RIAA Grabs Student's Life's Savings 1228
An anonymous reader writes "ABCNews is reporting on a 19-year-old college student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. He created a site named ChewPlastic.com where students could search for files on the university network. Mind you, this is not a music file sharing software, this is just a search engine. Presumably, the search engine was being used to search for music files as well. The folks over at the RIAA did not take too kindly to the idea, and sued the student. He settled but denies any wrongdoing. What was settlement, you ask? His life's savings."
i read this as a plum (Score:3, Interesting)
Umm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anybody else find something wrong with that quote? His father is quite right -- by allowing him to deny all charges, they're basically saying he didn't do anything wrong...yet they take his $12,000.
Mike.
RIAA owning the USA (Score:0, Interesting)
The only plus point in all of this is that sooner or later the RIAA will be so immensely unpopular even amongst non issue aware people, that there will be a backlash against the RIAA in the form of simply nobody buying CD's anymore.
Dear RIAA, (Score:5, Interesting)
If you could please send the proper paper work we can get started ASAP. The bully only stays a bully so long, then someone comes along and beats the ever living shit out of that bully and makes them realize that they aren't allowed to be a bully any longer.
Bring it, I'm tired of you picking on all my peers and I'm ready to kick your ass. Remember when you take me to court, IT ALL COMES ON THE TABLE, and I'll subpoena everything!!!
Re:Umm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
What the RIAA said was basically this: we dont care WHAT you say, because at the end of the day you paid us $12,000 to stop taking you to court; if you think you didn't do anything, we dont give a flying fu...
This is actually quite standard in out-of-court settlements. Both sides are usually free to some regard to talk about the case, so long as the check clears. In fact, he's fortunate that they gave him complete freedom to talk, since that degree of freedom is somewhat rare.
At some point it's going to backlash. (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone very wise once said "Follow the money". The major labels are the RIAA's clientelle, and I think I can reasonably assume they give their ascent to the RIAA's "business practices" (read: extortion), otherwise they'd be very upset about public relations backlash against them and their products. This backlash may happen eventually.
Now assuming that this ascent to these techniques is present, perhaps contractually, what happens when the wrong student is sued, and a very wealthy, but up to now quiet and non-pressworthy relative (such as a rich uncle that the RIAA didn't count on), steps forward and says to his nephew, "No, you are not caving, and I've secured the services of an excellent law firm that specializes in the RICO act."
As I said, follow the money. I look forward to the day when some unassuming student, that was doing nothing wrong, takes the major labels for a few billion. Yes, with a B.
Re:Cache of Chewplastic.com (Score:5, Interesting)
Programmer's Legal Defense Fund (Score:1, Interesting)
Travis
Re:What? No pay-pal link? (Score:4, Interesting)
(And before anyone asks, that link does actually send the money to him.)
Grand Strategy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Upon futher reflection though, perhaps the Jordans have made a huge personal sacrifice as part of a very strategic move against the RIAA. IF, and it's a big if, the facts of the case do make it out to the public (i.e. that he was just making a search engine for the campus network, which has plenty of legitimate uses) this may be the match lighting the fuse of a popular boycott of the RIAA.
Maybe not, but whether the plan works or not, we should all donate a bit and help Jesse get his life savings back. (12000
~Kirk
Does the RIAA have a much larger plan? (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a question. Let's say that a student sets up a web-page explaining how students could use Windows' built-in Search app to find files, including MP3s, across the university's network. Would the RIAA sue the student for merely explaining how to use it?! It think they would.
Re:Sums It Up (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Umm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
barÂraÂtry Audio pronunciation of barratry ( P ) Pronunciation Key (br-tr)
n. pl. barÂraÂtries
1. The offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones.
2. An unlawful breach of duty on the part of a ship's master or crew resulting in injury to the ship's owner.
3. Sale or purchase of positions in church or state.
Barratry is simply the judicial version of extortion. Ie, "Can't afford to fight? Whew, our accusations were groundless anyhow. That'll be 12,000$ please."
RIAA honeypots, would that work? (Score:5, Interesting)
- Do a couple of something like: dd if=/dev/zero of=LOTR.Two.Towers.Complete.dvdrip.divx.avi
- Make a webpage with links to your fake warez and post it to search engines.
- Repeat the previous with different variations
- Wait for your ISP or the RIAA to contact you.
- Reply with a polite and legally correct letter asking for proof that you have infringed on someones copyright... This letter could be prepared by someone from the filesharing community who has studied law. Please someone fill in the details here
- Goto 1.
IANAL, would this work? A couple hundred thousand of these fake cases could perhaps force the RIAA to go after the real bad guys -- the ones that make pirating a business.Re:I have to agree... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but if the record companies don't make that advance back from sales, they recover it from the artist. Same with any publishers' advance; my father once had to pay back about 1000 GBP after disappointing sales of one of his books. That was on a 3000 GBP advance.
About 12 years ago I knew a band who had several records out, and had just returned to the UK from their second successful tour of the States. They were all signing on the dole. Heck, they came and played in a pub where I worked, in return for 10 GBP per head and free beer.
The rock'n'roll lifestyle isn't all it's cracked up to be...
I will if a candidate agrees with me! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd run myself, but even disregarding the money issues I'd have, there are minimum ages for members of Congress...
Show me a candidate who represents me, and I'll vote for him.
Re:Sums It Up (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What's next? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, to put it another way, "Just how much of a typical university's operating budget is comprised of funds from corperate sources?"
I wonder if universities are becoming less and less 'able' to help bite the hands that feed them. There've certainly been a number of high profile cases in the past 15 years where students have run afoul of corperate wishes, and the university has sided with the corperation out of contractual neccessity.
piracy as rebellion? (Score:2, Interesting)
Artists should leave RIAA companies... (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember:
1 If RIAA makes money, gives some artist pawn a deal to make kazaa (Napster) users feel bad about themselves. While not that effective, it causes #2.
2 If people boycott, RIAA blames losses on P2P, starts to sue.
3 RIAA sues developers of file search indexes
Watch out - they might sue you for having a site which goes against Intelectual Property. Hey, you might have a link to download Kazaa. After all, why shouldn't an artist's grandson's grandson be fat off of royalties for a copyright?
Buying CD's from the RIAA IS optional (Score:2, Interesting)
But I do agree, attacking innocent people who haven't even done anything wrong in an attempt to fuck their lives over before they have even begun is absolute bullshit and I hope they get a backlashing that takes them rocketing to the poor bin.
Question for the law junkies... (Score:3, Interesting)
So this kid setteled and the RIAA agreed to obsolve him of any wrong doing. I'm assuming this means he can continue to operate his site as is without modification, since he got to pay them 12k to agree that he didn't do anything (ridiculous!!!). So, assuming he doesn't have to stop what he was doing, does the fact that they agreed that he did no wrong keep them from being able to sue him for the same thing again?
Have it both ways. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, technically, it's still stealing, there's no denying that, but all you'd really be doing is getting the money to the people who actually deserve it, and not the crooks who are stealing from them in the first place.
If I were an artist on one of these major labels (God forbid), I'd much rather have a fan tell me that he/she downloaded my music illegally and then give me a couple of bucks out of appreciation rather than buy a CD off the rack for $17.99, and I get the nickel or dime or whatever for creating the music, while the record company makes the lion's share.
No Shame (Score:4, Interesting)
"You go to the site, you type in a search term, and it finds files on the network," Jordan said. Jordan compares his site to Google, the popular Internet search engine.
[Ed: "I built a tool to help people find stuff. I'm getting sued?"]
But the RIAA likens Jordan's site to Napster, the now defunct song-swap service that revolutionized the distribution of music.
"The people who run these Napster networks know full well what they are doing: Operating a sophisticated network designed to enable widespread music thievery," Cary Sherman, the president of the RIAA, said in a statement issued April 3.
"The lawsuits we've filed represent an appropriate step given the seriousness of the offense," Sherman added.
[Ed: "I don't care what it is, it's ruining my business damnit!"]
"I didn't tell people what to share. I never promoted piracy," Jordan said.
[Ed: "I built a tool to help people find stuff. I'm getting sued?"]
"Basically, Napster set out to create its own network specifically for music. What I did was ran a search engine on a campus network [where] the network already existed," Jordan said.
But Jordan did agree to pony up $12,000, his entire savings account, to the RIAA. Jordan and his father, Andy Jordan, felt the settlement was their best option.
[Ed: "They said they would leave me alone if I gave them everything I had."]
"They agreed to allow Jesse to deny their allegations. They agreed to dismiss the case and all allegations against him," Andy said. "Basically they agreed that he didn't do anything wrong, but [they're] taking his 12 grand."
[Ed: "Give us everything you have and we'll forget all about it." Taking cues from Tony Saprano?]
Jesse knew students were sharing files on his network: pictures, PowerPoint presentations, physics notes, anime, and music. But he refutes the RIAA's claim he "hijacked an academic network" and "installed an emporium for music trading."
[Ed: "He's a terrorist to boot!"]
Ruining the Music Business?
Andy believes that the RIAA's intimidating tactics will undoubtedly hurt the music industry by alienating music buyers. An avid music fan for more than 40 years, he shudders at the impact this will have on the industry's most fervent fans.
"I don't know how strongly the music companies â" the people who really run the music companies â" I don't know if they realize what the impact of this misguided attempt at intimidation is going to be," Andy said.
While Andy questions the motives and actions of the RIAA, he basks in pride at his son's steadfast resolve.
[Ed: Exactly what motives do you need to question? Duh.]
"He has stood up to the schoolyard bullies that are pulling this and he's said, 'You are not going to make me say something that's not true,'" Andy said.
ChewPlastic.com is asking for donations to help recover the $12,000 settlement. As of June 6, the site has collected more than $1,700.
Original article:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/
Re:He should have faught. (Score:4, Interesting)
His particular product is effectively an information tool. It was designed to catalog information and present it to potential users.
RIAA's legal action is effectively a gag order. It says, "You can't say anything because it may be against OUR interest". Thats DEFINITELY a FREE SPEECH issue.
I'm wondering where his university stood on this issue. Did CS professors come out and defend his right to to this?? If not it's a bunch of BS. Any good professor would congratulate his student for creating free (and useful) software.
The only mildly beneficial aspect of this case is that this isn't a ruling. It cannot be used as legal precedent in court. The issue over search engines and whether they're covered under DMCA is still open.
I have to Disagree (Score:1, Interesting)
Going to concerts (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cost benefit analysis (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't want to be bitching about the U.S. legal system as is common on /., but I think this is really one of its weakest point.
In Germany (and I presume in many other states), the side who looses a court battle has to cover
the so called "Gerichtskosten" (court expenses), which covers all legal fees paid by the opposing side, plus a bunch of expenses (such as costs for expert witnesses etc.) made by the court.
This makes it a lot easier to fight the battle if you are weaker on money but having the clearly stronger case.
Just another reason... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Umm.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hold on, there.
With the kinds of bad intellectual property laws that are out there today (I'll mention DMCA here to be a karma whore), the issues are not nearly so cut and dried. Remember, the courts aren't a way to determine what SHOULD be against the law--they're to determine what IS against the law.
Maybe he did something illegal, maybe he didn't. Since he chose not to fight (and I don't blame him for that in the least), we'll never know.
Re:Sums It Up (Score:5, Interesting)
In the event that the court found in the kid's favor, it is likely he could have countersued, FOR FREE, if some lawyer decided they had a good chance of reaching into the RIAA's deep pockets. The lawyer's fees would come out of the RIAA's settlement.
The way they handled this is completely stupid, in my opinion.
P2P developers should use the corporate veil... (Score:1, Interesting)
If this kid were self-incorporated, the RIAA wouldn't have been able to touch his personal bank account, at least not without buying a judge.
He should have sued them... (Score:2, Interesting)
FYI I vote, it's just pointless as I contend. (Score:4, Interesting)
When the federal government takes in less money, Oklahoma suffers more. Most people don't realize we are a subsidized state (as are most of the small populated mid-western/western states).
'Tute screw! 'Tute screw! (Score:2, Interesting)
By the way, any other RPI folks hear about the nuclear fallout on Troy [216.239.53.100] in the 1950s? It's an explanation for the people who lived on my street, for sure.
Re:You can do plenty! (Score:1, Interesting)
You can donate to the EFF.
What good has that done?
Re:Let's do both! (Score:5, Interesting)
(Down with the RIAA!)
Financing? (Score:2, Interesting)
You mean to finance the advertising, air-time, limousine, leer-jet, clothing, pirotechniques, not to mention the manager's gucci wallet and filling it, for the 12 boyband-artists among 10,000 that you starve normally?
And exactly how does this benefit me listening to the tunes I wanted to hear, the bands that deserve recognition and pay, or society in general growing up listening to britney spears?
Re:What's next? (Score:1, Interesting)
TicketMaster (Score:1, Interesting)
Just the beginning (Score:1, Interesting)
So, exactly how do you sue millions of people, or even hundreds of thousands for that matter? You don't. Upon obtaining the identies of users from their ISPs, the RIAA will start mass mailings which depend a payment of say $1000 or else they will take the individual to court.
The RIAA knows they don't have to sue every Kazaa user to kill the P2P system. What they probably don't know is that once they initiate a panic attack against the general public (which they are already doing, by strongly biased newspaper articles warning parents of the legal liabilities they face in letting their kids use Kazaa.) What the RIAA probably doesn't know is that initiating a legal/extortion war (so far its just been battles) will force P2P developers to initiate freenet-style security, thus making tracking down individual's identities a little harder.
Of course this isn't going to be of any help to those people who have already been mass-indexed by the RIAA and outsourced private companies scanning the P2P networks. Just download a copy of PeerGuardian, and run it in the background for a day or two. Try hanging out on EFnet for a while. They are scanning everyone, every single day.
Re:What's next? (Score:3, Interesting)
--
While this was probably part of it, I also want to point out rule number one in civil law -- Sue the people with the money.
Perhaps, the RIAA are going after the weak to set up precedent to make things easier when they start going after bigger game? Just a thought.
Re:Going to concerts (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Here we go again (Score:2, Interesting)
How many people own hammers and use them on a semi-regular basis? A lot. Better yet, how many people the world over own knives and use them on a regular basis? A large percentage of the world population. How many knife-related crimes are there in proportion to the number of people who own and use knives regularly? Very, very few. It's insignificant. Hence, we can establish that knives, hammers, etc. are primarily used for legitimate purposes. P2P clients on the other hand... come on, stop kidding yourself. They are primarily being used to distribute copyrighted materials. Yeah, wink wink, you're only using Kazaa to download public domain music, Linux ISOs, and GNU utilities. That doesn't change the fact that the software is primarily being used for illegitimate purposes and that the whole appeal of the programs lies in the fact that people can anonymously rip off music and software companies with little or no threat of the activity being traced back to them.
The issue doesn't revolve around "this utility MIGHT have illegitimate uses, so they're attacking it", it revolves around "this utility appeals to people PRIMARILY because of its usefulness in committing illegal acts".
To address the search tool the kid wrote: I think that this kind of search tool is a bit different than say, Google. It allows you to search local Windows shares. For what? Linux source code? The latest version of GCC? Shareware games? Why bother? Why are you going to try and find non-copyrighted materials (which probably aren't going to be shared in the first place) on local shares when you're likely going to have more success just downloading the software from the appropriate website? No, I think this tool aids in copyright infringement since it's going to be used to search the shares of college students, who are most likely sharing music, movies, and software. If you're on a college network, go search the shares for the latest Linux sources or something GNU-related and tell me how many results you get versus a search for "Eminem".
Furthermore, I can't believe that none of you considered that perhaps the RIAA looked at the site's logs and saw -- surprise! -- search after search for music, movies, etc.
It's not "his network" (Score:2, Interesting)
to his plight in the article, they use the phrase:
Jesse knew students were sharing files on his
network: pictures, PowerPoint presentations,
physics notes, anime, and music.
Does that make the entire internet "Google's
network"? I don't think so.
Have they ever tried to search for *.mp3 on google (Score:3, Interesting)
Taking them down with Big guns (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:He should have faught. (Score:5, Interesting)
If we can't write bug-free code, I certainly don't imagine legislators can produce bug-free legislation.
The primary purpose of common law is to allow for errors and omissions in legislation to be corrected by recourse to common sense and long-accepted principles in interpretation of that legislation. Lose the common law, and you lose the last vestiges of freedom.
For example: in the UK all public highways are property of the Crown ("the Queen's Highway"). The right of ordinary citizens to use public highways ("right of way") is primarily enshrined in common law. Thus any law which could be interpreted by the police as permitting them to deny right of way to certain people on grounds of societal prejudice could be overturned on the grounds that such interpretation (and possibly the legislation itself) was contrary to common law.
Of course, in practice a case may be dragged all the way to the House of Lords ( == highest court) over a period of years before such a ruling is made, but it's nice to know that a magistrates' court ( == lowest court) can't just say "That's what it says in the book, so you can't appeal".
Re:The lesson to be learned here (Score:3, Interesting)
As to getting a pro bono attorney and public support, the best way to do that is to take it to the news media immediately, and let THEM throw dirt at the RIAA mob. At that point, a lawyer who volunteers to defend the kid gets to look like a hero and become a big noise without having to earn it through years of hard work.
While ambulance chasers are just another form of bloodsucker, making use of 'em at need is better than being eaten by jackals.
I nominate, if anybody happens to know it- (Score:5, Interesting)
Choosing to fight. (Score:2, Interesting)
This is indicative of people being pissed already (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone take a look at your music collections right now - exactly how many pirated music albums do you have? One or two hundred, at the max? Several dozen? How many of those are independent artists? If you're anything like me, most of your digital music isn't even mainstream, and just about as much of it is even on major labels. Most of the hardcore music collectors I know of have similar situations. The largest collector I know of has around 12G of music (he's an avid show/scene person, and has all the CDs for what he's got, too).
Consider that a 13G music collection is roughly 325 albums worth of 10-song albums composed of 4Mb songs (with fairly lossy compression). That's not even half of what those albums would have cost at full RIAA retail.
Now, let's guesstimate how many CDs your average college campus would buy, were there not such things as P2P and MP3s, and the Internet. Consider: that I, as well as most of the people I know, can not afford CDs, that most music on the radio is claptrap, that all of the music I listen to I would not even know about if it were not for P2P (and would likely have never made it were it not for a large fanbase in the p2p community).
Also consider that prior to any of these new-fangled CDs (that is, in the 70's and 80's), many people in college would use high-fidelity turntables to dub records to metal-oxide or normal audio cassettes - saving many dollars by not buying the official album release.
My guess is that, over the course of a year, a college campus of around 2,000 students would purchase -maybe- 2,000 albums, most of those being pollarized in a select group of people - the music enthusiasts. Everyone else would just listen to the auditory rot on the radio (as they do now, in addition to the same songs in MP3 form). Of those 2,000 albums, multiple copies would be made. Easily half of those albums purchased would not be mainstream bands, and those that were mainstream albums would likely be in the more peripheral parts of mainstream.
This postulation leads me to conclude that these lawsuits are a feeble attempt to recoup money for their failing industry monopoly. People have caught on, and are tired of paying up the wazoo for a couple songs that most likely are tiresome by the 3rd time they listen to them.
All in all, this kid got raped. He took one 'for the team'. Very foolish of him to do so: he should have used that 12k to go to court. Of course, the RIAA would have appealed, and appealed any counter-suit, so really, he couldn't have done it on his own.
Re:This is wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree a search engine, in and of itself, isn't wrong. Prosecute the people who abuse the tool, not the tool makers, right?
Well, what happens when it's the same person doing both? When this was first posted on
The actual complaint is here:
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/riaa/ar
Among other claims, it says:
Now, I haven't heard his side of the story. Maybe this allegation is totally false, but if it was I would think there would be a huge stink about it here.
I'm not saying the search engine wasn't the main thrust of the RIAA's complaint. I'm not saying $12,000 is a reasonable settlement. I'm just saying there is a whole hell of a lot of "he didn't do anything wrong" talk, when in fact it seems that he might have.
If nothing else, his taste in music borders on criminal.
Re:Steal everything. (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore: I don't actually care about whether there's something available to pirate or not. For a while, I insisted on buying CDs because I believed in artist compensation and making sure that they'd continue making the music that they did. I like music, I like movies, and with the money I payed for music, the RIAA took it and lobbied to make me into an assumed criminal. They've lobbied and and lawyered themselves more money, as evidenced by this attached story.
That was never part of the deal I thought I was getting into. I thought I was paying solely for artist compensation, distribution, advertising, and concert subsidizing, profit and growth. Boy was I wrong.
Problem is, I still like music.
So what do you choose? Do you choose to just let things get worse and worse, while funding people who lobby to make you a criminal? Is that some sort of rush?
Or do you fight back?
I'm sorry to have to say it, but I don't care anymore if artists don't get compensated like they do now, if they insist on either making millions of dollars off me or just not making music. Music didn't used to make you a millionaire, but the RIAA made it work through distribution, which has spawned a whole new breed of musicians who think it's their RIGHT to make millions, and not just a hope.
I don't care about them. I care about me. And I have to make the most correct decisions for me. So I'm willing to let the artists whither, let their sponsor corporations whither. They're complicit in making society view me as a criminal first. I think that's wrong and unacceptable. So, to make the tune change, I'll hit them where it counts.
Pirate, Pirate, Pirate.
Re:FYI I vote, it's just pointless as I contend. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's worse than that. Below is an article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine paraphrased:
First of all, the federal government is not cutting spending to give you that tax cut. It's going into deficit spending, which means it just borrowed some money (with interest) on your behalf, and that money is used to finance the usual programs - not big investments like an interstate highway system that could pay off big down the road. Basically, the government just forced you to borrow some money.
Secondly, the federal government continues to require states to do things without supplying the money. The most current one is the increased security requirements after 9/11, which the federal government is not entirely paying for. Unlike the federal government, state governors are required by law to pass a balanced (no deficit) budget, which means they are forced to cut programs. The cuts ripple down to the local level, where a mayor now really has to find money to pay teachers and police. What could they do? Increase various taxes, or cut services that voters have already come to expect, which is political suicide.
It's not a tax cut, it's a tax shift. As an added bonus, the federal government just incurred debt (which benefit the people with enough money to lend to the government).
Interesting Proposal (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let's do both! (Score:3, Interesting)
A minor detail. (Score:3, Interesting)
No doubt the RIAA singled him (as well as three others) out because he ran the search engine, but I think the stronger legal threat came from the direct infringement charges. So, settling probably was the best option. People always say we should blame the pirates, not the technology providers, but he was doing both.