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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.
I suspect the two people who paid up are now wishing that they hadn't.
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 ...
When someone shoots a photograph of your house, did they steal it? It seems you don't understand your own sources.
I know that despite the intense advertising campaign to call downloading music theft, legally the definition of theft requires depriving someone of their property, intellectual or otherwise. To deprive someone of any such item, they can't use it after you steal it. Therefore, while copying music is damaging to the RIAA, the RIAA's tactics of pretending that music copying is theft is just plain dishonesty.
Copying music is already illegal, so there's no need to add in theft charges. Just like there would be no need to add in murder charges for copying music because you are proverbially killing the artist.
It's hard to believe someone is actually defending the actions of the RIAA, but I checked your posting history and no, you aren't joking. Although technically you are correct and under existing law you could use the term thieves, you conveniently ignore the fact that the RIAA has run the campaign more like a protection racket than as a legitimate campaign to prosecute (or educate, depending on which RIAA shill you believe) the supposed offenders. They've collected "evidence" illegally, ignored court orders, used questionable legal arguments and arguments based on legal principles that do not exist. Any time anyone actually chooses to fight them in court they walk away in order to prevent a precedent from being set. The large corporations backing the RIAA can't or won't adapt to the changing market and instead are attempting to use legislation to cling to a failing business model. The existing body of law was largely set before the internet came into being, and subsequent changes have been heavily influenced by the same large corporate copyright holders. Your average person doesn't understand IP and your average congressman knows who is buttering his bread. Their entire campaign is a sterling example of how a large moneyed interest can abuse the entire legal system both in the courts and in their efforts to influence the lawmaking process itself.
All this leads me to one question: Why are you so mindlessly insistent that the law is just?
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
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
Careful here, how does copyright infringement force people to continue making music?
And slavery isn't fucking theft either. It's goddamn kidnapping, assault, probably some rape, all sorts of other crimes, but it's not theft.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
There, fixed that for you...
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.