If the topmost branch of the decision tree for Senator X is Senator Y, then we can assume there is some kind of friendship, similarity, or power relationship between those two Senators, at least to some degree. These decision trees are powerful tools for political analysis.

But more to the point, one of the best tests I conducted was the application of EM-clustering to the Senators themselves, with the goal being to divide them into "camps," where each camp had similar voting preferences. I allowed the EM-algorithm to decide, on its own, how many clusters to produce, using an MDL principle. I was only somewhat surprised when the algorithm created three clusters. All the Republicans ended up in cluster 1, along with two Democrats. The rest of the Democrats, as well as all the independents, ended up in cluster 2. The third cluster contained Senators who had run for President. (My theory on why the algorithm created a "Presidential cluster" is because Presidential candidates often spend a long time away from the Senate, during their campaigns, and therefore have long stretches of "No vote" on their records. This makes them appear somewhat similar to each other from a statistical viewpoint.)

When "dumb," statistically based data mining software is capable of grasping the clear differences between Republican and Democrat, it becomes impossible to argue with a straight face that the two parties are the same. A fucking computer can tell the difference, why can't a human?

(By the way, one of the Democratic Senators the computer placed into the Republican party was Hillary Clinton.)

Re:heh

[Jafafa Hots]

"There are real and serious differences between the two parties and anyone who tries to marginalize those differences is usually agitating for a 3rd party or giving in to apathy." The differences: GOP "We want to government to torture people." Dems "We're going to write a strongly worded letter explaining our misgivings about our allowing government torture." GOP "The government needs to spy on its own people, this is a good thing." Dems "Gosh, its too bad that the government has to spy on its own people." GOP "The president can't break the law because anything he does is by definition legal." Dems "The president can't break the law because he's not supposed to. We think he is, but he swears he's not. We sure wish he'd stop, but he says he won't."

Re:heh

[Yoozer]

When "dumb," statistically based data mining software is capable of grasping the clear differences between Republican and Democrat, it becomes impossible to argue with a straight face that the two parties are the same. A fucking computer can tell the difference, why can't a human?

Because the computer has everything loaded up into memory (people forget past mistakes and triumphs if it suits them) and because the computer is not prejudiced. If someone hears of 5 corruption scandals at the Republicans and 2 at the Democrats, people still have a tendency to call it "both are equially corrupt" - because it saves them the hard work of thinking.

The Hillary outcome is interesting, though - so instead of a RINO (Republican in name only), she's a RONIN (Republican, only not in name) ;).

Re:heh

[belmolis]

Rep Goodlatte, Bob [R-VA]

Are you sure that shouldn't be:

Rep Goodlatte, Bob [R-Starbucks]

Re:heh

[eiapoce]

Listen my friend.

To start with when I was 20 I proudly applied statistical data analisys to the breast size of the playboy's bunnies in order to find out whereever they had implants or not. I think statistics belongs there. Otherwise following your reasoning of statistics in politics we could have robots voting istead of people.

That said and getting a serious conversation going on, it is not the specific case of pro-abotion pro-life issues that matters here. And that's because clearly the health service industry is making money wherever there is a abortion or a newborn, that's why you could spot a residual difference beween the two. There are also a basic numbers of sensitive areas that the parties expose to the public in order to convince them to give them a relative majority such as Ground control, mediaid, public instruction etc. And in those areas it is clear that they are buond to express a vote as promised.

On the other hand the problem emerges dramatically when corporate lobbying interests are put at a stake. You have a system that clearly and openly welcomes sponsors to pay your candidates (on both sides). I don't believe that they do so with no ROI (Return on Investment) so to me this means that your candidates are no longer yours. And this issue is exposed clearly by those laws that are custom made against the majority of voters. The DCMA is a brilliant example of the Democratic party limiting civil liberties and research on behalf of the industry...

Take in account that statistical data could not spot a altered vote such as this i depict here: D is majority. D wants a law against the costumer not to be passed, R is in favour because of money previously taken from oligopolist - Oligopolist call selected D senators that received large sum of money - At the vote the law passes because R voted for and a minority of D voted for also. If you spread the pattern of the minority then statistical data analisys will not spot it. If you think this is unlikely to happen think twice, we are ejoying it in italy since 2000 when a duopolic system was established.

Re:heh

[Xeth]

I don't think that anyone who says "there's no difference" actually means it literally. There are obvious, well publicized differences on several key issues (abortion, gun control, etc.). What they mean is that there isn't a lot of significant philosophical difference between the two. Both parties are, compared to the rest of the world, very right-wing. Both have strong anti-libertarian leanings. Instead of selecting candidates based on an overall approach to government, U.S politics are generally played by litmus tests for 3-5 issues (The war, gay marriage, abortion, death penalty, gun control). Claiming that there must be a significant difference because a computer can detect a difference is fallacious.

Re:heh

[jdjbuffalo]

They certainly do vote differently on some key issues but they are BOTH beholden to corporate interests and not to the public, from whom they derive their power.

A pig with lipstick is still a pig. It just looks prettier than the other ones.

We are in need of some serious reform (no lobbyists, no corporate personhood etc.). If you reduce the corporate interests down to about 90% of power they have over "our representatives" now then you will get a system that actually cares about the people rather than selling out to the highest bidder...er, I mean...lobbyist.

Wrong decimal place?

[IronMagnus]

Maybe they ment $15

Re:Wrong decimal place?

[SailorSpork]

Actually, that's about what each infringement is worth. If you use filesharing, and if for each song you download, you upload a song, your infringement for downloading/uploading and album on that fileshare would be about the cost of that same album; about $15. I still don't understand how any competent mind can come up with any more than that per infraction.

Since filesharing is on average 1:1, It's not that each person uploading ten songs is causing thousands of dollars worth of damages, its that thousands of different people are causing ten's of dollars of damage each. But if that were how it was stated in court, legal fees would outweigh damages, and lawsuits would no longer become lucrative sources of income.

Re:Wrong decimal place?

[bane2571]

The "average" ratio on, for example bit torrent should always be 100% since everyone downloading is getting the file from someone else that downloaded it. I guess the original seeder would put the ratio slightly above 100% but I'm sure you get my point.

The thing is that average is likely propped up by a small minority of high ratio users and your average john doe would have a low ratio. From reporting here, the RIAA has been going after average people rather than high ratio people. at a guess I'd say my ratio never topped 80%, which is pretty good IMO as my max upload was 1/4 of my max download. My point is that most people will only ever upload maximum 1 CD for each CD. Even with double dipping by charging uploader and downloader it would make most people liable for 2X[cost of CD] not 100,000 X[cost of CD]

Re:Wrong decimal place?

[EdelFactor19]

except they have to fine for you breaking the law. you stole it you didnt buy it. If i go steal a 100$ item from store X do you think store X will drop the charges if I simply pay 100$ after the fact? NO they wont; if they did that then theyd be encouraging me to steal anything i would actually purchase. Worst case scenario I get caught and I pay them the money I would have paid them.. they tag on things like arrests, and jailtime and tarnishing your record and additional fines and legal fees to deter the behavior. Thats pretty normal. Tacking on 1.5million not so normal

Here's my take on it: MAFIAA loves to advertise in the cinema "would you steal a wallet? would you steal a cd? would you steal cardboard box? etc..." ok if you want to equate these things whats the punishment for stealing CD X from a physical store? Oh you mean its less than a hundred thousand let alone a million? So how do you justify your punishment for the same crime....

they will respond its a different kind of crime, stealing a CD is theft, but downloading and uploading is a copyright violation which is entirely different as far as law is concerned. (and i'd be inclined to agree sadly) Ok but if you want to say that you are going to have to throw out your other campaign, and actually follow the same rules that everyone else has to in uncovering copyright violations. heres a new line of q's for yah

"would you photocopy a page or two from a library book without writing to the author and bringing authorization forms filled out in triplicate?"
"would you transcribe a song by ear becuase you enjoy it and post the tab on the internet?"
"would you resummarize a summary of the news by someone else and present it as "nightly news"?"
"would share a recipe with a friend that you read in a cookbook you bought and that you like?"

There thats a much better picture of what you are actually comparing don't you think?

It seems to me they are trying to use laws of theft to prosecute copyright violations. Granted I'm still a supporter of copyright law, sorry I am a software developer. If I cant control my work its hard to make money. But why can't they go to some more intelligent less invasive means for copyright protection that have been effective for software? Software copyright protection generally doesnt give a crap if you are running windows or linux or mac or an electronic watermellon. Ok it might not work on the latter; that aside the mechanisms are somewhat seperate from the content.

The other problem i see is they force you to buy something and then hamper your rights to use what you purchase. Oh you cant play that wmv drm'd file on linux... oh you cant play that itunes store audio file on a Zplayer or on linux... Oh you arent really allowed to copy music files from your ipod to your computer (except you sorta are) but by the way we also arent going to let you redownload lost purchases from us unless you send us an email and ask real nice.

i bought years upon years ago, ive installed and unintalled it on every machine ive gone through since (primary machines) never had a problem because of the copyright protection scheme. never had a problem where i couldnt install it because a hard drive it was installed on died without being deauthorized. you know what else? i felt compelled not to give it to others because of that. that and it was cheap self created fun (as opposed to big publisher).. i think the game was like 10-20 bucks maybe? granted games today are a bit more... but maybe thats part of the problem. If the market isnt willing to pay the price, they wont. wow thats a really cruddy ending to this rambling...

Walmart

[im_thatoneguy]

Fuck it. If they say I'm stealing it I'm just going to start "ripping" music from Walmart. The fines are cheaper and less signficant on a criminal record.

Re:Walmart

[StringBlade]

If you're going to steal CDs, why not start with a store that doesn't put RFIDs on all of it's merchandise?

Re:Walmart

[riseoftheindividual]

I hope it passes for that and for the tact I expect most to take... you don't need their shit, you don't need it. Why does anyone need a CD or to listen to the music produced by the people funding this? We don't.

It's not like software that we might need for work to get paid. It's not like clothing where you tend to get in trouble if you go around without it(damn conservative society). It's not like food where you starve to death without it. This is entertainment. It's just not neccessary. If they get this passed, I predict a major collapse of the recording industry as it is today. Big names will begin striking out on their own to distance themselves from the companies associated with these moves.

Sorry Metallica, U2, and whoever else, life was good before you and life will be good after you. May this legislation pass so they can have the rude awakening they so desperately deserve.

Re:Walmart

[LandDolphin]

I don't think there will be major changes. I agree with you that people should revolt against the RIAA and stop purchasing their products. But people wont. People do not want have anything get in the way of their instant gratification.

Re:Walmart

[riseoftheindividual]

You could be right, but, it has already started to happen to a degree, people not purchasing their products anymore. Instant gratification can be had all over the net with things that don't involve music(or porn). It's just a matter of getting the right trend going.

And of course, it starts with us as individuals. There's some artists I will buy from because of their public stance on all this, and some who will never see a dime of mine again(I used to be a big Metallica fan, now they can sod off and die now for all I care).

We can't control others, but we can control ourselves and that will influence those around us.

And really, the first time someone got fined that much for copying a CD, don't think there won't be a substantial public backlash. Instant gratification or not, being fined so severely for something so trivial will rile up oceans of illwill, of that I would bet money.

Re:Walmart

[Sleepy]

>I agree with you that people should revolt against the RIAA and stop purchasing their products. But people wont.

WAIT... maybe the RIAA *WANTS* people to boycott them?

Think about it -- lower sales means PERFECT cover to lobby Congress for another copyright extension.
Sound far fetched? The RIAA already uses lower CD sales for this goal... they leave out legal MP3 sales, and neglect to factor in consumer preference for downloads to begin with.

(I realize the RIAA really *doesn't* want lower sales, but they're licensing music outside of the CD and then leaving that out of the picture).

Re:Walmart

[Paradise Pete]

just remove it from the cd case , even if you are caught (never happen) they won't do anything thats not over $1250.00 in cost.

Just a tip: Your friends hanging out down at the 7-11 at night are not a good source of wisdom and advice.

Innovation through Litgation!(tm)

[frankie]

Sweet! At that damage level, the RIAA could afford to ditch all pretense of supporting music, and make a killing by sending lawyers down the street in major metro areas to slap subpoenas on every passerby with an MP3 player.

Re:Innovation through Litgation!(tm)

[Achromatic1978]

He didn't sue the family, he sued the /estate/ of the pedestrian. Reasonable enough, if, as you have no idea of knowing, the pedestrian was at fault. Did they step out into a busy street? If it's the pedestrian's fault, are you saying that the driver should suck up the guilt for the rest of his life, /and/ shell out for the damage done?

Should he claim insurance?

Who do you think the insurance company would sue to reimburse their costs? The estate of the pedestrian.

Granted it's an unsavory thought, but if that car was your livelihood, and the accident was not your fault, why in the hell should you not try to recover costs?

It's grim and should be approached with tact, but...

Re:Innovation through Litgation!(tm)

[jd]

Bits of the pedestrian gave way. The driver was cited by police as doing 20+ MPH over the speed limit, although the news story cites (unnamed) independent experts as saying it would have been closer to 40 MPH over the speed limit. (The speed limit was 55 MPH). Far as I can tell from the news article, the driver is not claiming that there was shared responsibility for the accident or that the pedestrian did anything wrong, merely that the pedestrian caused damage to his Audi. If that really is the whole story, then the attitude is no different from the RIAA's (bringing this thread back on topic).

Re:Innovation through Litgation!(tm)

[laura20]

That's what I thought myself, until I looked up the original Spanish articles. His insurance company settled with the family of the dead bicyclist, admitting that the driver was at fault since he was speeding (estimated at over 100 mph in a 55 mile zone), and he had also been drinking. Then the driver sued them, presumably because his own insurance didn't cover his damage. So yes, the guy is a dick, is at fault, and is probably going to regret the lawsuit; the family was too devastated in the immediate aftermath to push for criminal charges, but that has changed.

Right then

[Anonymous Coward]

All you trolls that insist copyright infringement is the same as stealing, please point out a single instance of somebody being fined $1.5 million dollars for stealing a CD.

Re:Right then

[Yetihehe]

Copyright infridgement is like stealing. Stealing a cop his helmet. And then killing him. And then taking dump into his helmet. And sending it to the widow. And then stealing it again!

Obligatory Austin Powers Quote

[EEPROMS]

Mr Evil "I demand the sum... OF 1 MILLION DOLLARS."

Re:Obligatory Austin Powers Quote

[billius]

It's Dr. Evil, he didn't spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called "mister," thank you very much!

IOW: steal the physical CD from a store

[denis-The-menace]

The penalty would be much less than this.

Re:IOW: steal the physical CD from a store

[ivan256]

One pirated CD copy is worth more than a human life!

An above-average wrongful death compensation award for a healthy working parent would be in the $1-3 million dollar range. You could go murder somebody. It'd be cheaper than pirating a few CDs. And if the CDs had DRM, the jail sentence would be shorter for the murder too! The US military pays out $600 for wrongful deaths in Iraq. A pirated CD copy is worth more than 2500 Iraqis!

In reality though, they're probably asking for so much in hopes that the compromise amount will be high. Hopefully congress tells them to fuck off instead of coming up with a "compromise" that is right in line with what they were really hoping for anyway.

Re:IOW: steal the physical CD from a store

[JensenDied]

Does this mean I can now go kill several people and leave a few burned CD's for their families as compensation and continue with my day?

Dollar worth less these days

[chris_mahan]

I hadn't realized the US dollar had lost that much value recently...

Never Gonna Happen

[cslax]

8th Amendment makes that completely impossible. Cruel and unusual punishment.

Re:Never Gonna Happen

[themushroom]

You're thinking of Paris Hilton's album, which has probably made $1.5 million in sales - total.

Re:Never Gonna Happen

[Tr3vin]

You're thinking of Paris Hilton's album, which has probably made $1.5 million in sales - total. $1.5 million in sales? Are you telling me that she bought that many copies for herself?

Re:Never Gonna Happen

[cslax]

If this went before the Supreme Court, the whole thing would HAVE to be ruled unconstitutional. There's NO WAY IN HELL that this could ever possibly be upheld. And yes, the excessive fines was the clause I meant.

Re:Obligatory Dr Evil

[EEPROMS]

Number Two: Don't you think we should ask for *more* than a 1.5 million dollars? 1.5 million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. Sony Records alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year! Dr. Evil: Really? That's a lot of money. [pause] Dr. Evil: Okay then, we hold the world's culture to ransom for... Dr. Evil: One... Hundred... BILLION DOLLARS!

Something is wrong here

[TheGoodSteven]

So, what they are saying is that copying a CD deserves more of a punishment than does taking a CD from somebody by force?

"Engineering Expectations"

[plasmacutter]

These people are just "engineering expectations".

They introduce this outrageous dreck, then suggest something which is still outrageous but comparatively mild, like, for instance, forcing ISP's to disconnect users a-la france, or forcing them to pull great firewall of china style 'filtering', or prison sentences for college students.

Then, they'll bloviate on and on about how these new proposals are a "compromise"

Or.. this dreck is merely a red herring to distract activist groups away from that rider they put into the college funding bill to force schools to 'filter' their internet on pain of losing their federal grants.

Re:"Engineering Expectations"

[CodeBuster]

You are correct on both counts. This IS a case of "engineered expectations" so that a "reasonable compromise" can be reached AND also serves the simultaneous purpose of providing a hunk of meat for the activists to sink their teeth into while the real proposal flies in below the radar. They really ought to make the collected works of Machiavelli and Sun Tzu's Art of War required reading in high school so that people are actually prepared for the types of things that go on in the real world these days. It is frustrating to see the same tired old plays from the same dusty old political play book succeed again and again for the RIAA when really their actions are so transparent that anyone willing to take more than a casual glance at their activities would spot the ploys immediately. I suppose that people are either ignorant or they don't care or both.

Re:About the author

[TubeSteak]

Not to mention that his comment about gluttony was made Dec 13th of 2007 on his private blog
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071213-house-committee-hears-the-cons-of-the-pro-ip-act.html

In other words his current job is work for weak copyright protections. From reading that blog entry, he really seems to care about how screwed up the copyright situation is with respect to the public good.

Re:How much of that $1.5 million...

[JustNiz]

umm none actually. Its the labels that are suing for their damages, not those of the artist.

violation of the 18th Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's fashionable (and fascistic) for the US government to ignore portions of, or even outright contradict the Constitution, but wouldn't a $1.5 mil fine be grossly disproportionate to the actual cost of infringing 10 songs on a CD? Do the words of the 18th Amendment even apply here?

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Re:violation of the 18th Amendment

[sumdumass]

I think your looking at the 8th amendment.

But you have to consider that compensatory damages or even statutory damages are not fines or punishment in the sense of the government fining or punishing someone. You really have to look at the differences between a civil suit and a criminal suit and the laws behind them as well as who is behind the act.

Typically, statutory damages are there to help you recover losses. I can see a path where someone could lose 1.5 mill because of the first copying of a CD but it involves a lot of conditions not present with the recording companies. I think the idea behind large damages like this was originally to allow the circumstances to permit full recovery of losses but it has since then turned into a way to punish defendants without opening criminal prosecutions. This may be why you think "damages won" in a civil court is the same as a fine. Maybe the answer is to limit punitive damages to extreme situations?

Explain this, RIAA

[DigitAl56K]

If a single copy of a CD has a value of $1.5M, how can you justify letting hundreds of thousands of copies on it sit on the shelves of major retailers worldwide, priced at gasp $10-$20?

This suggests that if I were to publish a copy of a CD online , even assuming it retails at $20, I would have to serve 75,000 copies of it personally to justify that infringement penalty. Consider that the only feasible way for me to do such a thing is to torrent it, and in this case I personally am not responsible for the entire distribution, the total distribution must be subdivided across every single person who downloads a copy, because they are also uploaders. Claiming penalties against every distributor for the total distribution is like double taxation, but tens of thousands of times worse - I should not be liable for the activities of others, except to the extent you can prove that I facilitated the very first unlicensed distribution and that said unlicensed distribution was directly responsible for the entire cascade of further infringement, and that all other copies of the works were suitably protected.

Complete B.S.

Absurd lawsuits

[KiwiCanuck]

That's why no one really care aboot the RIAA. Artists will begin to offer their music to the people via the internet. Groups of artist can get together and post songs. Initially, the songs can be free and low quality (128kbs) with web ads paying for the site. Once pop songs are found (via download numbers), then higher quality songs can be sold via an online store. Who needs producer? If you do hire one on a contract, and let him go the minute they are no longer useful. Flame me if I'm wrong! ~:-)

Typical lawyer's wrinkle

[Bearhouse]

From the article:

"The issue is compilations, which now are treated as a single work. In the RIAA's perfect world, each copied track would count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million if done willfully."

Neat trick, eh? I fail to see the common-sense logic, but I guess that's never stopped the legal-beagles before...

For those posting about changing the business model, (earn money by prosecuting the shit out of your consumers). Yes, but it's probably more to get headlines and increase the imagined "deterrent" effect... Yeah right. Sure worked with the death penalty and murder/serious crime rates, eh?

For those posting about stealing the CDs, well sorry, but the way these desperate dudes are going, pretty soon it'll be illegal to rip those tracks to your Ubuntu box/iPod/whatever anyway. Fair use? Byeeeeeeee... Next up, 2Bn$ fines for those who rip music from stolen CDs!!!! Think of the children!

PRO-IP

[RobBebop]

This is related to the PRO-IP Act (press released on Dev 5, 2007) that is in Congress. Here is who to blame:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-TX), Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA), and Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Tom Feeney (R-FL), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Ric Keller (R-FL), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and Robert Wexler (D-FL) introduced the "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property ("PRO IP") Act of 2007"

Here's the "SHOCK AND AWE" value that the industry is using to get people's attention:

It costs the United States between $200 and $250 billion/year in lost sales, including 750,000 jobs.

Obviously, any rational thinking individual knows that 750,000 individuals are not "out on the streets" because piracy has taken away the revenue streams necessary for employing them.

Similarly, *if* $200-250 Billion isn't flowing into the pockets of Imaginary Property companies each year, doesn't that just mean that Americans are free to spend that same money elsewhere? Shouldn't Americans NOT NEED A $150 Billion handout from the government, if they have all this extra money from their copyright infringement?

Something isn't right...

Re:So

[Em Adespoton]

Good point... I'm thinking I should return my CD collection to the RIAA for a refund.

Either that, or see if I can catch them in possession of some of MY music (independently produced) and ask them to pay up.

If I play some of my music in the background while I call their customer relations line and they record and archive the call, can I sue them?

Comparing the RIAA with bands

[adminstring]

Stories like this only help highlight the differences between musicians and corporate leeches that exploit musicians.

If you live in a city with a local music scene, support your local independent bands, and support the independent bands that come through directly by buying CDs from them. No musician has ever attempted to extort 1.5 million from their audience. There is plenty of great content out there without having to go to the RIAA and their ilk.

By Public Demand

[rinkjustice]

Alright, let's settle this once and for all - a SCO vs RIAA cagematch for most hated entity in the history of Slashdot.

I'm almost starting to believe RIAA is the favorite.

Punishment fit the crime?

[bitshark]

Anybody heard of actually suiting punishments to crimes? Technically stealing/downloading/borrowing/pseudonym-du-jour-ing a CD is illegal. Alright, so the recording industry is out somewhere between $10 and $20 US. You'd want to magnify that a touch to make it a suitable punishment (otherwise people would steal and, if they were caught, they'd be basically paying the law for the CD). A factor of 150 thousand? That almost borders on being a joke in poor taste. If it weren't for the fact that the RIAA goes to some pretty absurd and questionably legal means most of the time, I just might laugh.

Re:Punishment fit the crime?

[crabpeople]

"otherwise people would steal"

They are going into the store and taking the physical cd? Or were you talking about copying something illegally which is actually copyright infringement and not stealing in any way.

Using the industries language changes the debate into one that is inherently biased.

Let's negotiate.

[sizzzzlerz]

How about a discount depending upon the popularity or skill of the artist whose album was bootlegged. For example, a Beatles album gets the full 1.5 mil. A John Denver is worth 250K. You come after me for jackin' Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute and you have to pay me.

RIAA SUX0RZ

[Anonymous Coward]

_0_
\''\
'=o='
.|!|
.| |
  RIAA wants $1.5 million per goatse viewed

Riptopia

[teslar]

So, first I get an email from Amazon, telling me about their amazing new service called Riptopia. You send in your CDs in multiples of 100, you wait some days, you get the CDs back along with a few DVDs containing high quality rips complete with album art, correctly filled-in tags etc. For about $1 per CD. And my thought was, "well, how curious, I wonder what the RIAA would say to that".

Then I come to /. and it appears the RIAA is saying it wants 1.5 Million dollars per copied CD.

It almost makes me feel like they have a new money-making scheme:

1. Let people copy CDs on Riptopia
2. Get detailed lists of exactly what CDs have been copied for whom from Riptopia
3. Send out the bills
4. Profit!!!

Now, I'm sure I saw a guy handing out tinfoil hats running around here somewhere....

We Love ASCII.cx???!

[Dogtanian]

I was going to point out that this was one time that ASC-se man couldn't legitimately be modded "-1:Offtopic", but in the meantime someone else has +1:Informatived him instead(!)

I have to admit that this is one troll I actually have a soft spot for; the ASCII representation is pretty clever (even down to the use of exclamation mark) and the text for the infamous link always makes some effort at tying itself in with the discussion.

I can't believe I just said all that.

calling filthy rich old guys.

[timmarhy]

What we need is some filthy rich old guy with nothing better to spend his money on, to take up this cause and start paying for some high price lawyers to defend people the RIAA sue.

if i was a multimillionare i'd do it just to see the reaction.

Careful: Don't double dip

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the RIAA would love to double-dip, as it were, but if you upload a file to me (which I'm downloading), that's 1 infringement, not two. So, when doing your accounting, don't count both uploads *and* downloads. Or if you do, count them as 1/2 an infringement each. Which, may be what you are doing since you're coming up with a total value of infrigment which is equal to the album's retail price, but it wasn't exactly clear from your writeup.

Statutory damages for infringment of a registered copyright is 3x actual damages, so you could come up with a figure of $45-60 per total album upload/download. I'm with you guys though - I'm not sure where they get 1.5 Million from.

Not $600

[c6gunner]

Totally off-topic, but since you decided to fudge some stats, I may as well respond: the maximum payout is not set at $600 but at $2,500. Larger amounts COULD be paid out...but my general experience has been that any time you start compensating locals for large amounts, they go out of their way to try and suck money out of you. When we were doing "peacekeeping" in Bosnia, there was a fairly large payout for pretty much everything from property damage caused by raids to vehicle damage caused in accidents. As a result, locals would often damage their own property in order to try and claim "compensation". They'd even go so far as to intentionally cause a head-on collision between a honda-civic sized shitbox and an armoured personnel carrier, which, unsurprisingly, most often lead to the death of the driver.

These things often seem like really great ideas to people sitting on their asses in North America, banging away at a computer keyboard, but in real life they don't work nearly as well. For instance, I can't count how many times some clown on an internet forum has suggested we offer a cash incentive for people to turn in explosives. Of course, the real world result of that would be a lot of civilians being killed while trying to bring in unstable ordinance. Or the suggestions that we pay people to turn in weapons - usually the only result is villagers selling us their WW1 era muskets, and then using the money to buy AK47's.

So, long story short, paying out large amounts for "wrongful deaths" is a bad idea. The cash currently paid out isn't meant to replace the person who was killed, and it's certainly not an admission of culpability or responsibility. It's just a gesture to say "we're sorry this had to happen to you, here's something to help you get back on your feet".

cost analysis

[xPsi]

$1.5M/CD? Hey, its only about $0.00027/bit. After a couple bucks, you might even recognize the data stream as music!

In euros that is...

[MavEtJu]

1.5 million US dollars... That will be 75 Euros.

Thank god I live in Canada...

[BigDaddyOttawa]

I'd be in for about $1,234,500,000, give or take a few mil. (according to iTunes, I've got 823 albums in my library)

Re:I think the RIAA and others are all wrong

[un1xl0ser]

I can't really agree with you there. A lot of the bands that I listen to (the IDM scene), I will never see in concert. They rarely tour, and it is mostly in Europe anyways.

It is the artists choice as to how they want to make money. If they want to sell CDs for cheap and tour, so be it. If they want to sell their CDs for $1,000 and never tour, they are welcome to. They should be in control of the product that they want to offer. If they choose to screw around with my unwritten contract with them, and offer services that I can't afford or do not want, they don't get my money and support. If they want to use DRM, they won't get my support. If they care that I got a copy of the album from a friend before I purchased it, I will lose a lot of respect for them and they won't get my

My problem with the big labels and RIAA is that they assert too much control over the artists for my taste.

If wishes were horses...

[Chysn]

...we'd all be eating steak.

This doesn't seem to be about the money. Make it $250,000 per CD, or make it $50 million. What they want the power to do is destroy someone forever. One CD means you lose your house, your family, your future. One CD indentures you to them with no hope of retiring. They're asking for $1.5 million because they know that asking for lethal injection is a tad over the top.

Yeah, what about the artists?

[JonTurner]

So, when this extortion racket, uh, I mean "organization" successfully sues someone or they settle out of court... how much of that money goes back to the artists they supposedly represent? Has any artist received a dividend cheque?

Colour me skeptical.

Well, I'm screwed then...

[UttBuggly]

Hmmm....past 50 and still the proud owner of some 500 pieces of classic vinyl having and many more CDs.

I have many records...the original quadraphonic recording of Dark Side Of The Moon, for instance...that have been played ONCE. And that was to RECORD THEM to a more durable, portable media so I could enjoy the music as much as I wanted without damaging the original album.

Sure, vinyl isn't a CD. Doubt if the RIAA makes a distinction. And considering I have some excellent gear, and that I'm a professional musician with lots of studio time, and so on, many of my "copies" sound better than the CD version.

Of course, silly me...I assumed that when I bought an album...Led Zepplin IV...it was mine. Should I be penalized, brought to penury, and vilified simply because I've outlived some technology? If I could still get a sealed, cherry vinyl record album, I'd still buy them. That's not the case, so I feel well within my rights to record an irreplaceable piece of music every decade or so to the latest storage medium.

So, by my calculations, I can apparently offset the National Debt all by myself simply because I have old records.

Brilliant.

foil linings in coats....

[Joce640k]

Even simpler than a briefcase. Get one of those military jackets with the carrier-bag size pockets and a roll of tinfoil. Good to go.

Heh

[einhverfr]

Of course the statistics are BS. The way they are calculated is "if everyone purchased these songs instead of copying them, there would be 750000 more jobs" which is *not* the same as "750000 jobs were lost because of copyright infringement" because of two issues:

1) It is one heck of a leap to suggest that if there was no internet that so many more CD's and singles would be purchased.
2) I seriously doubt that those numbers of job inflation are accurate anyway (that is roughly 10-20 times the number of employees at Microsoft).

However, at the same time, the fact is that copyright infringement remains a "crime against the free market" (not inluding anti-free-market controls such as access control under the DMCA). The basic problem is that copyright infringement denies a market place to newer artists who may be more willing to try other models of music distribution in the same way that copyright infringement of Windows denies Linux market share. I personally think that the damage done to our society by this illegal copying is immeasurable, and that the primary *beneficiaries* are the major record lables.

So if you want to *help* the RIAA, go ahead and keep downloading those songs without permission. If you want to *hurt* them, start working with artists to build an alternative music production and distribution system which works for them.

I want...

[Chewbacon]

...$1.5 million per violation of consumer rights.

S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

[Richard Kirk]

Only $1.5 million? Are you sure?

The Society for Patent Enforcement, Copyright, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion was expecting a considerably larger figure...

(strokes cat)

Goodbye, Mister Bond.

I finally understood it

[ProteusQ]

In America, we prosecute the drug user rather than the dealer, because the dealers can afford good lawyers.

We prosecute the illegal immigrant rather than recognize that what's happening is an economic migration caused by an excessively high minimum wage in the US and a corrupt Mexican government.

We consider criminal prosecution of file traders rather than notice that the **AA are attempting to support price gouging in an effort to capitalism with mercantilism.

It's time to bite the bullet, as the saying goes, and start fixing the real problems.

Re:You may win the award for worst software/year

[cromar]

Tipper Go... I mean Hillary Clinton is not very liberal, really. I mean, for one, she's pro censorship. Besides health care, she's pretty conservative.

In the RIAA's defense

[elrous0]

Bribing Congressmen doesn't come cheap. They have to make it back SOMEWAY.

Decision trees?

[Xenographic]

You should publish that data somewhere. It would be interesting to see who owns whom in congress...