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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."
I think they're just bringing in the best hired gun that they can. No different from any other company or organization in that respect. This case is absolutely huge to them. Of course they're going to get the best counsel they can. Wouldn't they be foolish if they didn't?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Yeah, that Ray Beckerman, what a poser. *facepalm*
Mod parent down pls, kthx.
Sounds pretty epic! Do they allow people to take pop-corn into the court?
You just got troll'd!
And, this seems like a good stopping point. As of 1976 we had 2 26 year terms for a copyright, the act was amended that year and has been amended so many times since that whole treatises exist just to explain the changes in the law over a 32 year period.
What is particularly outrageous is the Sonny Bono extension - or, Save Mickey from the Public Domain Act. That crazy amendment brought material that was in the public domain back into copyright!
The great argument was that the authors would be more motivated to create with longer royalty periods - the only problem: I haven't heard any new creations from George and Ira Gershwin - the lazy bastards (ok, they're dead). The real reason to extend and extend these terms is to allow the corporate assignees to continue to profit. Disney was a strong backer because Mickey was about to become public domain - and that mouse is worth millions to its corporate masters.
The RIAA has been raking in the loot for 10-15 years now - and it is about time to put a stop to this kind of bs. I think that Monday will be the beginning of the end of the RIAA's tactics.
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.
And if this was about people actually selling pirated DVDs, it'd be a different story.
This is closer to suing one person for over $10k per cup of coffee they stole.
I'm going to stick with that for the moment, as it's equally unfair to both sides -- stealing a cup of coffee actually deprives someone of potential revenue, whereas stealing a song is just a copy. But stealing a cup of coffee only feeds you (or your caffeine addiction) for a day -- you'll be back later, either to steal or to buy -- whereas stealing a song means you can listen to that same song again, as many times as you like.
But no matter how you want to spin it, stealing a cup of coffee does not carry a $10k fine. Stealing a song shouldn't, either.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Having good lawyers on both sides can really cut through a lot of the fluff and the misery in a case like this. Of course, if the lawyers deliberately want to exacerbate the problem and the judge isn't on the ball, they can make things worse. But otherwise, why would the RIAA not want the best lawyer it can get?
They've already had their expert "ambushed" with Daubert in the previous UMG vs. Lindor deposition that Ray Beckerman posted. This is 100% a rookie mistake. A competent firm would have briefed the expert and all related parties extensively on Daubert to ensure this doesn't happen. The downside for the opposition is that a better lawyer has a better chance of avoiding these rookie mistakes, so you have to actually argue facts rather than procedure.
Do all of you who rail against the RIAA really want them defeated because they hired crappy lawyers, or do you want them defeated on the merits? I fear that the answer from the Slashdot crowd at large is "either way, doesn't matter" but I think that's a little intellectually dishonest.
In P2P file sharing, copyright infringement is taking place. It is almost certainly NOT fair use. If you don't like it, you really need to be writing your members of Congress to change Copyright law. An issue like Capitol v. Thomas, where the issue seems to have shifted toward the magnitude of damages, is something that can be fought in the courts. And if it is to be fought in the courts, let it be fought on the essence of the issues and not on accidental factors such as the quality of the attorneys involved.
Actually stealing a CD doesn't get you into that, it's copying that does.
...and here is his unique game plan.
1) Ban reporters from courtroom
2) Turn off the lights
3) Win!!!
Let's face it, the penalties levelled were never going to stand up in court in the long run. They were never meant to. They're a threat designed to scare people into settling. If a few of the RIAA's actual court victories are overturned, so what? Their main revenue stream is out-of court. Until a judge puts down an injunction forbidding them from sending out threatening letters to the populace, they'll still have that.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Back before the Internet, copying a song from a record onto a cassette might deprive the RIAA member of a single sale. If that was what we were talking about, you would be correct.
This is not suing someone for downloading a song. This is about putting the song up for everyone on the Internet to download - potentially at least thousands or tens of thousands of people. So comparing it to stealing a single cup of coffee isn't quite correct. It is a lot closer to stealing hundreds of cups of coffee, maybe more.
The problem is, nobody knows how many people downloaded from Ms. Thomas. Nobody. Not even Ms. Thomas. Could be nobody. Could be the entire Internet-using population of the world. Nobody can find out. According to some, this means her liability should be ... nothing. I'm not sure that makes sense either.
I think you miss the point with #4. There is no revenue in recorded music anymore. I know I'm not buying any, and nobody I know is buying any. Anyone that knows how to is downloading it for free. Some folks think they are clever by saying they will eventually buy something when it is the right price and right quality. In the meantime, they are downloading as well and not paying.
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 think the "business" of music is pretty much over. There are the people that know the world owes them an audience because they are so great, and there are the people that love the idea of singing or playing and will do it no matter if anyone pays them or not. We don't need more of the first sort - watch the beginning of the American Idol season for some examples. We may benefit in the end from the latter sort, but they gotta eat too. So there will be very few of them. Too bad, really.
This is not suing someone for downloading a song. This is about putting the song up for everyone on the Internet to download
I was going by TFS, which says, and I quote:
This is the case where a $222,000 verdict was awarded for downloading 24 songs
Furthermore, "making available" has, in fact, failed in court, at least once -- which means that they would have to show that he was actually distributing it.
The problem is, nobody knows how many people downloaded from Ms. Thomas. Nobody. Not even Ms. Thomas. Could be nobody. Could be the entire Internet-using population of the world. Nobody can find out.
Not strictly true. Depends what kind of logs the filesharing program kept, or her ISP.
According to some, this means her liability should be ... nothing.
I like to call it "innocent until proven guilty", but apparently, this doesn't apply to civil cases.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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.
Their main revenue stream is out-of court.
Really? Is that true anymore? I haven't bought a single RIAA CD in 10 years and I don't think anyone I know has either.
My blog
but it could be argued that the torrents on the site because they are MP3s and not the original CDs, are different.
No, it couldn't. Regardless of the format, be it MP3, CD, cassette, 8 track cartridge, vinyl LP or Edison phonograph, if the order of notes and chords, lyrics, style, and performance are the same, it's the same as far as copyright is concerned.
Or, to put it another way, if the listener can identify it as the same song, it's the same song. The actual order of 1s and 0s is irrelevant, because they're only a storage medium that has to be translated back to something you can hear. CD and MP3 differ only in the accuracy of reproduction; if encoding to MP3 changed the fundamental nature of the music it would be an utterly useless format.
Blank until
Oh please. I challenge you to come up with a string of 1000 bits that has 3 different (meaningful!) meanings, let alone a string of 4 million bits, which is much more representative of mp3 compressed audio. If you manage to accomplish that, I challenge you to find 9 more.
(Note that there are [301 digit number starting with 1 that the lameness filter will not accept] different 1000 bit numbers...)
Copyright terms and so forth do not fit current technology, but the digital/analog divergence that you are arguing is the worst kind of logical contortion (the kind where you simply ignore inconvenient facts and information).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
.
Money is strictly short-term, precedents affect the long-term.
The RIAA want precedents to be set such that they can continue to harass innocent people without regard for the consequences of their mistakes.
I hate the RIAA as much as the next /.er, but let's not forget - that business model fucking rocked. Not for the artists, but for them. And they're not the artists, they're themselves. I know if my seven-figure paycheck depended on screwing everyone else, I'd just ask where the condoms were!
To quote Upton Sinclair,
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Now we know they're almost done!
From video game experience, we all know that the boss brings out his most dangerous and powerful weapon right before you win.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
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.
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?
Patronage. Mass patronage.
Where anybody who would like the artist to produce another creation (album/song/book/poem/architectural design/movie/etc) for whatever reason can put money into a group escrow account. When the escrow account balance reaches the creator's asking price, the money is pocketed and the artist puts the work out on the internet for free.
As for how the artist gets started? Gives it away for free, just like they do today. The only difference is that instead of giving away their first four albums to the MAFIAA for free, they give one (or more if the first one sucks too much to generate an audience) directly to the public.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
This is the case where a $222,000 verdict was awarded for downloading 24 songs
RTFA. RIAA downloaded 24 songs from her.
And they were authorized by the copyright holders to download them.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
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)
I thought about that as I was walking out of a store last night, past a rack of CDs and DVDs for sale. If I were to swipe a DVD on my way past, and got caught, the consequences for shoplifting would be absolutely trivial, compared to getting caught downloading the same movie over the Internet, which takes longer, doesn't include the bonus features, and would probably require me to burn it to a DVD-R to free up space on my file server. And yet, stealing a DVD actually deprives the store of physical property that they paid for, while downloading via BitTorrent doesn't harm anyone.
How many people are going to switch from downloading to shoplifting because they're concerned about the possible repercussions?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;