Leaked RIAA Training Video

An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has a clip of that RIAA training video produced with the NDAA for US prosecutors that was leaked to torrent sites a few days ago. It argues they should pursue piracy cases because it leads to bigger and badder wares, like handguns, drugs, terrorist orgs, and hardcore repeat offender criminals. It's kind of sad how far they're stretching to bring law enforcement into the matter."

Comments

gateway crime misinformation

[Will the Chill]

This is just the same old "gateway crime" argument, which, if history is any example, will inevitably be scientifically proven false by statistical studies showing (perhaps a correlation, but) no causation.

All agressive prosecutors (persecutors?) will fall back on this precept when it starts to become clear the "crime" they're fighting against is victimless and thus shouldn't be considered a crime at all.

I find this is mostly caused by greed and ignorance on the part of the persecuting party and any agencies they employ in their unethical battle.

-WtC

*error 404: sig not found*

Re:gateway crime misinformation

[Samgilljoy]

This is just the same old "gateway crime" argument, which, if history is any example, will inevitably be scientifically proven false by statistical studies showing (perhaps a correlation, but) no causation.

And the old gateway crime argument is just a form of the ancient post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

People fill in the gaps in their information with ideology. Unfortunately, a great deal of law enforcement training perpetuates these ideas. Time and again, they'll tell you that people convicted of felony X first committed misdemeanor Y, but they fail to notice that they have no idea how many people actually commit misdemeanor Y without ever coming under the radar. Counterarguments which are under the radar, like the hordes of people who smoke pot but don't do crack, are filed away as potential crack smokers rather than demonstrations that smoking pot does not necessarily lead to smoking crack. They also ignore extensions of their own arguments, and not just the ad nauseam examples. For instance, one could just as easily say that drinking beer leads to smoking crack even in adults, but they won't. Why causal linkages between beer and pot and crack are so strong in kids, while the link between beer and anything "druggy" magically disappears during adulthood is beyond me, but then, I only had 9 years of full-time University education and 3 years of doctoral research, so I guess I ain't clever enough to suss out thar thinkun'

Re:gateway crime misinformation

[tubapro12]

Interesting idea, but the way I see it, if they're going to argue that piracy is a gateway crime, how can they not argue that music makes people violent? I have to offset this with the fact that they are the RIAA, nevertheless, combining these two opinions seems roughly logically consistent to me.

Re:gateway crime misinformation

[hairyfeet]

The problem with that is this---THEY paid off OUR congress critters to change OUR laws!!! I should be able to download Elvis and Jimi and Janis now,they SHOULD be public domain.But thanks to the "bono rots in hell act" or whatever they called it copyright is what,a century and a half or something? The whole point of copyright was a fair trade,you get to make money for awhile,and then WE the public gets a greater public domain to choose from.THEY declared war by raping our public domain and until the law is changed it is an unjust law,and therefore it should be fought at every opportunity.I will not buy their *.AA garbage and if someone wants to steal their crap I say have at it.THEY started it,not us!

Humorous

[eldavojohn]

This is the one with Tom Cruise, right?

I have not seen the video but I find it quite humorous when some organization's materials for training/brainwashing are leaked and it makes headlines. I.E. Scientology, RIAA, etc. What would even be funnier if the RIAA took the same position the Church of Scientology did and tried to repress this video.

Repression of information is the first sign of a flawed ideology. As we've seen in many court cases in which they've shut down systems, the RIAA is against any kind of information sharing via P2P software and therefore has a flawed ideology.

The Irony Is...

[fsckr]

That many of the 'artists' that the RIAA protects are hardcore repeat offender criminals that are pimping the handguns, drugs etc etc

Here We Go Again

[hyades1]

"Reefer Madness" for a new generation.

Re:That solves everything!

[cgenman]

It's true, isn't it? Your average terrorist is probably out there pirating software, cheating on their spouses, and experimenting with illegal narcotics.

Of course, terrorists also eat, go to the bathroom, and occasionally bathe too. That's because it's what people do. Correlation does not equal causality, unless you're very well paid to believe so.

It actually does solve a lot...

[Serengeti]

Hate to ruin the fun here... seriously I love all of you... but no where in the video were they suggesting that piracy and terrorism, murder or drugs are related.

All that was suggested was that if officers wanted into a suspects home, but did not have enough evidence to issue a warrant on the suspected charges alone, they could use piracy as a means to get that warrant. The intent, which should be obvious by now, is to get into the house so that evidence of terrorism, drug trafficking or violent intent involving firearms might then be 'coincidentally' discovered.

And hey... sounds like it's a great strategy. How many people do you know that haven't pirated anything at all? The police just found themselves a skeleton key.

Re:It actually does solve a lot...

[ultranova]

"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - Adolf Hitler.

And I'm pretty sure most other succesful dictators have had similar notions. Don't attribute to Rand what she clearly didn't invent; whether this should be considered to be to her credit or discredit is another matter.

Re:Sweden's neutral!

[Cassius Corodes]

While that might be true, it takes a while to build up an army, with a professional and experienced core to serve as the officers. You can expand an army to be 10 times the size fairly quickly but you need some core to start from and that can take up a generation to succeed. You need to train the pilots, design and acquire hardware all of which takes time in modern warfare.

As an aside, Sweden stayed out of the first and second war by NOT being important either strategically or resource-wise, rather than some kind of political strategy (they pissed off Hitler plenty but there was really no need to do anything about it). Belgium (in both world wars) and Netherlands + Denmark + Luxembourg + Norway (in second world war) were officially neutral yet got wiped because of strategic and resource reasons.