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Lawsuit Against RIAA Tries To Stop Them All
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Tanya Anderson has filed an amended complaint against the RIAA. One of the more interesting provisions in it is in the 18th claim, which seeks to stop the RIAA from 'continuing to engage in criminal investigation of private American citizens', no doubt referring to the unlicensed MediaSentry investigations. If granted, that could shut down the RIAA lawsuits entirely. Naturally, the RIAA doesn't like this at all. First, they got the judge to agree that the original complaint was too light on the details, so it was amended. Now the RIAA complains that it's too long, because it's 108 pages filled with the RIAA's dirty laundry. You may remember this as the countersuit to the lawsuit where RIAA lawyers tried to grill a 10-year-old girl, only later to drop their case for lack of evidence and have the mother sue them for malicious prosecution."
Honestly the RIAA should just stop all this and invest in the Tubes and maybe charge in this way. Artist would then distribute through some RIAA developer method which would not take a cut. Then the RIAA could then just charge for the bandwidth.
However, as someone who's never illegally downloaded or uploaded music or movies or software over the Internet, this case really has no bearing on me personally.
Tell me again why this doesn't affect you. The *AA have shown again and again that the facts of the case really don't matter -- espescially when it comes to the method they use for identifying litigants, IP addresses. If your ISP has floating IP addresses, then this could easily become your problem.
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Being innocent of file sharing doesn't mean you won't get sued. I seem to recall a story about a Macintosh using Granny who was accused of using Kazaa (not available on Macs) to download rap music. It was only the publicity of the story that got the RIAA to back down. (And even then they reserved the right to go after her at any time.) It was obvious to everyone (except the RIAA) that she was misidentified. And if you are misidentified, your options are basically:
1. Spend a lot of time and money to fight to prove your innocence. If you are not successful, the fines will drive you into permanent bankruptcy. (If the legal fees don't do that first.)
2. Accept the RIAA's settlement offer to make it all go away. NOTE: Part of the settlement offer is admitting that you are a pirate even if you aren't one. But at least you won't face a long court battle and possible bankruptcy.
Most people chose Option #2 since it is the quicker and easier way to make it all go away. With recent RIAA court losses, though, it seems that more people are willing to try for Option #1. That's a good thing too. The last thing the RIAA wants is to actually fight these cases in court. They just want quick settlements so they can move on to the next victim... er, evil, bloodsucking pirate.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
That is dangerious reasoning. This could lead to a lot of bad things. Say for example Civil Rights, If Cival Rights Organizations were banned from Sueing, because say at their time their law suits were inconvient. Then it would put hamer on socicity.
Convicted Fellons have had many of their rights revoked and they still are allowed to use/abuse the legal system, But for them it comes to a boy who cries wolf then they may lose that additional right.
But for even gready and evil orginizations who technically havn't don't anything criminal (or worthy of jail time) they still need the right to sue in cases their rights were indeed violated.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You're already dead. Please find a grave to lie in already.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
>>>If everyone chose to steal their music, what would happen then?
Several studies have shown that if "everyone" stole music, then CD sales would escalate higher than ever. I know that sounds strange, but here's how it works:
- A person downloads songs for free.
- He/she likes the songs.
- He/she buys several CDs of that same artist, because they enjoy his or her work.
- The result is a several sales that would not have occured otherwise.
BEFORE: The person bought $0.00 worth of CDs.
NOW: The person bought $30-40 worth of CDs.
NET IMPACT: More money for the company and the artist. Stealing music helps sell more product by introducing people to new artists they had never heard before.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Unless you can point me to something specific in the Constitution that would explain why you think that the abusive, frequently illegal and deceitful measures undertaken by the RIAA in protecting their copyrights are in any way a fundamental right of each citizen, then I'm afraid your reference to that document is merely a non sequitur. Now before you get all riled up and try to play one of the Amendment cards, understand that I'm not arguing that the RIAA (or any other person, whether I like what they do or not) has no right to try to protect their copyrights. This is /., but even so I would think to find few indeed who would deny them that right. So let's clear that one up, all right? Instead, the thing that has garnered the recording industry so much ill will and resentment is the methods they use to effect their goals. Granted, their problem is large and intractable, and it will likely to prove impossible by any means to stop filesharing. That does not, however, grant them the right to go above the law to try and prevent people from doing so. If you've been following these events, you should know exactly how questionable their methods are. If not, slashdot has a pretty good archive of articles relating to the RIAA court cases.
The inanity of your last line defies a response.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"