RIAA Will Finally Face the Music In Court

Falstaff writes "Exonerated RIAA defendant Tanya Andersen is expected to refile her malicious prosecution lawsuit against the RIAA today. The refiling will mark a significant watershed in the RIAA's fight against P2P users because for the first time, the group's tactics, secret agreements, and fee splitting with MediaSentry are likely to come to light, thanks to discovery. Andersen's attorney says he'll be 'digging into agreements between the RIAA, RIAA member companies, MediaSentry, and the Settlement Support Sentry. Part of that will involve looking at compensation, like how much MediaSentry gets from each settlement. "I'd love to know what kind of bounty MediaSentry got paid to supply erroneous identities to the RIAA," Lybeck says.' The judge has barred further motions to dismiss the complaint, which means the RIAA will have to face the music. 'Unlike the thousands of lawsuits filed so far, the RIAA does not have the luxury of walking away from this case if there's a real chance of embarrassing information being released. "Once discovery happens in the cases the RIAA brings, they run," Lybeck says. "This is our case now, and they can't run."'"

Comments

If She Doesn't Settle

[j.sanchez1]

The judge has barred further motions for dismissal, so unless the RIAA decides to settle--a move Lybeck believes is in the group's best interest--the case will proceed through discovery and to trial.

Hopefully she won't settle for the carrot that the RIAA would probably dangle in front of her. She has the opportunity to bring all these lawsuits to a screeching halt.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[BUL2294]

The RIAA could easily dangle a $1-2 million carrot in front of her, and probably will. While we all know she shouldn't take it, most sane people (and probably her lawyer) would say "take the money and run" to not have to deal with this issue for the next 5 years...

Call me a pessimist, but her case against the RIAA will not change their tactics because they will buy their way out of the mess.

Now, if some DA or AG were to file criminal charges against the RIAA (God knows the FBI won't), then that would change their ways... But, alas, we live in the Corporate States of America.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[AGSHender]

My girlfriend worked for Judge Brown last summer as a law student, and she had a consistently favorable opinion of her. Judge Brown is a Clinton appointee and is on the more liberal side of the bench compared to a couple of the other federal judges working in the same building.

She's fair and doesn't put up with bullshit from lawyers or defendants. If she finds in favor of the RIAA, it's going to be on the basis of the law and not because of pressure on her. At the very least, she's going to be very suspicious of their arguments and have some critical things to say about them and their tactics in open court--even if they do win in the end.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[RyoShin]

I agree, and the best way to do this may be societal support. I don't know Ms. Anderson, so I have no idea what qualms she has about a material settlement out of court. She may very well be willing to do this for the long haul, just to make the RIAA STFU & GTFO.

However, even if she's set on this, showing support from the outside will help her (and her lawyer, who I'm sure is hoping for a nice chunk of change) to reaffirm her will. If she's not completely set on it, outside support would help her see that this has effects reaching more than just the time the RIAA forced her to waste.

The best way I can think of to do this is a personal letter. Something short, personally signed, saying "You're fighting the good fight, tally ho!" and made via snail mail. Obviously, getting her home address might not be the best idea. Does anyone know a good way to go about this? Perhaps send mail to the law firm/individual representing her?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Opportunist]

That's not necessarily a victory for the RIAA. Because what works once works twice, too. In other words, being sued falsly by the RIAA might be the jackpot.

I'm fairly sure we'll soon see lawyers hopping onto it, specializing in counter suits against the RIAA if they simply try to buy their way out of an embarrassing trial. It's easy money for them.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

So even if they settle they are in trouble because it will encourage other people RIAA sued to pursue the same route. If they don't settle, all their shady dealings will be exposed. Hahaha! Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Boy do I love this.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Entropius]

So we outbid them.

Get a million people together (shouldn't be hard if all the torrent sites make note of the campaign) to chip in $1 or $10 each to make a matching offer: "We'll pay you to take this to trial."

Even if the RIAA outbids The Internets, it's still a PR coup -- "Look at what they were willing to do in order to hide stuff..."

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Machtyn]

Find the law firm's address, send it to them C/O Ms. Anderson. It'll get to the right place.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

Address at Mr. Beckerman's website. With more case info, scroll down for the address of her lawyer. Would suggest that mail be marked as regarding the case.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[u38cg]

Her lawyer's address is:

500 Island Corporate Center
7525 Southeast 24th Street
Mercer Island, Washington 98040-2336

It's a relatively small practice - two partners and a dozen attorneys all told - so I would expect that anything mailed to Tanya Anderson c/o Lory Lybeck will reach her attention.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[CRCulver]

Judge Brown is a Clinton appointee...

It was Clinton who gave us the DMCA. Not just Republican administrations are corporate puppets.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Mateo_LeFou]

hm...
RIAAmbluance chasers?

better name?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Buelldozer]

That is a DAMN good idea. I'd easily contribute $20 or more to a cause like that.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by the grandparent poster's reference to his law-school gf, he's probably too young to recall the Bill Clinton era. Ahh, you've gotta love the youth vote. To be young and idealistic instead of old and practical again...

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[rockout]

A lawyer once told me, "You don't litigate on principle." I'm sure he didn't come up with that, but it made enough sense to me to remember it forever.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

So would I. The RIAA would lose such a bidding war with the Internet.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[hAckz0r]

Less we forget that she can still get that $2 million+ at the conclusion of the trial? If the RIAA thinks that a mere $2 million will cut the trial short and hide their dirty laundry, then they have seriously under estimated the wrath of a woman who has been royally PISSED OFF. Knowing what they put her through I can't imagine her settling before the RIAA's bag of tricks are all spread out on the table for everyone to see. Can you just imagine what a jury would think? Thats when the real music (that they don't own) begins to play.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[sorak]

So we outbid them.

Get a million people together (shouldn't be hard if all the torrent sites make note of the campaign) to chip in $1 or $10 each to make a matching offer: "We'll pay you to take this to trial."

Even if the RIAA outbids The Internets, it's still a PR coup -- "Look at what they were willing to do in order to hide stuff..." Wouldn't that also be a case of malicious prosecution?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[BigwayneO]

ROFL!!! old and practical..... just like the net is a series of tube huh, jokes

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Dragonslicer]

It was a Republican-controlled Congress who gave us the DMCA. Fixed that for you.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

"... because none of us are as cruel as all of us."

--Anonymous

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Svartalf]

No... Malicious prosecution would be filing a suit and not having a basis for it.

The RIAA's guilty of that one. Even if we fully bankrolled her (I think there might be other issues with that than this...), it'd be legit on those grounds.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[AGSHender]

Judging by the grandparent poster's reference to his law-school gf, he's probably too young to recall the Bill Clinton era. Ahh, you've gotta love the youth vote. To be young and idealistic instead of old and practical again... I remember all of the Bill Clinton era, and I have a degree in Political Science partially inspired by my experiences in the 1990's, for what it's worth.

I also seem to remember that the DMCA being passed unanimously by both the House and the Senate before Clinton signed it into law. You want accountability for bad laws? Talk to your legislators.

My point about Judge Brown being a Clinton appointee was merely to help elucidate where she falls in the political spectrum, and you do a disservice to judges everywhere by reflecting any "sins of the father" on appointees of any President. Was Sandra Day O'Connor partially responsible for the Iran-Contra scandal because she was a Regan appointee? Is Justice Alito complacent for his role in any laws that may have been broken by the Bush administration purging thousands of emails by being a Bush appointee?

I think the answer you're looking for is no, they are not. Get some perspective, old-timer.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[eiapoce]

It was Clinton who gave us the DMCA. Not just Republican administrations are corporate puppets And by a mere coincidence was the same year that his wife (Hillary) was collecting cash from the media companies for her run as Governor. http://moneyline.cq.com/pml/home.do http://opensecrets.org/ Not that Barak Obama Ussein is much better. He's collecting from the same corporate tugs.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[CRCulver]

The president has veto power. If it passes under his watch, he must bear some responsibility.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Plutonite]

My girlfriend.. Heh, I almost read the rest of your post. Nice try there ;)

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Tanktalus]

It's only malicious if it's wrong.

(Sorta like truth as a defense against slander.)

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[RyoShin]

And if you send it to the law firm, the lawyer will bill her for the time it takes to forward the mail.

I was thinking more like the lawyer/firm would just hold on to it until the next time she visits them (or vice versa).

Would they really bill her for each letter they pass on to her, even if they just keep them until the next get-together? That seems ridiculous, but I don't know lawyers. Can anyone confirm this? And if that is the case, we'd have to think of something else. A support website may help, but I don't know if it would have the same impact as personal typed letters. Hmm.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Kazoo the Clown]

Seems to me that an enterprising hacker or two might end up teaming up with an "innocent party" in order to set the RIAA up for just such a case...

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[dgatwood]

I also seem to remember that the DMCA being passed unanimously by both the House and the Senate before Clinton signed it into law. You want accountability for bad laws? Talk to your legislators.

Exactly. If a law is passed with more than a 2/3rds majority, vetoing the law is a pointless gesture of defiance and gains you nothing except a couple of weeks. A law would have to be really heinous for you to piss off Congress by defying a unanimous vote, and the DMCA just doesn't rise to that level. Besides, I think a lot of people assumed the courts would overturn it as having an unconstitutionally long term anyway. They didn't, in large part due to all the Bush Sr. and Reagan appointees on the court.

Clinton didn't give us the DMCA. The predominantly Republican legislature did. He was completely powerless to overturn the law. There's no way to know if he would have signed it had it been passed by a narrower margin. That said, I would love to see every Democrat in Congress who voted for that law sitting on the curb begging for change.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[dgatwood]

What part of "unanimous vote" don't you understand? It takes a 2/3rds majority to override a veto. A unanimous vote means that there was so much support in Congress that President Clinton could have wiped his @#$ with the bill and it still would be law today.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[AstrumPreliator]

It was a Corporation-controlled Government who gave us the DMCA. Fixed that for you.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Robber Baron]

So we outbid them.

Get a million people together (shouldn't be hard if all the torrent sites make note of the campaign) to chip in $1 or $10 each to make a matching offer: "We'll pay you to take this to trial."

Even if the RIAA outbids The Internets, it's still a PR coup -- "Look at what they were willing to do in order to hide stuff..." That's a terrible idea. What does it say about the constancy of Justice? That it can be perverted and sold to the highest bidder?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[immcintosh]

Just don't get caught at it if you don't particularly enjoy prison.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[element-o.p.]

That's a terrible idea. What does it say about the constancy of Justice? That it can be perverted and sold to the highest bidder?
You mean as opposed to what we have now? Oh, wait...

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

They would not bill additionally for this, that's why lawyers hire assistants.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Dhalka226]

In a technical sense you're right, but that entirely ignores the political aspect.

If the DMCA passed with a veto-proof majority--and I seem to recall that it did--vetoing it will serve no practical purpose other than delaying it slightly and getting his name off it. That's nice in a "principles > all" sense, but it also weakens him as president for no gain. That means when even worse legislation comes up, with something much closer to the <66.6% support for his veto to be worthwhile, it will be that much harder to kill that bill. The opposition will rally around "let's kick him while he's down!" and the president's own party will have more trouble getting anybody to stand by or switch their votes for fear they're going to lose anyway.

None of this is to say that Clinton didn't ACTUALLY support the DMCA; he might very well have. It's simply saying that a president not vetoing a bill doesn't automatically mean he supports it. I wouldn't hold a president responsible in a situation like that where his veto does nothing anyway. (Though ironically I'd personally think better of him for doing it in the face of all those reasons not to.)

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[eiapoce]

What part of "unanimous vote" don't you understand? Absolutely none is needed to comprehend that there is a Duocracy and both parties are on the payroll of corporate oligopolists. As I proved in the above message with the links, they actually are and it's a fact. Clinton could have spoke against this law but obviously that was against family interests (a sad thing that his family interests are not the same as those millions of american citisens).

I hope you recover soon from your rage attack.

Cheers

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[scubamage]

No, they won't. They'll put it in her case file until the next time she is in the office - at least thats what my firm did.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

The FBI doesn't have the power to file charges, they are a police agency. It is the job of a federal DA to bring charges.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Phishcast]

I think you meant "Lest we forget". You were modded up anyhow so I guess bringing it up is a moo point.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Krisbee]

-- In Soviet Russia, the government controls the commerce. And in, you know where, it's the other way around.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[afabbro]

What does it say about the constancy of Justice? That it can be perverted and sold to the highest bidder?

Well, duh.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Lemmy Caution]

Witness the collision of two types of sense of humor: the wry and subtle versus the explicit, obvious and leaden.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[CrashPoint]

So we outbid them.

Get a million people together (shouldn't be hard if all the torrent sites make note of the campaign) to chip in $1 or $10 each to make a matching offer: "We'll pay you to take this to trial."

I'm pretty sure settlements are usually offered and negotiated in private, and that it rarely happens on the weeks-to-months timescale that it would take to organize and execute a donation drive of that magnitude. Even after the case is settled the terms of the settlement are often held in confidence, so you'd have a hard time using it as a baseline for future cases.

Plus there's the question of enforcement; how do you keep her from just taking both offers and settling? Since you can't enter a legally binding agreement with The Internets, you'd have to either create an organization with legal standing to enter a contract, or entrust the money to an existing one like the EFF. That has its own pitfalls, and still doesn't address the first problem.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Beavertank]

I see what you did there...

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

The man's name is Barack Hussein Obama. Do you always use a politician's middle name as their surname when referring to them? George Bush Walker? Bill Clinton Jefferson? Or are you perchance making a rather cowardly and ignorant attempt to draw on anti-Islamic feeling to denigrate a (Christian) politician you don't happen to like?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

We are anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[pyrr]

It wouldn't be about selling justice to the highest bidder, it would be about offering someone who was wrongly accused and maliciously prosecuted by the RIAA an incentive to take a gamble and see justice done. If all the RIAA has to do is flash some large bills and have their legal problems go away, then justice isn't served.

The proposal to raise money to encourage the plaintiff to not settle her case and let the courts decide the matter would create a nice hedge for the plaintiff just in case the RIAA makes her a better offer than what a jury might award. It's important for this case to proceed, because without taking the RIAA to task on its methods in a case that forces it to come clean on everything, it's basically a corporate sniper, shooting down one individual after another, bamboozling courts with technobabble, and in most cases the individuals don't really have the resources to take their cases to court even if they may have been wrongly accused. Ever notice how they've been picking on mostly lower-income people, students, the elderly, young families, children, single parents-- the very folks who are the least likely to have the resources to wage a court battle and are most likely to settle whether they're guilty or not?

Airing the RIAA's dirty laundry in regards to its methodology is the only way to help individuals who are being picked-off one by one. And getting together and pooling resources in order to defend the collective of internet users who may find themselves in the RIAA's crosshairs is really our best hope of having a fighting chance to defend ourselves against false, nebulous accusations that could cost any one of us thousands of dollars whether we shared anything or not. If their methods are really that sloppy and inaccurate, nobody should assume that just because you PERSONALLY didn't share, that you're immune. I don't lose sleep over my former roommate's filesharing over my network (my house, I paid the bills for everything, and shared it under the rent), but if the RIAA's methodology isn't airtight (and it obviously isn't), I want the world to know...just in case.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[MarkvW]

Yes! I absolutely agree. Once one mouse has found its way to the cheese, others will follow.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[scubamage]

So wait, you're saying that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? No way! :)

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Mix Master Nixon]

Is Justice Alito complacent for his role in any laws that may have been broken by the Bush administration purging thousands of emails by being a Bush appointee?

No, but everyone on who was sitting on that damned court when they effectively appointed Bush President in the first place certainly ought to be considered responsible for enabling his crimes. Thanks again for that, assholes.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Dhalka226]

What does it say about the constancy of Justice?

Nothing. Convincing somebody to hang-in on a lawsuit they've already filed, or to file one they otherwise might not, has no bearing on justice so long as they actually have a case. For the most part, justice is in the outcome.

This woman has a case, no doubt about it. Even the judge's actions thus far have indicated that. Similarly, the RIAA are a bunch of scumbags who deserve to be slapped around. Convincing her not to settle and to take it all the way to its conclusion has no bearing on justice that I can see, not even in a generalized sense.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Ash Vince]

Might be worth bearing in mind that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have taken huge campaign donations from RIAA associated companies.

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00000019&cycle=2008
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00009638&cycle=2008

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[phoenixwade]

Less we forget that she can still get that $2 million+ at the conclusion of the trial? If the RIAA thinks that a mere $2 million will cut the trial short and hide their dirty laundry, then they have seriously under estimated the wrath of a woman who has been royally PISSED OFF. Knowing what they put her through I can't imagine her settling before the RIAA's bag of tricks are all spread out on the table for everyone to see. Can you just imagine what a jury would think? Thats when the real music (that they don't own) begins to play. Isn't this thing a class action now? Doesn't that mean that any settlement would have to be to the benefit of the class (after the Lawyers share, of course...)? Regardless, I'm sure it's all going to be drawn out for years anyway. Given that, I think it's be great if all the other RIAA activity is put on hold pending the outcome of the class action, that'd be a win for the consumer regardless of the settlement terms. I don't really think that the RIAA has a snowballs chance of winning, but SCOx and Microsoft has taught us that the wheels of justice can skid all over unexpected places. I'm optimistic that things will work out the way they are supposed to.... eventually. Though I admit a certain amount of concern that the Democratic party's gain in power (where the RIAA's and MPAA's member companies seem to throw a lot of money around) might mean that we're in for a rough ride on Patent and Copyright issues.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as a federal DA. I think you mean a U.S. Attorney.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[monxrtr]

It's impossible for the internet to not become a legal minefield by definition as every original file is copyrighted no matter who creates it. Even the most minor policing attempts will expose these companies with big resources targets to millions of copyright trolls. This is why, I've said before, copyright is already de facto dead, because even those who benefit the most from it, will lose many times more than they could ever make from copyright monopolies to accidental downloading and uploading of files they have no way of knowing in advance contain what content.

How many BritneySpearsSux.mp3 type parodies (or content owned by non RIAA members) has the RIAA and MediaSentry already downloaded/uploaded? Likely far more than they have billions in assets to pay out $150,000 per infringement penalties. The best offense against copyright law is to use the bought laws against those who bought them. They will be utterly crushed, lose all their money, and end up in jail for RICO violations.

MAXIMUS: A people should know when they are conquered. At the first signal release the catapults. We'll use the cavalry to cut off the retreat.

MAXIMUS: At my signal, unleash hell.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Mister Whirly]

"Get a million people together (shouldn't be hard if all the torrent sites make note of the campaign) to chip in $1 or $10 each"

If this is such an easy method to raise millions of dollars, why hasn't it already been done to set up a defense fund for RIAA cases?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Mister Whirly]

I'm sure the RIAA covers all it's bases and donates the maximum they can to EVERY candidate.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Dun Malg]

I think you meant "Lest we forget". You were modded up anyhow so I guess bringing it up is a moo point. You mean like it's a cow's opinion?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Mateo_LeFou]

we should be so lucky! Did you know they have conjugal visits there?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[torstenvl]

Which companies are those? Time Warner? Time warner doesn't constitute "companies" - last I checked it's only one.

If you meant Time Warner (via Warner Music), it's worth noting that they gave almost half again as much money to Clinton as they did to Obama.

Thanks for the link, I've really found it interesting. I think the MOST interesting part is when you break down where the donations are coming from. *Individuals* at Warner Music gave $500 to Democrats. http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/affiliates.asp?ID=D000000094&Cycle=2008&Type=P Most of the biggest donations to Democrats seem to be from cable/movie content subsidiaries (the WB, HBO, Castle Rock Entertainment, New Line Cinema). A healthy dose of fear of "family values" censorship, anyone?

Other subsidiaries don't donate with such disparities. Especially interesting is how content DELIVERY subsidiaries (AOL LLC, Time Warner Cable) donate a lot but are pretty split between Democrats and Republicans.

The fact that NETWORKS seem to be trying to buy out both sides is the disturbing thing here, in my opinion.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they haven't done anything to sufficiently rile Anonymous. Yet.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[shentino]

Actually, it has.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational hate machine.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

>She has the opportunity to bring all these lawsuits to a screeching halt.

And that still won't make copyright infringement legal.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

But what if you end up in the federal PMITA prison?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Pedrito]

It was Clinton who gave us the DMCA. Not just Republican administrations are corporate puppets.

Presidents don't introduce legislation, Congress does. Presidents have a choice to approve or return a bill. But like everything else in poltiics, there's give and take on both sides, or there should be and often times is, the current administration withstanding. Vetoing the bill means facing a possible veto override or it means some other legislation the president wants passed might not get passed.

But to put the blame on Clinton is very narrow-minded. Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC) introduced the bill. He and the people who voted on it really deserve a majority share of the blame.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[dgatwood]

Nobody's angry here. I'm merely pointing out that while a conflict of interest may have existed, that is completely irrelevant, as the lack of that conflict of interest would not have changed his decision not to veto the bill in question. No matter what Clinton had done in this matter, it would not have made any difference, so political grandstanding over something that might actually win lots of votes notwithstanding, why would he risk angering Congress and potentially losing what influence he had over future bills that he actually could influence? That's political suicide.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[jadin]

Thats when the real music (that they don't own) begins to play. Taps?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Mister Whirly]

Good. If people are really putting their money where their mouth is, there should be a few million in there already. Something tells me that sadly, that isn't the case.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[mysticgoat]

I have no problem with offering her money to take this issue to the courts. She would be a Champion of Justice, which is an honored role in western civilization's concept of justice, going back to at least medieval times. We should photoshop her image onto a white war horse in full jousting armor, with heliographing glints from her breastplate, shield, and lance.

I think this would be a fully appropriate way of taking MAFIAA organizations to task, considering their tactics are derived from the barbarian practices of threats of torture from those same ancient times.

If just once this was done, where a champion was bankrolled to fight against any of the MAFIAAs, their business model would need to be drastically revised to manage the threat of this happening, and possibly happening again, and again. Since their business model is built on FUD and insubtantial threats, it would not survive that needed revision. The MAFIAAs would simply go away, leaving behind an army of unemployed lawyers who would be busy for a while trying to dream up ways to rewrite their resumes to avoid admitting that they are part of the punchline of a very bad joke.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[VolciMaster]

Parodies, though, are allowed under current copyright law, and the original owners of the songs / materials do not have to give permission. Even if they deny someone permission to make a parody, that individual still may if he/she wishes.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

>Similarly, the RIAA are a bunch of scumbags who deserve to be slapped around.

And that still doesn't make copyright infringement legal.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[monxrtr]

Yes, and parodies are themselves copyrighted, owned by those who created the parodies, not owned by the RIAA companies who made the originals. This is why the RIAA has $150,000 per infringement liability for every BritneySpearsSux.mp3 they download/upload that is not their original content. Could be some citizen's creation or could be a GrandTheftAuto cutscene. They have no way of knowing until after they download/upload (in the stream) the file. That's why I confidently claim the RIAA has already infringed more copyrights at $150,000 per infringement than their member companies have assets to cover the fines. And *millions* of individuals can easily troll big company police like the RIAA who download their copyrighted creations "by accident". How many different songs and file creations are simply titled "Love"? Whoops, the RIAA downloaded my copyrighted .mp3 greeting card which I had licensed to Hallmark and not their Jennifer Love Hewitt song in a P2P stream? That'll be $150,000, wham, bam, Thank You SiRIAA.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Frantix]

I can't see the RIAA setting a precedent by doing a settlement. If they do settle it opens up a lot more cases against them with the thoughts of scoring that same $1-2 million purse in hopes of a settlement. I think they're in a situation where they NEED to win this case or things will finally start to crumble for them.

I'm just glad they're finally going to have to answer to someone.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Pieroxy]

In most legal system, the one thing that will make the difference is intent. If I create my own song and call the MP3 "Britney - I did it again" I can hardly blame some accidental infringer for thinking it was a Britney Spears song. Specially if they represent the copyright holder.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

How many BritneySpearsSux.mp3 type parodies (or content owned by non RIAA members) has the RIAA and MediaSentry already downloaded/uploaded? Almost none.

I work for an ISP, and part of my job description is dealing with abuse complaints (including DMCA complaints.) The usual modus operandi when we receive a complaint is to verify that the address was in use, verify that traffic was coming from that port, and then send the user's name back. Someone else (not me) also contacts the user.

A few weeks ago, we got a request from a user who wanted to use the network to do research (it's a college town)--specifically research related to Bit Torrent. They wanted permission to conduct this research, and assured us that they would not be engaging in copyright infringement. They had written a special client which advertises hashes of the torrent, but never sends data.

Fast forward to about a week ago--two MPAA complaints against their IP address. We could also verify that there was no way that they were sending or receiving files--their traffic usage was actually pretty small.

My assumption based upon the data is that the company who sent the DMCA notification just looks at the IP addresses that the tracker advertises is a part of the swarm. They don't bother to download and verify that the torrent is what they think that it is, and it's in-line with other debacles of the sort (remember the usher mp3 one from several years back?), as well as some anomalies we'd seen where a notification time was shortly after a person had released their DHCP lease (sometimes the trackers don't immediately notice when a user has disconnected.) I'd love to say that I'm shocked, nay horrified that they would gather evidence in this way, but frankly, it makes good business sense. Why waste the time downloading every file? Almost everyone who gets tagged has been infringing copyright--there just aren't that many 'fake' files out there. And since almost everyone is actually doing it, they'll almost all settle. Those few who do not are easily handled by simply dropping the case.

For this reason, I would expect that blacklists like Peerguardian wouldn't really work all that well. Lots of people give me anecdotal evidence when I bring this up ("Well it works for me!") but that's kinda like saying that this elephant repellant is working because there aren't any elephants on my front lawn. I know a lot of people who engage in a lot of filesharing, and none of them have ever gotten DMCA complaints. Just based upon the number I see in my job, I know that they're not sending them to very many people, in general.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[gnasher719]

Yes, and parodies are themselves copyrighted, owned by those who created the parodies, not owned by the RIAA companies who made the originals. This is why the RIAA has $150,000 per infringement liability for every BritneySpearsSux.mp3 they download/upload that is not their original content. They can reasonably argue that the download happened with the consent of the copyright holder, if the copyright holder made it available for download on a P2P network. On the other hand, when MediaSentry downloads music owned by companies represented through RIAA, that also happens with the consent of the copyright holder, which means the upload is also legal.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Why bother? If they have to cough up a wad of cash every time they are wrong, would that not be more effective?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[gnasher719]

This was posted anonymously (0 points score, not posted by me) and nobody is going to read it, but it's interesting so I'll repost it:

I work for an ISP, and part of my job description is dealing with abuse complaints (including DMCA complaints.) The usual modus operandi when we receive a complaint is to verify that the address was in use, verify that traffic was coming from that port, and then send the user's name back. Someone else (not me) also contacts the user.

A few weeks ago, we got a request from a user who wanted to use the network to do research (it's a college town)--specifically research related to Bit Torrent. They wanted permission to conduct this research, and assured us that they would not be engaging in copyright infringement. They had written a special client which advertises hashes of the torrent, but never sends data.

Fast forward to about a week ago--two MPAA complaints against their IP address. We could also verify that there was no way that they were sending or receiving files--their traffic usage was actually pretty small.

My assumption based upon the data is that the company who sent the DMCA notification just looks at the IP addresses that the tracker advertises is a part of the swarm. They don't bother to download and verify that the torrent is what they think that it is, and it's in-line with other debacles of the sort (remember the usher mp3 one from several years back?), as well as some anomalies we'd seen where a notification time was shortly after a person had released their DHCP lease (sometimes the trackers don't immediately notice when a user has disconnected.) I'd love to say that I'm shocked, nay horrified that they would gather evidence in this way, but frankly, it makes good business sense. Why waste the time downloading every file? Almost everyone who gets tagged has been infringing copyright--there just aren't that many 'fake' files out there. And since almost everyone is actually doing it, they'll almost all settle. Those few who do not are easily handled by simply dropping the case.

For this reason, I would expect that blacklists like Peerguardian wouldn't really work all that well. Lots of people give me anecdotal evidence when I bring this up ("Well it works for me!") but that's kinda like saying that this elephant repellant is working because there aren't any elephants on my front lawn. I know a lot of people who engage in a lot of filesharing, and none of them have ever gotten DMCA complaints. Just based upon the number I see in my job, I know that they're not sending them to very many people, in general.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Opportunist]

You are number 16 to point out the fairly obvious joke in the signature.

I'll change the signature when the counter reaches 25. Thank you for participating.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[brian.gunderson]

That, quite honestly, was one of the most insightful comments I've seen on /. to date. Thank you.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[carpe.cervisiam]

Why bother? If they have to cough up a wad of cash every time they are wrong, would that not be more effective? No, it wouldn't. It would let them buy their way out of a judgment against them that establishes a precedent. Having a precedent cited in future lawsuits would be far more expensive for the RIAA and the MPAA even if the settlement amount in this case were vastly more than what a judge would award to the plaintiff in this particular case. Not to mention the skeletons that would be dragged out of closets during discovery.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[pipingguy]

You probably wanted to write, "lest we forget". I hope she doesn't settle for the dangleage and pushes on.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Pardon, but aren't existing precedents the reason why they are exposed to this type of litigation in the first place? A precedent doesn't prejudice future litigation against a particular party. It covers circumstances of law, not defendants.

The discovery would sure make interesting conversation around here, but I believe that writing large checks every time they screw up is more effective.

Besides, it's really unknown how often they do make this kind of mistake. Meaning, we don't know that given X number of lawsuits brought by the RIAA, Y are targeting the wrong defendant. Is it one in 100? One in 1,000? One in 10,000? I've no idea.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[carpe.cervisiam]

You are correct. A precedent does not prejudice future litigation against a particular party. My argument is that the same circumstance of law would apply to other suits of the same ilk against similar organizations, which is why I also mentioned the MPAA. If the ratio was 1:10,000 do you really think they would be that worried?

Writing checks EVERY time they screw up would be helped by a precedent right? The next litigant wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel so to speak. They could use the conclusions drawn in the judge's published decisions to argue why the RIAA is guilty of what they are accusing them of by showing that the same methods were used in the suit against them.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[carpe.cervisiam]

You are correct. A precedent does not prejudice future litigation against a particular party. My argument is that the same circumstance of law would apply to other suits of the same ilk against similar organizations, which is why I also mentioned the MPAA. If the ratio was 1:10,000 do you really think they would be that worried?

Writing checks EVERY time they screw up would be helped by a precedent right? The next litigant wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel so to speak. They could use the conclusions drawn in the judge's published decisions to argue why the RIAA is guilty of what they are accusing them of by showing that the same methods were used in the suit against them. okay, I'm going to sleep now. I cant even remember to put the damned slash in the end tag

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[IvyKing]

I also seem to remember that the DMCA being passed unanimously by both the House and the Senate before Clinton signed it into law.

My recollection was that the DMCA passed on a voice vote which is a whole different kind of animal than an unanimous vote. There's no proof that an actual majority of congress voted for the law.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Pardon, but aren't existing precedents the reason why they are exposed to this type of litigation in the first place? A precedent doesn't prejudice future litigation against a particular party. It covers circumstances of law, not defendants. The discovery would sure make interesting conversation around here, but I believe that writing large checks every time they screw up is more effective. Besides, it's really unknown how often they do make this kind of mistake. Meaning, we don't know that given X number of lawsuits brought by the RIAA, Y are targeting the wrong defendant. Is it one in 100? One in 1,000? One in 10,000? I've no idea Based on my experience, I would estimate that the ratio is closer to 1 out of 2.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[the_B0fh]

Did your doctor bounce you when you were born? The issue here is not whether copyright infringement is legal or illegal.

The issue here is that the methods RIAA USED IS ILLEGAL.

Bah. Morons. Actually, since you're an anonymous coward, a better word is probably shrill.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[RockDoctor]

If they have to cough up a wad of cash every time they are wrong, would that not be more effective?

Effective at what? Feeding the lawyers. Not the best of outcomes.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[cwtrex]

I'd love to see her take $2 million, but then after paying the taxes and her lawyer, donate $50k to 10 more cases as they come up (or 100k for 5 more cases, which ever is a more realistic price to win a case like this). That would make 5 to 10 more people the RIAA would have to buy off and at the same time, more lawsuits to put dents in their armor.

Probably a dream, I know, but what a dream huh?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[omen]

Probably no chance anyone will see this, this late after the fact, but I work in a college Data Center in the security group. We had a DMCA violation notice sent against our honeypot. This is a machine that listens on a bunch of networks and records when others connect to it. That's it. It NEVER opens a connection on its own (not even sure the software is capable of opening a connection), only listens. They even named a specific song that our honeypot had supposedly been "sharing". Maybe all of the ISPs and other large networks should start a database of totally bogus DMCA notices. Seems like it could be useful in a defense.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the "Preview" button is for.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

a better word is probably shrill

"shill".

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

"(Hillary) was collecting cash from the media companies for her run as Governor."

HRC was running for Governor? Of which state?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about people who can't be bothered to pay for the stuff they download - are they really going to cough up money for this?

Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[AbsoluteXyro]

I fully expect the RIAA to do everything in it's power to hide any so called "embarrassing" information, probably successfully so. I hate to be such a pessimist but the fact of the matter is multi-million dollar corporations will always have the upper hand in this sort of thing. I got my fingers crossed though, hopefully someone will finally slay the dragon.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Bryansix]

Just remember... The soft spot is right on the neck.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[hedwards]

Which isn't much, unless their attorneys can convince the judge not to allow investigation into these charges. Which they shouldn't be able to, the only way that they're going to be able to avoid answering them is by witness tampering or other methods of obstruction of justice.

Which isn't good, if there's one thing which judges don't like it's having their cases tampered with in that manner. I'm just surprised that it's taken as long for the judges involved to start getting cranky about being used.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Opportunist]

Sorry, the RIAA is no dragon, it's a hydra. Chop off a head, two will grow back.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Abreu]

Wrong, everyone knows the soft spot on dragons is in the right armpit...

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Phrogman]

Actually, if a defendant is unable to produce evidence because it appears to have been deleted when it should be available, a court will usually take that into consideration and may assume that the defendant did that to hide something, and thus hold that against them. The reverse is of course true for the prosecution if they are likewise unable to produce evidence, although the courts will hold an individual to a more reasonable requirement than a large organization which is expected to maintain a higher standard.

Its only if they have a reasonable data retention policy already in place, and can show that the deleted or destroyed information or records were destroyed in accordance with that plan - and that they have been following that plan rigorously and not just in this one instance, that they can justify not producing the records. If for instance they have formally established and been following a records retention policy whereby they state they will destroy email records after holding them in backup for say a 5 year period (higher in some industries where its specified by law how long you must preserve those records), and have done so and thereby cannot produce records from before that period, then a judge should not hold it against them during discovery. They made a plan, stuck to it prior to entering litigation, and the court has to recognize there is a cost associated with maintaining and backing up such data that should have a logical limit when the utility of that data has been reduced by the time that has passed. If however they have not followed that policy, don't have such a policy, or give the appearance of selectively applying it to hide potentially damaging evidence, they can have it held against them (possibly with the assumption that the information in question was damaging), and they can be fined by the court. They can even have the court summarily find in favour of the prosecution. They can be fined if they cannot produce the evidence in a reasonable period of time, and will usually bear the brunt of the cost of producing those records - no matter how difficult or expensive that may be - as long as the other side can produce sufficient cause to justify the importance of that evidence to their case. Sometimes the other side can be required to pay for some of the cost of course, if its reasonable. This can be extended well beyond physical records and emails, to include IM traffic, chat logs etc, all of which an organization bears a responsibility to back up and maintain. You can even be held liable if your backups cannot be restored due to changes to technology over time - you are expected to transfer those backups to a new format, or maintain the old equipment required to restore them etc. If you failed to place backups in offsite storage and they were destroyed in a fire, thats your fault too for not taking reasonable precautions and storing the backups elsewhere. I expect a few companies are going to get bit badly in the next few years when they cannot produce backups of all the IM traffic that passed over their networks for instance - because if anything that happened during those IM sessions has any bearing on anything legal, its a record that needs to be backed up, period. If you and I discuss a business deal, and then I send you an email that just says something like "About our conversation yesterday, lets do it" and the lets do it implies a verbal agreement to pursue a business deal, that email is a legal record, same thing if we agree via IM chat :P

So simply removing evidence by destroying it is not necessarily of any benefit to an organization when they hit the courts. The courts can and should take a very dim view of someone who deliberately destroys damaging evidence :P

IANAL, but I used to work for some who dealt with records retention, discovery etc, and picked up some of the details. Its surprising how many companies and organizations do not have and do not follow a logical retention policy with regards to data (apparently about 40%

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Phrogman]

Oh I forgot, the moment a company enters litigation, they are also supposed to place a Hold order with regards to records created by their organization - ie, absolutely no one deletes or destroys anything. Ie you dont delete email or backups

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Bobb Sledd]

I don't agree (not necessarily with you but with general policy) that all things must be logged and archived. IM is the one thing I think should not be logged unless it serves a specific purpose. It is not the same as an email message. I think it is unreasonable to expect to log and archive IM.

It is more analogous to telephone conversations. Most telephone conversations are not recorded and kept for any real length of time either (although, they *can* be, and can be used in court also). There is no expectation that IM messages would be logged, whereas it's reasonable to expect email messages to be.

However, if IM is purposely or inadvertently logged... it should certainly be discoverable.

Just my $.02

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[tirefire]

Why shouldn't IMs be logged? It's very easy to do, and if it's an IM conversation about company business, it seems like it should be.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[ghjm]

Some of the judges think that the RIAA is the good guy, and approve of their tactics. If the RIAA has figured out a model that extends judicial power over distributed "anonymous" P2P networks, why would judges fight against it? It's their own power being expanded.

-Graham

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Bobb Sledd]

Oh! Because there are lots of things that are said every day in the business world -- either to a customer or a coworker or even to family members that should not be recorded! Arguably, they shouldn't be said either! But they are. But we don't record phone conversations (unless warned ahead of time), and we generally don't put mics and cameras in peoples' cubicles.

IM logs could potentially contain all kinds of irrelevant things (to that subject being discussed) that could be used to paint an unfavorable position against you or the company. It's a business risk; not an asset.

Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you necessarily should.

If it is something that needs to be logged, then log that one thing! And shut off the logging after that. But to log everything carte blanche is just *asking* for trouble, IMHO.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[seandiggity]

Doubly wrong.

"The dragon swooped once more lower than ever, and as he turned and dived down his belly glittered white with sparkling fires of gems in the moon -- but not in one place. The great bow twanged. The black arrows sped straight from the string, straight for the hollow in the left breast where the foreleg was flung wide. In it smote and vanished, barb, shaft, and feather, so fierce was its flight. With a shriek that deafened men, felled trees and split stone, Smaug shot spouting into the air, turned over and crashed down full from on high in ruin."

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Phrogman]

Oh I agree IM traffic could be damaging and probably shouldn't see the light of day in court, just as many phone conversations could be similarly damaging. However, many IM programs do maintain a log and such logs could be discovered during the discovery phase, and most employers don't think about IM at all.

As well, its not me suggesting that backing up IM traffic is a requirement, its more or less defined by the laws in the US as I recall reading about them - again IANAL.

If an IM conversation contained something that could be viewed as a business agreement, then a court could require a party to produce a transcript, period. The party may not be able to do so, but that might be counted against them, so its actually better for a company or organization to either log all IM traffic, or ban the use of IM clients on their network.

The laws on document retention have gotten pretty extreme since Sarbanes-Oxley, and I think courts are likely to be very strict on all parties obeying the rules when it comes to discovery phase.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[jack455]

Absolutely correct, I work in the IT department of a large corporation and am responsible for retaining data under these situations. We are constantly under legal fire and have well established policies. While OP is largely correct, the parent is right that IM is very much preferred. The sheer amount of data that gets retained when you email a coworker about where to get lunch is ridiculous and policy is to make workers aware of this and to IM instead. (Cynics may doubt that the policy is solely to do with the data involved.)

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Bobb Sledd]

What you say is largely true. Although, I can find no such law for the US regarding logging IM. I did find one for the UK.

I am not aware of any penalty for the failure to produce discovery evidence simply because a record is not kept (or even mis-filed). Often/sometimes it is a 3rd party that comes in to perform some discovery anyway.

If the company has a written policy that their IM system is not to be logged or cached (other than manual copying and pasting into a separate document, such as Word or an email message, by the users themselves), then I cannot see how they can be liable for not producing IM logs when they don't exist. After all, they are not held accountable for phone conversations they didn't record, office conversations that weren't documented, nor business meeting comments that don't get logged into the minutes. I see IM as no different.

If a log or recording or an email or a piece of paper just doesn't exist, it just doesn't exist. Where you really get into trouble is when you shred after being put on notice for discovery. Bad bad.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Phrogman]

Oh I am not sure on specific laws concerning IM, that has largely been ignored as far as I know, and as I said IANAL.

I also agree that if a company has a written policy that they do not retain IM logs, they would be largely clear of any problems in court, I expect. But if a company didn't have a written policy, and their employees regularly did business dealings or otherwise legally accountable discussions via IM, I can forsee a problem, particularly if they had a policy of destroying any logs that were produced. However you could be entirely correct and the courts might view it as no different than a phone conversation.

I do recall reading of at least one law suit where a company secured agreement to do some renovations to a building via email, didn't keep the email in question in any format at all (their informal policy on email was to delete it all, regardless of content, after 30 days, but this wasn't written down or formalized in any way), and subsequently got sued over those renovations and was unable to produce anything that stated they had permission to go ahead. Now why there wasn't a contract etc, I don't recall but I do recall the judge slamming them for not recording the email and preserving it because it amounted to a legal agreement to proceed with the renovations. By extension if a similar agreement to proceed was reached via an IM conversation (much less likely and again very rare if it ever occurred), I can see a judge having the same opinion. Usually you would get a signature on paper for any such thing but if you failed to do that and failed to retain a transcript of the only go ahead you got, you could pay for it.

Again, I was just pointing out how strict the courts can expect you to be with regards to document retention and using IM (something most people wouldn't think of at all) as an example of where the courts might get picky.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Bryansix]

I was refering to the Dragon in Beowulf. I don't know about any other Dragons and where their weakneses are.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Bobb Sledd]

Yes, agreed.

One aside; I think it is always best to put yourself in a position that helps you and not your adversary. Perhaps having a written policy that says "We don't log things unless it is of recognized importance at the time" turns the double-edge sword of IM into a single-edge sword working in your favor.

In one entity I have been a part of (a legal group for a prominent computer manufacturer), we were encouraged to use private telephone messaging as much as possible, and avoid email if possible. And *never* say anything that could come back to bite you later.

As you said, there are stringent rules concerning documentation... but the interesting thing is that you are allowed to shred/trash *almost* right up until litigation -- regardless of general document retention policy of the company. But once you get that discovery notice, you dare not touch.

I think I'm up to $.04 now.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[El Gigante de Justic]

Actually, they usually are, at least in relation to anything that could apply to the litigation.
  A while back we got a company wide e-mail that there was pending litigation for a patent between us and a competitor (competitor filed the suit) and that we were not to delete any e-mails or documents or files that related to the design, development, sales and marketing of our product or to products of the competitor that were similar to it.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[PieceofLavalamp]

What are you all talking about, its three 20s and its an insta-kill.

Which is what we've got assuming she follows through.

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[TheSpoom]

So, I'll use an IM service my company doesn't know about and encrypt the data through the line.

So the company should be in shit now for not having retained an impossible-to-retain conversation?

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Abreu]

damn! wrong armpit!

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[seandiggity]

Yeah, my assumption is that the arrow pierced his heart. You'd think Smaug woulda covered that with a big gem or something...maybe make some kind of patch out of the Arkenstone or all that mithril he had lying about...

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Rich0]

I get a chuckle at work. For similar reasons there is a lot of encouragement to avoid conducting business over email in favor of meetings which offers the personal touch (and which aren't discoverable).

On the other hand, you also get all kinds of communications at work pointing out the benefits of working in a virtual environment where tools such as email and document managements systems can help reduce the need for in-person meetings (often with the cost of travel).

And of course it seems like everybody is already in meetings all day every day, so the only way to actually get anything done is via email unless you're an executive that can just tell everybody to just skip all their other meetings.

Gotta love progress! :)

Re:Gentlemen, start your paper shredders

[Anonymous Coward]

everything in it's power

"its".

I found the "???"

[iknownuttin]

Lybeck tells Ars that he'll be digging into agreements between the RIAA, RIAA member companies, MediaSentry, and the Settlement Support Sentry. Part of that will involve looking at compensation, like how much MediaSentry gets from each settlement. "I'd love to know what kind of bounty MediaSentry got paid to supply erroneous identities to the RIAA," Lybeck says.

I see...

1. Get contract to find copyright violators.

2. The "???" is: Just grab folks that may look guilty.

3. Profit!

Re:I found the "???"

[jamstar7]

Oh my god, you killed a South Park meme. You bastard. j/k

I'm just hoping the discovery phase of things actually find something instead of random paper shredding by the guilty.

Re:I found the "???"

[Svartalf]

Random (or not so much so...) shredding from the guilty is actionable in many different ways.

I would NOT want to be the RIAA if they're caught with Spoilation or Contempt of Court in this matter.

Re:I found the "???"

[Kedjoran]

The grab folks that might look guilty probably isn't too far off the truth... I got a letter about a month ago from NBC Universal via my University for sharing some DVD isos of some series I don't even watch on some site I've never even heard of. I guess fortunately this was more of a cease & desist letter rather than a pay us a settlement or get sued letter. Its been a month and nothings happened and probably won't, although I wouldn't mind being the one who ends giving the big fsck you to the false allegations and shoddy investigations of the RIAA members and now MPAA members, I certainly don't have the money to do it.

Re:I found the "???"

[jamstar7]

I would NOT want to be the RIAA if they're caught with Spoilation or Contempt of Court in this matter.

Thing is, as a couple lawyers I'm aquainted with always tell me, it's not what you know that counts in court, it's what you can prove. If RIAA manages to shred all the evidence and the evidence of the shredding too, as well as hide the people who authorised and carried it out, how are you going to prove anything?

RIAA Karma

[imstanny]

RIAA's current Karma: Troll.

Judge Says: Overrated.

Re:RIAA Karma

[paitre]

omg. I wish my mod points hadn't expired last night.
Funny +1

So...

[controlBreak]

Is it wrong that I'm excited about this?

Re:So...

[Sinryc]

Not at all. Its a good thing to want to see how a group(The RIAA) does its dirty laundry.

Re:So...

[arabagast]

wrong ? no no, this is like the biggest bukkake, ever.

BEATINGS

[Missing_dc]

Like most of the readers here, I will watch this case closely (enough to actually RTFAs).

My sincere hope in this is that MediaSentry and the RIAA in general get their asses handed to them. I am all for dragging the top 4 levels of each guilty corporation into the street and publically beating them for their wrong-doings.

Then releasing the video of the beatings on youtube.

Re:BEATINGS

[Naughty Bob]

Then releasing the video of the beatings on youtube.

And The Pirate Bay, Usenet, etc. etc...

Re:BEATINGS

[Anonymous Coward]

"I am all for dragging the top 4 levels of each guilty corporation into the street and publically beating them for their wrong-doings."

Better yet, air drop them into Iraq hostile territory sporting "I Love Bush" tee-shirts and we'll see a new version of the corporate saying, "heads must roll".

Re:BEATINGS

[carpe.cervisiam]

Better yet, t-shirts with the caption "I like beer" under a picture of Allah.

Re:BEATINGS

[carpe.cervisiam]

Better yet, t-shirts with the caption "I like beer" under a picture of Allah. sorry, I'm tired, thats supposed to say "a picture of Mohamed"

Paul Harvey quote?

[zappepcs]

Now, it's time for 'the rest of the story'....

This will be more than interesting. I hope that they have all the legal advice and tech advice necessary to pull the fingernails off of the **AA legal team, one at a time, no pain killers.

Facing the Music

[auroran]

I'd love to see the RIAA face their own music.
That alone should be suitable punishment for the stuff that they've tried to inflict on the general public. :)

Re:Facing the Music

[Opportunist]

I'd love to see the RIAA face their own music.

Now, now... I don't like the RIAA one bit either, but considering the music they produce... No, I'm against torture in any form. Not even against the RIAA.

Re:Facing the Music

[vanNostrund]

if only the RIAA were an actual person who's life was completely disrupted by this trial, instead of a corporation who has more rights than any citizen.

Re:Facing the Music

[Anonymous Coward]

Well obviously you have a desire for it, since you can't stop stealing it. Yeah, semantics.

Well obviously you have an orangutan for it, since you can't stop chewing it. Yeah, semantics.

Here's a tip for you, Chief. The fact that you feel compelled to find a word with your desired connotation, rather than simply use the proper one, is an indication that your position doesn't have enough actual substance to stand on its own.

Face the music

[Volante3192]

The judge has barred further motions to dismiss the complaint, which means the RIAA will have to face the music.

Since the RIAA already owns the music, I guess this won't really frighten them much.

Re:Face the music

[robinsonne]

Have you listened to some of the crap they're selling these days? Just imagine being trapped in a room with some of that playing non-stop.

I'm not afraid!

You will be. You will be.

Re:Face the music

[moderatorrater]

And the court has to pay licensing fees to use that music. But still, it should be awesome.

Re:Face the music

[nedburns]

That sounds like going to the mall. I think the blaring crapola they pound you with is in the top 3 reasons why I never go to the mall, even if the food court is delicious.

Re:Face the music

[Maximum Prophet]

Since the RIAA already owns the music, I guess this won't really frighten them much

Given the "quality" of most of their music, this threat alone has them quaking in their boots.

Re:Face the music

[zx75]

No kidding! Plus then they can sue the judge for unauthorized public performance!

Re:Face the music

[sorak]

The judge has barred further motions to dismiss the complaint, which means the RIAA will have to face the music.

Since the RIAA already owns the music, I guess this won't really frighten them much. I've heard the music. It's pretty frightening.

Re:Face the music

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, though, what percentage of recorded music today, is actually on RIAA labels? 20%? 10%? Facing the music is a hell of a longshot gamble for RIAA. The music is probably not on their side.

Re:Face the music

[Crazy_CorranH]

Wouldn't ASCAP or BMI sue for an unauthorized public performance?

Re:Face the music

[Anonymous Coward]

ASCAP

What does getting shot in the posterior have to do with it?

Where's NYCL when you need him?

[Orange Crush]

IANAL, but it sounds like the RIAA is going to want to settle and prevent discovery from happening since they don't want all the sordid details of their dealings brought to light.

But that makes me wonder . . . if they do in fact settle, won't this just embolden all the other lawsuit recipients to file against the RIAA too? They can settle malicious lawsuits to keep them from going to trial to their heartss content (*snicker* we know they don't have hearts), but ultimately they're going to have to either WIN a malicious prosecution suit or stop engaging in malicious suits alltogether, no?

Re:Where's NYCL when you need him?

[frieked]

The NYCL aka Ray Beckerman gives his thoughts on these new developments over on ARS...
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080313-andersen-attorney-on-riaa-suit-they-cant-run-now.html

Re:Where's NYCL when you need him?

[RobBebop]

IANAL, but it sounds like the RIAA is going to want to settle and prevent discovery from happening since they don't want all the sordid details of their dealings brought to light.

I would be fine with a settlement if the price they had to pay would be enough to fund EFF for a few years, and if they agreed to stop sueing willy-nilly. I have no issue if they keep going after true-infringers (because I am not one of them).

Ultimately, any funds to the EFF would serve a legal arms race against issues that are much more important than being forced to obtain music legally without infringing on somebody's copyright.

Re:Where's NYCL when you need him?

[sorak]

IANAL, but it sounds like the RIAA is going to want to settle and prevent discovery from happening since they don't want all the sordid details of their dealings brought to light.

But that makes me wonder . . . if they do in fact settle, won't this just embolden all the other lawsuit recipients to file against the RIAA too? They can settle malicious lawsuits to keep them from going to trial to their heartss content (*snicker* we know they don't have hearts), but ultimately they're going to have to either WIN a malicious prosecution suit or stop engaging in malicious suits alltogether, no?

IANAL, but wouldn't the odds be stacked in their favor? You see, lets say that they sued a random person. Let's call him "bob". Wouldn't the following have to happen for this to repeat itself?

1. Bob would have to be innocent.
2. Bob would have to have the time and resources to fight this in court. Even if the EFF or some other group were to pay for his lawyers, he would still have to miss time from work, and face a great deal of negative publicity.
3. If it looks like Bob has a chance to win the case, then the lawyers would give him a chance to settle. This settlement would undoubtedly be cheaper than the cost to continue fighting the case, but Bob would have to refuse, acting solely on principal.
4. Then, Bob would have to file a malicious prosecution suit, and refuse any payoffs offered then.
5. Either Bob would have to win an ungodly amount of money, or this incident would have to playitself out several times, until the payout from the few times when this actually happens begins to outweigh the payment received the rest of the time.

Re:Where's NYCL when you need him?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. -Xenocrates

they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist;And then they came for the Jews, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew;
And then they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."
- Martin Niemöller

Keep Legal Filesharing Legal

[MichaelCrawford]

The RIAA and MPAA, as well as their counterparts in other countries, have been pressuring legislators, ISPs and Universities to block all filesharing. But much filesharing is completely legal, and needs to be kept that way.

For example, many Open Source installers are available via BitTorrent. Their use of p2p is crucial to their success, because it reduces distribution costs.

P2P is also crucial to the success of struggling musicians who offer their music online for free, as a way to promote themselves. Direct HTTP downloads can lead to bankrupcy if their songs become sudden hits. I myself offer Bit Torrent downloads of my piano compositions.

(While I presently work as a software engineer, I'm studying piano with the aim of changing careers into music. You could really help me out if you shared my music over the Internet.)

In your letters to your legislators, please emphasize the legal uses of P2p.

Re:Keep Legal Filesharing Legal

[whoever57]

I myself offer Bit Torrent downloads [geometricvisions.com] of my piano compositions.

And the RIAA would love to shut you down, since you represent competition to the RIAA member companies. Perhaps you even represent a trend that will destroy the RIAA and the RIAA is like a cornered wild animal -- at its most dangerous.

Re:Keep Legal Filesharing Legal

[Opportunist]

Wounded animals should be put down. It's the merciful thing to do.

And I feel very compassionate for the RIAA, so I'd love to be merciful.

Re:Keep Legal Filesharing Legal

[Anonymous Coward]

While I presently work as a software engineer, I'm studying piano with the aim of changing careers into music.

While I wish you good luck with that, I'll quote what my brother had to say about why he became a software developer instead of a musician:

"I figured that a computer career would pay for a music hobby much better than a music career would pay for a computer hobby."

A few musicians make it big, but many just scrape by. If you have skill as a software engineer, maybe you should stay with that.

Not that I really want to tell you to not follow your dream...

Re:Keep Legal Filesharing Legal

[zotz]

Hey Michael,

how did your RPM challenge efforts go?

We got our album done.

http://lau-cb.peterlutek.com.nyud.net/repo/RPM08/RPM08_plutekmaster_v1.4.ogg
Content is available under Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States.

The band has decided to change names from the Linux Audio Users Chillout Band to Packet In.

A new domain has been registered and will be operational soon.

We will be using torrents amoung other ways to get our stuff distributed at reasonable costs as well.

all the best,

drew
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/

Re:Keep Legal Filesharing Legal

[monxrtr]

Yes, file sharing is knowledge, education, and free speech itself. It's horribly embarrassing for for the academic integrity of a lot of American Universities that have been complicit in the RIAA's McCarthy-ist campaign of fear. We need to dig up some explicitly mentioned files that are pure public domain educational material in RIAA drag net letters to Universities? What? They didn't mention any evidence of infringement and just demanded the release of confidential student identities? It might be well worth while naming some of these Universities in counter suits (they got resources and will settle), and sludging their reputations for failing to stand up for fair use and freedom of information. But one result of legitimate academic discovery being entangled and targeted by the RIAA will serve as a huge PR campaign victory.

Is the RIAA spying on student academic presentations merely because of the title of the file? If you want to talk about cultural phenomenons, don't you have a fair use evidentiary right to locate and present supporting documentation for purely academic freedom informational purposes? And what if you were studying the phenomenon of P2P itself? Are you night entitled to look at every file available on every P2P network if you are a student! We should not stand by while they bad mouth the United States of America!

What is this

[UbuntuLinux]

What is this! What is going on here? Please delete your swearing and curse words immediately. I don't care if you do it, or you have to get one of the moderators to do it for you.

I'm going to check back at 1700GMT on the dot, and if this message is still here and has not been cleaned up, I'm going to call the police.

Re:What is this

[thegux]

You must be new here.

Whale Song

[Himring]

For ages human story, communication -- the very thread of humanities' tale -- has been handed down via song. I learned in linguistics that of the few things which both separate us from other species and that we have in common is song: in common because both humans and other animals use it and separate as we add language and "tale". Odd how, in modernity, something such as music has come to this.

I suppose it is natural. If, for some reason, all humans perished today and whales evolved to become the dominant species and have song and tale and language. If they then go on to develope technology. Will they one day sue?

Re:Whale Song

[LordKaT]

What in the fuck are you droning on about?

Re:Whale Song

[Himring]

god I don't know. Thank you for pointing it out tho....

btw, do moths have dicks?

Re:Whale Song

[Smauler]

Wait... birds don't sing any more? The MAFIAA must have got to them! The whales will be next, mark my words.

Also, if you count my imitative monotone grunts as "song", you're more generous than most. I don't think I'd come out too well in this poll : Who do you want to continue singing, a) Smauler, or b) a nightingale.

Re:Whale Song

[freeweed]

Would the whales then go on to try cross-breeding experiements between cows and the few remaining humans, to prop up their frowned-upon habit of eating the few of us remaining?

(and then write songs about it)

It ain't over...

[MoreDruid]

...till the fat lady sings (provided her song has been paid for)

Re:It ain't over...

[Opportunist]

Too bad Hillary Rosen ain't their prez anymore. Though I don't know whether I'd want to hear her sing. Croak, maybe.

Re:It ain't over...

[youthoftoday]

Oh, anyone in the US can rest assured if you didn't pay for a track ... it's over.

Re:It ain't over...

[PieceofLavalamp]

That's easy to tell, is she lip syncing?

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly all y'alls do steal music, so this case has got nothing to do with you.
And this is why we should have never allowed the south to have access to the internet.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[techpawn]

Mostly all y'alls do steal music, so this case has got nothing to do with you.

First of all... What?!
Secondly, I'm cheering because I don't want to be the target of "illegal p2p" because I download the latest version of Linux. There be legal p2p as well as pirates me matey...

Swing that fat gut around

[peipas]

In light of resistance from the courts, the RIAA will probably shift its resources toward the legislative branch.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Bryansix]

I forgot that each song costs thousands of dollars. Oh wait...

They'll Just Change Tactics

[mpapet]

It may be fun to win one small battle, but the RIAA companies still control media distribution.

From the RIAA's perspective, this has been a wildly successful strategy because it successfully struck fear into the hearts and minds of consumers.

Re:They'll Just Change Tactics

[rijrunner]

    Except, in this case, full discovery is not going to lead to a small win. If it is determined that they have knowingly engaged in illegal activity - and there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that their investigation fits that category - then, they are in a pretty bad spot. A security company not licensed in a state can not engage in investigations in that state. That is illegal. They can not install root kits across state lines, that is illegal also. Hacking is illegal. While the RIAA can claim that they themselves did not commit these acts, it is a reasonable conclusion that they would have encountered any number of these questions in any due diligence prior to awarding security contracts. It is also reasonable that they are aware of the legal issues because of that whole Sony root-kit mess a few years back.

    And lawyers who are providing legal advice how to break laws are called co-defendants, not attorneys and they do *not* have attorney-client confidentiality in conspiracy and RICO cases where they are named as co-conspirators.

    The fear goes away if you know they have no evidence they can present in court.

    The RIAA is a trade organization. If you can crack some of their larger members away - and that is quite possible - then the RIAA loses its ability to speak for the industry. The RIAA has not paid out a single penny from any settlement it has won. Add on a lot of punitive damages and criminal charges and the RIAA can be broken quite decisively.

Re:They'll Just Change Tactics

[scubamage]

Not to mention prior settlements can be rendered unenforcable, and can be taken to court because the RIAA will no longer have any legal standing on which to base its claims. In other words, everyone gets a clean slate.

Re:They'll Just Change Tactics

[cyphercell]

"It may be fun to win one small battle, but the RIAA companies still control media distribution."

if they were in control they wouldn't need to sue.

Re:They'll Just Change Tactics

[EthelSnakes]

It did not strike any fear in me. If I see the RIAA logo on a CD, I don't need it.

Re:They'll Just Change Tactics

[swillden]

From the RIAA's perspective, this has been a wildly successful strategy because it successfully struck fear into the hearts and minds of consumers.

If that were true, P2P filesharing would be on the decline.

If the RIAA is honest, they have to admit that this has been, at best, a mildly successful rearguard action that may have slowed P2P adoption slightly.

Settlement should not be an option

[Basilius]

It is common for judges to promote settlement in cases where the victor seems obvious in order to reduce the load on the court system.

In this particular case, pursuing it to the full extent should actually REDUCE the burden on the court system by severely restricting the RIAA's ability to file new suits.

The only way I could see a settlement working in the long run is if it's equivalent to an unconditional surrender with all sorts of guilt admissions. I just can't picture the RIAA agreeing to that, and the plaintiffs should not settle for less.

THIS is the opportunity. Do not let it slip through your fingers.

They'll be facing the music?

[JK_the_Slacker]

PLEASE tell me it's William Hung!

Re:They'll be facing the music?

[HAKdragon]

As long as Judge Reinhold is involved!

Re:They'll be facing the music?

[Hillgiant]

Nope. Rick Astley.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[zzsmirkzz]

::Being Rant:: First of all, it is not stealing! It is copyright infringement. I'm damn sick of people confusing the two, they are not the same; they are not interchangeable. Stealing is clearly defined, Copyright Infringement is also defined; downloading music over the Internet is in no way stealing, period. It may, arguably, be copyright infringement, depending on the specific circumstances. ::End Rant::

Second, what does it matter if we have committed copyright infringement? We are still a member of society who has an interest in seeing the innocent not being railroaded by the Music Industry. We still have an interest in stopping the Music Industry from illegally violating our rights, hacking into our computers (Federal crime by the way, much worse than copyright infringement), and extorting people for large sums of money.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Orange Crush]

Whether or not people here illegally download and share copyrighted music isn't the issue. I'll go out on a limb and suggest that most Slashdotters don't file baseless lawsuits against random people who are unprepared to defend themselves from the full force of a massive corporation's legal department realizing most will capitulate and just settle regardless of any wrongdoing as a tragically misguided attempt to strike fear into the heart of someone who gets the latest Britney Spears release from bittorrent.

Big companies are abusing the legal system due to circumstances brought about by new technologies and the Internet. Meanwhile real (and innocent) people are having their lives and livlihoods ruined in the crossfire. So yes, we care a lot about that.

Why wait for a judgement?

[3seas]

Start encouraging your favorite artist to go a route of sales & distribution and royality collection outside of the RIAA.

Though there may be contracts holding them to the RIAA directly or indirectly, such contract will either become expired or after this case, be challenge-able.

misleading title

[pak9rabid]

The RIAA Will Finally Face What They Like to Call Music in Court

There, fixed that for you.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[techpawn]

I forgot that each song costs thousands of dollars.

Actually, a friend of mine was in a band and had their CD done at a professional studio. It cost them a ton of coin to produce it on their own. Even selling every copy they had pressed they just broke even on making it. So, they lost money when you took into account the gas money for trucking them around. And that was selling them at 15 bucks a pop.

Then again, if you own the studio I'm sure you get much lower rates.

I got three words for you:

[TheHawke]

Jig's up, asshats. Payment in full upon the sound of the gavel on wood.

Or on your head, it'll sound the same due to the fact that it's made of the same stuff as the bench is. XD

Speak for yourself, Kemosabe.

[argent]

All we-all don't steal^H^H^H^H^Hmake unauthorized copies of music, nohow, podner. And whether we-all do or not, the RIAA's behavior is downright ornery. They're a mad dog, boy, and need to be put down.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Volante3192]

I guess the key word to take from that is "professional"

Also, I'd wager that the studio's a one time fee. Pressings are cheap once all the mastering is done; so the more distribution you get, the easier it is to break even.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[malkavian]

Absolutely. We all make a perfect copy of the master tape, then erase every other copy of the track in existence (and also the memories that people have of how the track may be reproduced).
That is the definition of stealing music.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Fozzyuw]

all y'alls

All m'alls eyes are bleeding from reading that.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[argent]

I don't think that's what he meant by "each song costs thousands of dollars".

I'll pay fifteen bucks for a CD, no problem. But if someone copies that CD instead of buying it that's only fifteen bucks, not 9,000 times however many tracks are on the CD, which is what the RIAA is demanding. They're better off shoplifting it: the fines are unlikely to be more than a few hundred dollars.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[UncleTogie]

And this is why we should have never allowed the south to have access to the internet.

Trust me, ignorant idiots exist across the world. There's no lock in the southern states for THAT...

On-topic, while I'm not expecting it, I'd LOVE to see if Congress might have a hearing or two after this case is over...

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Opportunist]

Stealing music? I never broke into a studio to snatch that master tape!

I also want to inform you that a slander lawsuit is on its way. Hey, what, it's the new fad to sue randomly for trivialities! I'm just hopping on the bandwagon!

Money will buy this out

[scubamage]

If she doesn't get bought, her attorney will be. If he isn't, the bar will have formal complaints lodged against him and barristers will be bought out and he will lose his license to practice. The judge will be bought. We are talking about people who have no problem spending 30,000$ on a sandwich. I don't think buying out everyone they need to is going to be difficult. I really am praying to god that it doesn't happen, but I'm so damn jaded about this stuff at this point.

Re:Money will buy this out

[scubamage]

The judge has barred further motions for dismissal, so unless the RIAA decides to settle--a move Lybeck believes is in the group's best interest--the case will proceed through discovery and to trial. Unlike the thousands of lawsuits filed so far, the RIAA does not have the luxury of walking away from this case if there's a real chance of embarrassing information being released. "Once discovery happens in the cases the RIAA brings, they run," Lybeck says. "This is our case now, and they can't run." Her lawyer's words are very discouraging - she already has settlement in mind.

Re:Money will buy this out

[gknoy]

I interpreted that as meaning that the "group" referred to the RIAA -- and it probably is, at least on the surface, in their best interest to settle in a manner which keeps this quiet. And, it probably is also in her interest, too -- less legal bills, money right now, possibly even more than she might get from a lawsuit.

OTOH, if she tries to fight for The Greater Good or something, this might not get settled. Still ... if someone offered you $10 Million to settle, wouldn't you consider it? I know I sure as hell would.

OUCH...

[GeneralPayne]

Will this be the overdue butt pounding for the RIAA and Media Sentry for all their dastardly deeds against poor innocent folks? Will they get their just desserts? Will they bend over and smile while taking it like the hoes that they are? Will their victims get satisfaction from their misfortune? What is the price of a good shredder? How much will it cost to eliminate all data pertaining to Media Sentry's activities and cost/share analysis between the RIAA and Media Sentry? How about Bank deposits for Media Sentry? Will the RIAA and Media Sentry be forced to return all of their ill-gotten gains? Will others follow in the aftermath of this case or will it set a precedent for all other like minded Judges to follow? God so many questions.

Chances

[Ihmhi]

Yes, there is the the chance that she will settle.

But from what we have seen from this woman, well... I think it's pretty obvious that she is very pissed and she will not settle for anything less than victory in this.

If I were in this position, I would be recording every phone call and saving every e-mail. I hope they're dumb enough to try to threaten or bribe her, because she seems like the kind of person who is going to make that kind of information public and make the RIAA look much worse than they already do.

Re:Chances

[scubamage]

Another possibility, if the judge is aware of what is going on she can refuse a settlement (or at least they can do that in criminal court, can they do that in civil as well?).

Re:I'm bored out of my mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of us are bored out of our minds with your life, too.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[techpawn]

The way I saw it was that the time spent in the studio is what the cost was; pressing the CD was nothing. So the song itself and the time it took to mix it is actually where the cost is not the CD. If they only had 1 CD pressed they would charge far more for it than if they pressed 15,000 just to break even. The song itself is what cost them, not the CD.

Lawyer just filed the suit

[warrior_s]

http://www.betanews.com/article/Defendant_in_RIAA_suit_files_amended_complaint/1205509900

Finally

[mscholin]

This will be great news as long as there is no settlement. Even if a settlement is offered the case should go ahead and have all of these companies policies made public. I don't know if this is possible though(I'm not a lawyer); but if it was me, I wouldn't settle.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[jelton]

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that most Slashdotters don't file baseless lawsuits against random people who are unprepared to defend themselves from the full force of a massive corporation's legal department...

"[M]ost Slashdotters" are "massive corporation[s]"?

And yes, I know what you actually meant. Sometimes, funny is funny.

Re:I'm bored out of my mind...

[calebt3]

Basements will do that to you unless you have Internet.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[cdrguru]

The problem is that OK, someone downloads a copy. Great. Now they have it instead of buying it. $15.

Then, being the good little net-citizen we all hope they are, they share it with the rest of the fsking planet and 100,000 people download it from them and sources obtained from them.

$1,500,015 is the total then. Right?

Still controlling media distribution?

[Svartalf]

Heh...

You keep using that word, I don't think it means what YOU think it means...

Considering that CDBaby, PayPlay, and a host of others provide me with the media I really care about- and they're NOT RIAA or MPAA affiliated...

They control the Pop Culture media distribution. There's a reason why they're "losing" money- and it has NOTHING to do with them
being ripped off by infringers. It's because their stuff's mostly crap these days and there's other performers making a decent living
of things WITHOUT them.

Opt out of their lose-lose game they've been playing for decades now. The more that do, the merrier, as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Still controlling media distribution?

[mpapet]

They control the Pop Culture media distribution.

It's the biggest, most lucrative market there is and they control the entrance and distribution of media in that market. Nevermind outlying entities like cdbaby. They are there by the good graces of the RIAA members, mere window dressing to give the impression of alternatives.

There's a reason why they're "losing" money
Entertainment accounting has no relationship with the money they are collecting. It's impossible to know other than what's already been prosecuted in court. (price fixing, payola and others)

Do not count all your chickens...

[jskline]

Don't count all your chickens before they're hatched. I suspect that even if you can successfully resist temptation that will be placed in front of you to "settle", they have enough tricks of their sleeves. I for one will acknowledge that people can be bought... And; this includes people in power and the courts. Who's to say that they don't somehow manage to wrangle a venue change and get this changed to another jurisdiction and court somewhere that will be favorable to them.
They still have a lot of money and I would not put it past them to make sure their little cartel stays in good order. They have more average Americans, and even most artists to fleece!

Brilliant

[crovira]

a self-mocking bird.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Inner_Child]

"[M]ost Slashdotters" are "massive corporation[s]"? Massive, yes. Corporations, not so much.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Xtifr]

Indeed, while most of the general public may use P2P almost exclusively for copyright violating, the slashdot crowd, being almost entirely geeks and nerds who like cool technology, probably has an amazingly high percentage of legal P2P/Torrent users. 50 of the last 50 swarms I joined were all perfectly legal (either Free/Libre software or taper-friendly-band concert recordings). Which probably makes me atypical even for slashdot, but even so, that leaves room for there to be thousands like me here.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[gangien]

::Being Rant:: First of all, it is not stealing! It is copyright infringement. I'm damn sick of people confusing the two, they are not the same; they are not interchangeable. Stealing is clearly defined, Copyright Infringement is also defined; downloading music over the Internet is in no way stealing, period. It may, arguably, be copyright infringement, depending on the specific circumstances. ::End Rant::

Many people consider taking something that shouldn't be yours, stealing. So, in that definition, yes it's stealing.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Big companies are abusing the legal system due to circumstances brought about by new technologies and the Internet.

Little people are also abusing the legal system and relying upon the fact that it would cost copyright holders thousands of dollars just to prosecute their "borrowing" of content. The little people always seem to think that it's just a little crime committed by a little person. That may be true, but thousands of tiny cuts can kill a giant.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[TobyRush]

Come now, it's simple, really:

y'all - singular subject or object. "Y'all bring a truck?" = "Good sir, did you bring your cargo vehicle?"
y'alls - singular possessive. "Is that y'alls truck?" = "Does this vehicle belong to you, my good man?"
all y'all - plural subject or object. "All y'all git yer guns?" = "Gentlemen, did each of you bring a sidearm?"
all y'alls - plural possessive. "Are all y'alls guns in the truck?" = "Sirs, are your firearms all stowed in the vehicle?"

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[zzsmirkzz]

Right, but nothing was "Taken" only copied. So again, not Stealing.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Rune69]

They don't have time. Roger Clemens may have used steroids.

Sorry about your democracy, the circus is in town!

ITS ON

[scubamage]

Ok, so the RIAA served her. Now, she served them back. So, by definition, it is now 'ON!'

NewYorkCountryLawyer missed this?

[sledge_hmmer]

Am I the only one surprised that someone beat NewYorkCountryLawyer to a RIAA story?

Good news and bad news

[MichaelCrawford]

The bad news is that I didn't manage to compose any new material. The good news is that I spent a great deal of time working on piano during February, and made quite a bit of progress with my studies.

I compose by improvising, but found that several years of formal lessons didn't help me with improvising; if anything, I have a harder time with it than before I took lessons.

But I am working to get it back, and plan to record a new album around mid-Summer. It will be CC-licensed too.

Hay

[PixelScuba]

You got 'Wry and Subtle' in my 'Obvious and Leaden'!

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[MadUndergrad]

Sure, but if you make the much more reasonable assumption that everyone will have a 1:1 share ratio, he'll upload it only once. If for some reason he did upload to 100000 people, then there are 100000 people who didn't upload at all. What if they get sued? Without specific information, a 1:1 share ratio is what they should go by.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[shentino]

You can only count a customer as a loss if they were both willing and able to buy from you had it not been for the illegal sharing.

I, for example, don't qualify as a potential customer, because I'm too piss poor to afford it.

And many others may simply not be interested in spending 15 bucks on a CD, regardless of if they can get it for free or not, legally or not.

Offering illegal shares lowers revenue, sure. But technically, it also raises supply, thus reducing the price at where the equilibrium intersection of supply and demand is.

The only customers the RIAA loses to filesharing are those who are willing to buy it anyway.

Well the problem is

[Sycraft-fu]

A sure thing vs a possibility. If she takes a settlement, the money is gaurenteed. If she refuses, well the trial could go either way. It is easy to talk about principles and such, but much harder to stick to them when someone is offering you a ton of money.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Semantics ... It wasn't paid for, when it should have been, and was taken knowingly against the law. Technically -- copyright infringement. Morally: Stealing. But whatever makes you sleep at night ...

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Homer's Donuts]

someone who gets the latest Britney Spears release from bittorrent

Isn't that punishment enough?

I'm just sad it took this long..

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope she sues the crap out of them, and if this gets into a class action it's going to be interesting who picks up the bill at the RIAA side.. Next question: are the member record companies in for some collusion charges? It's not like it was invisible what was happening here..

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[bleeware]

1:1 upload does not mean the whole file was uploaded, only 'that number of bytes' were uploaded. BitTorrent uploads by picking blocks at random. Consider this: how many rolls of a 6-sided die do you need until all 6 sides are expected to show up? In the general case, something like N log N. So for a 700 piece file, uploading ratio of 2.8 to 1 is more like it and even then, that is only the expected value.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Weaselmancer]

Technically -- copyright infringement. Morally: Stealing.

Why do your technically and morally not match?

If you're hungry and I steal an apple from you, I've deprived you of something. Something you need. This is stealing. Taking something that is yours, so that you no longer have it. After I do so, you continue to be hungry. You have no apple.

And that is why copyright infringement is a different law, with a different definition, and different penalties. If you want to drive the discussion into morality, it is clearly not as bad as stealing because after I perform an illegal copy - you still have the original. If we extend the metaphor and we're still talking apples, you can still eat yours and not be hungry anymore. It is less of an injury to you.

Morally, it's a smaller offense. Much smaller, especially since I may have deprived you of nothing. If I had to pay for an apple, maybe I just wouldn't have bothered and done without. Every file copied the RIAA views as a lost sale. And I can tell you, there is a lot of music out there where free is the maximum value of it's worth. Most of the stuff on the radio I hear these days I wouldn't pay two cents for.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[MadUndergrad]

Bittorrent is where this gets tricky. Can you be prosecuted for uploading half a song? A tenth of a song? A tenth of ten songs? Still, every bit of data uploaded is downloaded by someone.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Dun Malg]

"[M]ost Slashdotters" are "massive corporation[s]"? Massive, yes. Corporations, not so much. corporation 4. Informal. A protruding abdominal region; a potbelly.

Hey, if you go to an obscure enough definition, it actually fits humorously well!

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[roc97007]

> someone who gets the latest Britney Spears release from bittorrent.

Um. Ack. Sorry, I just barfed a little in the back of my throat.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[gangien]

OK we can play this semantic dance, it's pointless. there's a difference between them, not many people question that.

Ever steal anyone's answers in high school? you weren't actually 'stealing' then either, but people still called it that. It's not really a difficult concept to understand that some people have a slightly different meaning of a word, and it's pathetic how much of a big deal that is always made of, around here. Especially since i read all the time that languages aren't static.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame me, I voted for bread.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[argent]

If you can indeed prove that they were the original source of the CD and that all hundred thousand downloads were due to them and not to any of the other 99,999 people on said P2P network, you might have a case, but you know perfectly well that that's *not* the case, and that in most cases the people who are being sued aren't even the ones who ripped teh CD in the first place?

You know that, right? If you don't... are you a fool, a dupe, or a shill?

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[argent]

But the people being sued didn't steal "the song", they didn't steal anything, they made an unauthorized copy of it. Their liability is limited to the value of that copy... and if the CD sold out then they didn't even cut into the sales of that CD, so what's their liability then?

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[zzsmirkzz]

It's not a semantic dance when you are referring to the law. All court cases brought forth by the RIAA are Civil Cases filed as Copyright Infringement, instead of criminal cases of theft. So, when someone speaks of RIAA cases, they are not speaking of theft or stealing, they are speaking of Copyright Infringement, end of argument. I've never heard of someone referring to cheating on a test as 'stealing' either. It was called 'cheating' as the person whose answers were copied was not harmed nor were they deprived of anything, nor did they lose anything. Just because people are lazy and commonly choose to use the wrong term to describe something does not make it right. Not to mention all of the other people who deliberately use the wrong term to garner sympathy and to confuse the issue.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[dissy]

Many people consider taking something that shouldn't be yours, stealing. So, in that definition, yes it's stealing. Maybe, but I can consider a creepy looking guy that stares at a female for over 10 seconds 'rape' too. Just like your example, it means nothing to anyone but the person doing the considering.

The courts use legal definitions only. Only those legal definitions matter when talking about courts and laws.
Legally, copyright infringement is not stealing.

Morally, copyright exists only to ensure that what an artist creates DOES belong to the public. Also copyright law enforces this on all artists the moment they create something, like it or not. Copyright is not optional any longer.

So even copyright infringement is not taking something that shouldn't be yours, its taking something that is guaranteed by law to be yours, in a time frame before you legally are allowed to do so.

Even by your personal definition which does not match the legal one, it is still not stealing.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[dissy]

Ever steal anyone's answers in high school? you weren't actually 'stealing' then either, but people still called it that. So are you arguing that every kid in high school is always right, even if they say 1+1=3, simply because 'people say that'? That's a fairly low bar to set.

Legally, copying answer is not called stealing either. It's called plagiarism.

Just because some high school kid is wrong when they say 1+1=3, people that call copyright infringement stealing are equally as wrong.

Saying it repeatedly, louder, and in different ways still does not make it correct.

Victory Means Nothing

[YetAnotherBob]

Victory over the RIAA and their agent/thugs means nothing.

RIAA is a front organization. It is just a way the record companies to use to interface with the legal attack dogs. They have no real assets to give up. They pass all their ill gotten gains back to their masters.

If there is a serious legal setback, then RIAA just dissolves, and comes back tomorrow under another name. The legal pit bulls, and the record companies who control all this carnage will remain untouched. To really make it stop, you need to have the courts pierce the 'corporate veil' to make the operators responsible.

The whole mess only stops when the individual record companies who are sponsoring this blatant attack on their own customers are financially penalized.

Sending a few lawyers and CEO's to prison would also help. But, that isn't going to happen.

Re:Victory Means Nothing

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The record companies are also defendants, along with their investigators, collection agents, and front organization -- the RIAA.

Re:Victory Means Nothing

[crusher-1]

As posted on the Wikepedia site:"Respondeat superior"

"When applied to physical torts an employer/employee relationship must be established and the act must be committed within the scope of employment (i.e. substantially within time and geographical limits, job description and at least with partial intent to further employer's business).
Historically, this doctrine was applied in master/servant or employer/employee relationships. If the employee or servant committed a civil wrong against a third party, the master or employer could be liable for the acts of their servant or employee when those acts were committed within the scope of the relationship. The third party could proceed against both the servant/employee and master/employer. The action against the servant/employee would be based upon the direct responsibility of the servant/employee for his conduct. The action against the master/employer is based upon the theory of vicarious liability, by which one party can be held liable for the acts of another.
Employer/employee relationships are the most common area wherein respondeat superior is applied, but often the doctrine is used in the agency relationship. In this, the principal becomes liable for the actions of the agent, even if the principal did not directly commit the act. There are three considerations generally:
Was the act committed within the time and space limits of the agency?
Was the offense incidental to, or of the same general nature as, the responsibilities the agent is authorized to perform?
Was the agent motivated to any degree to benefit the principal by committing the act?
The degree to which these are answered in the affirmative will dictate the degree to which the doctrine can be applied.
Common law distinguishes between civil and criminal forms of respondeat superior."

If it is proven that the RIAA/lawyers did violate civil or criminal law while under contract and acting at the behest of the Labels the "Labels" may very well be determined at fault as well and therefore liable for the cost of damages. Now in all honesty if this is established the Labels will try to obfiscate their responsibility (aka - "we never told them to go that far") or pay/buy their way out with a settlement - with an NDA and no admittance of guilt. But eitherway the cat would be out of the back and the publicity would be... well, very undesirable to say the least.

I wouldn't blame her for accepting

[rucs_hack]

If they offered her a seriously large sum in the millions, then she would be quite right to accept it.

Leaving aside the larger issue, she's a person who likely would never make that amount of money on her own. Therefore being offered that amount and deciding to accept would be quite defensible.

I don't know that it would be quite that large mind. It all depends what she would consider to be good.

Any such settlement might not do the wider cause much good, but nor would it hurt it. The most the RIAA could do is turn an embarrassing defeat into a well publicised failure. In the long term that won't help them.

Re:I'm bored out of my mind...

[TimothyJones]

Marijuana's bad, m'kay

Re:I'm bored out of my mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too, I am on slashdot after all.

DMCA was passed on a voice vote

[IvyKing]

My recollection was that the DMCA was passed on a voice vote, so there is no certainty that a majority of congress was even in favor of it.

Besides, a veto proof majority would have required the cooperation of a good number of Democrats in congress.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[One Childish N00b]

Point 1: 'Taking' is not the same as 'Making a copy of'. You want to come to my house and steal my CDs while I'm in the bathroom, I'm going to be pissed off, but if you want to whip out a USB stick and copy an album or two from my MP3 directory while you're waiting for me to shake off the drips, I'm not going to care.

Point 2: Many people unfortunately consider racism a good thing. So in that definition, racism is a good thing. That's why we have these things called laws that trump the definitions of 'many people', and the law says copyright infringement is not stealing.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[gangien]

I am not talking about the law. I am talking about what a typical person would consider stealing. You can bash the RIAA for calling it stealing, since they should know better.

And calling people lazy for not knowing the exact word? Do you look up every word and know exactly what it does/doesn't mean? I thought not. You, like everyone else, use context and imply meanings.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[gangien]

No, i'm arguing that it's an argument that serves no point, other than to make someone look smart. Not many people would question there's a difference between 'stealing' a song and stealing someone's cd.

One Entity

[maz2331]

IIRC, this is also a RICO suit, so regardless of which corporation did what, they acted as co-conspirators and are all liable for each other's actions. The suit is claiming an ongoing criminal conspiracy, not just one or two isolated mistakes.