Slashdot Mirror
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."
Once again, they back down, meaning that they performed the legal equivalent of "Ha Ha Ha, just kidding, can't you take a joke?" At some point, they're going to get slapped down hard for these tactics and on that day, there will be much cheering from Slashdot.
I wish we could just take all the lawyers that flagrantly violate court orders like that and put them in jail for contempt. Alas, our judicial system is such that these violations either go unnoticed or at least barely noticed by the district attorneys. They've got bigger fish to fry. But, man, once just once, one of them should teach these guys a lesson.
My blog
Probably not. I expect they'll continue with their bullshit in other states while lawyers who haven't done their homework will not be able to help their clients.
That's just what I expect, though, because I know that it's better to expect the worst and hope for the best.
No problem.
Hey, Ray, by the way, I think I speak for lots of people when I say thank you for what you're doing in this area.
Pity nothing's going to happen to them over this.
It doesn't seem to matter if they drop every case that's going badly for them, it has no real effect on the other half.
So can we expect ISPs to start incorporating in Texas the way that credit card companies like to incorporate in Delaware? Granted, the former would be for protection from industry harassment and the latter is for protection from usury laws, but if I were an ISP I'd certainly look on Texas as a nice place to call "home" for legal purposes.
The RIAA cannot be forgiven for the things they try and pull, or the extortion they have forced onto many people. But it drives me nuts the people that still continue to grab their music illegally which just helps prolong and reinforce the idea that the RIAA is needed (to record companies). Buy a CD, buy from iTunes, buy from Amazon, I don't care. I know people who can absolutely afford to purchase their music legally, but don't. Not because of any stance against record companies or compensation for artists. They just do it, 'because'. It's free after all. BLARG.
/RANT
Sorry. Just had to say it.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Seriously...where the hell are their accountants at? Anyone who actually has gone through the required business classes would be well aware of how insane their imaginary losses are. Now, that is not the same as using those insane numbers to further a media blitz, but internally that nonsense does not stand up to any kind of sanity test. So...with a more realistic number on "lost sales" I can't imagine that there is a terribly high real return on their lawsuit happy nonsense. I imagine the costs of these constant legal battles take a pretty huge chunk of change.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
I see a very bright outlook for Apogee Telecom's ISP business this year.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
You think that is amazing. You should see how many Corporations are based in Rhode Island.
Granted RI is a small state, roughly 40 miles square. But if you look at your own (or closest) city there are probably 3 or 4 colleges within 10 miles square of it.
Lets use the Little City of Troy, NY
RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Hudson Vally Community College, and Russel Sage All within 5 miles of each other.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It actually is closer to infringing on copyrighted goods, because that's exactly what it is.
Stealing means what was taken was against the owner's consent, and that the owner is now deprived of that good. Copyright infringement, on the other hand, means that you have made an unauthorized copy of a work and are selling it/giving it away/making more copys, which is the case here.
That has to be one of the best summaries I've ever read on slashdot. I didn't even have to RTFA and I am up to speed on the story.
Ok, even though the comparison with stealing is a poor one it's good enough to draw some paralells.
Shoplifting happens. bad thing, yada yada.
Now to combat that walmart pushes through some ridiculous legislation and then hires companies to spy on shoplifters,people who might be shoplifters and people who live near possible shoplifters.
Normal customers who pay for their goods start getting patted down regularly, denied entry or exit from the store and called criminals and threatened with legal action if they tried to sell things second hand.
When they catch some 13year old stuffing a 5 dollar item into his coat they take him to court and sue him and his family for $100,000 .
In their crusade to catch the shoplifters they extort records out of local organisaitons with threats of legal action and generally abuse the legal system to find the home addresses of people who might be shoplifters.
They threaten tens of thousands of families with similar suits and offer a shoplifter settlement where you can pay a few thousand in exchange for a promise of not being sued.
Some of the people who get accused of being shoplifters are of course innocent and were simply falsely identified as shoplifters but since there's still a chance of losing absolutely everything and the weight of evidence is not the same as a criminal case those families can't take the chance of losing all their worldly goods and have to pay out of fear.
Imagine a world where walmart acted like that.
Now imagine where the public sympathy would lie, with the kids who are shoplifting or with walmart?
Sure violating copyright is wrong but violating privacy laws and generally abusing the legal system is much much worse.
I am superman (Yes I am) (Yes, I tell you, I am) (I am superman) (Yes, I am) ...
No, doesn't seem to become true even after saying it many times. Does it work for you?
Most of us have no problem with WHY the RIAA is doing the things it does -- our problem is the 'how'.
Then why do a lof of /.'ers justify their reasoning for d/ling stuff without paying for it? Why do a lot of /.'ers talk about it is not wrong to take music without paying for it because it doesn't deprive the creator (or ip owners) with a "physical" copy?
/. crew has as much problem with the WHY and the HOW. BTW, if the RIAA was that flagrant about judges rulings then more judges would be throwing down the gauntlet...they aren't though. So while we may get up in arms apparantly those judges are not...and judges tend to get really annoyed when people do not obey their decrees.
No the
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
the /. crew
So you are attempting to lump together everybody on Slashdot who is not you as "the /. crew"? Strange.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Pirating is not stealing because stealing has it's own definition.
Such definitions are relevant and important and have real moral consequences.
I'm always amused how the morally pompous have no problem being LIARS in order to make their point.
Also, "before the internet" is a weak metric for ethics. Human society is far older than that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
...this is another example of the moral bankruptcy of the self-righteous.
Not all of us are "justifying personal acts of piracy". Some of us just
realize that there is more to this issue than the plush lifestyles of
A&R men or their victims.
A lot of work is still subject to "ownership" that should no longer be.
Some works are no longer even available and may be lost permanently.
Creativity is threatened by effectively perpetual copyright and the social
costs of allowing publishers to lock away works that are older than any
participant of this forum are absurd. The consequences are rediculous
when compared to genuine acts of theft that would have been
acknowledged as such by Hammurabi himself.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So you subscribe to the same dishonest debate tactic.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Again, you seem to have a problem with the definition of "taking".
You should read some of my posts, because I actually have said it. Here's the executive summary:
(Please try to consider the following from a layperson's or "common-sense" perspective, rather than a lawyer's one.)
Because of this, I have to conclude that copyright is not, in fact, a property right. Therefore, I take issue with your use of "owner" and "property" in the quotation above.
Now, if you rephrased that to say "I have not seen any one saying there is something 'wrong with a copyright music holder protecting their government-granted monopoly'" then that would be different.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Umm. He said 40 miles square. That would be about 1600 square miles, so he thinks it's bigger than you do. :)
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
Well it's good for us down here in Texas. Now that they've been down here they know we carry guns. Then you take into account that most people down here view G W Bush as a supreme intellectual.
So RIAA come on and bring some more of those Yankee subpeeners, we got more bullets than you've got paper.
It's funny how you selectively pick the easy part to reply to, even conceded by me: the section you quoted is followed by "I'm being pedantic". The original point of contention still stands:
the definition you provided clearly states "taking [..] from someone"
Repeating your exact statement without even acknowledging the real point of my rebuttal does not make it more true.
And before you try to twist this sentence construct by using creative grammar, "from someone" can only be interpreted as a specification of "taking". If it was meant as a qualification of "something" instead, the preposition "from" would have to be replaced by "of" or even "belonging to".
Corporate espionage is, indeed, commonly referred to a "stealing secrets", phishing is known as "theft of private data"
Amazing, ins't it, how many redundant words exist in the English language. But even this similarity will not help your argument about distributing music online: "private data" and "secrets" share a minor commonality that separates them from the arts: they are not meant to be published. Besides, have you ever heard of an employee that published internal memos being prosecuted for larceny? Can you name one single case where a user was tried for larceny committed through P2P software?
murder - the premeditated taking of life - can be viewed as a (particularly disgusting and reprehensible) form of stealing too
Lol. If we go on like this, I bet I can get you to admit that the act of telling a bedtime story to a child is stealing too.