How RIAA Case Should Have Played Out

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "If a regular 'country lawyer' like myself had taken a case like the RIAA's in Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset to court, he or she would have been laughed out of the courthouse. But when it's the RIAA suing, the plaintiffs are awarded a $1.92 million verdict for the infringement of $23.76 worth of song files. That's because RIAA litigation proceeds in a parallel universe, which on its face looks like litigation, but isn't. On my blog I fantasize as to how the trial would have ended had it taken place not in the 'parallel universe,' but in the real world of litigation. In that world, the case would have been dismissed. And if the Judge had submitted it to the jury instead of dismissing, and the jury had ruled in favor of the RIAA, the 'statutory damages' awarded would have been less than $18,000."

Comments

Makes sense

[Opportunist]

The RIAA represent imaginary goods, so their cases take place in an imaginary land.

Re:Makes sense

[Kjella]

You would still need to buy over 120 monopoly games to get that much monopoly money. Much more reasonable but even that is probably excessive.

Hmm I wonder that the penalty is for counterfeiting monopoly money. I imagine it's something like "Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200."

Re:Makes sense

[32771]

So she will now pay sqrt(-1)*$1920000 ?

Are the songs really worth that much?

[VinylRecords]

I purchased the full albums (and a few singles) of the songs that she downloaded and put them on eBay in one single auction. I put the listing at $1.92 million for the starting bid. However, eBay took my listing down, thinking it was a fraudulent listing. I tried explaining to them on the phone that these 19 CDs worth of music were worth $1.92 million, I even linked them THREE DOZEN news articles reporting the value.

Here's a list of the songs she downloaded.

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/23534

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

AFAIK they only provided evidence that she made the songs available. They could not have provided evidence that anyone but themselves downloaded even part of a song. The whole thing is one big fail if you introduce logic, reasoning and previous interpretations of law.

"logic, reasoning and previous interpretations of law"?

Nah, it'll never work. If you use those, then the RIAA might actually lose.

Re:Justifying piracy

[easyTree]

I'm a human leech with self-serving beliefs and an inability to empathize with content creators who are trying to make a living.

Yah; it's terrible the way you RIAA ghouls abuse those whose interests you purport to serve.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Rather then reading the summary you could read the actual blog post

You must be new here.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Voyager529]

My blog post was written specifically to an audience of experienced lawyers.

No wonder my understanding of it went like a call on a cell phone!

Under ....MediaSentry ...testimony barred ...failure ...expert witness ..satisfy...[NO CARRIER]

Bot.NET(tm) to the aRes-que?

[ae1294]

$2 Million for 24 songs? Well OK if you wanna fight dirty then the time has come for the Bot.NET lords of Cobol to unite!

Step 1. Take existing bot.net code and add $p2pflavor$ modded to start in das hidden mode.
Step 2. Have it set to automatically download mp3s, kiddie porn, $threatoftheweek$ via RSS feed from the $piratebay$.
Step 3. Distribute to the pleebs via normal bot.net methods, all of hem damn methods.
Step 4. Pleebs now automatically download da goods and become evil seed servers.
Step 5. Watch RIAA sue all of the earths pleebs in a massive stoke off.
Step 6. Watch all governments outlaw the internet.
Step 7. Watch all of the earths pleebs get really pissed off.
Step 8. Watch pleebs with guns run a muck in the great pleeb revolt of 2012.
Step 9. Self invented new defense, My system had that damn virus your Honor.
Step 0. No Profit for dem guys!

I now leave you to move into my underground lair so I can work on those sharks with freaking lasers baby!