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RIAA Walks Away From Another "Discovery" Case
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that the RIAA walked away last week from one of their 'discovery' cases seeking the identities of 'John Does' who attended Rhode Island College. We have just learned that they walked away from another one, BMG Music v. Does 1-14, in Greensboro, North Carolina. 2 of the 14 John Does had settled, but the other 12 — who hung tough — will never be identified to the RIAA lawyers and will not have to pay any 'settlement.' This adds fuel to the debate over whether the RIAA has finally seen the light or is still sneaking around in the dark."
I object to the verb 'sneaking' in TFA.
It suggests purpose, strategy, and some level of intelligence.
"This adds fuel to the debate over whether the RIAA has finally seen the light or is still sneaking around in the dark."
Just another case of advanced public relations.
I suspect the two people who paid up are now wishing that they hadn't.
Will we ever see NewYorkCountryLawer unequivocally condemn the little thieves, that RIAA are fighting?
Nope, never. Instead, watch yet another thread bogged down by "troll" moderations and objections to my use of the term "thieves"...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
How is it, with these "voluntary" dissimissals, the RIAA gets to walk away without paying the other side's legal fees? Where does this leave the defendants? Are they still out several thousand dollars from paying their lawyer, the same as if they had "settled" with the RIAA?
(Although, in this case, the costs might be relatively low, seeing as they would possibly be split amongst several does ...)
As has been posted here, the RIAA is changing its target from suing individuals to (trying to) sue ISPs who do not do the their dirty work (checking, tracking, denying access) for them.
Small ISPs who cannot do that (too few customers -> no business) will simply die from the RIAAs litigations, and the bigger ones (who can deal with a few less customers) are softer targets, as they have got less to loose (as opposed to an individual which can loose upto a few times his yearly income), especially not when simply ending a customers contract on the first sign of RIAA related trouble.
Lets hope the Judges are allready sensitivised to the RIAA to such a level that even seeing their paperwork will give them an instant itch ...
If, instead of claiming that people are stealing their music, the RIAA would accept the simple fact that their product sucks, their marketing strategy sucks, their whole business plan sucks, then they could claim their problems are the result of the economic meltdown and get a few billion $$$ from Washington.
All that retreat mumbo-jumbo at the moment is just the precursor to what will be brought against the people in 2009 and beyond. Obama has selected an RIAA supporting ass. attourney general with David Ogden and now that the industry has a seat on the presidents team and wan't to "cooperate" with ISPs they don't need these awful lawsuits anymore.
... I sense a great disturbance in the warez.
My piratey sense is tingling
If any of them see light they dissolve into nothing.
Finally, they are pulling back! What's next? DRM?
I'll go the "Anonymous Coward" route...
My fiance works for a music distributor. They make an everyday wage and they're about to layoff 400+ people from their offices. Oh yeah, my fiance also has Multiple Sclerosis. Her MASSIVE medical expenses are paid for through health insurance provided by her company, which she will lose if she gets laid off.
So...THANK YOU for stealing music!!!
This adds fuel to the debate over whether the RIAA has finally seen the light or is still sneaking around in the dark.
Does it? Really? Or, does it point to them just not having the money in this downward spiraling economy to continue these frivolous lawsuits while they, in parallel, scramble to redesign their digital content schemes?
I have a feeling that this is going to be a lull for a few years while they regroup, retask and come at the file sharers again, or seek legislation to aid their fight; the latter being less likely under the incoming administration. The RIAA (and MPAA) are not going down without one hell of a fight. This type of battle may be ending, but evil never sleeps and is constantly trying to devise new ways to overcome good. These idiots are just confused and don't see the good in what file sharing does for their (still growing) sales.
To quote Frank Herbert, "This is all far from over..."
Any chance they could sue to get their money back? If the settlement letter they paid off is bogus (and it demonstrably is in this case since the RIAA dropped the discovery and walked away from it, which says they had no intention of following through with prosecution) it seems to me that the RIAA gained the money through something resembling fraud.
I'm not sure if it would be fraud, or extortion, or whatever - but it just seems to me that the RIAA doesn't have a legal claim on the money. "Pay us and we won't take you to court." So someone pays. But they didn't take the non-paying people to court and dropped the case. So the settlement letter is absolutely bogus. Shouldn't be too difficult a point to make in front of a judge. IANAL though, so I might be very wrong, but it seems that way.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
what the fuck does 'republicans' have anything to do with this?
If you are going to discuss copyright infringement, especially as it applies to your own business, you should know the difference. Copyright infringement is NOT theft or larceny, legally OR ethically, and if you were suspected of copyright infringement, you would not be charged with either one! The law sharply distinguishes between them, and for very good reasons.
Theft deprives a property owner of the use of something they already own, whether that something is goods or money. Copyright infringement does not deprive the owner of his/her property, therefore it is not theft.
Copyright infringement, in some circumstances but by no means all, merely deprives the work's creator of theoretical profits that could be made from the work. In the vast majority of cases involving downloads or copying of CDs and DVDs, even that is not strictly true according to studies... most of the time there would not have been a sale anyway, so there were no profits "stolen", even theoretically.
Further, even when there is a lost sale in the case of music or movies, the studio and artists are not being deprived of anywhere near the retail price of the product! Usually all they would have gotten anyway is a small fee or royalty which represents only a small fraction of the retail price.
As an ethical analogy, consider the case of a "mountain man" in the days of westward exploration of the United States. If you were to steal his horse, you would deprive him of the use of that horse, which he may well rely on for his very survival. Therefore horse theft (rustling) was a capital crime: you could be (and many people were) hung until dead for that offense.
On the other hand, if you could somehow clone that horse from some "borrowed" cells, the only thing you would be depriving the owner of would be a theoretical stud fee, assuming the owner put the horse out for stud in the first place.
Obviously, the nature and severity of these "crimes" are vastly different, and there is no rational basis for treating them the same way.
"Copying music without authorization from the copyright holders is theft, no doubt about it."
No, it isn't! It is copyright infringement! The two are legally quite distinct from one another, for good reasons! See my post just above a little bit.
I am not defending the copying of copyrighted material. But I *AM* putting it in its proper perspective. It is NOT stealing or theft. It may be wrong, but it is not theft.
Further, your defense of a by-now-almost-bankrupt business model for the music industry is pretty pathetic. Most bands today don't want to give up their rights to some studio that is willing to put up a 6-digit amount to promote the band, because they are more sophisticated today, and understand that the same studio is likely to keep the vast majority of the 8-digit profits.
On the other hand, I wholeheartedly endorse your final comment. Go live.
no doubt about it.
It helps everyone.
This notion that the copyright holder even exists is simplistic and misguided. Music is played and that is why it is created: to be heard, played and enjoyed. Getting money is a side issue and merely a bonus.
Okay, the primary reason to get married is to have kids. Your fiance is probably not in ideal health to bear you multiple children. Then when they are born, you will have to do an undue amount of work. And then of course, as your children grow up, you look forward to spending time with your fiance traveling, doing interesting stuff, generally, good healthy is required at that time.
Then you add the medical expenses and I have to assume you're in "love". "Love" is a reason to have sex, not get married. Marriage is something that should be approached with the same caution as buying a house or looking for a job. You wouldn't buy a house with a defect that would basically wreck your life, and you don't get a wife under those circumstances either. This is a partnership. What does this person bring to the bargain?
You're not married yet. I would move on and find someone who is in better health.
You should read the article Did Hans Reiser's lawyer know he was guilty? and all of the comments, to get a more realistic perspective.
I am pointing out that copyright infringement, both ethically and legally, is quite distinct from the concept of theft!
Please, go back up to the beginning and read more of this thread. Copyright infringement is NOT theft. Period. I am not saying that it is right, but it is not theft, and there are a number of very good reasons (both legal and ethical) for saying so! Try to get educated on this issue, dontmakemethink, before assuming things that ain't so.
They are no better than communists.
One could argue that the RIAA is a lot worse than the Communists were. Consider the Soviet Union: The Communists were voted out of power despite all the vote rigging that the party in power always does everywhere, and they accepted the vote. This wasn't a fluke; it has happened in most of the countries that had Communist governments. The RIAA and MPAA were never elected to their positions, and we can't vote them out. They'll be around longer than any Communist government, and there's not a whole lot we can do about it. They are private corporations created by other private corporations to "coordinate" their business so that no real market could develop. Judicious bribery, uh, I mean campaign contributions, led to the draconian copyright laws that helped prevent a market in music or movies.
Maybe the move to the Internet will end this whole centrally-controlled system. Or maybe they'll find a way to bring it under control. Stay tuned ...
Don't forget, through the DMCA the "central authority" at the RIAA issues forth the command "thou shalt build X device X way, or not at all".
A command economy under the command of one corporation is no different then a command economy under the control of an authoritarian government.
Oh wait, it's worse, because, in this case, they own the media, and we're still "free" because we elect people who will loyally stand by proclaiming every day activities "theft"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I obviously can't say what he'll do once in office but his team has pretty much been called...
I know what he'll do.
he'll get right into that office near the boiler and grumble about his stapler.
Seriously, the guy is at the third tier!
My mother is a claims adjuster for a subsection of healthcare coverage, maybe I should burst into her room and start kicking her all over the place because no insurance company will cover my chronic condition?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I'll go the "Anonymous Coward" route...
My fiance works for a music distributor. They make an everyday wage and they're about to layoff 400+ people from their offices. Oh yeah, my fiance also has Multiple Sclerosis. Her MASSIVE medical expenses are paid for through health insurance provided by her company, which she will lose if she gets laid off.
So...THANK YOU for stealing music!!!
I'm sorry, but maybe you should be speaking to people and campaigning for healthcare reform and universal healthcare. (for my part, I graduated college into this recession, have no job, and am also uninsurable at any price. I'm quickly plummeting toward the precipice with 2k/mo in Rx. )
If it wasn't the downturn or the pirates it would be something else, but your husband would have eventually lost his job (thus his insurance), and from there it's a quick drop into disability.
The injustice here is not your husband's upper management making horrible decisions, then waging a war against an entire generation which is supposed to be their target audience.
The injustice here is that you both have been shackled to a job because of medical care.
As for my side.. Music was once my escape. I would plug in, put the phones on, and just relax at the end of a long and taxing day. It was the one thing I considered sacred in life. The lawsuits from your husband's company wiped all that away and made every melody into the horrific reminder of corporate greed and corruption. Now I can't listen to an english song anymore because I know it was the american music industry which strangled the entire tech sector.
Little factoid:
DMCA was passed in '98, but not scheduled to take effect for two years.
What happened two years later? What sector is now reduced to doing nothing but hollywood's bidding. Why is steve jobs dragging his feet with blu-ray again?
I'm sorry but there's only one thing which takes my mind off the chronic pain i experience right now, and that's the fact that your pet industry put me there by killing off every tech business model which their luddite staff didn't agree with.
Had these same people had their way back at the turn of the twentieth century your husband wouldn't have been working there anyway. They don't appreciate the repeated lessons of history, however, and killed off my jobs before they were born.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
s/I does/It does... NEVER giving: EVER giving... etc.
late. tired.
Nope, they won't quit.
Yes, the RIAA is ridiculous. Yes, they treat humans like scum. Yes, they continuously do things which makes our hair stand on end. Yes, they will continue to do their best to create new, even more idiotic laws.
And that's their job. As long as they keep getting paid by the industry, they will keep standing there as The Bad Guys To Hate. Instead of, say, the industry responsible for this.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
...is this about file-sharing? Are the 'Does' P2P network users?