RIAA Hearing Next Week Will Be Televised

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "One commentator labels it 'another fly in the RIAA's ointment.' In SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, the Boston, Massachusetts, RIAA case in which the defendant is represented by Harvard law professor Charles Nesson and a group of his students, the Judge has ruled that the hearing scheduled for January 22nd will be televised over the Internet. The hearing will relate to Mr. Tenenbaum's counterclaims against the record companies and against the RIAA. In her 11-page opinion (PDF), District Judge Nancy Gertner labeled as 'curious' the record companies' opposition to televising the proceedings, since their professed reason for bringing the cases is deterrence, 'a strategy [which] effectively relies on the publicity arising from this litigation'."

Comments

Terminology

[corywingerter]

televised over the internet??

Either it's televised on the television, or streamed on the internet. Just saying.

Re:Terminology

[zarthrag]

Using my media-center, the internet is my television! ...Insensitive clod.

Re:Terminology

[Ogive17]

Be nice to NYCL - he's fighting the good fight :)

Re:Terminology

[Anonymous Coward]

tl;dr? it was barely a couple of paragraphs, you must have a short attenti

Re:Terminology

[DanTheStone]

Not theft, unauthorized copying. There's a difference; the cost to the owner is by decreased scarcity or potentially lost revenue, not by the loss of possession of an item with value. You can't steal thoughts and ideas, you can only copy them.

Re:Terminology

[sbeckstead]

Wow, an industry shill this early in the morning. And one who STILL doesn't understand the meaning of THEFT. Somebody mod this crap as trolling.

Re:Terminology

[ChromaticDragon]

I dunno... I'll hazard a guess.

The "scare tactics" of the RIAA are about more than just fear. It's about FUD: Fear; Uncertainty; Doubt.

By televised court proceedings, you may increase the Fear aspect (assuming they actually have a strong case), but you may significantly reduce your portion of Uncertainty and Doubt.

I imagine the industry wants very much to perpetuate the concept that Copyright Infringement equals theft. One doesn't even need to get into the debate of whether it is "as bad as" theft. All the RIAA/MPAA publicity efforts seem simply to hinge on the equivalence (I mean.. you wouldn't steal a car would you? huh WOULD YOU?)

The trouble is the Industry seems scared too. Although they seem to have been easily able to purchase legislation to their hearts content, they probably realize laws on the books won't matter a bit if the larger society as a whole shifts in their view of said laws. First, they won't get enforced. Second, eventually even if the laws don't get overturned, sooner or later Jury Nullification will take over. Or we might start seeing damages scaled way, WAY back to realistic levels.

Public perception of these folk may be souring greatly. These things can shift rather quickly. I believe this is what they fear.

Re:Terminology

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I wonder, honestly, why does the RIAA oppose this being televised?

That's easy.

Exposure of these proceedings gives information to those who must defend future cases, thus reducing their defense costs.

Re:Terminology

[nine-times]

Well, no, I'd disagree there. After all, that's the real battleground here, isn't it?

I suppose it's the battleground, in that some people are specifically trying to tie the two together. There's a specific PR campaign to change terminology so that it will change people's perception.

However, when they began this campaign, they were basically starting from zero. I don't think most people started out thinking of copying files as a crime, but certain powers have really fought to have it labelled as "piracy" and "theft".

Even though they've made some headway, ask most people, "Is downloading a song from the internet the same thing as breaking into someone's house and stealing a CD?" I don't think many people will say "yes" unless they have some sort of political stake in pushing that PR.

Re:Terminology

[commodore64_love]

Strawman argument. It's a logical fallacy to insert words into my mouth that I never said.

I think RIAA's actions are reprehensible, but I also think the same about people downloading songs without paying the employee who made the music. If you think something is good enough to burn to a CD-R and keep, then you OWE that employee some kind of payment for his labor. Otherwise you're no different from a boss who refuses to pay his workers.

RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs

[Smidge207]

One million for 7 songs?! How does something like that even get in to court? Can you imagine if I stole $6.93 (.99 x 7) worth of beef jerky from 7-11? Do you think the court would even hear a case where they wanted a million for my crime?

This is the new business model of the recording industry, which is exactly like the old model. Overcharge your customers and when that doesn't work, overcharge and extort from your customers to make up for shortfalls you generated because you have a crappy product.

There's only so much "drug money", oops CD purchases, the listening public will bestow on ungrateful addicts, oops recording artists...

(Yes I'm bitter this morning; still need my meth, oops coffee.)

=Smidge=

Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs

[Animaether]

Although I absolutely agree with you on the ludicrous claim of $1M for 7 songs, I do think I should point this out...

'The Slashdot Crowd' is always quick to point out that copyright infringement is -not- stealing. So I don't know why you're comparing stealing a beef jerky from a 7-11 to copyright infringement.

I don't think this case is about distributing, just downloading, but in the typical cases it is about distributing.. so your analogy would have to be akin to going into a 7-11 store, copying their beef jerky, then distributing that for zilch to anybody who asks you for another copy of the 7-11 beef jerky. 7-11 still have their copy of the beef jerky to sell, so there's no harm done to them directly. Just because nobody's actually buying it anymore because they can get it from you for free doesn't magically make it stealing.

Of course.. you can't copy a beef jerky.. the only way for you to be handing out beef jerky is to acquire it yourself - and I very highly doubt you'd be able to give it away for free with no money exhanged somewhere somehow.

So 7x$2.49 or whatever those songs went for back in the day (this is a Napster case, right?) plus a monetary slap on the wrist, and call it a day. Though if I googled it right, it seems that Tenenbaum tried exactly that ($500) and the RIAA didn't take? *shrug*

Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs

[TheSpoom]

The real problem is that the RIAA don't have a product anymore.

They used to control the means of recording. No longer, since the equipment necessary can be got for much, much cheaper than years ago.

They used to control the means of reproduction, in that they could actually mass produce your tapes / CDs for you. No longer, since stamping a CD is incredibly cheap now.

Just about the only thing they still control is radio, and even then that's being eaten into by the internet and things like Pandora and last.fm, which their lobbyists are desperately trying to kill.

Without a real business model, they're scraping for ways to maintain the position of control they used to have, and litigation is a very good way of doing just that, since most people don't have the means to actually fight them.

Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs

[Anonymous Coward]

The model isn't "stealing beef jerky", but "stealing a prized bull from a breeder, producing your own line of livestock, and undercutting your victim." In some places you can still be hanged for that.

Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs

[fishbowl]

>A lot of people on slashdot argue that downloading copyrighted material isn't theft

That's because it isn't. For one thing, "legal and illegal" music downloading are both described by "downloading copyrighted material" so you need to be much more specific. For another thing, copyright protection is aimed at very different goals from laws concerning theft.

Copyright law does a poor job at "punishing people who consume your work without paying you."

What copyright law is good at, is punishing someone who has taken your work, claimed it as his own, and profiting. But in the situation the RIAA finds itself, this is rarely the case.

You might want to argue that copyright law doesn't go far enough, but that's between you and your representatives.

Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs

[schon]

alternately you could use a better damages analogy and say "can you imagine if I stole 7 pieces of jerky, broke it into bits and sold all those bits to several million people at a price of $1.00 per person"

Considering she never *sold* anything, how is that a better analogy?

Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs

[CodeBuster]

in order for investment to pay off someone, somewhere has to loose.

Not necessarily. If the growth in the money supply (inflation) is balanced by growth in the quantity of goods and services produced in the economy per person (i.e. economic growth) then everyone enjoys the benefits of more goods and services while being compensated for both their labor or their risk. The reason for fractional reserve banking is to encourage more rapid economic growth through extension of timely credit (since availability of money and the ability to start new projects or produce new goods and services do not always coincide). The current world monetary system has its flaws to be sure and I myself have been a frequent critic of those flaws over the years on here on Slashdot, but it is better than the alternatives which generally include a relatively fixed quantity of hard money leading to frequent liquidity problems (people want to work and produce things now, but they have to wait until enough money enters into circulation to either save or get a loan) or more bartering of goods and services which, as history shows, can be inefficient (hence the reason for money in the first place).

Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs

[cptdondo]

The risk thing.... That might have been true 20 - 30 years ago when agents actually scoured the bars to find talent. These days you are more than likely to have manufactured pop divas and even entire groups. All cut from the same mold, great looks, skimpy clothes, lots of scandal, mediocre talent and singing ability, and music that's written for them and over produced and corrected in the studio.

Does anyone really think that Janis Joplin would make it today?

The music business these days is all about "creating a product", not about making music. They reduce their risk by creating a star. Hannah Montana is a classic example of this. Nothing to do with music; it's all about avarice.

So they can go choke. They produce nothing of lasting value; their business model is exploitation and greed. The music put out by the major labels mostly sucks - it's so devoid of any real emotions that I can't stand it. Give me Root Boy Slim, Janis Joplin, Cake, Miranda Louise.... Heck the music industry won't even sell Root Boy anymore, eventhough vinyl albums are going for $100+ on ebay....

Well...

[Darundal]

...they bought the rope, measured the proper length of it, cut it, tied it to a tree, formed one end into a noose, gingerly placed their grinning heads in the noose and tightened it, and now we get to see the looks on their faces when someone who saw their preceding actions takes the logical steps and kicks the stool out from under them.

Re:Well...

[Aladrin]

It's not so much 'kicking the stool' as it is 'refusing to hold them up while they teeter on it'. Nobody has to do -anything- for them to hang themselves... They just have to refuse to get them out of their own mess.

Re:One problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

But there are a 2 problems with this:

1) Nowhere near the amount of people affected by it will see this, because it isn't on a TV.
2) Most people don't care.
Sadly, people are heartless bastards and will just go "damn, that sucks, evil bastards", then forget all about it within a month, unless reminded by it.

If it was shown live on TV, then it might matter, but sadly it probably won't be...
Maybe it should be on TV because then most of the ignorant world will actually see the bullshit that companies like this get up to - and get away with - each and every year.

Re:Send me a copy

[eth1]

I was wondering if someone could send me a recorded copy of the stream since I won't be able to watch it live.

You're modded funny, but if they were to use BitTorrent to distribute the recorded proceedings after the fact it would provide an example of an unambiguously legitimate use for such things that judges would be able to identify with. :)

Re:Justice

[jimicus]

Unlike judges before her, she knows they are lying. They know they are lying. Nesson knows they are lying. The case is a blackmail scam and everyone involved knows it, this time, even the judge.

Unless she's a pisspoor judge, she won't have any definite opinion on the matter in hand - or if she does, she'll keep it very much to herself.

She may, on the other hand, want to make absolutely certain that every "i" is dotted and every "t" crossed. Which I would think is a very good quality in a judge.