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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."
While it is a good thing to see more of these ludicrous John Doe cases dismissed, it could have been rather comical to see RIAA go up before a judge that had told them to stop the bundling. I mean come on, it always works out for you when you ignore the order of several judges.
Government - If you think the problems we create are bad, you should see our solutions!
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.
salad bar justice. pick some from here- don't like that thing? - go pick some others over there.
when you do wrong things, you get fined or punished. RIAA is doing (repeatedly) wrong things. so where is THEIR punishment?
kids, STEAL music all you frickin want. the laws are still not working (yet) and so I give you free permission and free reign to do whatever the hell you want with cd's, dvd's, etc.
until and unless those 'responsible' for the barrage of lawsuits and legal 'heat' on regular citizens stops, there is no reason to follow their laws that they, themselves, don't even respect.
as soon as there is a HUGE judgement against the mafias, there won't be equality. to get equality, steal all the music and movies you can.
the mafiaa wants to treat us as renegades, fine, we'll assume the role fully. just realize that its OUR way of fighting injustice the only way we can. courts are STILL TOO SLOW to find real justice in this area. until then, do what you need to. you have my permission as your symbolic elder ;)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
How can they keep doing this? I'm amazed that nobody from the RIAA has been slapped with contempt of court or some other law.
Free Martian Whores!
While the Ignore-any-law-you-don't-like thing doesn't appeal to me I'd instead sugest creating some decently effecient darknets to make this "Lets sue everyone and drop the case against anyone who looks like they have the means to actually defend themselves" utterly impotent.
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).
You buy into the myths that 1) piracy hurts copyright holders 2) the RIAA is afraid of pirates 3) The RIAA is the only (or best) place to get music.
For the first, see lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons and the introduction to Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Both are posted in full on the internet, and both are selling well; I read Doctorow's book on the internet, and then bought a hardcover copy that sits on by bookshelf like CDs ought to.
If you want to hear the latest RIAA top 40 dreck, turn on the radio. It's free and it's legal, and if you want a digital copy of that single you can sample the radio. Legal? I don't know, but back in the cassette days they specifically made recording off the air legal.
I would urge everyone to NOT download, buy, or listen to RIAA music, even though any lost sales due to the boycott that has been going on for years is attributed to piracy. You have internet radio with thousands of stations with tons of indie music. You have local bands, all of whom record these days. Buy from them and you will get higher quality and a far lower price.
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.
Odd, I don't know a single one. I hear it from the RIAA all the time, but have never met this mythical pirate. Why would one steal bottled water when you have a filtered tap on your sink and money in your pocket? Almost every non-RIAA band WANTS you to download their music, and to do it for free. They know that nobody ever lost money from "piracy" but most suffer from obscurity, including RIAA bands; they can't get everyone on the radio.
BTW, iTunes doesn't sell music, they rent it. If you want to "buy music" you need to buy a CD, as you have resale and lending rights with it. It is a physical object. When you rent from the internet, you own nothing. P2P and digital downloads should be what the indies use it for -- promotion. The RIAA is trying to kill P2P not because "piracy" hurts sales, but because your hearing indie music hurts RIAA sales.
Stop doing business with sociopaths.
Free Martian Whores!
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.
Am I missing something? So what made this illegal? If they didn't do the act in Austin then they didn't do anything illegal. I am no fan of RIAA but to call something illegal when it is not is wrong. They complied with the judges wishes and stopped doing what they were doing in the Judge's jurisdiction.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Stealing of information by copying has been punishable by law for many years - way before the Internet.
No, infringing copyright by copying is punishable by law. Stealing by copying isn't, because you can't steal something by copying it.
It is a flawed argument to think stealing information is not a bad thing.
No one said that is wasn't a bad thing. The point was that is isn't stealing. An action isn't automatically stealing just because it is bad - if I beat you up, I won't get convicted for stealing, but I will get convicted for assault.
Many companies have their entire business model setup on proprietary information - the people here a /. may not like this - but guess what - the people here at /. were not the ones investing tons of money/time into those soft-products.
There is nothing wrong with having your business model set up on proprietary information. What _is_ wrong is abusing the legal system to catch people who may or may not be breaking the law at the expense of a large number of innocent people.
Also, that nice new fancy drug that you or your family/loved ones are taking to save their lives...that formula is most likely (for new drugs) a closely held secret by a company that spent many millions in R&D. Without these copyright protections said companies would have no reason to create life-saving medicines.
You seem to be confused. You can't copyright a physical object such as a drug - you have to patent it. You can't keep patented IP a secret, since the whole point of a patent is that it is published.
The patent system has a lot of problems, but it has nothing to do with copyright, is not the matter under discussion and last I heard the drug industry didn't go around suing random people without any credible evidence that those people have done anything wrong.
Just like drug makers have to protect their recipies from international infringements so do people who want to profit from their music.
Nothing wrong with a copyright music owner protecting their property.
So what has this got to do with stealing?
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Most of us have no problem with WHY the RIAA is doing the things it does -- our problem is the 'how'.
Anyway, would you condemn copyright infringement -- for the record?
Yes I am opposed to copyright infringement.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Stealing of information by copying has been punishable by law for many years - way before the Internet.
Yes, it has. Do you know why these laws were established? (Hint: The reason had nothing to do with compensating creators for their efforts). That's a prerequisite for understanding how they should be applied with the existence of a world-changing technology like the Internet?
It is a flawed argument to think stealing information is not a bad thing.
You're the one arguing that information, which by it's very nature is infinitely reproducible and has no inherent scarcity, unlike physical objects, should be arbitrarily restricted, at great expense to society. The burden is on you to show why it is bad to copy information.
Many companies have their entire business model setup on proprietary information
True, and in fact I make my living that way. But irrelevant. Buggy whip makers had their entire business model set up on producing implements for controlling horses. Times change, businesses must change with them.
Without these copyright protections said companies would have no reason to create life-saving medicines.
Copyrights have nothing to do with medicines. You're thinking of patents. They're different, and have a completely different purpose.
BTW, I'm a big fan of copyright law, done right. Our copyright law is screwed up, and what the record labels have been trying to do is even more screwed up than the law, but it's still a very good idea if done correctly.
Oh, and I don't infringe on copyrights per the law, even though I think the law is wrong to the point of evil.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I debated modding you up instead of posting since i think your downmod was unfair.
But I wanted to address your points more, and folks can see your post by looking at the reply posts parent.
1) Stealing is not Piracy is not Copyright Infringement.
2) The laws surrounding stealing (or many other crimes) have not been adjusted for inflation resulting in "felonies" for what should be misdemeanors. When the laws were passed, you would have to steal half a year's earnings to qualify for a felony-- now I earn more in a day.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement
3) The United States has the most people imprisoned in the entire world. It's reaching a level that we can't even afford to incarcerate everyone. Mostly because of drugs and the felony issue.
4) Copyright has been distorted by corporations from 28 years to basically forever (not yet but they are shooting for it 10 years at a time).
So where do I stand.
1) Infringing up to 20 albums (240 songs) within a 28 year period should be a misdemeanor subject to a $500 fine.
2) Infringing more than that should be a felony.
3) Infringement after 28 years should be a misdemeanor unless you are selling them for profit.
4) Devices used directly to infringe can be confiscated tho unrelated data should be returned to you as soon as possible (so yup, you lose your computer and maybe your CD burners)
5) Where the material and the laws seem unreasonable, I'll infringe and I will suffer the consequences when caught. I have little respect for this body of laws, which I mainly see as against the original intent of the copyright laws. The intent was to create properties which would rapidly enter the public domain where it would be used to make other new creations. The intent was not to provide an income stream for life and lock up melody and word sequences for multiple generations (and soon "forever less one day")
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.