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RIAA Claim of Stopping Suits "Months" Ago Is False
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "According to a report on Wired.com, the RIAA spokesman claimed that the RIAA has not filed any new lawsuits 'for months,' and according to the Wall Street Journal report discussed here yesterday, the RIAA stopped filing mass lawsuits 'early this fall.' Knowing that the RIAA has a problem with telling the truth, I did a little investigating, and found out that the RIAA had, in fact, commenced a wave of lawsuits just last week. Why would anyone believe anything their spokesperson says? This is an organization that has a tendency to misspeak a lot, if you know what I mean, even when under oath."
CNet has a copy of the RIAA's new form letter that it will ask ISPs to pass on to alleged copyright-infringing users. It says, in part, "This letter does not constitute a waiver of our members' rights to recover or claim relief for damages incurred by this illegal activity, nor does it waive the right to bring legal action against the user at issue for engaging in music theft."
We will ask the ISPs to cooperate in sending C&D letters to people we identify with our proven-poor methods, THEN, after having said we won't sue* we'll use the C&D letters from the ISP to target lawsuits.
I really have to wonder how their lawyers sleep at night (on beds of $100 bills, I'm sure). The people employing the lawyers I have no doubt sleep peacefully, dreaming of other ways to game the system.
it's probably a ploy to get more people to download pirated music, as lawsuits seem to be their main source of income these days.
...the old plan, twice the spin.
Just think, with the ISPs on board they can be sure they sue the right people this time round (probably).
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. - H. L. Mencken
RIAA Caught Lying About Stopping Prosecution Tactic
Otherwise, when people see "RIAA Claim..." people stop reading. "RIAA Caught Lying..." gets people's attention.
I once had a signature.
I'll give you ten cents if you can tell me what companies the RIAA represents.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
And the WSJ is checking facts like SNL's Weekend Update apparently.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
I don't know if you have any experience with the internet, but the banners on websites are not individually hand-picked by the website owner and carefully arranged on the page for emphasis. The website owner signs up for Google ads or something, which then throws banners up on the page according to some loosely-defined algorithm, often based on keywords present on the web page. In my experience Scientology banners pop up in the stupidest of places. NYCL does't endorse Scientology and more than he endorses... (click)... Ghiradelli Chocolate.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Whoa, time out! NYCL is the local Slashdot guru on all things RIAA and IIRC, been personally involved in the good fight for quite some time. I don't recall him ever advocating Scientology in the past. Several thousand knowledgable and well-researched posts to Slashdot on RIAA matters over a period of many years just to trick people into clicking on a Scientology ad today would have to constitute the most over-engineered setup of all time.
Remember... never attribute to bad Thetans that which can be adequately explained by the vagaries of third party ad servers. (with apologies to Hanlon's razor)
"The sum of all knowledge does not imply the knowledge of all sums" Kurt Gödel (paraphrased)
Perjury is only when under oath. Unless done to commit a crime (libel, fraud, etc) you're allowed to lie as much as you want.
I'll give you ten cents if you can tell me what companies the RIAA represents.
Why is that a troll? The majority of people I know seem to think that it's the RIAA doing all of this on their own. They're just paid to do a job, after all. We should be looking past the public face of the music industry, and start paying attention to the corporations who are truly responsible.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
There is no such thing as "music theft". It is settled law in the US that copyright infringement is not theft, and calling an infringer a thief can constitute libel.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
We will ask the ISPs to cooperate in sending C&D letters to people we identify...
ISPs are well know to *fold* at the slightest sign of a lawsuite, I expect the RIAA to have much better luck with this approach.
As to why the RIAA *has no shame* at all *and keeps on doing* things like this? No court has seriously slapped their hand, and it doesn't look like any will in the near future. So much for our court system protecting the innocent and keeping an eye on things.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
As has become painfully obvious in the political sphere over the past eight years, lying is not done for the sake of lying, nor is it done for the thrill of fooling one's fellow citizens. It is done to promote an agenda that would otherwise be difficult to advance without widespread belief in the false statements of the liars. In the case of the euphemistic "recording industry assoc" the lies are aimed at mitigating the negative publicity that is cutting into the very profits they are trying to protect. In short, this is one of those lose/lose situations to which unrestrained greed invariably leads.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
The majority of people I know seem to think that it's the RIAA doing all of this on their own.
In my opinion, the RIAA has nothing to do with it at all, except that it's allowed itself to be used as a front by 4 of its members: SONY BMG, EMI, Vivendi/Universal, and Warner Bros., and their affiliates. When I use the term "RIAA" I'm just using it as shorthand for the Big 4 record companies (I use the term "Big 4" advisedly, because they're getting smaller every day).
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
The simple solution to this is to bankrupt the RIAA members. It worked for the big three - they've been producing crap cars for decades now, while the Japanese took our advice that our own people would not receive, and have been producing fantastic, high-quality cars.
In other words, give them a bailout once they ask for it?
(I use the term "Big 4" advisedly, because they're getting smaller every day).
I'm sure that disturbs them greatly. I also note that there were some thousands of blacksmiths who once felt the same way.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Which just so happen to be part of conglomerates (News Corp, Time Warner, Disney, and Sony) that also own our television networks, movie studios, book publishers, and (wait for it) the Wall Street Journal.
Which of course has absolutely nothing to do with why a story like this might be put out there.
I am officially gone from
Might I add: Get your music fix from Indie artists. Buy from eMusic.com or AmieStreet.com. You'll spend less money, get music from great artists, won't get DRM, and the artists will actually see much of the money you're spending. I'd love to see the day when an eMusic/Amie Street artist got so popular that they broke into the Top 10 list. (If that's even possible.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.