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Florida Judge Smacks Down RIAA
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA is going to have to face the music in Tampa, Florida, and answer the charges of extortion, trespass, conspiracy, unlicensed investigation, and computer fraud and abuse that have been leveled against them there. And the judge delivered his ruling against them in in pretty unceremonious fashion — receiving their dismissal motion last night, and denying the motion this morning. The RIAA's unvarying M.O., when hit with counterclaims, is to make a motion to dismiss them. It did just that in one Tampa case, UMG v. Del Cid, but the judge upheld 5 of the 6 counterclaims. The RIAA quickly settled that one. When a new case came up in the same Tampa courthouse before the very same judge, and the same 5 counterclaims were leveled against the record companies, I opined that 'it is highly unlikely that the RIAA will make a motion to dismiss counterclaims,' since I knew they'd be risking sanctions if they did. Well I guess I underestimated the chutzpah — or the propensity for frivolous motion practice — of the RIAA lawyers, as they in essence thumbed their nose at the judge, making the dismissal motion anyway, telling District Judge Richard A. Lazzara that his earlier decision had been wrong. The judge wasted no time telling the record companies that he did not agree (PDF)."
Call me when Boyer refuses to settle and we finally get a decision on this.
Until then, BFD.
Hi. I'm the judge in this courtroom. I told your ass to get out of here once. you didn't listen. You came back with the same complaint. Guess what happens. I deny any and all settlement offers you offer to the counter-claimer. I will make it pretty damn clear this time your crap will not be welcome in this courtroom again. Prepare for contempt processes. Oh ya, I'm gonna make sure they put you in the same cell as a guy who likes to steal car steroes.
I'd like to see a statement by the judge or other qualified individuals detailing why they didn't get sanctioned for this (mostly for curiosity -- the legal process is obtuse and interesting). It seems like the RIAA lawyers took a big risk in submitting the same info to the same court.
The problem is, the RIAA can get sued and convicted into oblivion, but all the RIAA is is a shell corp for the big record companies. The record companies themselves won't have to answer for this, and if RIAA is legally forced under, the record companies will just make another shell corp to cover their asses. This will only truly matter when someone sues the record companies themselves.
Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
The same process you use to mass mail your legal complaints can not be used to file your legal responses. This is why fellas. This case is going to get messy *grabs popcorn*
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
I'm only a layman, but it sure looks like more than chutzpah. Could the lawyers involved be disbarred? Could anybody actually see the inside of a cell over this?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Agreed. The RIAA should be allowed to break the law and use illegal practices to bring all those horrible copyright infringer's to swift and brutal justice. The RIAA's clients are literally losing TRILLIONS of dollars to people who are worse than terrorists. Personally I think RIAA should be able to hire mercenaries to rid the earth of such scum.
That is fascinating. The judge got a motion from the RIAA to dismiss the defendant's counterclaims, and he didn't even bother to give the defendants a chance to reply! Instead he saved them the cost for their lawyers and rejected the RIAA's motion to dismiss without causing any work for the defendants. I just wonder how unusual that is.
(Quoted for when the OP is modded -1 Troll a few times...)
from your local friend of thieves always peddling his dubious services here at slashdot, where the people who make the movies we watch are scum, and the people who think the world owes them a living a welcome. Stop fucking stealing and you wont need the services of the ambulance chasing dick who submits all this biased bullshit.
I would submit that all the false positives that the RIAA has ensnared were not protected by being innocent. Defending yourself from a wrongful prosecution is very expensive in this country. A fact that the RIAA uses to its advantage.
...but if there's a supreme being out there somewhere, I'll agree to start praying to it or sacrificing cans of tuna on its altar or whatever the hell it wants (within reason, of course) if only, please, please, please, there's jail sentences for the bastards at the end of this affair.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
What's the matter, son, the judge upheld all the counterclaims against you? If you litigate as badly as you troll, you're in deep doo-doo.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
For you litigation buffs out there, let's take a quiz.
The facts.
A lawyer just filed a 30-page brief in which he (a) devoted 28 pages to repeating the same arguments he had made in a motion that was decided less than 8 months earlier, and (b) devoted 3 pages to telling the judge that his previous ruling was "wrongly decided".
Question #1
What will happen?
(a) The lawyer will win the motion.
(b) The lawyer will lose the motion.
(c) The lawyer will have to find a new line of work.
(d) Both (b) and (c)
Question #2
If you are the client who pays lawyers to do things like that you are
(a) A smart businessperson
(b) A moron
(c) A fool
(d) Both (b) and (c)
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Does "ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP., etc., et al.," (the people being countersued) include the RIAA & RIAA member companies?
Or did you just use "RIAA" in the same (wrong) way that frequently happens around here.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Just wondering: Since this is Judge Lazzara's second case already, I would think that he now knows more about the subject than your average judge, so it would only make sense to let him handle whatever over similar cases come anywhere near his court. Does the judicial system work that way, giving judges similar cases where possible, or are the cases handled by a random judge?
Every other article on any tech website is about the copyright abuse, especially by the *AA. How much will it take for people to actually stop buying CDs and stop feeding and outdated business model?
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne
It seems like an automated system. I think the RIAA's legal team has been replaced by a server farm.
to a more deserving trade association.
working for Monsanto instead.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
You are correct. Innocence is no defense. While you may be presumed innocent until proven guilty the simple fact that you have been pulled into court before a judge and charged with a crime leaves a an indelible stench of guilt on you.
I recently listened to a defense attorney spend considerable time schooling potential members of a jury in the difference between innocence and not guilt. He apparently was going for the not guilty verdict even though his client participated in the car jacking willingly. Most amazing speech I had heard in a long time. I think he was actually going to argue that his client just went along due to peer pressure and wanted to fit in.
I learned a long time ago that in the court room the judge and attorneys involved are not interested in the truth, the facts, or with dispensing justice. They are there to tell a story and put on an act to convince the jury that their side is telling a better story than the other side.
It reminds me a lot of survivor at the end where the remaining contestants tell a story to convince everyone in the jury to vote them the money.
Wasn't this a topic of the other news story a few hours ago, "bots gaming the system"?
I think I recall the solution proposed in a post as "change the game so that the bots can't win".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Hey, AC... Tell us why you think that a deaf guy that wants to decrypt legally bought DVDs so he can watch them on his PC, WITH headphones {as not to garner noise complaints from the neighbors} is a thief.
Jerk.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
First, I think the RIAA lawyers are probably doing nothing different from any lawyer - trying to get as many suits dismissed as possible, so they only have to argue the smallest subset possible. I can understand such a philosophy, when time is money, there's a pressure to get quick results, judgements are worse publicity than accusations, and so on. That is probably more a function of the legal system and the American attitude to high-pressure living/working than the RIAA.
Second, if a motion is frivolous, the judge should be doing more than just wagging a finger. Abuse of legitimate procedures devalues those procedures for others, as it increases the likelihood of judges in future regarding all such motions in a more hostile light. The judicial system does not just have a responsibility for those who stand before it today, but a responsibility for all who may ever stand before it, which means that there should be subtle encouragement of motions which are plausible (even if they are ultimately dismissed) and an unsubtle discouragement of motions which cannot possibly be construed as reasonable.
It would be interesting if the courts had greater powers (within reasonable bounds) to deal with contempt of court and any other abuse of court procedures, and a greater willingness to use those powers when lawyers or clients go beyond mere over-enthusiasm to being out of control. It wouldn't need to be severe. A compulsary psychiatric evaluation would be interesting, as it conveys all kinds of messages (real and imagined) about those who try to twist things.
I also think that some sort of staggered system, where you have a first round of aggressive fact-finding that feeds into a second round trial system, would help avoid the problem, the idea being that dismissal or whatever doesn't have any meaning until after the facts have been established, and accusatory systems are not very good at establishing facts, they're too busy constructing theories, but fact-finding missions are very bad at establishing context. Hence the need for both in a way that doesn't lend one to distract from the other.
The SCO/IBM case demonstrates a lot of what I'm talking about - a lot of the hold-ups and confusion was caused by wild speculation and insinuation, a lot of the useful stuff was done by establishing the groundwork, and all of this was before any actual trial had taken place. It would seem to follow that tuning the system according to experiences of what has been effective is better than maintaining a multi-millenia-old method that has acquired a lot of cruft and could do with some refactoring and bugfixing.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Rule 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim generally only require a response when they might actually succeed. Judges will usually give a party a chance to amend their claims to make them non-frivolous, but when the claims are good enough to state actual legal controversy that can be tried, then there's no need to get the other party involved.
It's also worth noting that federal fact pleading standards are pretty lax. You have to really just plead random crazy talk.
Really, I'm surprised the NYCL though that Rule 11 sanctions would be even a possibility for filing a 12(b)(6) motion. I thought that was just standard practice and that failing to raise these affirmative defenses was risking a future legal malpractice suit. Rule 11 sanctions, in practice, are an extraordinary occurrence, AFAIK.
IANAL, though. Just a student.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You mean you have three words for him. Three.
No, these scum are far worse than terrorists; they are a plague, an infectious disease that destroys all it touches. Unrelenting, incurable. Even the courts are at their mercy. Mercenaries are not enough, here. Entire armies are insufficient. Not even the Spanish Inquisition (which nobody expects), could handle this. No, they must be wiped out from orbit, with nukes. It's the only way to be sure.
Signed,
The RIAA:
Creators of the Culture,
Bearers of the Truth,
Defenders of the Civilization,
Champions of Liberty,
Dearer than Life Itself,
Dread Rulers of the Abyss (in a good way, we assure you),
Awesome Enough to Have Many Many Titles,
Your Beloved Content-Owning Overlords.
I always get that mixed up and say the wrong thing.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You wouldn't perchance be that certain talentless hack of a lawyer that NYCL has humiliated before, would you? Maybe you weren't cut out to be a lawyer, you know I hear KFC is hiring.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
for (i=0;i>-1;i++);
And by that logic:
while (lawsuit!=ganted) lawsuit++;
Not quite, the Lawyer and Procecutor are each telling thier side. The prosecutor goes first and tries to make the defendant seem like the most vile person ever to walk the earth. Then it's the Lawyer's turn to make the defendant look like an angel and to make the procesutor look like he doesn't know anything.
Many people at this point would think that this is silly, and nothing more than a show. It was always put to me this way: It's not a lawyers job to determine if thier client is innocent or not, that is the judge/jury's job. The lawyers job is to put the defendant in the best possible light, and to ensure that a fair trial is being conducted.
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
Whoa, you just reminded me of the Resident Evil and Silent Hill movies.
One movie that describes this perfectly, is "my cousin vinny". In the movie, Ralph Macchio of Karate Kid interprets a teenager who just happened to buy something at a store where 5 minutes later the clerk was shot.
The district attorney hired a wonderful lawyer that moved the hearts and minds of everyone. Fortunately, the kid's cousin, Vinny, the most inefficient lawyer on earth, happened to save the day by presenting the facts to the jury (and add a lot of fun with his irreverence).
One of my favorite movies, btw.
We on Slashdot already quit buying CDs.
The masses don't read tech sites, nor are they aware of the RIAA, nor would most of them care if they did.
Why does a deaf guy need headphones?
How about one better. There are probably dozens of ways to do this, I would do with with Windows Vista Premium / Ultimate 64bit and an xbox 360. But you can do it with Apple TV, myth et al. I would like to load all of my DVDs onto 1 server and just stream that shit to my tv. Fuck opening DVD cases. It would be much better to leisurely watch all of MASH, or Dead Like Me, or whatever 1 or two episodes when the mood strikes, and not having to remember which episode/disc I was on. And while I'm at it, the NFL doesn't provide a DVD yearbook for each team (apparently they hate money), but think of the possiblity of that, a whole lifes worth of passive entertainment and slice of culture really on one server at the touch of a remote. The RI/MPAA says that's illegal and I should be punished. For using technology that already not only exists but is trivial to setup (aside from the nusiance of DVD ripping, which itself could be far less of a mess) my livelyhood, my future should be in jeopardy? This is how market forces are supposed to work? To prevent the embracing of wealth and progress, largely for sake of the poor math skills and emotional convenience of people who obviously don't know how to manage their businesses?
The only just, sanction as far as I'm concerned, when such entities as the media companies overstep their bounds is to have the disputed properties placed in the public domain. The use of the works can still be tracked, and the companies that lost their rights to control the works can still be on the hook for all the royalty payments. If they're going to endanger people's livelyhood with their mistakes, it's only fair that their own hangs in the balance.
"What's a yute?"
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Read that as "severely deaf", at 70% loss. In other words, for every 10 words spoken to me, I hear three....
"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a woman?!?" ;)
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
You missed the update. The RIAA and poor recording artists are losing Quadrillions of dollars a second. In fact it's so bad that bands are now resorting to cannibalism. Metallica Ate DEO's drummer and bass guitarist. and Nobody has seen Robert Palmer for a few weeks.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I learned a long time ago that in the court room the judge and attorneys involved are not interested in the truth, the facts, or with dispensing justice. They are there to tell a story and put on an act to convince the jury that their side is telling a better story than the other side.
This is the most important thing that EVERYONE needs to know.
Justice and Guilt are nothing at all. A judge does not even care about it in any way.
If you can pay for the best liar (lawyer) in town, you get what you want. It's that simple and it's the solid truth in the courts from local to the Supreme court.
Never ever give a judge Honor, There has not been an Honorable Judge in existance for thousands of years.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You wouldn't steal a handbag!
You wouldn't steal a car!
You wouldn't steal a baby!
You wouldn't shoot a policeman, and then steal his helmet!
You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet, and send it to the policeman's grieving widow, and then steal it again!
The IT crowd is funneh
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
In the words of the great philosopher, "Nuke 'em till they glow. Then shoot 'em in the dark."
Words to live by.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
I know that's exactly right in Massachusetts. Grand juries operate in the most uncontitutional "spirit" imaginable - basically like China - and then their carefully selected evidence gets sent to a show trial, where the appearance of Constitutional rights is played out.
I've only served on juries, never been involved in a crime, but even I could see it's an absolute farce. We found them guilty, by the way, which they certainly were within the context of the judge's instructions (and probably in fact as well). But knowing "the system"..... I will always wonder if we were right.
mercenaries? you expect the RIAA to have to pay to deal with this problem? No, this is an issue for the FBI,CIA and Marines. Its clearly the responsibility of the American tax-payers to fund this as just reprobation for all the copyright-infringers they have knowingly harboured.
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
I know you're being funny but FYI, Robert Palmer, who sang "Addicted to Love", died in 2003.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
he's doing it wrong :/ its foffkbai.
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
My mom always called that "selective hearing". Apparently, all the men in the family suffer from it severely.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
And Michael Gabriel stole his own web server from the data center to hock it for grocery money...
Signed,
The RIAA:
Creators of the Culture, Uh Sir,
I have someone on the line who identifies himself as Absence of Gravitas who would like a word with you.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
IMHO, pro-piracy bullshit sounds more like, "Don't share files on the Internet where the RIAA can detect you. Rip and burn your entire CD collection to DVDs and give a copies to all of your friends."
"Best possible light" and "fair trial" are mutually exclusive.
Only if you assume that the defendant is guilty to begin with. Putting a guilty person in the "best possible light" sure isn't "fair' now, is it?
But, putting innocent people in the "best possible light" definitely is. Too bad absolutely everybody brought to court is guilty, then.
DATABASE WOW WOW
A friend of mine (yes he is an attorney, but I like him anyway) described our legal system accurately. You line up both sides and through money at each other until one side gives up. He is amazing at his job...
Given that Gwynne died in 1993, I'd guess he wasn't immortal.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
"I opined that 'it is highly unlikely that the RIAA will make a motion to dismiss counterclaims,' since I knew they'd be risking sanctions if they did."
Well, that was rather stupid of you. Why in god's name would you not make the motion? Even if you know the judge is going to deny it, if you in good faith think you have ground to file it (the judge disagreeing does not mean it's groundless), you have to make the motion to preserve that issue for appeal.
Under your bizarre logic, a criminal defendant should never move for a new trial after a bench trial, because the judge already said the guy was guilty! Silly defendant! Except if he doesn't, his appeal isn't worth a hill of beans.
"Consequently, because the Court has previously resolved all of the issues raised in Plaintiffs' motion to dismiss, and because the Court is not convinced that its prior decision was wrong, the Court needs no response from Defendant and the motion is due to be denied."
Translation: Not this shit again.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx
I'd really like to see a version of that 'commercial' where it goes like this:
...BUT if you could duplicate them for free without anyone losing anything... you WOULD! (show guy pulling 'magic duplicator' from pocket, point it at car, ::poof::, second car appears. Guy gets into duplicate, drives off. Car dealer starts to run after him, then notices he's not missing any cars.)
You wouldn't steal a handbag! (Show guy grabing handbag, women freaking out)
You wouldn't steal a dvd (show guy stealing dvd, shop owner freaking out)
You wouldn't steal a car (etc)
(repeat similar with the other items, in reverse order- dvd, handbag. In each case, the person who was pissed off before is no longer,because they aren't missing anything.)
It takes years of training to master that skill.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Did some judge spill coke on your laptop or something?
Take that RIAA! And since this is in Florida, you know the decision was correct! They never mess anything up down there!
Well, there can be only one.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
The average of two opposing lies is the truth, then?
"Frivious" is a perfectly cromulent word!
If you don't mind me asking, why did you raise the Rule 11 flag? I didn't see anything in the RIAA's response other than the usual boilerplate, laundry list of denials and affirmative defenses (which must be raised then or forever lost).
I've heard that opposing counsel in New York (as well as Chicago or LA) courts can be a little more acrimonious than where I'm studying, but I didn't think that Rule 11 sanctions for this sort of thing were possible.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Yeah, but Keith Richards had his corpse on display, someone ganked it in the fray.
Waaayy the fsck off topic but, you opined?!?
/.?!? What the fsck for?!?
Would you people please try not to emulate Shakespeare? He's been done, much better than you ever will.
Opined, on
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
That's a coincidence because Peter Gabriel also had his servers stolen :) Since he's not exactly a favourite child of the RIAA, I suspect their hand in it.
"I would say to artists at the beginning of their career in this business: own your name, own your website, own your rights. There's a future with a record business, which I think does a great job sometimes, but as a service industry and not as owners of creative talent. But it's only if artists are smart enough, which traditionally we've never been, to act together and to work together that we're going to see that sort of future." (Peter Gabriel speaking at the BT Digital Music Awards in 2006)
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
It doesn't happen very often, and it ranks pretty high on the 'how to tell if the judge is pissed' scale.
Can't speak for DEO (did you mean DIO?) but Robert Palmer's over here.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Careful, my friend, you might find yourself in need of a lawyer one day for a frivolous suit, and then where will you be?
Regards,
Ambulance Chasing Dick, Esq.
Oh, for the days when sig's didn't have to be cute...hey, wait a sec.
BTW, snarky means testy or snide, rather than smug. Schadenfreude refers to taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune. Typing "define:epicaricacy" into Google results in only one definition (with a broken link) that is mostly identical to one of the results for "define:schadenfreude", including the claim that it is a loanword from German. I don't know what to make of that. I assume epicaricacy means schadenfreude, but it doesn't look like something that originally came from German.
Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify. (Ambrose Bierce)
wtf? Did I just hear you say that???
UTF-8: There and Back Again
ext. street - day - clear
An elegant woman walking. Suddenly a man runs past her and steals her handbag with a strong pull.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
"You wouldn't steal a handbag."
ext. street2 - day - clear
A man in a suit leaves behind his Ferrari and keeps walking. A thief, stands from his hiding place, close by, and starts trying to force open the driver's door.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
"You wouldn't steal a car."
int. Electronics shop, backstore - day
There's a simple machine with two "dishes". On one of those dishes stands a new flat screen TV, inside it's box. The machine has a very visible red button.
A CLERK in the store's uniform enters the room, pushes the button and a perfect copy of the TV appears from thin air in the second dish.
The CLERK takes the "cloned" TV and exits the room
NARRATOR (V.O.)
"But, how much should they cost
if they were free to copy?"
int. Electronics shop - day
A couple is eagerly waiting. The CLERK comes with the previously cloned TV, leaves it on a table for them and takes the couple's credit card.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
"Free things shouldn't be sold."
It's hardly a smart move to annoy the judge. This is a pretty accurately aimed footbullet.
That's clear, man. It is a contraction of "frivolous" (as in "stupid") and "previous" (as in "not this shit again", quoting some previous comment).
Uh... back to coding.
Nobody has seen Robert Palmer for a few weeks.
I think you mean decades.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
You're being an arsehole.
You can either get a one-liner out that misses the minutae or bore the arse of everyone by detailing the precise scenario.
Now, when you chop at a door, you get a chip in the door. You would, if you're sane, expect another chip.
If the door is infinitely large and you place the chip in a new place, you will NEVER get through. So you aim to put the chip in the second and later chops at the place of the earlier chip. Ergo, making the chip deeper. Reasoning that if you make the chip deeper than the wooden door, you will break through. But you aren't repeating the same thing and expecting a different result: you're expecting the cut to get deeper.
"Hardly a smart move" could be the RIAA's secret motto.
Don't forget the part where the defense attourney's reputation depends solely on people being found innocent (or at least getting reduced charges/sentences). The prosecutor's reputation depends solely on how many person-years of prison sentences are dispensed by the time he runs for governor or whatever.
Neither is particularly interested in actual justice. If the prosecutor suspected the defendant was innocent but knew he could get a conviction, how many would seriously consider dropping the case?
There is a really good frontline that you can watch online on the impact of plea bargaining on the justice system. Scary stuff...
The RIAA is a cartel and should be disbanded and it's members prosecuted under the RICO Act.
Of course, IANAL so maybe I am incorrect or just engaging in wishful thinking.
"1 The Court notes that Plaintiffsâ(TM) counsel in this case represented Plaintiffs in that
case, and Defendantâ(TM)s counsel in this case represented Defendant in that case as well."
Translating:
I know that you know that I know you've done this before and what the result was, and I know that you know the defense knows that too, so WTF are you trying to pull here?
However, there's a deeper problem, here. The people who make films aren't scum. They're hard-working men and women who do amazing things within a corrupt system that often abuses their trust and makes decisions that seem to stem from a culture long thought dead.
It is critical that we not dismiss this as greedy consumers trying to scrape free stuff out of starving artists. We're just concerned about what it is that we're getting out of the deal that we made with artists and publishers over 200 years ago, and we're questioning whether or not we've actually achieved the goal of the copyright system or if we've just created a monster in the form of giant corporations with no respect for either the consumer or the producer, but which reap all nearly all of the profits.
On the music front, which is more apropos the story, it's even worse. See the links at the end of my essay, Fight against the RIAA which details some of the horrible conditions that a band can find themselves in when they sign on with a major label, and some of the ways that they're abusing their customers.
It's not that we think we should get something for free. It's that we've given a free empire to these companies through copyright law, and what we're getting back in return is more and more demands for deeper controls over what we do with the output of those individuals that they have been abusing for decades.
I dunno. It worked for Microsoft.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The problem is that the analogy is fundamentally broken. One way or the other, it only addresses the superficial consequences of making copies.
Imagine you did have a 'magic duplicator'. It's not true that use of this would be harmless.
It wouldn't harm the owner of the car. It would harm the people who make a living assembling the car from its design, who make a living advertising, promoting and selling the car. They'd have to find other jobs.
It would also remove the current structure which pays the designers of the car. And so, in absence of an alternative method of paying, it harms them too. Granted when we talk about music, most people in this position don't make any money out of the system. And even if the system could be reformed so that they all can eke out aliving, it is so fabulously expensive with respect to the amount it pays them it's very nearly indefensible.
The morality of copying depends on whether you think that the market will provide alternatives for creators in the absence of selling copies.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Nobody has seen Robert Palmer for a few weeks.
I guess he was Simply Irresistable.
my hovercraft is full of eels
Why the hell would people be assembling the car if there was a magic duplicator?
Do you imagine a band records each cd seperately?
Your right, that wouldn't be fair. Obviously even though their jobs are redundant progress should be halted so they can continue to make a living without the hassle of retraining.
But if such a duplicator existed, there would be far fewer people making a living assembling a car from a design. Most of them would still have to find another job.
The designers would probably move upscale, providing more unique cars, creating one real model, then duplicating a small ( or large, depending on his/her/its tastes, etc ) number of duplicates, selling them relatively cheaply, depending on the requirements of the duplicator.
Good points, though.
emt 377 emt 4
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
If there was truly a "magic duplicator" we'd have the Star Trek scenario where we don't have a "resource based" economy. We pull what we need out of thin air, and don't require jobs because there is no need.
Once your basic needs are fulfilled for "free", you move onto the important things in life -- drinking, watching porn, hanging out at the beach. Eventually, people get bored with base pursuits (and the beach gets too crowded) and they start looking for self actualization and do art and science because they want to and find it rewarding. Then we get a peaceful idyllic society and women wear short skirts and gogo boots. Money becomes largely obsolete.
That is, unless you buy into the distopian view where a few people control it and screw the rest of us over. They make what they need and enslave us to do the rest. Opulence for a few and abject poverty for the remainder.
As much as I'm being flippant, such a "magic duplicator" would fundamentally change all of the underlying rules and assumptions about how society operates. Likely in ways we can't readily predict. If we can create everything I need at no cost, what do I need a job for?
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But not any single person would need to "make a living" doing anything as physical scarcity would cease to exist with such duplicators. This would be good, not bad. Food and shelter would cease to be a problem. Nobody would need to go to work for 30 years to pay off a mortgage. Just like it's good we don't need to hire people to manually pump plants for oxygen in the air. Everyone is wealthier because it saves labor.
And people will still contribute, as the economy would evolve almost completely to ideas and fame. All you need look at for evidence is the trillions of exponentially growing free posts made all over the place on the internet. Some of those posts would be ideas for car designs. Some of those posts would be improvements on nanotechnology software for efficiently rendering car design copies. All those things could be spread through message boards and video posts.
This is the Utopia humanity is striving for, and we can be 50% of the way there today by eliminating copyrights and patents that result in artificial scarcity and stifled innovation. The other 50% is simply nano-tech physical duplicators.
And everybody already does duplicate the things and inventions of others: look at all the houses that have doors and windows, look at those cars with wheels, look at people wearing shirts, shoes, and pants.
Why the hell should people be making music or software games in the first place when people are starving due to food shortages? Or houses are too expensive due to supply problems? Maybe the world would be a better place if musicians became ditch diggers and construction workers. They're still free to make music whistling while they work. And if you don't like to be copied, remain silent, and stop copying others. Nobody alive has any reason to complain about copying because they wouldn't remotely be able to do what they do today if they weren't by definition copying others.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
in Florida or the rest of the US by victims of spamigation? This seems like a good way for these people to be compansated for their troubles, caused by the RIAA in the first place.
Holy Typesetters, Batman!! The judge took a grand total of 17 lines of text (one and a half pages) for his entire opinion, excluding the footnotes. I guess he must not have thought the RIAA's arguments were worth much discussion.
(I've got a piece of tissue paper that'll hold more water than that.)
Your Servant, B. Baggins
we got rid of feudalism once, why do we have to fight against it again?
You, and the nouveau Dukes and Lords of Intellectual Property you support belong in history's trash bin.
Given the RIAA's behavior when will the record companies be hit with the RICO statutes? They are obviously organized crime and in the extortion business.
I'm surprised noone posted a link to this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qmXv3naV_IQ
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.