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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.
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"
... 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.
Has the press gotten so pathetic...
Yes.
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!
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
Perhaps I talk to others, but here's what I'm getting:
Bastard child in the family - Obama was a bastard
DUI 20 years ago - Chappaquiddick
Tried to get earmarks for town - Duh, that's what mayor's do.
Investigation into trying to get her BIL fired - By all accounts he SHOULD have been fired and was being improperly protected.
Trying to paint her as a hypocrite is similar to criticizing her experience - the more the Dems do it, the more they open themselves up. They won't lose votes over it, but they WILL do wonders for the conservative/evangelical turnout in November. The press is doing Palin's job for her, and I'm not even sure they know it.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
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.
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.
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."
Not even that. Except for the die-hard Democrats, who really cares if the candidate's husband had a DUI 20 years ago? it has nothing to do with her qualifications and everything to do with how desperately her opponents are looking for mud to sling.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
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.
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.