Charter Cable Sues To Quash RIAA Subpoenas 324
mattOzan writes "Charter Communications, the third largest cable provider in the United States, has filed a motion in St. Louis, Missouri, to block the RIAA's requests for the identities of about 150 Charter customers in the St. Louis area. In the over 1100 subpoenas that have been issued so far, Charter claims they are the only major ISP that has not provided the RIAA with 'a single datum of information.'"
Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena (Score:5, Insightful)
The good fight. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is interesting to note that Paul Allen [corporate-ir.net] is the chairman of Charter, and has been since he bought the company in 1998. Perhaps this will give fuel to the entertainment industry to say that technology, technology companies, and anybody tainted by either, are evil? (See here [macworld.com].)
Nonetheless, it is important that formidable companies stand up to the entertainment industry and its henchmen. Charter and Verizon (see story [com.com]) are two folks who you'd want on your side.
justen
Re:Frivolous McDonald's Lawsuits (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena (Score:5, Insightful)
But that will cost them money.. and the more it costs them to keep up this campaign of lawsuits, the less likely they'll collect enough in settlements to draw a profit from it; and if it's not profitable, they won't do it.
Re:Subpoenas? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Bog them down with litigation (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm... if you really want to boycott the music industry... you'll have to stop listening to the radio too. They do get paid each time a song is played.
Re:Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bog them down with litigation (Score:1, Insightful)
In fact, in many cases it's just the opposite, record companies spend a great deal of money trying to convince radio DJ's to play their music.
Re:Only 2 subpoenaes to AOL ?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Conversely, it could just be possible that the average AOL subscriber is so computer-savvy that he actually knows how to disable uploading in his P2P software, or at least knows to point his upload folder to an empty directory.
Well
Who's Better? (Score:1, Insightful)
Matt
Something else that's bothering me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only 2 subpoenaes to AOL ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm wondering is, how they managed to find two people to subpoena from AOL.
Re:statistics of riaa (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep they ignore a few blinding facts. You get a lot more for your cash with a DVD and the prices match the age of the thing they are selling. Why can I buy a DVD of a 30-year old feature film like 'Bullet' (and enjoy it) for 5 GBP but I still have to pay around 20 GBP for a CD of 'Dark Side of the Moon'. I would like a CD copy of that album but not at that price!
Re:Even if the RIAA looses the fast-track subpoena (Score:5, Insightful)
At the risk of being Offtopic... I know it's fashionable to bash MS and their products, but this statement is simply silly. What you're referring to MS doing with the X-Box is called a "loss leader." They make the platform at a loss with the hopes of making up the dividends on the individual games. All the major consoles do the exact same thing as do manufacturers of printers (ever wonder why you can get a printer for 80 bucks, but the carts are 15-30 bucks each, not to mention paper?), and several other industries.
Comparing this to the RIAA subpoenas and lawsuits is just silly, and is pretty much karma-whoring via MS bashing.
Re:I'm confused... (Score:2, Insightful)
"I will not knowingly contribute to the RIAA if possible (CD-R TAX unavoidable. god the tax is bullshit when they are suing those fucks.)"
Those fucks? In the US, the music CD-R tariff largely goes to musicians, composers and performers, not the RIAA. RTFL [copyright.gov]. Musicians, composers and performers are the good guys. Not "those fucks."