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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."
Kid: "Mommy, can I go to the store by myself?"
Mom: "No, son."
5 minutes later
Kid: "Daddy, can I go to the store by myself?"
Dad: "Sure, son. Here's a dollar. Get a candy bar".
1 minute later
Mom: "SO I HEARD YOU WENT BEHIND MY BACK AND ASKED YOUR FATHER TO GO TO THE STORE"
Kid: "I just mentioned it to him. I don't want to go anymore. Thanks, bye!"
Mom: *Result Pending*
The bread was dull and lifeless with a so-so crust. The waiters were nasty and dumb and the water tasted like spleens? But where was my love the bird of porridge cromulence|>?? We found dogs fucking.......
If you can read this you are ot gay, you are a straight heterosexual who likes penis in vagina and you are probably not Italian.
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.
RETREAT!!!! lol
you never lose in ure razorblade shoes......Beck-Hotwax
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
The good folk at Ninnle Labs have implemented something in the latest NinnleBSD that prevents the RIAA from finding out anything about peer to peer downloads on systems running it. Currently, they're working on the same implementation for Ninnle Linux.
As a RI resident, I can pretty confidently say that there no "College of Rhode Island".
Unless you mean Miskatonic University.
Way to go, editors.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
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!
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.
This is a real shame - the RIAA's valient efforts at killing this terrible piracy are going to waste. :(
I feel very sad today.
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.
They do this because they're all cases that would work so poorly in a court for them.
And still get away with it, despite consistent abuse of the legal system like this.
No longer a laughing matter... :-(
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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
I love how this is tagged with 'hahahahaha' 'riaasucks' and 'bastards'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Content
Down with all of these cartels.
If you don't know what Cmd-Shift-1 and Cmd-Shift-2 are for, GTFO.
If you think Firefox is a decent Mac application, GTFO.
If you're still looking for the "maximize" button, GTFO.
If the name "Clarus" means nothing to you, GTFO.
Bandwagon jumpers are not welcome among real Mac users. Keep your filthy PC fingers to yourself.
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!
That's a pretty egregious example of forum-shopping.
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
The real pity is the society's general sympathy towards the small-time crooks, who download the wares they didn't pay for.
There may or may not be a fault here and there in how *AA fights for the rights of their members, but the underlying problem is that people continue to steal (yes, their action is closer to stealing of tangible goods, than "information superhighway" is to an autobahn).
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
or something
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.
http://www.apogeenet.net/contact/
I did!
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
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.
It's not the lawsuits that cost the RIAA a ton of money. It's all because of pirates. Y'see, if it weren't for pirates, then they wouldn't have to spend all this money on lawyers in the first place! So there ya have it... even the legal costs are a direct result of piracy. It makes PERFECT sense!
Oh hey, and on a random note, I've got this really awesome bridge for sale out in London, if you're looking to buy.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
Commander Keen to the rescue!
Anybody know of a Southern California ISP based in Austin, TX?
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.
Well, since we're being nitpicky over definitions... you wouldn't be arrested for assault for beating him up. You'd be arrested for battery, or possibly assault and battery. Assault is the threat or attempt to hurt someone. Battery is when you actually land the punch.
Perhaps now you can see that lots of people may have difficulty differentiating between similar but separate crimes.
Given their history, they shouldn't be free to just withdraw from a lawsuit without prejudice just because they can't force the suit through in the right court.
The meaning of object "A" does not depend upon the fact that object "B" is uniquely defined. Object "B" can be defined in such a way that object "B" will always include every object "A" and will also include different objects "B", "C", and "D." In the law, this concept is the concept of lesser included offenses.
Your ipse dixit: "Such definitions are relevant and important and have real moral consequences." Without explaining the relevance, importance, or moral consequence of your semantic distinctions, your semantic distinctions are meaningless.
You argue like a poorly trained hyper-didactic elementary school teacher.
When somebody says that they were robbed when they were in fact burglarized or stolen from, I'm not going to jump their shit over meaningless semantics.
God I love living in Austin! We're an island of blue surrounded by a sea of red. :-/ But at least we're the best part of the entire state! :-D
I have frequently borrowed audio CDs from my local public library and ripped them onto my home PC. (Often, those CDs are shipped from other libraries that are part of the local network). Am I infringing on any copyrights? I do not upload those mp3s using any file-sharing software. Its strictly for my personal use. If I'm not infringing on any copyrights, why doesn't everyone do the same thing - borrow CDs from your local public library and rip them.
I would argue that by ripping those CDs to my home computer, I can avoid requesting those CDs from other libraries in the neighborhood (every-time I want to hear the same CD) thereby saving the library (and hence the taxpayer) money on transportation costs. Additionally, it reduces the amount of processing the library has to do.
cheers, http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks
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.
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."
First I want to be sure you know that I agree with what you wrote here. I wish people would be much more clear and refer to copyright infringement as copyright infringement because that is what it is. Doing so, like you say, does not say in any way whether you think it is "good, moral, legal, or should be done/not done".
However, you are not the first person I have seen replying on this article to attempt to clarify that copyright infringement is not stealing, and then in the same post use the term piracy to refer to copyright infringement. I think this speaks volumes about what the RIAA and the like are doing. They take something that is relatively new and until recently a foreign concept (copyright law and the concept of intellectual property) and equated breaching such laws as being the same as things that have been universally hated for as long as man has existed. They like to muddy the waters. It is in their favor to do so. First, they get some people to really think they are the same things. Then they get those people to label people like you and I - who are merely trying to correct - as supporters of these heinous acts.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Which is about a psyco record industry executive A&R guy who - a bit like Ellis American Psyco - kills his competing executives to get ahead.
Great read - and i get the feeling that more than a little bit of the book is similar to the real world.
Let's face it - right or wrong is secondary to money, and might makes right. There is no chance in
hell that the recording industry is going to changes it's lifestyle willingly. The question is: how can they be made to?