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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."
Personally, I have not purchased a CD in almost 10 years, and I will not purchase another CD from an RIAA label EVER. That is the only way we can make our voices heard... DO NOT BUY FROM THEM.
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
Now if only I could use the imaginary money from my monopoly set to pay them off too, all would be well...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The RIAA is just doing anything they can to stay in business, like any good capitalist business should.
Now that's funny. A "good" capitalist business should roll with the changes, should cater to their customer, should work with their customer, should take advantage of technology, etc. The RIAA is not a business. It is a lobbying group. It is comprised of businesses. A good business would sue someone who stole their property for the amount of losses they experienced. We do not have that going on here. We have a hilarious trial that stinks to high hell where you are fined $80,000 per song you downloaded in copyright violations.
The businesses that support the RIAA are past due on realizing that the RIAA has outlived itself. Now it's just a monster run amok and the consumers are the victims.
You are without help if you believe the RIAA is just another capitalist business trying to get by in tough times.
My work here is dung.
You're not doing a very convincing job of constructing an argument. So far you have
- ad hominem: You only think Ray's good cause he's popular on Slashdot
- argument from authority: lawyers, judges, and juries must be right
- another ad hominem: for Ray to claim those guys are wrong, wow, what arrogance!
Ray's blog, on the other hand, contains actual substantive arguments pertaining to proper procedures (who should be allowed to testify and with what caveats or warnings) and prior case history (what is the relationship between award of damages and monetary harm). He might be wrong, but then so might be the jury.
In fact, if the jury thinks the way you've presented your arguments, they'll just think, "Wow, all these really masterful lawyers on one side, they can't be wrong--I'll just trust whatever they say and not think about it!" The judge, if he or she shares the approach you took in this post, is liable to be similarly swayed.
Yes, Ray is claiming that all those people did it wrong and I have no idea if he's right. But he is giving a list of arguments to support his point.
So if you want to claim that he is wrong, you should show that those arguments are wrong.
So far, all you are saying is "a lot of judges and lawyers agreed on this, therefore the decision is correct", like there's never been a wrong judgement in the history of mankind.
As a Brit, I'm aware that my own country's legal system has gone rather downhill over the last 30 years. But the thing that strikes a European most about the US legal system is its cruelty. Punitive damages. Unconvicted defendants for white collar crimes going into court with wire ties binding their wrists. Three strikes and you're out for even a trivial third offense. "Humane" systems of execution where executioners spin out the proceedings for hours. Obviously practice varies greatly across the US States, just as some EU countries (ahem, Greece, ahem) have crap legal systems and others like Germany have good ones. But you only have to look at the outcome of the Pirate Bay case in Sweden, and this one, to see the disproportion involved. The effect of the Pirate Bay case on the European elections (and now a German MEP has defected to the Pirate Party) also shows the different levels of popular tolerance involved.
US citizens need to start growing a backbone. You do not have to support criminal activity to demand that corporations not be allowed to take over and distort the legal system.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I've started to wonder what the real value of "Jamie's playlist" really is.
If she would have had the option of "buying these works outright" what would
their appraised value be based on actual current revenue? What might the
asking price for those works be when compared to something like commercial
real estate?
I suspect that the RIAA made out like bandits and they got a payday for these
works that dwarfs their actually real value by far.
Really. How many copies of "Pour Some Sugar On Me" were moved in 2004 or even
today? This could be relevant Album sales, singles sales or tracks on iTunes.
This is information that seems to be sorely lacking from this discussion.
What is the actual value of a 25 year old Journey song?
How does this jury award compare to the actual annual revenue recieved from these works?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Well...
You shouldn't concentrate so much on that verdict, but as to what that verdict does to foreign perception of the US. I live but two hours from the US border, and what Jamie did doesn't even qualify as a civil issue, let alone a crime, where I live. Unfortunately, US lobbyists are trying to change the law here, but, so far, with little success (except for the typical lip service; love to see politicos at work sucking hard!).
Tough luck on the verdict, USA. I am laughing at you.
Now, for a practical matter. If a friend from the US comes and visits, and makes copies (or downloads) of music, is she liable for copyright infringement when she returns to the US? Now, further, if she downloads exclusively from me, and yet is resident in the US, is she guilty?
Tough questions, but these SHOULD be resolved in a hurry. After all, the difference between $0 and $1.92 million is, well, $1.92 million! Comparisons to cocaine smuggling are welcome... You can get 500 songs on the cheapest mp3 player these days, which is 400 times what Jamie is accused of, with a potential fine of 1/2 billion dollars now -- Say this out loud, and try not to break out laughing. "a $20 investment can result in $500 million in fines".
Nope, couldn't keep a straight face, sorry.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
"In my most honest opinion, Jammie owes the record companies a couple dollars to pay for her downloaded songs. She owes something in the way of punitive damages. 24 songs, at a buck apiece, is 24 bucks. Drawing on ancient tort law, let's treble the damages, so she now owes 72 bucks. If she had been offered this deal from the get-go, her conscience might have convinced her that 72 bucks was a good deal, and paid it."
It's important to keep in mind that she was nailed for distributing, not downloading. When you use the word "damages" here I think you may be thinking in terms of downloading. For instance, if I found a way to get free songs from the iTunes or Amazon store and managed to download 24 tracks before caught but did not distribute them, then it would fit the framework you've described. But that's not what she did -- she was making them available. In this case it did not matter how the tracks got into her share directory.
The issue here is that the limits for statutory damages are a remnant of the days when large-scale distribution required one person to have a lot of resources, and thus was almost always for profit. Given the new reality of sharing a track with thousands or millions of people with just a few clicks and at very low cost, the limits for statutory damages should be scaled back immensely (less than $1,000 per work), or at the very least, a separate set of limits should apply to commercial vs. non-commercial infringement, so that the courts can still wreak serious financial harm to the folks churning out fake Windows CDs by the pallet.
I should also point out that while she was taken to court for sharing 24 songs, she had something like 1,500 tracks in her share directory. This is fitting with the RIAA's usual tactic of going after the "whales" of file sharing; if you have just a few dozen tracks in your share directory you're less liable to be caught. To use an ugly analogy, Timonthy McVeigh killed 168 people but was charged only for the murder of 11 federal agents (in addition to some other charges not relating to particular victoms). I take it that this is relatively common in the legal system; only charge them for enough to get the punishment you want.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Tough luck on the verdict, USA. I am laughing at you.
You and everyone else in the world who knows about this.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful