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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."'"
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.
Speedy thing goes in; speedy thing comes out.
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.
I see...
1. Get contract to find copyright violators.
2. The "???" is: Just grab folks that may look guilty.
3. Profit!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Judge Says: Overrated.
Is it wrong that I'm excited about this?
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.
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.
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?
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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
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?
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
...till the fat lady sings (provided her song has been paid for)
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
In light of resistance from the courts, the RIAA will probably shift its resources toward the legislative branch.
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.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
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.
PLEASE tell me it's William Hung!
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
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.
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.
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.
The RIAA Will Finally Face What They Like to Call Music in Court
There, fixed that for you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
http://www.betanews.com/article/Defendant_in_RIAA_suit_files_amended_complaint/1205509900
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?
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!
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
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?"
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
Ok, so the RIAA served her. Now, she served them back. So, by definition, it is now 'ON!'
Am I the only one surprised that someone beat NewYorkCountryLawyer to a RIAA story?
You got 'Wry and Subtle' in my 'Obvious and Leaden'!
Hey, if you go to an obscure enough definition, it actually fits humorously well!
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
Marijuana's bad, m'kay
Besides, a veto proof majority would have required the cooperation of a good number of Democrats in congress.