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RIAA Gets Nervous, Brings In Big Gun
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "I guess the RIAA is getting nervous about the ability of its 'national law firm' (in charge of bringing 'ex parte' motions, securing default judgments, and beating up grandmothers and children) to handle the oral argument scheduled to be heard on Monday, August 4th in Duluth, in Capitol v. Thomas. So, at the eleventh hour, it has brought in one of its 'Big Guns' from Washington, D.C., a lawyer who argues United States Supreme Court cases like MGM v. Grokster to handle the argument. This is the case where a $222,000 verdict was awarded for downloading 24 songs, but the judge ultimately realized that he had been misled by the RIAA in issuing his jury instructions, and indicated he's probably going to order a new trial. But, not to worry. A group of 10 copyright law professors from 10 different law schools and several other amici curiae (friends of the court) have filed briefs now, so it is highly unlikely the judge will allow himself to be misled again, no matter who the RIAA brings in as cannon fodder on Monday."
Ummm... Isn't that practically what McDonalds is doing with the new "McCafe" or whatever it is called? Sure it isn't the same recipe, but it could be argued that the torrents on the site because they are MP3s and not the original CDs, are different.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Well, I didn't know the phrase amicus curiae before, so I looked it up in Wikipedia and... I can't help it, it sounds a tad bit like "lobbying for courtrooms".
How do courts keep this from happening? Or do they, actually?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Technically, it's closer to getting fined $14,000 for drinking coffee you found in the McDonald's dumpster. The company wasn't going to get any money from you anyway, but you still managed a caffeine buzz and a thirst quenchings. Meanwhile, dumpster diving means that you won't have to be asked "Do you want fries with that?" but it's questionable as to the quality of food you'll get, or whether you'll end up with a virus once you've finished getting what you're looking for.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Sadly (or gladly) enough people do still buy CDs. I know if it is a band I like, that I do.
The problem is, if (assuming) CD sales are declining, it's just more ammo for the RIAA to push for more legislation to "combat" their flawed sales model.
One thing that always gets a laugh out of me are all the people who claim they refuse to buy RIAA member released CDs thinking that will somehow stop the RIAA - when the truth is, as evidenced by too many statements made by the RIAA, they blame every decline in CD sales on piracy and use it as a lobbying effort for more intrusive laws and less consumer rights.
It's not like their money will run out tomorrow... thus, not buying from RIAA labels because they are RIAA labels, only helps them to change the legal landscape in a fashion that hurts consumers even more.
In that, the Bush Administration has already chimed in (on this very case) trying to convince the judge to not do what he is currently doing and to uphold/allow the judgement that currently stands.
When it's a matter of money or business in this country (especially with so many lobbyists helping craft these laws) who do you think is going to win?
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
In P2P file sharing, copyright infringement is taking place. It is almost certainly NOT fair use.
All of the times I have downloaded music via torrents, I either already own the piece that it was ripped from, or the music was licensed in such a way that this form of distribution was allowed.
Fair use says (or it should, at any rate; it may not have been tested in courts yet) I can have a copy of my music that isn't encumbered with DRM crapware; if I've bought my music outright, then I'm sure as hell entitled to play it on anything I want--not just in itunes and on my iPod Touch.
The RIAA wants you to believe that you need extra licenses to play it on your computers if you have more than 4 of them, that it is reasonable to have to deal with these measures.
Its sad that they've managed to convince you that these are reasonable measures, but I'm not so easily persuaded.
Don't be an idiot. Copyright holds the concept of a derived work, and you cannot distribute a work that is derived from a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright holder. An encoded version of a music track is clearly derived from the original music track, and as such distributing it without permission is against the law.
Programmers tend to think that any law which can't be expressed in Perl (or Python or whatever) is too ambiguous to be useful. This is, however, not how things actually work.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
"That crazy amendment brought material that was in the public domain back into copyright!"
Now that is what I call stealing.
Anyway, if people think the pace of progress is getting faster and faster (or want it to be so), and that marketing and distribution is better than years ago, then it makes no sense that copyright terms should be getting longer and longer.
Logically they should be getting shorter and shorter.
Of course the real breadwinner for Disney is Pooh. Also saved from public domain by Bono, may he burn in hell for his crimes against the people he should have served.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
The republican party is prioritizing business interests over consumers any time the have a chance.
And the democrats are all cozy and in bed with the Hollywood elite.
Expect RIAA, Viacom, Hollywood and all other companiers with IP content to consistently get everything they want from Wahington. As a consumer, dont even try to get your hopes up. You will continue to get screwed.
Just as a reminder: After entertainment became a big business with lobbyists around 1920, *no* new copyrighted work have expired. Every 10 years or so, it has been extended by at least 10 years, and is now about two lifetimes.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Strange, the copyright holders charge a different price for vinyl, 8 track, phonograph, MP3 or radio. I guess that is their right, but there is clearly a difference.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
1. That's irrelevant. You can't criminalize the population to keep some ancient business model.
2. Patents and Copyright are not the same thing.
3. The constitution enumerates the powers that the state has the option of using. By your logic the president is required to declare war because the constitution says has the power to.. actually, that might explain why there's some idiot declaring a war every freakin' year.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Lawyers in these cases have argued that "making available is the same as distributing," that a single shared song is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and a great many things that are far more absurd than my statement. The law is an ass and the lawyers in these cases are abusing the ignorance of the courts and the rights of the people.
It's time to take back ownership of our network, our computers, our rights to fair use and our right to "progress of science and useful arts" by taking back ownership of the related symbols. All of them. Where the constitution reads "securing for limited times" the framers did not intend for it to extend to over 100 years. 3 years is more like it. I could go with 30 days, or none.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I know I'm not buying any, and nobody I know is buying any. Anyone that knows how to is downloading it for free.
I buy plenty of music. On CD if I care about the quality (maybe 4-5 CD's a year). On Amazon if I don't (maybe an mp3 a week, though Pepsi has been upping that a bit for me). On P2P if it's otherwise unavailable (out of print, not digitized).
What possible reason could there be for not spending 89 cents for a song you want that's easy to find, of good quality, and immediately available? I mean, unless you're morally opposed or a hoarder.
I'd like to hear about a business model whereby the artists produce the music and put it out on the Internet for free. Where is the "business" here? If I download and never, ever even think about going to a concert or buying an overpriced T-shirt, where exactly is the "business"? I surely do not see one.
I wrote this here about 8 years ago. It mostly still applies. Concert tickets are too expensive - that means there's more demand than supply. So even if you don't go to concerts and buy $40 T-shirts, that has no bearing on the music economy in general. Seriously, if a band you liked was in town playing the local theatre for $10 a seat you wouldn't go?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
they're just bringing in the best hired gun that they can
OK, so then why didn't they bring this guy in for the other parts of the trial?
Of course they're nervous.
I think we should all aspire to be someone who's only fault in a summary is using a good lead-in sentence. Thanks Ray!
I wish that were my only fault, but I have many others. Actually, I'm not even that good with lead-in sentences; I think I just got lucky on this one.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
And they were authorized by the copyright holders to download them.
Unfortunately she wasn't authorised to upload them. All this means is that in this particular transaction the RIAA can't be sued for their part.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Would you care to explain how a song is worth $9,000+ to anyone?
For that matter, would you care to actually be man enough to state your name for the record? It's not like it requires you to not post as an AC...
"Hell, just extending the term of copyright is blatant theft from the public domain. The works were created under the terms of the social contract that existed at the time."
That's a very good point. How is this different from retroactive punishment for a crime that didn't exist when you committed the act? A: it's not -- the only difference here is that the PUBLIC, rather than an individual, is being "punished" by a retroactive penalty which did not exist at the time the "crime" (creation of copyrighted work) was "committed".
So -- extending copyright extends the "punishment" the public endures for allowing content owners their limited monopoly (ie. copyright).
(That didn't come out as clear as I'd hoped, but you get the idea...)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
If you want to make sure you don't 'screw up your legal career', work very hard and be highly prepared for everything you do, and treat every case as the most important case in the world.
I didn't say this guy is going to 'screw up his career'; his career is going very nicely, and his RIAA client is dumb enough to keep on using his firm, which has accomplished exactly nothing. When the Big 4 record companies are in Chapter 11, then they'll probably change lawyers.
The reason this guy won't be enhancing his career, is that even were he to win, it would be meaningless:
-he is taking on a poor defenseless Native American woman who can't even afford to pay a lawyer
-in a lower court case that will not establish any binding precedent anywhere.
But what makes it worse is that he's going to be trying to push a completely frivolous theory, and trying to defend completely unethical conduct on the part of his predecessors, so that his own reputation will be besmirched by reason of his having even entered this fray. And what makes it even worse is that he's going to lose.
So bottom line, he's fighting against someone who can't fight back, he's doing the fighting in a way that will either be dishonorable (if he really tries to sell the judge on the RIAA's phony theory) or weak (if he admits the RIAA has no case), and he's going to get beat by a defenseless person. So that doesn't sound like a good thing to me.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful