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RIAA Paid $16M+ In Legal Fees To Collect $391K
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a rare outburst of subjectivity, I commenced my blog post 'Ha ha ha ha ha' when reporting that, based upon the RIAA's disclosure form for 2008, it had paid its lawyers more than $16,000,000 to recover $391,000. If they were doing it to 'send a message,' the messages have been received loud & clear: (1) the big four record labels are managed by idiots; (2) the RIAA's law firms have as much compassion for their client as they do for the lawsuit victims; (3) suing end users, or alleged end users, is a losing game. I don't know why p2pnet.net begrudges the RIAA's boss his big compensation; he did a good job... for the lawyers."
This is just more evidence that Piracy is Killing Music(tm)! Pirates, apparently less busy stealing food from the mouths of starving artists' starving children than they seemed, managed to pull over 15 and a half million dollars from the RIAA's coffers...
Clearly, we must set up a cabinet-level Department of Intellectual Property so that the War on Pirates can be fought at public expense, with the same efficiency and success as the scourges of drugs and poverty....
Perhaps people who own shares in the RIAA's member companies should sue for misspending?
Thus proving what we've been saying all along:
The RIAA's worst enemy is the RIAA.
It's to instill fear, and reduce the (speculative) lost sales.
If they sell 10 million more albums as a result of spending the 16M in fees, then it's not such a bad deal. (Mind you, I don't think that's the case)
the companies that support the riaa just want money so make sure you check riaaradar.com to make sure the music you buy does not help a company that supports the riaa. While they continue to waste their money on lawyers stick it to them one lost sell at a time.
Doesn't this just emphasize the incredible injustice of the American justice system? Giant corporations get legal protection because they can afford to waste millions fighting pointless legal battles. Joe Shmoe doesn't have that luxury. Isn't this an example of a corporate entity literally buying the law in some way?
I don't know. That just really, really bothers me.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
That's the thing, though. As far as I'm aware, they've absolutely failed to set any kind of precedent that might even be remotely in their favor and they've completely failed in instilling any type of fear in anyone who might think about pirating music. All they've really done is cost themselves a good chunk of money while flushing any type of good reputation they had down the toilet.
You're not looking at the expense correctly. It's not revenue they're hoping to regain. If that was the case spending $16M to gain $391k is a losing deal and any idiot could see that.
This money was spent as advertising, to spread fear about. And for what they've got for their $16M, it's been a bargain.
Back when Napster ruled the nets and music was free and nobody was getting stripped of their entire future just to listen to Madonna, the music industry was looking at a pretty dire situation. Now significantly fewer people download music. I sure as hell don't. Too rich for my blood - I won't do it. From that point of view it is a win. There are plenty of people who now will pay for music rather than risk having the RIAA's pack of rabid lunatics take an interest in your life. Me, I simply do without. I won't fund these assholes, but I won't risk the future of my family just to hear Rush's latest album either. I simply abstain.
Remember the "music industry" is nothing more than privileged middlemen. They produce nothing. They are to music what a toll booth is to travel. The whole goal is to keep the scam going. Spending $16M to keep the status quo? Totally worth it. Look at their revenue generated during the period in which they spent the $16M. Pennies on the dollar.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Money recovered: $391,000
Lawyer cost: $16,000,000
Legal precedence, chilling effect, and erosion of justice & civil rights: priceless!
No. Not everyone. Some of us know how absolutely and unarguably false and incorrect it is to claim it is remotely anything like theft. I'll just re-post my response to somebody else who was under the mistaken impression that you can "steal" intellectual property by downloading it:
Theft of intellectual property is in impossibility, by the very definitions of the words involved. The cost, or effort, of copying is also irrelevant.
When you give your money for the shiny piece of plastic, you are also granted license rights, that we The Peeps (aka Government), granted copyright holders to bestow upon others.
Only one thing happens when you "pirate" or receive a digital copy of a copyrighted work without compensating the copyright holder: Infringement . The definition, "A violation, as of a law, regulation, or agreement; a breach." does not, and never has, implied Theft which has the definition, "(Law) Criminal law the dishonest taking of property belonging to another person with the intention of depriving the owner permanently of its possession".
Now a copyright can be viewed as physical property, but that is the copyright itself. To permanently deprive somebody of their copyright means I somehow transferred those legal entitlements to myself and started receiving money and granting others license to use that work, per my newly and illicitly acquired intellectual property rights.
All of the analogies to physically stealing anything are complete and utter tripe based on fallacious logic, and deliberate misinterpretation of law. Content companies (derogatorily referred to as Big Media) would love to have the act of Infringement conflated with Theft. It serves their purpose to have the public incorrectly associate the two to accomplish fear mongering.
Of course the fact, that no college student or citizen has ever been convicted of theft of an MP3 seems to make no difference. Defendants are always sued for damages as it relates to the acts of infringement in a civil court and not a criminal court. No district attorney has ever prosecuted criminal charges against an ordinary citizen for what we consider to be piracy because it is pointless. It does not meet the definition of criminal levels of infringement which traditionally require intent to profit financially or large scale distribution. Those have been amended in recent times, but nonetheless, nobody has ever been prosecuted criminally for it, despite the fact that torrents and file sharing have involved distribution at what some consider to be large scale. Even if, IF, somebody were to be prosecuted, the crime would not be theft.
It makes very little sense, and I don't support piracy.
Once again, I hope some people are reading this and figuring it out.
This week alone we've read about how Movies always end up in the red (even Harry Potter lost money) http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/07/09/1621218/Hollywood-Accounting-mdash-How-Harry-Potter-Loses-Money
and this one about how labels avoid paying musicians hasn't even fallen off the front page yet: http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/13/1737224/RIAA-Accounting-mdash-How-Labels-Avoid-Paying-Musicians
There's no way the legal expenses cost $16M in *REAL* money. RIAA uses internal lawyers. In fact, RIAA is just lawyers. They're paying themselves and once again, screwing the artists.
I mean seriously, to the "editor" who posted this (kdawson) would it kill you to put an ounce of fucking critical thinking into it before you post?
I'm sorry... I know this must come off as a "troll" ... maybe I'm reading too much slashdot or something.
I do not have $16,000,000 to blow to protect my copyrights, whether or not the copyright was free. I cannot afford to pursue school children and grandmothers with overblown legal threats either. The average dude lacks the resources of a giant, multi-billion dollar corporation, and because of that they are unable to pursue their legal rights.
In 18th century England, criminals were not guaranteed legal representation, and thus the poor almost always lost legal battles. Not because they were guilty, but because they were poor. Is the DA going to defend my copyrights? Ya, I'm so sure.
Seriously. You have got to be kidding me on this one.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
"...are using up their infinite mod points to protect some of the stories more than others."
Doesn't even have to be that.
One person with 15 mod points(for me, that is about 75-80% of the time) can go back in your post history (further they go back in time, the less likely you are to notice it) and mod down 15 "+0" posts, knocking them all into the -1 state. Two people? 30 posts in negative land. Really, it takes very few people to completely ruin your reputation here...except the smart ones on /. know better--they actually read your posts rather then the fucking mod points.
Let it go. Most of us don't need moderation to know intelligence and wisdom when we see it.
And yeah...I could see Apple shills working the forums. I could see that quite clearly.