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RIAA Brief Attacks Free Software Foundation
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has requested permission to file a response to the amicus curiae brief filed by the Free Software Foundation in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Boston case against a Boston University grad student accused of having downloaded some song files when in his teens. In their proposed response, the RIAA lawyers personally attacked The Free Software Foundation, Ray Beckerman (NewYorkCountryLawyer), and NYCL's blog, 'Recording Industry vs. The People.' The 9-page response (PDF) — 4 pages longer than the document to which it was responding — termed the FSF an organization 'dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs,' and accused the FSF of having an 'open and virulent bias against copyrights' and 'blatant bias' against the record companies. They called 'Recording Industry vs. The People' an 'anti-recording industry web site' and stated that NYCL 'is currently subject to a pending sanctions motion for his conduct in representing a defendant' (without disclosing that plaintiffs' lawyers were 'subject to a pending motion for Rule 11 sanctions for their conduct in representing plaintiffs' in that very case)."
Probably because they keep losing. If they make themselves loud enough in the courts, a judge is bound to find something he agrees with and rule in their favor. They're grandstanding to win.
You say that as if it's a bad thing.
The FSF's centerpiece, the GPL, depends wholly on copyright for enforcement.
So saying that the FSF has an "open and virulent bias against copyrights" clearly demonstrates either a lack of research, a lack of understanding, or a lack of honesty on the part of the RIAA's lawyers.
"4 pages longer than the document to which it was responding"
And?
-mkb
I love the FSF, but which of the quotes listed here is inaccurate? The FSF *does* want to get rid of copy restrictions, and does dislike the RIAA. Although, I would say the FSF hates on the RIAA, not the "recording industry", but I suspect the RIAA doesn't see the difference.
This is news how?
The only thing newsworthy I got from this is that the RIAA is just slightly more petty than I thought. Of course the Free Software Foundation is about making software "FREE", and of course, anyone with a blog aimed at bringing to light the RIAA's idiocy is going to be the target of their Ire. The thing people need to get over, and real quick, is the thought that the second they see anywhere in media the acronym RIAA, that they need to immediately post it on Slashdot.
We also need to realize, as a whole, that the RIAA hates us as much as we hate them, and we also need to note that the RIAA is a litigous bunch of pr1cks and that they will bring DMCA takedown notices, and law suits, and anything their multi-million dollar legal team can come up with against anyone who thinks differently than they do. The thing is, they have this crazy thing called MONEY backing them. When you have a band like Metallica, or Universal Studios supporting your cause, you can then afford frivolous lawsuits and such because money is no object
What we need, to effectively fight back against their idiocy, is SUPPORTERS. Find some corporation (good luck) that shares our ideals, or even a political movement. Then get them to help with the money to cover the expenses of all these court proceedings, offer legal support to the unfortunate few that get randomly targeted by the RIAA (like the ACLU does) and find someone to help us get some lobbying going in Washington.
Those are the things we need to do, or maybe even get some of us geeks to inundate media with easily comprehended information that average Joe blow can read and care about, and help spread the word to the masses about their evils. Find a way to make the average citizen give a crap about this issue, and you've found a way to get some money and influence behind this issue on a side that is NOT the RIAA. But until then, we'll always be a flea, biting the back of the Mammoth that is Industrialized politics at work.
"This is the value of a summer spent and a winter earned"
Targeting lawyers instead of, say, people who don't even know how to defend is "getting better at picking targets" when it comes to law suits that are not far from simple harrassment?
Dunno if I can follow your train of thought.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you can't innovate, litigate.
If you can't litigate, legislate.
The RIAA is an organization dedicated to maximizing restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying music. They have a virulent, though perhaps less open, bias against music customers; and are blatantly biased for the record companies.
It is not the neo-cons that we have to worry about. It is which oligarchs have the reins of which legislators and judges. It is beginning to look like the oligarchs that control the Obama group are going to take our intellectual and cultural freedoms from us, rather than our constitutional freedoms.
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
You describe the backlash as though it hasn't already happened. Remember Tower Records? Virgin Megastore?
The music industry is dying, and this is their last stand.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
And then in the very next sentence:
I mean... unless something has changed in their pattern, they only have documentation of one legal download and that being from an investigation team that may or may not be licensed.
Why has no attorney ever taken a look at the finances and circumstances associated with one particular song - how much revenue did this earn in the year prior, the year during, and the year after the alleged infringement. Most of the songs that I've noted have been out for at least a decade if not two, with little or no marketing, and zero spins on any of the radio stations I listen to.
Another argument I never see in any of these is the challenge the RIAAs ownership of the material. A 20 year old song may or may not have a clear ownership record, and with the history of the industry, you really should establish that the recording artists, the producers, and the songwriters all have given the RIAA authority willingly and contractually prior to the filing of any individual lawsuit.
The RIAA is only incidentally a criminal organization. The law is just an inconvenient encumberance.
The real purpose of the RIAA is to make money. Lots of money. To do this, they have become an evangelical organization. They are trying to create and perpetuate a repressive belief system.
In action, they closely resemble an inquisition.
They are trying to create and enforce a belief system. Any tactic is justified if it will maintain their orthodox beliefs. These beliefs don't have to make sense. They just have to be valued.
* Copyright infringement equals piracy.
* Copying music is the same as theft of tangible property.
* Unapproved distribution of an idea requires infinite punishment.
These are not rational thoughts. They are elements of a repressive belief system.
Miles
I've noticed that people resort to ad hominem when they haven't a better arguement to use.
The 9-page brief looks like a very nicely structured ad hominem attack, but that's all it is.
Or, to paraphrase, "Don't listen to him, he's just a lawyer! Whereas I am the True Friend of the Court, he's your enemy! Actually, he's mine, but I'd prefer you thought of him as yours".
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
So, I feel you are saying:
"We are preaching to the choir, and will never get anywhere"
If I have misunderstood, then correct me...I can take it, and welcome it, in fact.
Working on the above perspective, I have to reply to counter argue.
I will use myself as an example.
I lurked here for several years before getting an account.
Why?
I learned stuff that was new to me, but was dismissed as 'old news' by those with your attitude. Those comments still came through, in spite of those like you.
I found interesting things to explore and learn about, and still do here on slashdot...every day!
I found out about GNU/Linux on slashdot, despite you, and the fact it existed before I was aware that it was news.
There is benefit to 'preaching to the choir', as the choir grows, and talks to others.
I've learned about many things that I had no previous clue that they existed from the 'preaching to the choir' bunch here on slashdot.
Again, if I have misunderstood, please accept my apology, and correct me.
If my assumption was correct, or close, then think about what I said, and have some patience...we were all n00bs at one point....there will always be n00bs, and the future is full of n00bs...in reference to anything.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
There's always some dastardly evildoers trying to steal our freedoms, nowadays, isn't there. If it's not the extremists it's the communists, or the democrats, or the republicans or the liberals, or the PC brigade with all their health and safety mumbo jumbo, coming to take away our precious, precious freedoms (it's our freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedommmmms, preeeeeeeeeeeeeeecious). As we stare at this wonderous package of glory. Our freedoms, which we have, and those ever growing hordes of zealots - from one side of the political spectrum or another (depending on our own beliefs) - coming to rip it from our hands and hurl it in to the volcanoes of Mordor or something. Or freedoms! Please! Won't someone think of the freedoms!
It's certainly an emotive issue.
And if people actually did care then maybe they'd stop slinging shit into the eyes of fabricated enemies for 15 seconds and realise that there is a middle ground in which you can actually work together and not just boil it down to some pitiful good/evil pantomime.
They act like a government agency but they can only take civil action, regardless of the FBI's doting on copyright abusers. If they were to stay silent a moment too long then what little power they do bear would dissolve.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
There's always some dastardly evildoers trying to steal our freedoms, nowadays, isn't there.
Nowadays? Not a moment in Humanity's history was a calm silence where groups of people weren't trying to impose their will on others by penalty of death or disruption. It's a story that will long repeat itself and is unlikely to ever end.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
It is not the neo-cons that we have to worry about. It is which oligarchs have the reins of which legislators and judges. It is beginning to look like the oligarchs that control the Obama group are going to take our intellectual and cultural freedoms from us, in addition to our constitutional freedoms.
FTFY
Anyone who still thinks that Obama and the rest of his administration will suddenly revert course on constitutional freedoms from the last 8 years has been living under a rock since the Inauguration. He is a politician. Politicians like power. They, repubs and dems, are not going to remove some law in place that benefits them, even if the other side used it first.
I cut it three times, and it's still too short.
The music industry is dying, and this is their last stand.
You are correct. The existing music industry infrastructure is dying. Music won't.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Note that litigation costs scale badly.
Beyond a certain threshold, it is cheaper to legislate first.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
the art of music in western civilization may even come alive again if we can get rid of these cartels.
When you don't have the facts on your side, pound on the law.
When you don't have the law on your side, pound on the facts.
When you have neither on your side, pound on the table.
When an opposing party start attacking people on their beliefs, you know they are in bad shape.
Fight Spammers!
NYCL is not just a harder target to hit, he is also a much more valuable one. If the RIAA can take him out of the equation, then they can go back to pushing around children and crippled grandmothers, but like any bully they can't properly operate with anyone actually standing up to them.
What comes next is the lawyer equivalent of meeting at the playground after school. If the RIAA can put enough hurt on NYCL, RMS and anyone else who has been willing to take a stand, then they go back to stealing lunch money... otherwise it is quite likely that they'll be shown for puffed up cowards and never be taken seriously again.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Democrats and Republicans both hate the constitution; they just hate different parts of it (1st amendment & 2nd amendment for example).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Back in the 1800s I could start a brewery easy enough. These days it's hard unless you've got a million dollars. In fact, starting any business is hard; it's not the taxes, it's the huge fucking amount of regulations you have to meet, which take a huge toll on you. My cost to make small-time alcohol are like $200 to start up and $1100 a barrel (55 gal); my costs with govt. regulation shit are about $300,000 to start up and $20,000/barrel unless I scale to tens of thousands of barrels. If you want to start a simple restaurant it'll cost you; if you want to start a restaurant that serves wine, you need $1000 more; rum, $100,000 more per year to operate. Ouch.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Well I wish computer programming was more accessible to me. What can you do? We live in a complex world. A lot of things require a lot of study to become "accessible", and each of us has only one lifetime. The law, like every other field of study, has its own language, conventions, methods, and processes. It takes time to learn them.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Well, yes. Yes we should. One day you will be sold into slavery-- oh, you'll be kept alive and well enough to work, but you'll be forced labor and the beatings will continue until you die. But that's not a threat of death now is it....
Support my political activism on Patreon.
In what possible way can that matter?
The justice department has limited resources. What they choose to focus those resources on matters a lot.
Ex-RIAA lawyers are likely to focus on RIAA concerns, if for no other reason than that's what they're familiar with.
That's a very bad thing and a form of regulatory capture.
---
It's not piracy, it's sharing. Didn't your parents teach you to share?
Now they have a cushy new job in the DOJ they have a different paymaster
Never heard of bribery?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Sort of. The BSD/MIT licence doesn't just allow somebody to slightly modify and close the source. It allows somebody to do that and re-licence under a closed copyright that prevents copying (as long as credit/attribution for the original work is given) - which I think is what Stallman is really against.
Without copyright, if somebody tried to do the above, (like Microsoft did with the AD Kerberos group extensions, for instance), you would be able to decompile Microsoft's code, identify changes from the original release, clean up and optimize the changed/decompiled source, and re-release it in commented source form, all without fear of legal reprisals. That would certainly be more work than the current system under the GPL, but you would effectively still have most of the rights that Stallman advocates for: the ability to own, maintain, and redistribute software you have placed an investment in, be it through development or purchase.
So I think Stallman would prefer the current status quo with GPL protection because itrequires less maintenance effort once GPL code has enough market share that network effects work in its favour, but would be satisfied with a copyright-free world.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire