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RIAA Backs Down In Austin, Texas
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In November, 2004, several judges in the federal court in Austin, Texas, got together and ordered the RIAA to cease and desist from its practice of joining multiple 'John Does' in a single case. The RIAA blithely ignored the order, and continued the illegal practice for the next four years, but steering clear of Austin. In 2008, however, circumstances conspired to force the record companies back to that venue. In Arista v. Does 1-22, in Providence, Rhode Island, they were hoping to get the student identities from Rhode Island College. After the first round, however, they learned that the College was not the ISP; rather, the ISP was an Austin-based company, Apogee Telecom Inc., meaning the RIAA would have to serve its subpoena in Austin. The RIAA did just that, but Apogee — unlike so many other ISP's — did not turn over its subscribers' identities in response to the subpoena, instead filing objections. This meant the RIAA would have to go to court, to try to get the Court to overrule Apogee's objections. Instead, it opted to withdraw the subpoena and drop its case."
As a RI resident, I can pretty confidently say that there no "College of Rhode Island".
If you read the judges' order you won't find the words "in Austin" there.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Granted, but then why are they only avoiding Austin?
Why they would violate the order, and flagrantly violate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, on a daily basis, for 4 years... is a question I can't answer. You would have to ask them.
The reason they were avoiding Austin is no doubt that the judges who issued they order that's been violated would probably hold them in contempt and might even put them in jail.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Theft is a synonym for stealing.
Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. I am not aware of a synonym for it.
The RIAA uses the terms "piracy" and "stealing" in referring to copyright infringement, but do so inaccurately, as part of their propaganda.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You're trying to make a point, and I understand what you mean, but you're really arguing something that's irrelevant. You are also making people focus on the wrong thing, dragging what point you were trying to make off into the weeds. When someone says "pirating is not stealing", they are not talking about what you're talking about when you say "pirating is stealing".
If you would drop the semantics and make your point without using the words "pirate" or "steal" and instead use "copyright infringement" you would start to see how your arguments actually aren't that different from the ones you're arguing against.
Also, note that US copyright law considers the financial impact of any potential infringement, among other things.
"Piracy" has generally been when someone copies something and sells it, like the Chinese DVDs or Windows for a dollar. Clearly you are reducing the market value, if people no longer have to pay full price. More recently, "piracy" is being used in the sense of simple copying for personal use, for situations like downloading music that you already own so you don't have to convert it to FLAC/MP3/AAC. This could be considered fair use because there is no financial benefit to you and no financial loss to the vendor (ignoring the uploading part, since those parts would be available regardless of whether you were uploading them because you got them from somewhere, so your actions are not materially contributing). So even talking about "piracy" is a muddy conversation if you don't clearly define what you're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Comparison_to_theft
http://www.copyright.com/Services/copyrightoncampus/basics/fairuse_rules.html
And if anyone wants to copy this the next time someone like this pops up, i release any copyright claim on this comment and it is public domain. Copy, paste, improve.