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5 Years of RIAA Filesharing Lawsuits
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "David Kravets of Wired.com, who provided in-person gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Capitol v. Thomas trial last year, takes stock of the RIAA's 5-year-old litigation campaign, concluding it is 'at a crossroads', and noting that 'billions of copies of copyrighted songs are now changing hands each year on file sharing services. All the while, some of the most fundamental legal questions surrounding the legality of file sharing have gone unanswered. Even the future of the RIAA's only jury trial victory — against Minnesota mother Jammie Thomas — is in doubt. Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.'"
Take a position not shared by 90% of your customers, and you're guaranteed failure. It really doesn't matter what the law says is right. It's economics, and the RIAA has failed or will fail, one way or the other.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
File sharing is perfectly legal, thankyou.
telephone numbers, etc of all of the music company CEO's published on the web. I bet some good hacker could do it. That might put the nail in the coffin.. Most info like that is in the public domain- or the phone book.
The SEC's site computer EDGAR is very useful
Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.
And many are not wondering anymore. The ultimate failure of DRM was predicted a few years ago on these very forums. Thanks for playing anyway.
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
"Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.'""
Prohibition.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.
I would say so, especially with so many well-publicized false positives. The RIAA and McCain's campaign must use the same people for their due-diligence vetting...
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
... thanks, not only for the objective insight which permeates much of your postings, nor the informative summaries that accompany your submissions, nor even for the occasional comedic relief provided by your dry wit, but for writing a summary that *doesn't* end in a rhetorical question.
(seriously, though, WTH do all the damn summaries end with rhetorical questions or even just plain rhetoric?
I'd be curious to see an expense report comparing the amount they've spent on legal fees during this whole campaign to the return on investment.
"Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure."
Some?! Wondering?! To date they've convinced the internet audience they so desperately wanted that the entire music industry, most telecoms companies, and quite a few governments are a parade of cash-guzzling corporation-fellating litigation-whores, and done absolutely nothing to peer-to-peer file sharing itself. Where is there any room for doubt as to its failure? It's like trying to give a guy CPR, but realising after hours of effort that you've brutally beaten the guy and his entire living bloodline to death with their own shoes instead.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Not sure how you could measure it by anything but a failure. All of the various ways of measuring it given by RIAA itself pretty much indicate failure.
If they meant to reduce file sharing, total failure there as there's been no slowdown. If they meant to give back to the artists, failure on their part as any winnings/settlements has only gone to fund more litigation. Not only that, they only have one substantive win which may be declared a mistrial as the judge reconsiders his orders to the jury.
The campaign is a failure. This would have been money better spent on actual innovation on distributing music.
Depends on your perspective... definitely not a failure for the trial attorneys billing by the hour.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Ah how time flies. Soon we'll all be reminiscing about the good old days, students flunking final exams, single parents reduced to financial ruin, the Federal court system tied up in knots and used in a way that creates disrespect for the law. Good times...
It never was about getting more money to the artists, and the article now confirms it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.
Hmmm...nothing's changed in 5 years, RIAA has no slam-dunk victories to show for it, thousands upon thousands of customers pissed off to the point of not buying music at all anymore, only a few million bucks extorted from victims, despite claims of billions lost....
Well, I'm NOT wondering if it's an "utter failure".
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
5 years that they went only backwards, not forward...
But I'm not posting to offer a problem: I offer a solution.
1. Get an anonymous server.
2. Put a shit load of music on it.
3. Add on kiddie porn.
4. RIAA and cronies download music and child porn.
5. Call cops, RIAA has just downloaded and consumed child porn!
RIAA, "Your honor, we're investigating a CRIME!"
Judge: "Uh huh. And I suppose you're going to write a book about it too. Sorry, the excuse didn't work for Pete Townsend or Gary Glitter - OFF TO JAIL!"
See? That's all you got to do.
Thank you, AC, you have shown me the light. Henceforth, I shall be on the side of good. RIAA, count me among thy converted.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
I know of no other business that expects the customer to keep them financially afloat that thinks they can treat their customers with disdain and they will not suffer in the end for it. I am sure that the idea that suing college kids, who are the music industries future customers, will come in full circle to reflect that the majors have nothing they are interested in.
It was once repeated that in the trial Clara Duckworth (I hope I got the spelling correct) said that it was a money pit, this sue'em all. Apparently they have more money than they need and far less sense. So they must be doing far better than all the piracy hoop-a-la leads you to believe if you buy into their spiel.
I am personally repulsed by this idea and the method that has been used to bring it to fruition. I see all sorts of poor folk all bogged down in this. What I don't see is politicians and their families in the middle of it. While they claim it is not discriminatory, it sure looks like the victims are most carefully chosen. After all, kids of the CEO's of big music don't have to worry about sue'em all, despite of public admissions to the nature of doing so. For them a good talking to appears to be the solution that is not available to the rest of the public.
While I am at the subject, isn't it strange that nothing has been heard about lawsuits at Harvard University? All the other colleges in the country are getting them, except Harvard. Could it be there was a private meeting at some point where Harvard read to them from the good book? (their version being the law books)
I have no idea on all that. I do know about the publicity that has been generated by all this. I for one have ceased to buy from the majors. I don't trust them. At the way things have been going, somewhere in the future there may come the day when they decide there is some other point they wish to do away with and you may become the test point in court at great expense to prove/disprove their next legal theory. If you don't deal with their products, it is doubtful you will ever be the guinea pig.
They have done themselves a huge amount of damage in the public's eyes. The PR they have generated is full of ill will. They will have to go a long way to win me back to the store to buy any of their products. Everything about them screams slime and I am a potential customer, I am not a potential consumer.
I think this guy said it best.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
RIAA is merely whinging about market losses where this is a situation of an industry that has systematically refused to give the customers what is most practical, what intelligent customers want. Experimental computerized music synthesis of the 1970s (e.g. trying to *imitate* Bach or Beethoven as patterns) should have been a wake up call that computers and music could be cohabitating in the near future. The arrival of the music CD (80s) even as an anolog should have been a wakeup call to even the brain dead. The arrival of, say Sound Blaster 16 (1992), was the technology at the gates.
RIAA members have deliberately and directly avoided properly serving their customers for well over a dozen years. They have actively engaged in a campaign of tampering with both the laws and the laws' execution. They actively attack and extort those members of society least able to defend themselves, including total innocents, with ridiculous claims similar to common street thugs. One wonders what RIAA is going to do if avoidance or legal confrontation are replaced by outright vigilantism. I've seen this in other countries and the history books in other situations.
...if you view their goals and their audience accurately.
I argue that they didn't want to stop file sharing. Or they did want it, but didn't expect to succeeded at such an endeavor.
The purpose of this was to make filesharing seem like a small scale threat that could easily be dealt with by a campaign of lawsuits. Most of the investors in the RIAA have no idea how the recording industry works let alone why the internet is such a giant threat to it.
These lawsuits were a smokescreen to stop shareholders from realizing the record label's business model had failed. Any survival at all would involve massively reduced profit margins. If they had realized that, shareholders would have bailed from the recording industry en masse.
The goal of this legal campaign was to buy a few extra years for the the Hillary Rosens and the Jack Valentis of the world to quietly divest themselves of recording industry stock.
So good job guys! May you successfully avoid shareholder lawsuits!
5 years ago (2003) I would buy maybe 1-2 CDs per month. Definitely less than what I bought in 2000.
Now, I can't remember the last time I bought a CD. Definitely none this year so far. I don't think I bought any in '07 or '06 either.
Partially it's because of the whole stigmata and the ease of getting things off of P2P and (to a lesser extent) usenet.
A lot more is because I just don't see much good stuff out there, and my collection of the classics is pretty much complete.
I'm also a bit wary about newer releases of older albums having less dynamic range due to remastering (see: loudness wars), but truthfully it doesn't matter to me since my collection is somewhat complete.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
If you go on a backpacking trip and you are eaten by a bear, the fact that the bear is no longer hungry does not mean that your trip is not a failure.
Benefits of companies hired to attack P2P are irrelevant to RIAA's campaign outcome, which is ultimately to increase profits. Since they paid a lot of money to third parties and got nothing, it is a failure.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
both van halen and heart have written the mccain campaign, more than once in the case of heart, that they do not wish their songs used to further the political campaign of a person they disagree with.
it's too bad that all these artists don't have some kind of professional organization to represent them. you know, it could collect dues from its members, and then stand up for them in cases like this, where their hard work and creativity is shamelessly co-opted as a marketing gimmick by those in direct and diametrical opposition to the artists themselves on any issue of importance.
like, an association of american industry recordists, or a recording association of american industry... something...
They will never stop until somebody makes the
Disclaimer: I didn't read the article - only read caption above and had this thought...
/. has no fear of the RIAA because, well, its really not that hard to file share and not get caught. Slashdot is a community of people who praise themselves on being technology adept at such things.
Pretty much everyone using
That being said, I'm forced to wonder if the RIAA has been more successful than they're being credited for. Many/most of my friends don't share the same enthusiasm for all things tech that I do, and I don't think its a leap to say they're less educated about these things. Not a single one of them has been prosecuted by the RIAA, nor have they been threatened by the RIAA. To the best of my knowledge, none of them even knows anybody who has been threatened by the RIAA, much less prosecuted by it.
Nonetheless, I hear things like "I don't download anymore, its not worth the risk" or "I just use iTunes now, its much safer" on a regular basis (we'll say bi-weekly for the purpose of this conversation). That's not hearing the same thing from the same person, but rather hearing these things from lots of different people. I hear it from people at work. I hear it from my distant family. And I'm starting to conclude that with the perceived threat of prosecution by the RIAA, coupled with the ease of using services such as iTunes or Amazon, there is a movement underway (possibly a massive one, depending on how you define this) towards "safe", legitimate file downloading.
I heard a lot about this in college, which is where a lot of RIAA hype was focused. I can't speak to the high school and younger crowd (who may be more advanced with file sharing, I don't know), but most of the people I know who are unfamiliar with Bit Torrents but continue to download music, games, movies, etc., are transitioning to doing so in a legal way. I can't say with any certainty how much of this is due to the fear of prosecution, but I can say I hear a lot about it, and how its just not worth it anymore.
Here's one other thought, slightly off topic: I've been using Pandora for about a year now. While I still use Bit Torrent occasionally to download music, I've found using Amazon a pleasant, fair experience when I find new music from bands I'm interested in hearing more of. Bit Torrents generally only offer entire albums, and its nice to not have to wait for an entire album when all you want sometimes is a single song.
They have failed repeatedly. They just have loads of money and can just keep failing over and over until they run out. When will that be?
Hey! Let's leave Microsoft out of this.
Found recently an article about piracy, mostly in context of games but also touching **AA claims. This is pretty much my opinion on piracy in well written form.
It is hard to swallow to many, but I still stand on the position that many people will not engage in what now called "piracy" if only business was better and quicker in responding to changing customer needs. Nobody wants to be criminal, nor states want to criminalize its populace. But **AA actions... This is pretty much worst what have happened in creative business in ages.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Maybe this is real obvious to people. it took me awhile to glom onto it.
It's been a success, it just hasn't finished its course yet. First, ask yerself, What is the **AA's ideal win situation?
Consider that they're substantially in bed with the TV industry also, and while not always in concert with cable and satellite distributors, often in parallel.
The ideal situation is what WAS, with a few new techno gadgets. That is, all information and entertainment channels neatly tied up; no individual (read: Human) talents leaking around the filters, only going thru the **AA contract filtering process, etc.
This requires that home computing be made illegal, completely. It must be a crime to write software, or load non-**AA approved software, onto any computing device you own. Consider this situation:
A. Enormous technological capacity at
B.. nearly zero cost in
C... everyone's home that is
D.... available to the corporations, and
E..... completely inaccessible to non-corporate (read: Human) interests.
What corporate interests would benefit? Political parties? Law Enforcement, Dept of Homeland Insanity? M$$$? **AA??? Marketing corps of all stripes?
Every corp and govt body that is interested in getting you to buy their stuff or control your stuff will benefit if the **AA eventually wins. I can't think of one national or international corporation/govt that won't benefit by using the people's computing powers against them.
This is going to be a long fight, and the only ones that can really lose are we the people. If we win utterly, and computing freedom is assured and privacy rights restored, corporations will win in the long run, they just can't see it.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
You know I don't believe the supposed billions of file transfers of illegal music.
The numbers are now so huge that everybody in the world is in on it or they're just trying to blow smoke up our asses.
Since I doubt that Conway Twitty's albums are getting that much action ANYWHERE, I think I want to see some audited numbers, Okay?
Fuck the **AAs.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I am a software engineer who shoots photography in a 'serious amateur' mode.
like many, I have a public sharing site (I use flickr but others are basically the same kind of 'publish and show' concept).
the cool thing about the public networking sites is the amount of eyeballs that view them.
a few weeks ago, I got email from a representative from a cable tv network (a large well-known one that has a 3 letter 'call sign', sort of like how HBO uses 3 letters to ID their network. it isn't HBO but its along those lines and just about as big). the rep said that they found my photo (or set of photos) and thought they might be useful in a tv 'spot' that they were producing and airing in the next few months. they wanted to get my permission to use it in some way on their show.
of course, I was flattered. I asked what their terms would be and what kind of payment they would have in mind. remember, this is a for-profit TV network (ie, not PBS) and they *should* have proper budget for things, even ancillary things like my still photo.
well, we went back and forth on email for a few rounds and I even consulted some folks in the biz that are in touch with common practices in this industry. it turns out that, more and more, media companies are trolling the free photo sites and trying to take advantage of 'amateurs' by offering NO PAYMENT but only trinkets (tee shirts, comp dvd of the show, and stuff like that) but no payment, no royalties and basically asking for unlimited rights to do whatever they want with the work of art, even on 'future media types' not yet developed. perpetual license - and I, the artist, get spud-nutz (so to speak).
is that fair?
I hear all this talk, over and over again, about artists should be paid. so I returned the sentiment back to papa media and papa slammed the door in my face.
I asked for a simple low-value (relatively) one-time payment and immediately the reply was 'sorry, but all the others we contacted offered their photos for free and we have no budget to pay guys like you'.
I just LOVE this double-standard. when someone downloads a song for free, there are THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS being asked for in damages. but its ok for a major studio network to ask for FREE WORK even though its original, creative and of value.
so, it seems, my photos won't be seen on that nationally airing show, but I also have what I wanted from this exchange. I sent a message, however small, that what's good for the goose is also good for the gander. I don't expect my protest to count for a lot, but I did what I could do and denied them free use of my creative work. I'm sure they'll move on to the next guy on the list but I have at last made my statement and stood my ground. and I still have the fun compliment of knowing they WANTED to use my work on national TV (and on the eventual dvd that always gets made from TV specials).
do I have any more respect for the big media companies? in fact I have lost even more respect for them - and I didn't think that such a thing was mathematically possible.
big media says artists should be paid. but they clearly don't believe this - my direct recent experience is proof of that.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Are there any numbers published - perhaps in annual statements - as far as how much they've recovered from 'settlements' ie extortion, vs how much they've spent?
Or do you think they might not be willing to sue someone with the chops to hit back?
Think of all the unborn children of todays artists, that won't be able to ride the coattails of what their parents have done
I know your entire post was a joke. It's funny.
I just wanted to add that the artists generally don't get the benefits of the lengthy copyright terms...its the labels that really cash in.
Here's an analogy:
A carpenter becomes well known for his excellent chairs. He is approached by a salesman who offers to duplicate these chairs in a factory and sell them all over the world. The carpenter agrees to this plan when told that he will receive $1 for each chair sold. And of course, he can continue making chairs by hand for people who want a more personal performance.
Years go by, the carpenter makes some money, but realizes that the salesman is making millions for doing virtually nothing.
Then one day, someone figures out how to make identical copies of his chair and posts plans for it on the Internet. Now anyone with a saw and some wood can make a perfect copy of the chair. Those who don't have the time can still buy it from the salesman or pay a bit more to get one from the carpenter.
The chair made by the carpenter is like a rock concert.
The chair from the salesman is a CD.
The chair you make yourself is a digital copy from the Internet.
There is no way this would be considered wrong, illegal or immoral if we were actually talking about some chair design like an Adirondack or even some fancier newer design like an aeron. Nor would providing plans for others to make copies be considered illegal since there is no loss to the carpenter. His inventory is not short, his supply stock is not depleted.
But the salesman would be pissed, because his revenue is dependent on need and achieved with virtually no effort on his part. Now, there is less need through no effort on the part of the consumer. This is direct competition so the natural response is to petition the government to make this illegal and protect his business.
We have a long history of protecting businesses through regulation. It's anti-competitive, anti-consumer, tends to create monopolies and is basically a bunch of corrupt politicians taking money from thieves who would like the barn doors left open.
The only way to hasten the demise of an organization like the RIAA and its member companies is to stop buying content that you can either copy yourself or acquire directly from the artist. Support your artists, go to their concerts and if they sell direct, buy their albums. But we need to stop buying anything distributed through the channel and starve these guys until the music distribution model becomes more like chair design and construction.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
Now I get it. The REAL reason they're losing money is because of these unbelievably stupid lawsuits. I bet if they just went back to selling whatever product they have that might be worth selling and fire all the lawyers they've retained over the years, they'd stop losing money.
I wonder if they're interviewing for a CEO.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
Anything that takes in that much money can't be called a failure. It's wishful thinking to say otherwise. Judges are still finding in their favor, and nobody has been able to put a stop to their extortion racket yet. Their lawsuit racket is a machine that requires practically no work, and takes in thousands of dollars per victim. A thousand letters go out, and a couple of million dollars come back in. Hardly a failure.
It's immoral, and we hope that mainstream non-geek people will see it eventually...but currently, as much as it pains me to say so - it's a win for them. A big one.
If we convince ourselves that we've won and walk away when we haven't - then we are the ones who've lost. So let's not say what we hope things are. Let's say what they really are, and go from there.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You'll get the same argument that slashdot gives to those who accuse it of hypocrisy. We're not one homogeneous group. The same can be said for your example of "big media".
Bring in MASSIVE amounts of money.
Hell, if you believe the RIAA/MPAA figures, more than the GDP of a country is "made" by pirates in so far as they "remove" money from the labels.
So by your reasoning, piracy is no failure and neither are robberies, extortion etc.
Spokeswoman Cara Duckworth of the RIAA says the lawsuits have spawned a "general sense of awareness" that file sharing copyrighted music without authorization is "illegal." "Think about what the legal marketplace and industry would look like today had we sat on our hands and done nothing," Duckworth says in a statement. Buzzt...wrong. Set the wayback machine to 1995-1996. This was near the beginning of the mp3 format. Those on the edge were ripping their music cd's to their hard drives for their own use back then. It took nearly 3 years for the information to disseminate to a wide enough audience for Shawn Fanning to decide to create the Napster network. Then it took a full 2 years more for the RIAA to realize this could be done to begin with. The RIAA is quite slow and stupid. I would go so far as to propose that because the RIAA sued Napster, and brought massive media attention to this 'illegal' activity, they have been the teacher of their own destruction. Now everyone with any computer, ipod, or cell phone knows they can download music for free, and they also know how to do it, which is now maximizing the recording industry's losses beyond their wildest imagination. And then the RIAA/MPAA added their warnings to not download movies, in the previews of video tapes and DVD films. Now the entire world knows they can get on the internet and download illegal copies of movies too. They have not learned anything. How many times must we tell them - all they have to do is come up with a reasonable way to allow the public to get what they want, whether that is gratis/fair use, or simply include the fee as a part of the media cost. In the United States, we already pay a copyright fee on every piece of blank cdr/cdrw and dvdr/dvdrw media that is for sale - and they want more money from people who actually violate this law to line their own pockets beyond compare?