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RIAA 'Elektra V. Barker' Case Is Settled
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Elektra v. Barker, one of the leading cases repudiating the RIAA's 'making available' theory, has been settled. Unlike in most cases, the actual settlement agreement (PDF) is on file with the Court, and a matter of public record. Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses — including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement — will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues. Ms. Barker, a young social worker who lives in the Bronx, once told p2pnet 'I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.'"
I guess her lawyer's barker was worse than her biter?
Barker: We had milk crates filled with albums....
Elektra: So what have you done for us lately?
Hans Dannik
I haven't seen the commercial yet, you insensitive, and off-topic, clod.
Any chance we'll get some of the reasoning behind the settlement? I understand that taking these thugs to court is a heavy burden, but after fighting it so long, why give up now?
But I understand the reasons she settled.
The funny thing is that the milk crates were almost certainly stolen and illegal for them to have as well.
I bet she stole the milk crates too.
"We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music."
That's so sad but so true. I guess the truth is I don't listen to mainstream music anymore. It's kinda something I don't want anything to do with and the greedy record companies are the reason. The RIAA have turned what should be a cultural commodity and property of the people into a liability. Fuck the RIAA and everybody associated with them.
I bet the whole court thing isn't easy at all, all the stress over something that's gotten so ridiculous. I hope she finds some relief in the settlement, but it would have been really nice to have another person fighting back.
She could'a been'a contenda'!
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Not a lot of money, but much better than wasting more time in court.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
That about sums it up. After a lengthy court battle the RIAA settled for what I'd guess is a few hours of lawyers fees. Essentially the RIAA figured they couldn't win and decided to pack it up in fear the arguments against them would be ruled valid.
AccountKiller
This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.
indeed, these rascals are alienating untold numbers of youth from music. just for a few dollars more, they are not only killing an industry, but an ART. no exaggeration - dont just think about the actual number sued - think about how many people, friends, relatives, colleagues and alike, got adversely affected by what their acquaintance went through. and they are doing it for what ? to sustain an outdated business model.
its a crime against humanity, civilization. whereas today's courts are too 'old' to understand the matter in its core, future generations of judges and lawmakers wont be as such. woe to the people of young generations who join riaa in their shitty crusade by working for them or the media cartels - for they will still be alive when future generations take the matter into hand, whereas the bosses who used them to their own selfish ends will be long dead.
Read radical news here
Christ. This is not flamebait, it's the fucking POINT!
RIAA Celebrates 50 Years Of Gold
Records
(copy-paste from: http://www.riaa.com/)
What happened (Good, Bad, and Ugly) ?
It was flamebait. Ms. Barker wasn't talking about the legal issues at all. She was just talking about her personal feelings about music, and about how this litigation made her feel. To attack her from the flank like that was pure flamebait.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
how did this work? Did the plaintiffs offer a settlement, did Ms. Barker ask for one, and in either case what was the reasoning behind the decision to settle?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This isn't a settlement, this looks like she paid $750 x 8 for the songs.
It looks like she created a lot of noise and fury over nothing, and probably set back whatever anti-RIAA cause is out there back. This will do nothing but encourage the RIAA to continue with their tactics.
RIAA represents only a fraction of recorded music. Depending on where you live, you might even have an opportunity several times per week, to hear it live -- and buy a CD directly from the band.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Actually no she wasn't. There is a whole mess of a difference between copyright infringement and theft. The fact that you make such a claim shows you've bought what the RIAA has been saying all this time.
One is civil and the other is criminal. No threat of jail-time although you could argue threat of loss of life given how much it costs to defend yourself against a civil suit with such a large plaintiff.
I read the pdf of the settlement, and it says that the defendant(baker) has to pay the plantiff(riaa) $6050 in 55 monthly installments.. and that is it!!!
Am I missing something here?
Actually, as in all the RIAA cases, she was sued for *distributing* the files by having them in a shared folder on Kazaa. The RIAA is not going after the people who download, they're going after those who "make available" whether the people legitimately purchased the music or not.
If the RIAA was conducting this campaign with so much as a shred of ethics and decency, I could go with it as they are, in one of thinking, attempting to defend their rights as redistribution is not a right you gain from purchase. However, the tactics that they resort to, the lack of sense or humanity they display in their conduct and the clear abuse of our court system disgusts me far too much for me to support them. It's one thing to stand up for your legal rights...it's entirely another to game the entire system (wasting taxpayer dollars as a result) and destroy innocent lives simply because you don't want the gravy train to end. It's hard to attribute morality to a corporate entity, but if it's possible then it's safe to say that the RIAA has long ago crossed the line into evil.
Elektra sued Barker?
I guess the Price was indeed Right.
Get back into court, we now have clear evidence of a history of blatant defiance of property ownership and flaunting her stolen goods!
If you'd actually read the TFA you'd know she wasn't talking about legalities, she was talking about the emotions she'd felt as a result of this lawsuit.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I'd have to read the injunction, but I'm guessing that it means that Barker doesn't actually have to pay any of this unless she screws up somehow.
because I didn't know Carmen Electra recorded any music, let alone sued Bob Barker for copyright infringement.
[/sarcasm]
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
She was characterizing the RIAA's lawsuit as being "just because" she had music on her computer. I don't disagree with that characterization, but it is hardly flamebait to do so.
Those old women won't be able to properly
adjudicate a dispute on the Morse Code
in less than another 40 years.
jr
5.) People attack a position without addressing its merits whatsoever.
Where "ripping off artists to make sure they don't get paid is okay" as long as you've got them to sign some kind of contract, however convoluted, because of course all musicians are expert contract lawyers AND are negotiating on a level playing field.
Get this through your head: there are very few good guys.
Napster were bad guys (and the fact that there's still a "Napster" in any form gives me a bad taste in my mouth).
The labels are the bad guys.
People sourcing ripped torrents are the bad guys.
The RIAA are the bad guys.
People illegally posting copyrighted binaries to Usenet are the bad guys.
The judges who let the RIAA get away with it are the bad guys.
Psystar are bad guys.
Pointing out that one set of bad guys are bad guys doesn't mean that another set of bad guys are good guys.
Well said. I agree with all your points.
This being said, the RIAA hasn't been exactly innocent in their ways of pursuing people, and they definitely haven't behaved like saints either.
For NYCL; Okay - so I am bit slow on legalese - so forgive the grade-school level question. She took up the settlement (can't blame her - the soap opera has to be stressful) however, all the arguments and defenses are laid out that any other person targeted by the RIAA could use these as the blueprint for their defense, and have a judge rule on them? (correct?) Could then someone include her settlement in a further class action of some form, and get it overturned ? If so, this would be more of a 'baton relay' than a capitulation as some suggest.
Modbomb indeed. But I'll bite anyway. 1) Ripping off artists is not okay. Ripping off the cartel that's been ripping us off for decades is. 2) You ever try releasing a multi-national multi-hundred-thousand-pressing album without a distribution arm? Not as easy as it sounds, and it doesn't sound easy. 3) Not at all. Any group attempting to stop piracy by going after dead people, people without computers, and so forth, are evilly harassing innocents. Any group going after the -ACTUAL- pirates (profiting from selling bootlegs, etc...) are, well, not making headlines unfortunately. 4) Yours and my definition of piracy must differ. I torrent an album of (not distributed in the US, oddly enough) music (leeching all the way). If I don't like it, I delete it. If I do like it, I find a way to make the purchase. My local mail carrier asked if I keep track of the countries I receive packages from, which I do, and so far I've bought music out of almost every country in Europe (though not France or Spain just yet...) In conclusion, get ready for the Modstick, because I almost didnt reply to this, thinking it was flamebait at first. Now I think it's just astroturfing on the part of MediaSentry or whatever they may be calling themselves now, because if you were trying to turf for the RIAA, I don't think you would've been able to spell "artists" (sub:slaves), much less a $2 word like "oppressive"...
Modbomb incoming.
... and check it after they leave, just to make sure nothing's missing
You earned it.
You really should make some effort to understand how the record labels rip off everyone involved with them before you make such commentary.
Here's a quote from Janis Ian:
The NARAS people were a bit more pushy. They told me downloads were "destroying sales", "ruining the music industry", and "costing you money". Costing me money? I don't pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do know one thing. If a music industry executive claims I should agree with their agenda because it will make me more money, I put my hand on my wallet
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is just a settlement between two parties. No judicial logic has been applied. The defendant will pay the plaintiff a little over $6000. That sounds pretty cheap to me so I'm guessing that the plaintiff thought the defense would win at least some of the arguments and didn't want to see a precedent set. There's the rub. If the case had gone to the end, there would have been a court ruling. Then we would have had some reasons to work with and a precedent that could have been used for future cases.
Man, I can't wait for the CIAA (Cow Industry Association of America) to come after her as well.
I mean, if a 99cent song is worth $150k in damages, think how much an actual milk crate is worth!
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
For NYCL; Okay - so I am bit slow on legalese - so forgive the grade-school level question. She took up the settlement (can't blame her - the soap opera has to be stressful) however, all the arguments and defenses are laid out that any other person targeted by the RIAA could use these as the blueprint for their defense, and have a judge rule on them? (correct?)
Correct.
Hopefully they will.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
And thats paid over the course of almost 55 months. NYCL was one of the defendant's main lawyers (see settlement), so he must know more than what's coming out. Six grand over 4.5 years hardly seems like a "victory".
In fact, evil (suing a woman with multiple sclerosis who didn't use a computer) harassment (suing a woman on disability benefits who didn't use file-sharing software) of innocent people is what's going on. And that is without noting that their damages are about $0.20/song (at retail prices, $0.99/song) but they are asking for the statutory $150K per, that they aren't actually proving their cases (have you looked at what they pretend is "evidence"?), that they are abusing the Federal Process (illegal joinder, failure to cite adverse opinions, citing opinions that have been reconsidered).
Your whole gripe is based on a very broad concept of piracy. Anyone accused of piracy has committed piracy? Anyone listening to music without buying the whole CD? Storing a music file? How about in cache? Receiving an audio stream? How about recording an audio stream? borrowing a CD from a friend? Previewing a CD? All nice black and white issues to you, I'm sure.
Your "guilty until proven innocent" approach to those sued by the RIAA pretty much marks you as anti-constitutional. No surprise that you suck up the MAFIAA so hard.
I'd be just as happy to accuse the RIAA of looting the public while the "fair use" lock is broken. Their stock and trade is radio airplay royalties. How this relates to what I do with a CD after I have purchased it is far from settled.
FWIW, I'm a musician and do production work. I have no idea, nor has the RIAA clearly posited, how their actions serve anyone other than themselves. You would think that there would be some kind of massive artist outcry... but they are being reamed so hard by the labels, who renege on contract elements at will, that they use the d/l data when working out either their transition to small labels or to self production and distribution. Even at 0.0% d/l leakage the artist doesn't make their money from sales. They make it on the road and from advert licensing.
So spare us the RIAA rah rah, please.
1) That's not our intention, or at least the intention of most anti-RIAA folk. i want the artist to be paid. The major labels gives the artist a tiny slice of the record sales. New artists often end up OWING money from the album's production and only make money when they tour. i WANT the artist to get the money i pay, not the label and not the lawyers and the RIAA. Artists can shift their income source to merch and ticket sales. Jonathon Coulton gives his music away and is making a good living off tix and merch.
2) Are you republican or libertarian? Willingly signed != understood. And does not mean that the contract was fair. If someone waved wealth, fame and hot chicks under your nose you'd sign your lungs away. If you struggled for years to be discovered and finally had a chance to reach a bigger audience, you'd take it because their lawyers would tell you "it's a standard contract".
3) It is harassment. It's also extortion. "Pay us 10K$ now, or we'll keep you in court and out of work for a year or two and then take the 10K$".
4) First of all, it's not piracy. It's copyright infringement. Piracy is armed robbery on a boat. It IS free advertising. Many artists are realizing that getting people to HEAR their work is the first step to getting people to buy it, to buy tickets and merch.
5) What about people who mindlessly blather about the RIAA protecting artists when very little of what RIAA collects will go to the artist? The RIAA cares about RIAA, not the artist. The best thing RIAA could do for artist is to disband and let the industry move into the late 20th century.
6) Data is WORTHLESS. If it can be made into data, it is WORTHLESS. Music, no matter how much it costs to produce, is worth one second of FiOS band width. Data can be reproduced with perfect fidelity, infinitely. As the cost of storage and bandwidth decline, so too must the value of data. If i sent a song to 30 people, and they sent it to 30 people and so on and so on, it could reach a metric fuck ton of people in a matter of days. No trucks, no stock boys, no cashiers, no lawyers, no middlemen trying to profit off the talent of the artist. Any finite demand divided by infinite supply equals a cost as near to zero as makes no odds. Sell me something i can't download, like the experience of seeing them live or an autographed copy of the album. Something that is, you know... worth something.
It's OVER. It was over in 1998, it's just taken a decade for an antiquated and exploitative industry to realize it.
And the artists will be fine. Those that deserve wealth and fame will have it. The only people losing are the label executives and stock holders.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
You mean the position of criticizing the RIAA for ethical and moral reasons even while pirating some band's entire discography in a 250MB RAR file? The pro-piracy position has merits?
"Sufferin' succotash."
"Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses -- including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement -- will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues."
Perhaps it will be the case that, now that the arguments are spelled out, the RIAA will give up because their position it is so patently a loser?
I'm thinking of the explanation as to why the GPL has never been "tested" in court - it is so straightforward and so strong that any lawyer who actually passed the bar won't take the case, because it's a sure loss.
Then again, this is the RIAA...
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Courtney Love
June 14, 2000
Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software.
I'm talking about major label recording contracts.
I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies, and do some recording-contract math:
This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.
What happens to that million dollars?
They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.
That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.
That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.
The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)
So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties.
The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.
The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- are getting paid to play their records.
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals ... zero!
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.
It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.
The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.
They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.
Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.
Of course, they had fun. Hearing yourself on the radio, selling records, getting new fans and being on TV is great, but now the band doesn't have enough money to pay the rent and nobody has any credit.
Worst of all, after all this, the band owns none of its work ... they can pay the mortgage forever but they'll never own the house. Like I said: Sharecropping. Our media says, "Boo hoo, poor pop stars, they had a
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Man, she's just asking for it now. Next thing you know she'll say she has her mail in USPS mail trays right by her front door.
I like music
how ingenious! about half of your "bad guys" are not actually bad guys, but when you lump them all together, maybe nobody will notice.
How were those milk crates obtained?
I think it is amusing how far they'll go to pilfer little sums of money from their customers, all the while ruining their own reputation so much as to insure their downfall.
People illegally posting copyrighted binaries to Usenet are the bad guys
im sorry, but that's just not so black and white unless you're a "law = morality" zealot.
Case and point: rifftrax.
This service is cheap, and is one of the few ways hollywood dreck is palatable.. and hilarious. There's just one problem.. the sync work, assuming you can do it yourself, tends to deflate the punchlines, and because of the DMCA and derivative work case law, the good Mr. Nelson cannot market pre-made dvd's. It is to the community's advantage to buy the trax off the site, but share the job of syncing.
It's far from perfect, but with the law lagging so far behind or simply not making allowances for something like this, it's simply one of the best ways to gain full enjoyment from a purchased product.
I like to compare this aspect of the file-sharing phenomenon to the concept of the "tab" from older, more familiar times. Have a little more trust in the public than "i can subpoena your accounts and have them frozen if you don't pay me back"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
And here I thought Carmen Elektra and Bob Barker had settled some kind of sexual harassment case outside of court.
Especially since if the RIAA could figure out HOW to sue everyone just for the files on their computer, I'm sure they'd be right there with their team of rabid lawyers. It wouldn't matter if having said files was legal or not; they'd still be lawsuit bait.
Think on that, you folks who think privacy only matters if you "have nothing to hide".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
My question is, I've read the settlement, and it seems pretty "boilerplate", but What does NYCL, (If he can talk about it) think of a) the terms of the settlement, and b) the fact that it was settled at all?
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
1) Interestingly, all the artists complaining about piracy seem to make plenty of money to begin with.
2) Usury is oppressive whether people willingly sign up for it or not. Just because people are stupid or unable to do better is no reason to oppress them with a monopoly.
3) We wanted the RIAA to go after individual file sharers precisely because we knew it was un-winnable. There's no way you can prosecute half of the population for an activity of lower impact than shoplifting. Speaking of which, shoplifting carries a much smaller punishment than even one act of "copyright infringement", hence the unfairness and evilness of prosecuting individuals for sharing music.
4) Music "piracy" is a market reality caused by overpriced goods (created by artificial shortage) and lack of a modern distribution infrastructure. Music is playing constantly over the radio for free, but somehow has a $250,000 value for every 3 minutes that get copied over the Internet.
There is a whole mess of a difference between copyright infringement and theft.
No, not really. The operative act is the same. They're different fields, but the same basic offense. The fact that you object to the characterization is a tried-and-true form of false pedanticism and ignorance unique to Slashdot.
If you are in possession of that which you are unauthorized to have, having obtained it through unlawful means, you're in possession of stolen property, unless you're making a specific legal argument about the cause of action. You're clearly not, though, because steal != theft under the law.
The fact that you make such a claim shows you've bought what the RIAA has been saying all this time.
Again, your Slashdot is showing. The RIAA didn't create the idea, nor did they invent the fundamental harm. You don't have to buy a single word they've said to know the simple fact that copyright infringement is and always has been stealing. It is the sole reason that infringement is a statutory offense with hefty penalties. Those penalties, however, were envisioned for a time and a market of large-scale, incredibly damaging piracy operations. Those operations still exist and must still be shut down. With the Internet, however, a second tier of statutory penalties is necessary to account for the individual, casual, peer to peer sharing that attracts attention. Individuals providing hundreds or thousands of files to thousands of users are clearly violating both the letter and the spirit of the law, as well as operating in a clearly contrary manner to the interests of artists. This is very much a different thing than making mixes for friends (which is allowed), or sharing a few songs from a new artist with a friend who might appreciate them.
One is civil and the other is criminal.
Actually, both copyright infringement and theft, along with other forms of stealing personal, intellectual, and real property have both civil and criminal components. Pursuing criminal copyright infringement claims against a relatively small-time customer, however, based on a shaky legal theory and insufficient evidence, is too stupid even for the RIAA members.
4.) Troll Slashdot and make yourself feel good while actually providing nothing new to the discussion.
5.) Get accused of either being an RIAA astroturfing shill for the media restriction industry (or simply an ignorant fool) by an Anonymous Coward!
Psystar are bad guys.
How is Psystar the bad guys? If anything, Psystar are awesomely great guys, standing against the idiocy of EULAs and Apple's strong-arming.
Psystar are very unusual in that they have had the cojones to stand up to Apple in what seems an almost suicidal move.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
1.) Ripping off artists to make sure they don't get paid is okay.
You simply have no experience in the industry. New artists make, AT ABSOLUTE BEST, $0.02 per album sale. That's TWO CENTS. So in order to make a decent living ($40,000 per year) off album sales they would have to sell TWO MILLION albums per year. If you're an artist who makes all his money off album sales you will starve to death, quite literally.
2.) Artists are victims of evil, oppressive record labels even though they willingly signed their contracts.
Just about all radio and TV time is bought and paid for. If you want to get on the radio and TV, you have to sign with one of the major labels, who will not give you ANY money on your albums. Yes, they'll cheat you out of that $0.02 per album too.
In fact, in recent years they've been getting into the incredibly scammy loan business where they loan artists the money to produce the album at 30% interest and then STEAL that money from the artists and then send collection agencies after the artists for not paying back the loans.
And when I say STEAL, I mean STEAL. They will do things like write you a bad check for an advance. Ask for direct deposit to your checking accounts and then write fake checks out of your accounts. They figure artists don't have any money or lawyers (except they ones THEY'RE providing) so they're "easy marks".
Your average used car salesman or professional con artist is a saint next to A&R people.
4.) Piracy is okay because it's free advertising and other people will eventually pay those artists through t-shirts or something.
No, this is why piracy is bad. Piracy is good because it hurts the big record labels, and anything that helps bring down the big labels is good. Going to the homes of major label executives and shooting them in the face is good. The only way in which piracy of major label music is bad is that piracy DOES help the labels by providing very valuable free advertising.
Whoosh!
Going to the homes of major label executives and shooting them in the face is good.
People DIE because of the crap the major labels pull. They ROB people. Often very poor and very unstable artists who are driven to suicide or drug overdose because of the financial ruin brought on them by the major labels.
Ah, so the REAL win here is that the next incident won't have to reinvent the case from scratch, but instead can build directly on all the records from this case.
Should save both time and money for the next victim who fights the RIAA, and hopefully make it that much easier to progress to the next step after this one.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Can you please cite this whole "0.02" cents thing? I see tons of it around but no one ever sources it.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
> New artists often end up OWING money
Do you actually believe that? Really? You actually fell for that?
> Willingly signed != understood
So your argument is "all musicians are stupid"?
> It's copyright infringement
Exactly. Which is bad. So I'll just apply some moronic argument to dull that feeling in the pit of my stomach that means I really know deep down inside that I'm a thief, like...
> It IS free advertising
There you go. I'm sure you feel all better now.
Maury
Why precisely is Psystar a bad guy?
Some of us don't pirate even though we strongly disagree with their bully-like, blanket, fair-use-destroying tactics. I never downloaded music illegally (and I know how), but I also stopped buying it. Web radio was fun while it lasted, but Soundexchange is killing that too (Pandora is about to close because of their new fees).
Piracy is not cool in my book, but their methods of fighting it are akin to a police state stripping all your rights in order to catch a few more criminals. It's not about crime at that point, it's about abuse of power with an excuse.
Your points above have a value, but attacking everyone as if they have the same extreme view is not a reasonable way to articulate your point. Although it sure seems to work in politics.
The cookie told me to.
"We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music."
/RIAA
RIAA
Why is that consumer talking about "music" when this is a question of "content"?
If it is true that all of these artists are getting every last penny of theirs stolen by the record companies, how can they afford the drugs on which they're overdosing?
Actually, the people sourcing ripped torrents are saints. As are the people posting copyrighted binaries to Usenet. These people deserve lifetime supplies nachos and cold beer of their choice.
5.) Strawman arguments are perfectly valid in debates.
6.) ???
7.) Profit.
Ah, so the REAL win here is that the next incident won't have to reinvent the case from scratch, but instead can build directly on all the records from this case. Should save both time and money for the next victim who fights the RIAA, and hopefully make it that much easier to progress to the next step after this one.
That was the purpose I had in starting my blog. And it has worked. The lawyers representing defendants learn from each other, and stand on the shoulders of those going before us.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I think you're missing the point of that declaration: she only meant to indicate how fond she was of music.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Can you please cite this whole "0.02" cents thing? I see tons of it around but no one ever sources it.
It's in the recording agreements that there is a royalty, it might be 10%, 12%, something like that. But then the record company takes out huge expenses, many of them fictional expenses that are not actually incurred, such as 25% 'packaging' costs and the like. Then when it comes time to account for the royalties they frequently report much less than what is actually owed. Then the artist has to hire a royalty audit accountant, and sometimes a lawyer, in order to collect a fraction of what is owed as a "settlement". So I don't know if the real number is 2 cents, or something more or less than that. But every entertainment lawyer knows that it's a very tiny amount of money.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
And so that's why she took the money, instead of settling her right to do what she wanted with her music.
And for those saying the case was dragging on too long for her to pay her lawyers, just realize that the RIAA settles only for less than it would pay in fines and fees, and only when it's going to lose. So if she and her lawyer had hung on through a trial, they'd have gotten more money. Which is all that the lawyers care about, and their businesses are designed for them to wait - and they have to do it if their client wants to go through with it. So Barker is the one who sold out her principles for a little temporary safety and an early paycheck.
--
make install -not war
*** "I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music."" ***
Well, if you downloaded music without having legal rights to it, you deserve to pay.
Sure.
Piracy is responsible for every dime that Metallica ever made off of me.
This includes their cut of the Ozzfest 2008 tickets I bought.
When they were young they understood this.
There's a world of difference between causing actual harm and
driving Lars Ulrich into hysterics because he's a control freak.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Psystar are the good guys.
Pssh, what, you think you can slip that past us just by putting it at the end of the list? /third to last/ in the list to do that.
You've got to put it
Metallica is not worth the ruination of someone that pirates their work.
The "problem" of piracy is not worth the measures being proposed to "solve" it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
while pirating some band's entire discography in a 250MB RAR file?
Which band...? I'm really curious even if you meant GB. Maybe RAR compression is really that good? :-D
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Copying a work is preserving a work.
Even an imperfect copy is better than none at all.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I would beg to differ. Stealing (theft) is the taking of the property of another with the intent to deprive him of the value thereof.
Copyright infringement does not take the property of another. The essential element in copyright infringement is the creation of new copies, which is to say, new property, without the right to do so. In making these copies, you may cause the rights-holder to lose sales, and thereby injure him, but you are not taking his property.
For that reason, we have separate laws barring copyright infringement and stealing.
For a contrast, if you were to go to a dairy and take the milk crates, intending to keep them, you would be stealing. The milk crates are the property of the dairy, and you are taking them.
As well, if you could arrange it so that when you downloaded a song the computer from which you downloaded it lost the bits, perhaps having the file turn to zeroes. If you then downloaded from a RIAA machine, causing them to lose the material, you would be stealing because you would be taking their bits (as opposed to merely copying them).
Tilt at windmills. Occasionally one will fall over out of sheer surprise.
This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.
That's what I've done. I almost exclusively listen to NPR nowadays and I would encourage everyone else to do the same. Although for me it was a combination of the RIAA and the fact that I don't like any of the new music from the decade of the '00's. But the fact that the music industry goes around attacking their customer base would be sufficient to make me just avoid music altogether.
I would beg to differ. Stealing (theft) is the taking of the property of another with the intent to deprive him of the value thereof.
You're wrong right off the bat. Stealing is not theft. Theft is the taking of property. Stealing is the act of unauthorized acquisition.
Copyright infringement does not take the property of another.
Yes, it does. It violates the exclusivity of the copyright. The right of property is the right to exclude.
In making these copies, you may cause the rights-holder to lose sales, and thereby injure him, but you are not taking his property.
Absolutely incorrect. The rightsholder's only property is the copyright. By making those copies, to use your example, you are asserting a copyright, which is the rightsholder's alone. You are taking his copyright as your own.
For that reason, we have separate laws barring copyright infringement and stealing.
There is no law against stealing. We have separate laws for any number of different forms of stealing. This sentence simply does not hold value. Larceny is not burglary is not infringement is not conversion is not embezzlement is not unjust enrichment. There are many different laws, all premised on the notion that what's yours is yours and no one else can interfere with it.
If you then downloaded from a RIAA machine, causing them to lose the material, you would be stealing because you would be taking their bits
Since no one can own bits, this is irrelevant.
The most interesting aspect of re-reading Love's rant from the year 2000 is how open she was to putting a torch to the whole, stinkin' mess, and trying something genuinely, radically new.
She was way ahead of the curve -- too far ahead.
Eight years on, the labels are still in control, and the lack of quality and innovation is worse than ever, with no end in sight. From a business standpoint, one has to admit that the labels have done a terrible job dealing with the internet. I can't think of any other business that has failed so spectacularly. EVERBODY has learned how to make money using the internet. There are WHOLE SECTORS of the economy that have been invented, grown up, and are making real money based on the internet.
But from the music distributors, we get lawsuits and six radio stations all playing the same classic rock playlist.
It's just sad and pathetic, really. It's clear they have no earthly idea how to make a buck.
When I read this rant before, I was saying to myself, "yeah, right -- in your dreams". Now, I'm not so sure. I think I may be ready now.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
But what about them milk crates?
Those probably were stolen property.
So somebody should probably sue 7-eleven for "making them available" by leaving them outside by the back door.
But it turns out that she's paying the RIAA, instead of the RIAA paying her. So she lost.
The RIAA couldn't have been on the back foot, reeling from the judge's ruling in Part 1. If it had been so, they'd be paying her a settlement to avoid Part 2.
I think you need to define what "bad" means, because otherwise you make no sense at all.
How the fuck was Napster the bad guys? As far as I can remember it was some dink in a university who made some software to help him and his friends share music. Fuck. Get a goddamn perspective.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
$45K/year is about what the average household income is in the U.S. Now substitute venture capitalist for recording company in the article. What does the average guy who started a software company get? About the same deal as this mythical band got. The band didn't have to take the contract. Neither does the software engineer. Both can try to make it on their own by growing their customer base organically. But if you decide to take the man's money in order to shortcut the process, why do you think that you are entitled to the riches? It was the VC or recording company that took the risk that you were going to be a flop. It isn't your money that is being risked, it is theirs.
FreeSpeech.org
I'm asking to have someone cite a source. Not to come up with numbers that they can't even confirm.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
If a 250MB RAR file contains an entire band's discography, then the band hasn't recorded much. Like the other person who replied, I don't pirate music. To be honest, the main reason is that it's too much effort to find a decent quality rip and download it compared to ordering a CD online (although it would arrive faster). I check RIAARadar before I buy anything - last year I bought the entire discography of one band I liked in one go, with the exception of their two latest albums which were recorded after they signed with an RIAA label. If enough people did this then bands would start to see signing with these labels as a way of reducing their income, and the RIAA's power would evaporate.
As it is, they are a bunch of thugs who manipulate and abuse the law (which they often bought in the first place). I say this as a writer, who makes his living from copyright and has recently been a 'victim' of widespread copyright infringement (someone posting a PDF copy of my book to a large public mailing list).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
How is Psystar the bad guys?
Because the result of Psystar's actions will be bad for their customers and Apple's customers alike, and benefit nobody, and if you can't see why then I'm not going to explain it again.
PS: that should be "How are Psystar the bad guys?" or "How is Psystar a bad guy?".
Napster's business model was morally equivalent to that of a fence. Their income was based entirely on promoting illegal activities.
There's a difference between those examples, and that's who's profiting.
Amusing as "the laws of toon robotics"* may be, they are intended as a joke. I don't think that appending "unless it is funny" to ones actions changes them from being wrong to being right.
Now, on the other hand, it is possible that you've found a gray area. Certainly they exist. And there are also undoubtedly areas where the labels do wonderful work for their artists, and the RIAA's actions are entirely reasonable and justified. In fact I suspect that the balance of such exceptions on the side of the music industry, but I wouldn't quibble about them in the RIAA's favor any more than I would quibble about them in *ster's favor. There's a reason that exceptions are *called* exceptions, after all.
* The laws of toon robotics:
First Law. A robot must not embarrass a human or through inaction allow a human to be embarrassed, unless it is funny.
Second Law. A robot must provide any straight lines or other schtick requested by a human, except when this violates the first law, unless it is funny.
Third Law. A robot must maintain its patter and promote its own schtick, except when this violates the first or second laws, unless it is funny.
You're supposed to notice. But you're supposed to *think* about it. Glad to see the slashjerk effect is still alive.
I'm asking to have someone cite a source. Not to come up with numbers that they can't even confirm.
Maybe you should pop over onto some musician's forum and ask? Contract signings are individual and confidential, and that's how the labels want them since it's not in their interest for their near-fraud to be public. Few bands are going to risk pinning the details up on their websites so that people can laugh at how they were duped into near-unpaid servitude by the offer of a shiny advance that, it turns out, is far less than the contrived industry costs which they have agreed to reinburse out of future earnings.
A few high profile musicians have detailed, with numbers, exactly how music business finances work, the classic Salon article by Courtney Love being the best known --- someone posted it in this thread too. But since you're clearly trying to suggest that no problem exists, no doubt you'll disparage her for one reason or another and discount her figures.
Well let's put the shoe on the other foot: unless you can point to figures indicating the opposite, then the few sets of figures that have been presented publicly (and not refuted by anyone) hold, and NYCL's 2nd-hand knowledge of the sad state of affairs holds too. Your turn --- show us the opposite, if you can.
Others cited the Courtney Love article. Dig into it and you can find lots of similar stories from independent artists.
You won't hear one word about this from the major labels. If you're a media person and you want to talk about their contracts they'll hang up on you. According to them, anything even remotely related to their finances is confidential. One of the reasons they're not independent anymore is to hide their financial filings, which are basically fraudulent.
In case you want to discuss merits rather than the folly of those arguing them, we're talking about an organization who has been giving love in order to suckle off the teat of pro-IP legislation such that copyrights now never expire, and even after this governmental handholding are insisting that even fair use is bogus. Yeah, there are merits.
next time i'll use peer guardian!
"So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult."
While the enemy (content producers) tend to lie and cheat, we should still strive to take the high road.
While I'm sure the record industry would rather that we not have music files on our computer unless they were purchased in digital form, that's not what she was sued over.
"Putting music files on your computer" and "Putting music files on your computer and then running file-sharing software" is a difference which may be indistinguishable to some, but it makes all the difference as far as the law is concerned.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
I'm asking to have someone cite a source. Not to come up with numbers that they can't even confirm.
My source for what I said was actual recording agreements and actual royalty audits. Sorry they're not posted on the internet.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Fight the good fight?
I'm sorry, but what did she do? Was she building the case? documenting the tatics? researching the topics? No, her attorneys were doing all that. All she had to do was show up in court (if required) and pay, and it's not like she was in court every day.
She obviouslly was running out of money and she knew she wasn't going to win. That is why she backed down.
Dear NYCL,
Can $3 get them a logo branded pen from your office? : )
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
and if you can't see why then I'm not going to explain it again.
Again? You never explained jack in the fist place.
Just because you got some mods-on-crack to mod your original post up, doesn't make it valuable or truthful, and does NOT fool the majority of its readers.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
So who paid for this woman to be prosecuted? Well, if you bought any music by any of the bands at http://www.atlanticrecords.com/artists just before or during this trial, then YOU might have helped to fund this prosecution.
Artists that financially support this action include: Bjork, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin, Missy Elliot, Rob Thomas and Bloc Party.
Were YOU funding any of this terrorism ?
Can you PLEASE write the same two paragraphs in every music/RIAA/etc related thread? Because it seems a lot of people don't know this.
Oh, RIAA/MPAA astroturfers know this; they're just pretending they don't know it.
Whenever you see a lot of repetition and redundancy you can be reasonably sure some marketing parasite is involved. Like all mass market advertising they're trying to drown out legitimate view points with content-free noise.
---
Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
There is no difference (to a typical windows user) in making files available for oneself and making files available so that everyone can see them.
It seemed to me that making them available for yourself is covered under fair use. Because there is no distinction you cannot prove the original intention. just my 2c
She is the one who ends up paying. You a slashdot editor or something? Good job on the Duke Nukem Forever story earlier.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wow.
A self-fulfilling "Whoosh!"
Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would he still have whooshed it if you hadn't said anything?
Dude,
No matter how stupid someone's defense of RIAA is, there's a reason there is no -1 Disagree.
Actually, their business model was based entirely on creating a unique and brilliant piece of software and selling it for millions. Omg, teh horror. I know.
The fact that you jump to the erroneous and foolish conclusion that they set out to be super duper masterminds of crime shows us where you fall in this discussion.
We have a word for folks like you: Shill.
I absolutely agree that the US courts, RIAA, or really ANY organization out there can "end 50,000 years of the creation of music".
But that's not the point, really. The recording industry, in all of their greed and short-sightedness, really is damaging people's ability to enjoy music the way the artists intend it to be heard.
Have you seen the disgrace that is "digital mastering" in the big studios these days? Look at the waveforms of samples taken from recently released rock music CDs, if you don't believe me. They're so involved in a pissing match to release the "apparently loudest" tracks, they're compressing and normalizing the content to death. If they can find 1db of headroom they haven't saturated, they'll find it someplace in the pre-production stages. Most of the stuff out there has a waveform that looks like a rectangular block, not waves!
I like music from bands like the Foo Fighters and Breaking Benjamin, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but my ears get fatigued after only a couple tracks off any of their recent albums. It's because the studios have ruined the original recordings, boosting all the quiet portions of the songs and flattening the peaks to make it all an equally "hot" mix. Total ripoff!
It's very possible to claim the record industry really *is* playing a huge role in alienating a generation from enjoying music as it's meant to be heard. It's not only an issue of cost, or not making the content legally available in the formats people prefer or demand ... but they're physically destroying the QUALITY of the recordings too!
Actually, their business model was based entirely on creating a unique and brilliant piece of software and selling it for millions.
Just because software is brilliant and unique doesn't mean it will sell for millions.
Business models aren't based on making a better mousetrap, they're based on finding use cases that are so compelling that people buy them.
The primary use case for Napster was "unauthorised sharing of copyrighted files". The role that Napster themselves played was acting as the go-between. That was why people paid money for the program, not because it was an efficient file transfer tool, but because it gave them plausible deniability while they shared ripped tracks... and Napster thought it gave THEM plausible deniability too because their servers were just getting traders together, not hosting any files.
Everyone: Make sure that if your stuff is stolen, that you file a police report, so that you can prove you once owned these discs.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I agree that making unauthorized copies violates the exclusivity of the copyright. I also agree that one of the sticks in the bundle of rights is the right to exclude.
It does not follow that violation of copyright is stealing. In order for that conclusion to hold, we would need another assertion, namely that violating any property right is stealing. Alternatively we would need the assertion that the right to exclude is the only stick in the bundle of rights.
That such is not the case is easily demonstrated with real property. When I trespass, I am violating the right to exclude. None would argue otherwise. Yet truly, I am not stealing the realty. I am not interfering with the right to possess, another stick in that bundle. When the police get here, they are going to have me up for trespass, not stealing or burglary.
The same is true of personalty; we thus have trespass to chattels, where I damage your property, I do not steal it. When I hack into your computer and program it to injure itself, I have not stolen your computer. You still possess it; I may never even be in the same state as the property upon which I trespassed. If it is a virtual server, there may not even be any property outside of our imaginations, but you still possess whatever you possessed before.
Historically, there were things I could do with your wife that would violate your rights in her. There it is impossible to argue that I have taken anything other than improper liberties.
A copyright is a property right, though the nature of the property is a little more elusive than realty or ordinary chattels. If I violate your right to exclude, perhaps by making an unauthorized copy, you still have your copyright. You still have all your physical chattels, too, being the legitimate copies you made and keep for sale. I have taken nothing from you except a potential sale, and your remedy ought to be in damages for the lost sale rather than replevin for misappropriated chattels.
Copyright is even more extravagant than that. It is possible to infringe a copyright by allowing the public to view part of a copy in the background on television for a few seconds. Ringgold v. B.E.T., 126 F.3d 70 (US 2d Cir., 1997). This is true even if I legitimately purchased the copy from you. Few other than the RIAA would say that I took anything from you when that copy was in the background on television. If you did not keep a television, and simply inventoried your things, you would never detect the infringement. Had I stolen something, your inventory would surely reveal it right away.
Not every violation of a right is stealing. If one does not take something with intent to deprive the owner, one does not steal. Copyright infringement violates a right, but does not steal. That's why the remedies differ.
Tilt at windmills. Occasionally one will fall over out of sheer surprise.
In order for that conclusion to hold, we would need another assertion, namely that violating any property right is stealing.
No, we would merely need to refer to the definition of stealing, whose legal construction is nothing more or less than unauthorized acquisition. We can also refer to the applicable lay definitions: taking without legal right; dishonestly pass off as one's own; gain unexpectedly, surreptitiously, or through exploitation; appropriate without right or acknowledgement; or any of the dozens of others from the OED and elsewhere that apply.
When the police get here, they are going to have me up for trespass, not stealing or burglary.
Merely because the police cannot arrest anyone for stealing; it is not a crime. Trespass certainly is stealing, as it is an unlawful assertion of a right.
Historically, there were things I could do with your wife that would violate your rights in her. There it is impossible to argue that I have taken anything other than improper liberties.
Interesting that you would bring this up, since it actually contradicts your entire point: those historical rights are based in the marital property, which has for over a century (except in Louisiana) been an outmoded way of thinking. Historically, it would be a form of stealing. Today, it would be "improper liberty".
If I violate your right to exclude, perhaps by making an unauthorized copy, you still have your copyright.
I do not. That's the entire point of copyright infringement. Violation of that exclusive right cannot be undone--that copyright is forever diminished by your action, and there are damages even if you subsequently destroy all of those unauthorized copies, albeit significantly mitigated ones.
Not every violation of a right is stealing.
Indeed. Every violation of a property right wherein a right is unlawfully asserted as one's own, to the detriment of the rightsholder, however, is.
This is true even if I legitimately purchased the copy from you. Few other than the RIAA would say that I took anything from you when that copy was in the background on television.
On the contrary, what is taken is the guaranteed right of public display. The RIAA has nothing to do with it. You did not purchase the right to publicly display, so again you introduce an argument from ignorance (or at the very least, an imprecise and ham-fisted attempt to distract from the issue). Whether you bought a copy or not has zero relevance.
If one does not take something with intent to deprive the owner, one does not steal.
No. You are using the definition of theft and thereby creating the most threadbare of straw men. Theft is stealing, but stealing is not theft.
I am sorry, but neither I nor the dictionary see any real difference. In short, our disagreement is over whether we can distinguish theft from stealing, and that I do not much credit your distinctive definition of stealing as ``unauthorized acquisition''.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines stealing as ``1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.'' I believe this is a fairly good statement of the common understanding of stealing. As an intransitive verb, steal is defined as ``1. To commit theft.''
The difference between infringment of copyright and stealing is simply this: when I infringe the copyright, I do not actually take anything. Your characterization, that ``what is taken is the guaranteed right'' is erroneous. I no more take the right, though I trample upon it, than I take your land when I trespass over it in my big boots.
You still have the rights of copyright after I have infringed. If you did not, your suit against me for infringement would fail. One of the elements, indeed the key, is that you have the copyright.
Furthermore, you still have the ability to exercise your rights. My infringement will not prevent you from distributing or exhibiting legitimate copies. I displaced sales, but that does not prevent you from making and selling legitimate copies after you shut me down. Your remedy for the displaced sales is money damages, not replevy of wrongly detained property.
I have acquired nothing of yours, stolen nothing from you. Yet I have still injured you, in that you expected to have revenue from the sale of a copy and now you do not. Thus, you will sue me, not for stealing but for infringing your right.
Tilt at windmills. Occasionally one will fall over out of sheer surprise.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines stealing as ``1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.'' I believe this is a fairly good statement of the common understanding of stealing. As an intransitive verb, steal is defined as ``1. To commit theft.''
The American Heritage Dictionary (a poor choice, at that) lists several definitions for stealing. The point remains that theft is included in the definition of stealing, but they are not coterminous in the least. Even looking at a dictionary shows you this.
You still have the rights of copyright after I have infringed.
Infringement is the unlawful assertion of a copyright. It is a taking. That's what makes it unlawful in the first place. If you take a peach from a fruit stand, you still legally have the rights in that peach. That's what makes you prevail in an action for theft. You are making a poor argument and repeating it in a broken loop.
Furthermore, you still have the ability to exercise your rights.
Not against you, I don't, as you have taken it upon yourself to exercise my exclusive rights. Again, this is the entire wrong you have committed.
I have acquired nothing of yours, stolen nothing from you.
Your density is nothing short of amazing. The copy belongs to me. If it did not, I could not sue you for infringement. You have taken a copy, and you have asserted in doing so a right to copy.
Thus, you will sue me, not for stealing but for infringing your right.
You cannot sue for stealing! Period.
When I first used Napster it was free? Are we talking about the same software here?
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
That's a good idea. I ought to start doing something like that, using "NewYorkCountryLawyer" merchandise as a fundraiser.
That's a good idea. I ought to start doing something like that, using "NewYorkCountryLawyer" merchandise as a fundraiser.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Issues like this and those that have been brought on by the RIAA are a large worry for me. To top it all off, our elected officials are being lobbied by the RIAA/MPAA. There needs to be a new vision taken in combatting this online bullying by prospective authorities on the consumer-base. I was reading an article at theReformed ( http://thereformed.org/2008/08/27/riaa-lobbies-at-dnc/ ) by Jon Longoria which really laid out a plausible options for strategy in beating them at their own game, but really - how do we start this?
She'd better watch out, or the milk company will be after her for stealing their crates.
go to hell you stupid fascist!