This is important everyone, please voice yourselves at the OP's link here http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ [whitehouse.gov].
Also, Please spread this link to other forums you frequent and explain why it's so important that we speak up together _now_.
We all know the abuses of the RIAA/MPAA over the past 8 years. Bullying private citizens, stifling innovation, refusing to embrace emergent technologies, and most importantly their slow but successful erosion of the public domain through congress.
These are monopolists who have consistently attacked the public domain, and if they win here they will be very difficult to stop.
Please spread the word to your friends and family, explain to them why this issue is so important...and what's at stake. Encourage anyone you can to comment on this, raise the issue in forums, college newspapers, and wherever else you think public discourse on the subject would be most beneficial. Do your part.
Obama will listen if enough of us speak up. Joe Biden is sided with the RIAA, we need to outvoice him and the Hollywood lobbyists. This is the part where you work for the country you want to live in, not sit back and expect the government to 'do the right thing'.
Thank you for that, grumpygrodyguy. This is really important, and this is a really important moment in which to express it. I hope everyone will get on that link and tell the President how we feel. (I just heard that they've upped the size of the input field to 5000 characters!)
TORTS are supposed to right wrongs, not be a payday. So it is logical
and obvious that damages awarded in lawsuits have some relationship to
actual proven harm. That's that civil courts are for: to prove harm and
resolve the harm.
They aren't meant for social crusading.
Any ambulance chaser who isn't fodder for Lawyer jokes would tell you that.
If there is a public policy reason to FINE people and corporations then
the law should allow for that explicitly. It should not be done as a back
door hack for something that isn't meant for the use you're putting it to.
Want megabuck fines for piracy? Fine, make it a proper criminal offense with
the state being the only entity with standing and a proper burden of proof.
Well said, jedidiah. Thank you. That is the issue that will be argued in SONY v. Tenenbaum, when the First Circuit sorts out whether the argument can be streamed over the internet. It is a very important discussion we need to have about the RIAA's interpretation of copyright law.
You have two lawyers with proven track records of a) using evidence that was obtained illegally, and b) suing people with no evidence at all, c) suing the wrong people, and d) participating in a campaign of frivolous litigation.
Yeah but other than that, what do you have against them? Picky, picky.
Let this be a lesson to the blind faith Obama supporters out there
I think that is a 'straw man' argument. I have never met a 'blind faith' Obama supporter. There probably is no such thing, except for maybe a very small number of very dumb people. We are offered a limited number of candidates, we vote for the one we feel is best, and we vote for the best. That's it. Don't try to disparage Obama supporters by mislabeling them 'blind faith' Obama supporters.
We chose Obama because he is a step in the right direction, a step towards openness, a step towards making friends with the rest of the world, and I would even say a step towards cleaning up corruption (that's the point of openness, right?)."
Goodness, I wish I had your youthful optimism about the world.
*Sigh*....well, just give it a few years, with experience and seeing how it all works, that optimism and hope for the world fades. Enjoy it while you have you illusions. After that, you learn to just look out for yourself.
Well I agreed with that comment a hundred percent. And I'm 60. You can call my optimism dumb, but you can't call it youthful.
So you're ok with people having to pay $1200/song if they got caught downloading? You don't have a problem with the DOJ supporting overly harsh punishment?
Believe it or not the now overturned Jammie Thomas verdict was for $9250 per song file. Even the presiding judge has pointed out how ridiculous it was.
Here's what I wrote to them using your link - thank you NYCL...
Are you going to allow ex-RIAA lawyers, now members of your Department of Justice staff, intercede on behalf of the RIAA in cases where they are finally being brought to task in regard to their unconstitutional attacks on ordinary citizens?
You did know that the RIAA hired companies to act as Private Investigators in states they held no credentials to act as such, right?
You did know that the RIAA has brought copyright infringement cases against 80+ year old grandmothers who never had a computer?
You did know that the RIAA has brought copyright infringement cases against deceased people, then tried to get the 10 year child of said deceased individual alone to scare them into saying they did something, when they may or may not have?
You did know that the RIAA has continuously cried about losses (to piracy) during years that they've made their highest levels of profit, which was mostly due to people who have lent songs for others to listen to (much like yesterday's radio)?
You did know that the RIAA has (as a conglomerate of Recording Companies) continually raises the flag that piracy hurts the recording artists, which habitually it's the recording companies that immorally force contracts onto artists that strip them of most of the money they could make - such as charging them for media, distribution (shipping) fees and breakage - for ELECTRONIC downloads of their songs - which have NO media, NO distribution fees, and NO breakage?
The RIAA (and it's movie industry equivelent, the MPAA) are abominations to the citizens of this country, whose outdated business models leave them gasping for breath, trying to find any way they can possibly survive, which has led them to file law-suit after frivolous law-suit (nearly every time someone has stood up to them with any merit whatsoever, they've dropped the cases), tying up the court systems, in an effort to get the government to force the public to keep funding these dinosaur business relics which are better off extinct.
Thanks for your time and patience.
Cool. Good letter. I hope many other people follow suit.
What link did you use to submit it? Mine only allowed 500 characters.
...seeking from 2,200 to 450,000 times the amount of actual damages...
I've only seen up to 8000, anything over 9000 would just be ridiculous.
:)
But seriously, the actual damages are around 35 cents per download. (70 cent wholesale price minus ~35 cents expenses=35 cents lost profits). The now discarded Jammie Thomas verdict was 23,000 times the actual damages (9250 per song file).
Interestingly, when the record companies are defendants they sing a different tune, complaining that even 10 times the actual damages is unconstitutional.
Oh yes, because the Republicans have done so much to help the little people from the big business RIAA.
Both parties are on the side of the RIAA. If you thought a vote for Obama would change the RIAA legal battles, you were sadly mistaken.
Well we know that the Bush DOJ was anxious to intervene on the RIAA's behalf. We don't yet know that about the Obama DOJ. This will be an interesting test.
We chose Obama because he is a step in the right direction, a step towards openness, a step towards making friends with the rest of the world, and I would even say a step towards cleaning up corruption (that's the point of openness, right?). We knew he wasn't perfect, that's not why we chose him. We chose him because we wanted a change in direction; that can take time, and won't all happen with one man.
Thank you.
He's made some very good pledges about openness and anti-corruption measures, so now's the time for him to live up to them.
Going to various Obama web sites where public submission of comments are facilitated is exactly where people should go to voice their view on these matters.
Exactly. Here's the one I know of. If there are others, would appreciate the links.
Ray, it's a surprise to see you commenting on a non-RIAA story (despite all evidence to the contrary, RIAA execs & lawyers are not Neandertals).
:)
Despite all evidence to the contrary, I did, and do, have a life outside of fighting with the RIAA subhumans. In fact, I was for the first half of my college career, an anthropology major, and prior to that attended the Bronx High School of Science. (One of my only nerd or geek credentials.)
Based upon all I learned in anthropology, I concur that the RIAA lawyers are not Neanderthals. I believe that the RIAA lawyers are NOT descended from a common ancestor at all, but are an alien form of being which probably came from outer space. I am uncertain as to whether they can be characterized as a "life" form or not, since their blood is cold.
At any rate, one thing I've read from a couple sources is that Neandertals likely had a much higher metabolic rate than modern humans, and thus were outcompeted for food. One figure I read (in Nat Geo, I think) was that Neandertals would have needed around 7k calories a day, while moder humans require around 2k calories.
This, coupled with a less diverse food supply for Neandertals, meant that modern humans were much better at surviving and reproducing during times of scarcity, like the ice ages.
Modern humans and Neadertals competed in the same niches, and if the Neandertals were better adapted to it, they would have wiped out H. Sapiens instead.
Thing is, h. sapiens has a remarkable track record of wiping out other species, and even members of its own species. Sometimes inadvertently by just greedily and myopically destroying the environment around them. Sometimes intentionally as for example exterminating bison, or exterminating Jews or Armenians, or sometimes just other tribes.
I think it's a mistake to place any scorn on individuals battling for survival, like humans were doing then. Once a culture has developed that has the excess resources to care for those less capable, then you might have a point...
If your assumption is true, that they were merely better adapted, then of course I would not place "scorn" upon them. However, human history shows that as well adapted as we are, we nevertheless -- collectively -- have a tendency to (a) kill more than we need for food, (b) consume without regard to the future, and (c) engage in senseless violence all kinds of living things.
I do have a certain scorn for selfishness, because human beings are capable of more, and it is perhaps their most distinguishing characteristic that they are; they have the ability to love their fellow man, people they don't even know; to love and to adhere to and preserve the values of people who died long ago; to love and to look out for unborn generations they've never met and never will meet.
Human nature has good in it, and evil in it.
In view of the scant relevant evidence we have, there is no reason in the world for us to eliminate, as one of the possible explanations for the extinction of the Neanderthal people.... us.
If someone who was once here is missing, we are, I am afraid, the "usual suspect".
"Why they died out is a matter of furious debate, because they co-existed alongside modern man."
Thing is.
Hasn't the author noticed that "co-existing alongside modern man" is not good for one's health?
Perhaps the sentence should have read:
"Why they died out is a matter of furious debate, although the probable reason is that they co-existed alongside modern man, which is a species known to be (a) warlike, (b) greedy, (c) bloodthirsty, and (d) in general dangerous to the health of other species, most of which it has eliminated from the face of the earth.
Obama took all of the RIAA's best lawyers (none of which successfully prosecuted even one file sharer, although many were persecuted)
??????????How do you define a "best lawyer"? Lawyers who collected fees of ~$50m or more, and couldn't win even one fully contested case, against opposition which can't even afford a lawyer?
Artists can choose to keep control of their copyrights (songs, recorded performances) and sell their own stuff to the public, or artists can choose to lose those copyrights by signing with a label and going into debt to a label.
And that element of choice is exactly what is at the core of the RIAA litigations. Digitalization and the internet have given musicians and listeners the choice of leaving the record company middlemen out of it. And more and more of both are making that choice. Which is why these corporations are doing their utmost to put the genie back in the bottle, and to try and make the internet the kind of closed, monopolistic marketplace that existed before. Be wary of attempts of the record companies to 'work with the ISP's' and to take away net neutrality, because what is at the core is the desire to recruit the ISP's to be their gatekeepers the way vinyl record manufacturing plants, payola to radio stations, and expansive distribution networks were in the past.
this kind of excessive deference to client interest at the expense of common sense can be easily and comfortably rationalized as preserving the adversary system and by the feeling of an obligation to carry the client's case forward if there is any remote possibility the facts are as he claims based on the lawyer's credo that everyone deserves competent representation or a defense.
Not among real lawyers. Among us there is no confusion about that. We know who the whores are.
Whether intentional or not I love the "must be new... here" reference. I can only hope that you are peppering your speeches with such memes on a regular basis.;)
In the Soviet Union, the speeches would be peppering me.
As for the story, forgive my naïveté but how much difference would (will) this make?
I have no idea.
My pessimistic side makes me just think that the RIAA will go away and find someone who will do their bidding
Yes there are many such people pretending to be lawyers.
- can they reinstate the motion as though it was never withdrawn once the inaccuracies are (purportedly) sorted out?
Yes.
My optimistic side was unavailable for comment.
That's okay. I don't even have one.
In any case, if this guy is new to the process, it is nice to hear of another lawyer who is concerned with ethics.
Well let's not go too far in praising him, just yet. Maybe he was just having a bad day.
Slashdot Mirror
This is important everyone, please voice yourselves at the OP's link here http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ [whitehouse.gov]. Also, Please spread this link to other forums you frequent and explain why it's so important that we speak up together _now_. We all know the abuses of the RIAA/MPAA over the past 8 years. Bullying private citizens, stifling innovation, refusing to embrace emergent technologies, and most importantly their slow but successful erosion of the public domain through congress. These are monopolists who have consistently attacked the public domain, and if they win here they will be very difficult to stop. Please spread the word to your friends and family, explain to them why this issue is so important...and what's at stake. Encourage anyone you can to comment on this, raise the issue in forums, college newspapers, and wherever else you think public discourse on the subject would be most beneficial. Do your part. Obama will listen if enough of us speak up. Joe Biden is sided with the RIAA, we need to outvoice him and the Hollywood lobbyists. This is the part where you work for the country you want to live in, not sit back and expect the government to 'do the right thing'.
Thank you for that, grumpygrodyguy. This is really important, and this is a really important moment in which to express it. I hope everyone will get on that link and tell the President how we feel. (I just heard that they've upped the size of the input field to 5000 characters!)
TORTS are supposed to right wrongs, not be a payday. So it is logical and obvious that damages awarded in lawsuits have some relationship to actual proven harm. That's that civil courts are for: to prove harm and resolve the harm. They aren't meant for social crusading. Any ambulance chaser who isn't fodder for Lawyer jokes would tell you that. If there is a public policy reason to FINE people and corporations then the law should allow for that explicitly. It should not be done as a back door hack for something that isn't meant for the use you're putting it to. Want megabuck fines for piracy? Fine, make it a proper criminal offense with the state being the only entity with standing and a proper burden of proof.
Well said, jedidiah. Thank you. That is the issue that will be argued in SONY v. Tenenbaum, when the First Circuit sorts out whether the argument can be streamed over the internet. It is a very important discussion we need to have about the RIAA's interpretation of copyright law.
Does this count the people who the RIAA sued who didn't even own a computer?
I can even go you one better. I have a client who's been in litigation with them since 2005 who's never even used a computer.
You have two lawyers with proven track records of a) using evidence that was obtained illegally, and b) suing people with no evidence at all, c) suing the wrong people, and d) participating in a campaign of frivolous litigation.
Yeah but other than that, what do you have against them? Picky, picky.
We are offered a limited number of candidates, we vote for the one we feel is best, and we hope for the best.
Let this be a lesson to the blind faith Obama supporters out there
I think that is a 'straw man' argument. I have never met a 'blind faith' Obama supporter. There probably is no such thing, except for maybe a very small number of very dumb people. We are offered a limited number of candidates, we vote for the one we feel is best, and we vote for the best. That's it. Don't try to disparage Obama supporters by mislabeling them 'blind faith' Obama supporters.
We chose Obama because he is a step in the right direction, a step towards openness, a step towards making friends with the rest of the world, and I would even say a step towards cleaning up corruption (that's the point of openness, right?)."
Goodness, I wish I had your youthful optimism about the world. *Sigh*....well, just give it a few years, with experience and seeing how it all works, that optimism and hope for the world fades. Enjoy it while you have you illusions. After that, you learn to just look out for yourself.
Well I agreed with that comment a hundred percent. And I'm 60. You can call my optimism dumb, but you can't call it youthful.
The defendant was 'not objecting' to the request for extension of time. That's all.
I just clicked your link to write my own response and it appears to be a 5000 word limit now...
Wow. That's amazing. Talk about responsive government!
Sorry, I thought you were talking 'multiples' as I was; I didn't realize you were talking dollars, because there was no dollar sign.
So you're ok with people having to pay $1200/song if they got caught downloading? You don't have a problem with the DOJ supporting overly harsh punishment?
Believe it or not the now overturned Jammie Thomas verdict was for $9250 per song file. Even the presiding judge has pointed out how ridiculous it was.
Here's what I wrote to them using your link - thank you NYCL... Are you going to allow ex-RIAA lawyers, now members of your Department of Justice staff, intercede on behalf of the RIAA in cases where they are finally being brought to task in regard to their unconstitutional attacks on ordinary citizens? You did know that the RIAA hired companies to act as Private Investigators in states they held no credentials to act as such, right? You did know that the RIAA has brought copyright infringement cases against 80+ year old grandmothers who never had a computer? You did know that the RIAA has brought copyright infringement cases against deceased people, then tried to get the 10 year child of said deceased individual alone to scare them into saying they did something, when they may or may not have? You did know that the RIAA has continuously cried about losses (to piracy) during years that they've made their highest levels of profit, which was mostly due to people who have lent songs for others to listen to (much like yesterday's radio)? You did know that the RIAA has (as a conglomerate of Recording Companies) continually raises the flag that piracy hurts the recording artists, which habitually it's the recording companies that immorally force contracts onto artists that strip them of most of the money they could make - such as charging them for media, distribution (shipping) fees and breakage - for ELECTRONIC downloads of their songs - which have NO media, NO distribution fees, and NO breakage? The RIAA (and it's movie industry equivelent, the MPAA) are abominations to the citizens of this country, whose outdated business models leave them gasping for breath, trying to find any way they can possibly survive, which has led them to file law-suit after frivolous law-suit (nearly every time someone has stood up to them with any merit whatsoever, they've dropped the cases), tying up the court systems, in an effort to get the government to force the public to keep funding these dinosaur business relics which are better off extinct. Thanks for your time and patience.
Cool. Good letter. I hope many other people follow suit.
What link did you use to submit it? Mine only allowed 500 characters.
...seeking from 2,200 to 450,000 times the amount of actual damages...
I've only seen up to 8000, anything over 9000 would just be ridiculous.
:)
But seriously, the actual damages are around 35 cents per download. (70 cent wholesale price minus ~35 cents expenses=35 cents lost profits). The now discarded Jammie Thomas verdict was 23,000 times the actual damages (9250 per song file).
Interestingly, when the record companies are defendants they sing a different tune, complaining that even 10 times the actual damages is unconstitutional.
Oh yes, because the Republicans have done so much to help the little people from the big business RIAA. Both parties are on the side of the RIAA. If you thought a vote for Obama would change the RIAA legal battles, you were sadly mistaken.
Well we know that the Bush DOJ was anxious to intervene on the RIAA's behalf. We don't yet know that about the Obama DOJ. This will be an interesting test.
We chose Obama because he is a step in the right direction, a step towards openness, a step towards making friends with the rest of the world, and I would even say a step towards cleaning up corruption (that's the point of openness, right?). We knew he wasn't perfect, that's not why we chose him. We chose him because we wanted a change in direction; that can take time, and won't all happen with one man.
Thank you.
He's made some very good pledges about openness and anti-corruption measures, so now's the time for him to live up to them.
Going to various Obama web sites where public submission of comments are facilitated is exactly where people should go to voice their view on these matters.
Exactly. Here's the one I know of. If there are others, would appreciate the links.
Ray, it's a surprise to see you commenting on a non-RIAA story (despite all evidence to the contrary, RIAA execs & lawyers are not Neandertals).
:)
Despite all evidence to the contrary, I did, and do, have a life outside of fighting with the RIAA subhumans. In fact, I was for the first half of my college career, an anthropology major, and prior to that attended the Bronx High School of Science. (One of my only nerd or geek credentials.)
Based upon all I learned in anthropology, I concur that the RIAA lawyers are not Neanderthals. I believe that the RIAA lawyers are NOT descended from a common ancestor at all, but are an alien form of being which probably came from outer space. I am uncertain as to whether they can be characterized as a "life" form or not, since their blood is cold.
At any rate, one thing I've read from a couple sources is that Neandertals likely had a much higher metabolic rate than modern humans, and thus were outcompeted for food. One figure I read (in Nat Geo, I think) was that Neandertals would have needed around 7k calories a day, while moder humans require around 2k calories. This, coupled with a less diverse food supply for Neandertals, meant that modern humans were much better at surviving and reproducing during times of scarcity, like the ice ages. Modern humans and Neadertals competed in the same niches, and if the Neandertals were better adapted to it, they would have wiped out H. Sapiens instead.
Thing is, h. sapiens has a remarkable track record of wiping out other species, and even members of its own species. Sometimes inadvertently by just greedily and myopically destroying the environment around them. Sometimes intentionally as for example exterminating bison, or exterminating Jews or Armenians, or sometimes just other tribes.
I think it's a mistake to place any scorn on individuals battling for survival, like humans were doing then. Once a culture has developed that has the excess resources to care for those less capable, then you might have a point...
If your assumption is true, that they were merely better adapted, then of course I would not place "scorn" upon them. However, human history shows that as well adapted as we are, we nevertheless -- collectively -- have a tendency to (a) kill more than we need for food, (b) consume without regard to the future, and (c) engage in senseless violence all kinds of living things.
I do have a certain scorn for selfishness, because human beings are capable of more, and it is perhaps their most distinguishing characteristic that they are; they have the ability to love their fellow man, people they don't even know; to love and to adhere to and preserve the values of people who died long ago; to love and to look out for unborn generations they've never met and never will meet.
Human nature has good in it, and evil in it.
In view of the scant relevant evidence we have, there is no reason in the world for us to eliminate, as one of the possible explanations for the extinction of the Neanderthal people.... us.
If someone who was once here is missing, we are, I am afraid, the "usual suspect".
"Why they died out is a matter of furious debate, because they co-existed alongside modern man."
Thing is.
Hasn't the author noticed that "co-existing alongside modern man" is not good for one's health?
Perhaps the sentence should have read:
"Why they died out is a matter of furious debate, although the probable reason is that they co-existed alongside modern man, which is a species known to be (a) warlike, (b) greedy, (c) bloodthirsty, and (d) in general dangerous to the health of other species, most of which it has eliminated from the face of the earth.
I should put sarcasm warnings in my sig.
Nah. I should develop a better sarcasm detection meter.
Obama took all of the RIAA's best lawyers (none of which successfully prosecuted even one file sharer, although many were persecuted)
??????????How do you define a "best lawyer"? Lawyers who collected fees of ~$50m or more, and couldn't win even one fully contested case, against opposition which can't even afford a lawyer?
That's "In Soviet Russia". You must be... ah, forget it.
:)
RIAA Drops Enforcement Case To "Sort Out" Fabrications There, fixed it for you...
Thank you.
Artists can choose to keep control of their copyrights (songs, recorded performances) and sell their own stuff to the public, or artists can choose to lose those copyrights by signing with a label and going into debt to a label.
And that element of choice is exactly what is at the core of the RIAA litigations. Digitalization and the internet have given musicians and listeners the choice of leaving the record company middlemen out of it. And more and more of both are making that choice. Which is why these corporations are doing their utmost to put the genie back in the bottle, and to try and make the internet the kind of closed, monopolistic marketplace that existed before. Be wary of attempts of the record companies to 'work with the ISP's' and to take away net neutrality, because what is at the core is the desire to recruit the ISP's to be their gatekeepers the way vinyl record manufacturing plants, payola to radio stations, and expansive distribution networks were in the past.
this kind of excessive deference to client interest at the expense of common sense can be easily and comfortably rationalized as preserving the adversary system and by the feeling of an obligation to carry the client's case forward if there is any remote possibility the facts are as he claims based on the lawyer's credo that everyone deserves competent representation or a defense.
Not among real lawyers. Among us there is no confusion about that. We know who the whores are.
Whether intentional or not I love the "must be new ... here" reference. I can only hope that you are peppering your speeches with such memes on a regular basis. ;)
In the Soviet Union, the speeches would be peppering me.
As for the story, forgive my naïveté but how much difference would (will) this make?
I have no idea.
My pessimistic side makes me just think that the RIAA will go away and find someone who will do their bidding
Yes there are many such people pretending to be lawyers.
- can they reinstate the motion as though it was never withdrawn once the inaccuracies are (purportedly) sorted out?
Yes.
My optimistic side was unavailable for comment.
That's okay. I don't even have one.
In any case, if this guy is new to the process, it is nice to hear of another lawyer who is concerned with ethics.
Well let's not go too far in praising him, just yet. Maybe he was just having a bad day.