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.'"

Comments

Utter failure

[ShaunC]

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...

Re:Utter failure

[R2.0]

"The RIAA and McCain's campaign must use the same people for their due-diligence vetting..."

Has the press gotten so pathetic that the only story they can dig up is the fact that the vetting turned up some stuff and they decided to go with her anyway? They knew about the ethics probe, the baby, the husbands DUI, and the earmarks, and decided they weren't deal breakers. And guess what - the public has let out a collective yawn, so I guess that means that the vetting process worked.

Call me when the press finds out something that REALLY takes people by surprise.

Re:You people have no imagination.

[hellwig]

This brings up an interesting idea. I'm not saying anyone should setup kiddie porn servers, but we know there must be some out there (why else would the US ISPs shutdown Usenet?). The MPAA is known to seed anonymous torrent servers, and I assume the RIAA does the same. Since they do this in-descriminately, they surely have seeded (even if falsely) a kidde porn server or two over the years. Even though they are disseminating incorrect information, couldn't their participation in these illegal servers still constitute breaking the law? I would love to see the government bring down a kiddie-porn server, and show logs of numerous MPAA or RIAA seed-bots participating in the distribution of kiddie porn. They wouldn't look too righteous then. A single "Record Industry Distributes Kiddie Porn" headline would effectively destroy the major labels.