RIAA Threatens 15-Year-Old 1016
MunchMunch writes "It looks like the RIAA is still going after teenagers--this time, 15-year old Megan Dickinson was caught sharing 1,100 files. At the maximum statutory damages for copyright infringement, this makes Megan's liability at least $825,000, at most a mere $165,000,000. Naturally, the RIAA benevolently offered a $3,500 settlement to avoid these moderate, legally sanctioned damages. As we can hardly forget, the RIAA has already used this technique to settle with a 12 year old. Megan's unsurprising take: 'Yeah, it seems ridiculous.'"
Nothing better to do (Score:3, Insightful)
1100 FILES??? (Score:5, Insightful)
All kidding aside, ehh. She is sharing illegal files. She got caught. I'm not really seeing the "Shock and Awe" about this news article.
Beat the RIAA? (Score:5, Insightful)
A sympatheizer... former... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it really legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ignorantia legis neminem excusat.
These criminals remind me of... (Score:4, Insightful)
However, you also have to remember that back then the common people actually had spines. They knew they were probably going to get raped; They didn't bend over and they sure as hell didn't relax and enjoy it.
It's like Marty says in BTTF 1: "If you don't stand up now, he'll walk all over you for the rest of your life!"
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Assassination? (Score:2, Insightful)
Assassinations never deter anyone - it didn't work when they assassinated Lincoln, or Gandhi, or terrorists, or doctors performing abortions or just about anything else. And what are you going to do, destroy a whole organisation, given that it would be the organisation suing you (which is a person in law, but not in flesh) rather than an individual.
Not a very well thought out theory, besides which it just means that you're breaking more laws and you're going to go to gaol for a lot longer than you would have for file-sharing (I don't think anyone has been imprisoned for it yet), assuming you don't get the death penalty.
Re:1100 FILES??? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've said it before.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Joe
If at first you don't succeed, lower your standard until you have.
You know what? (Score:3, Insightful)
The girl was illegally sharing copyrighted materials. She was one of many who have been contacted.
Slashdot, in a typical tactic of propoganda latches onto one example and drives it home. A 12 year old! A 15 year old!
Meanwhile, no matter how you shake it, they're still doing the legal thing--protecting their copyrighted works! Even Jamie of Slashdot knows what that is about--threatening the daily Slashdot summary site because they are "illegal."
Wait a second (Score:4, Insightful)
And I think that in terms of customer relations, the RIAA is making a big mistake, which will turn around and bite them in the ass.
And I agree that the RIAA has long overcharged for CDs.
But I also don't download files (or share them) in violation of copyright.
And I'd sue if my copyright were violated. As for instance, if code I'd licensed under the GPL were used in a closed source product in contravention of the GPL.
This is ludicrous, but save your moral indignation for Direct TV's suits against people who purchase legal hardware, or for Belkin and its spam-vertising, or for John Ashcroft's willingness to trample the 4th Amendment.
What the RIAA is doing is stupid and heavy-handed. What the 15 year old did was stupid and illegal. But moral indignation against the RIAA is misplaced.
Re:Is it really legal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason this gets press is because it's some BIG SCARY BUSINESS INTEREST sueing a _poor little kid_. These articles get posted because someone wants to enflame the rage of all the illegal file swappers against the RIAA. The RIAA is just following through with there legal right.
There are an awful lot of people who seem to think that if they don't like the law, they'll just ignore it. Then when the law comes back to bite them they get angry that its unfair. Well, maybe they should've lobbied to get the law changed before breaking it!
I'm no fan of the RIAA, they are so stuck in the stone age they don't see a good opportunity staring them in the face. But they are going to do, what they are going to do. And if you don't like it, follow the law or change it.
Re:Assassination? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's stopping (Score:5, Insightful)
By offering to settle for less than it will cost to even defend against such a suit, they've pretty much guaranteed that nobody will actually let it go to court. And the people that actually have enough money to fight this just on the principle of the thing have much more to lose if they lose -- so they're likely to settle as well.
Presumably, their purpose is not to make money, or even to punish those they sue ... instead, the idea is to scare the 99.99% of the people out there that they don't sue.
Re:1100 FILES??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. The 12 year old's case was all over the news. How could this person not have been aware of it?
She willingly chose to share her files when everyone has been talking about the RIAA actions.
Do they see file sharing as "civil disobedience" and think that will really change the laws/industry? Stop supporting RIAA's artists (and I use the term loosely) if you want to protest RIAA's actions. Don't buy the CDs and don't go to the concerts, but if you insist on downloading/sharing, don't act surprised when legal action is taken against you.
As an aside: I think Dr King said that civil disobedience to protest an unjust law implied the willingness to "do the time" for your actions or some such. Has anybody sued by RIAA not settled out of court? If so, they are not getting much notice.
Re:1100 FILES??? (Score:1, Insightful)
Peer to Peer swapping is stupid, but suing a child for over a hundred million is just insane. And unethical. I hope karma bites them in the ass as hard as anyone has ever been bitten. Entire families at the RIAA being wiped out by inherited stomach cancer would be just fine with me.
Scumbags. Plain and simple.
Good. (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:uh (Score:4, Insightful)
That is not theft. No matter what the RIAA wants you to believe. Theft is a Criminal act. Copyright infringement is a Civil act. That's why they're suing her and not throwing her in prison.
Her violation is not worth $165 million. Anyone who suggests that it is is a fucking idiot.
Must she admit guilt? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can she settle the case with the stipulation that the settlement does not consitute an admission of guilt?
If the SEC can settle with Putnam and Morgan Stanley without forcing them to admit wrongdoing after they committed fraud on a huge scale and victimized thousands of innocent people, it seems to me that the RIAA could see its way to giving a 15 year old girl the same courtesy.
News coverage could have been worse (Score:3, Insightful)
"However, some local bands say they didn't ask for and don't want protection from fans downloading their music.
"I'm all for file sharing," said Mark Arm, the lead singer for Mudhoney. "I think it's ridiculous that they're going after 80-year-old women and 15-year-old kids, no matter how many items they've downloaded."
The biggest artists may have the most to lose. File sharing takes money out of their pockets, because fans download the music rather than buy it.
Non-mainstream, more independent artists take a different view. File sharing gives them exposure they may not otherwise get. "
Nice to see that even the mainstream media is beginning to catch on that just because the RIAA bought themselves some laws it doesn't mean they are right. Yes, laws have now been crafted to make it illegal to share, so what she did is "illegal." But she didn't do anything wrong, some music groups understand that, and eventually people will see that file sharing is the best way to advertise.
Spare me the new /. wave of conservative thought that wants to lecture me about how the corporations are in the right and we should just cooperate and shut up. The RIAA got this one wrong, they are trying to protect a dying business model, and history will show that file sharing increases business, not descreases it.
Keep in mind, I actually am law-abiding, even though I disagree with the law. But it encourages me when I see the mainstream media begining to see that just because the RIAA says 'file sharing = evil' it isn't necessarily show.
Re:You know what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you see, I'm not sure about that. In order to get their information about who was sharing they used a modified client on a P2P network. This could quite possibly be considered as trespassing. Also, modifying the client, would be a copyright violation (assuming they didn't write it from scratch)... In either case, I believe they should get a call from the lawyers at Sherman Networks...
According to the Kazaa Media Desktop End User License Agreement you agree not to...
2.1 Transmit or communicate any data that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
If you look at all of a persons songs an then mail them letters, that's an invasion...
2.2 Harm minors in any way;
Sueing ain't benificial....
2.3 Impersonate any person or entity or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;
2.9 Interfere with or disrupt the Software;
2.11 Monitor traffic or make search requests in order to accumulate information about individual users;
Do I really need to say anything about this one?...
2.14 Collect or store personal data about other users.
3.2 Except as expressly permitted in this Licence, you agree not to reverse engineer, de-compile, disassemble, alter, duplicate, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, make copies, create derivative works from, distribute or provide others with the Software in whole or part, transmit or communicate the application over a network.
"It's a little ridiculous" (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and as to many teenagers, the concept of actions having real consequences seems a little ridiculous too.
Say whatever you will about the RIAA's tactics, this type of reaction from a teenager is hardly the result of an over-aggressive music industry.
Re:1100 FILES??? (Score:2, Insightful)
All the more reason not to engage in this illegal activity. The reason that the fine is so high is that copyright infringement of this magnitude used to be the type of thing that organized crime got into. The fact that the perpetrator was a 12 year-old girl doesn't change the law.
If anything the girl should be grateful that the RIAA is willing to drop the charges for a paltry $3,500. The alternative is far, far worse.
The fact of the matter is that the RIAA has the right to protect their copyrighted material. You may not like this fact, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation. If you really want to "stick it to the man" don't listen to the RIAA's music. There are plenty of artists that are happy to share their work.
Yes, the folks in the music industry are generally not nice people. They have piles of faults, and have rigged the music business so that they make all of the money at the artist's expense. That doesn't make violating their copyrights ethical (or legal).
Re:You know what? (Score:3, Insightful)
how the opinion changes (Score:5, Insightful)
Who modded this down? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You know what? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it is nearly as reprehensible as if you made counterfit tickets, and sold them to people.
I don't really know what the punishment should be for downloading and sharing 1100 songs. But I believe that 3500 is at the high ends of reasonable, maybe at the low ends of too high.
The amount they are potentially suing for should be reserved for the people manufacturing the bootlegs you can buy iun the street.
Re:End of an era...? (Score:1, Insightful)
Is there any reason to share 1,100 copyrighted files?
Now, is there any reason to do it that's not entirely illegal and, by every accepted sense of the word, unethical?
The girl did something illegal. Her parents were dumb enough to allow her to do it (if they didn't know, that's still their fault: what's a 15 year old doing on the internet without parental supervision). Time to find a lawyer, offer $2000, and then start negotiating the settlement.
Re:End of an era...? (Score:1, Insightful)
I just find it amazing that this is really news and that people are asking others to step up to breaking the law. WTF? You don't want to pay for music so you steal it, then expect RIAA to roll over? And ask others to help you? Frankly, I'm surprised this type of activity isn't illegal - collusion.
Re:"It's against the law!" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's good to protect ownership of creative content but protecting the right of a company to make a profit by distributing music made by someone else has little to do with any issue of creativity or authorship.
The argument that people are hurting "the artists" by trading music on the internet is extremely weak. Most active musicians make most of their money by playing live shows.
Record companies made their money by distributing music to consumers more cheaply than any alternative means. The cost of buying a CD is factors of magnitude less than the cost of hiring your favorite band. In an age where the distribution of recorded music was difficult this made sense. It no longer makes sense. Most of the cost of recorded music goes to promotion and distribution, but the internet has made promotion and distribution cheap and easy.
It's time for a new business model. Perhaps less music will be recorded if there isn't a profit to be made anymore, but maybe more people will be involved in the creative process.
Re:CALLING all lawyers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:End of an era...? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also an unfortunate fact that most of the current music and media is censored. If it weren't then people would make great music that makes you think instead of the crap briteny spears cranks out of her ass. System of a down and Eminem are good examples of music that makes you think. When eminem made a song about killing his wife, people thought. It showed emotion and what hate is, gave the reasons for it, made ya sick. What if all music was like that? People would think instead of droning on. The RIAA is a dinosaur; it takes far more food to saciate a dinosaur than it does a couple hundred small humans, if the weather gets too cold or warm, they die. And finally, in our hit-by-a-gigantic-meteor world, they are slowly dieng off for all of these reasons.
All they will accomplish with sueing p2p sharers is to push file sharers underground to apps with better and better security. Some of the congressmen in our goverment are thinking "Uh, they're doing what?".
As for what this will do, I can tell you right now. "Oh fsck, I can't share eminem anymore! But I can share this porn on beta, and some funker fogt or de/vision! " In this fashon, music that's copyrighted by the RIAA won't be shared, and the good cyberpunk, indie and compeditive stuff will be shared. "*search for pop* devision, wtf are they?". When you type in Techno or electronic ebm you won't get a bunch of RIAA garbage, you'll get independant stuff. This will, in turn, increase sales and popularity of independant music and independant labels and take away the RIAA's consumeristic base slowly but surely.
This is in fact the reason their music sales dropped 15%; part of it is that nobody likes their tactics, part of it is that they are destroying their primary medium of advertising, and part of it is what I talked about above.
In the end, however, p2p will live on despite their actions. If without music fine, it'll just become a vast ever growing sea of porn, books, files, warez apps and other junk. You can't block the apps, you can't track them down, and you can't stop them without pulling a lot of shit. And if all else fails listen to some good ol' rantradio (www.rantradio.com). Because nothin' on there is RIAA copyrighted and they're one of the only completly legal and completly independant internet radio stations.
Change the playing field (Score:3, Insightful)
One obvious candidate would seem to be FreeNet. IMHO the only thing stopping FreeNet being used for music file sharing is that most people don't know it exists and there's no music-specific-and-easy-to-use client for it - if/when someone addresses those two issues, it's going to be game over as far as file swapping is concerned.
Re:"It's against the law!" (Score:3, Insightful)
This mantra is starting to disturb me. In my opinion any law that allows corporations to sue perfectly normal teenagers for hundreds of thousands of dollars is wrong and needs to be changed.
Even if those "perfectly normal" teenagers were illegaly distributing copyrighted works knowing full well it is illegal? I still do not understand the leniency around here with regards to just grabbing music without paying for it. I have yet to read a single valid argument for it.
I think it's good to protect ownership of creative content but protecting the right of a company to make a profit by distributing music made by someone else has little to do with any issue of creativity or authorship.
It has to do with ownership. Those companies own the recordings to distribute. That's how they make their money. You seem to be implying it's a-okay to just take copies and not pay for it, for no reason. Would you say the same for warez? How about movies?
The argument that people are hurting "the artists" by trading music on the internet is extremely weak. Most active musicians make most of their money by playing live shows.
Actually, that point is extremely weak. For one, most active musicians do not make that much more money touring live than they do from album sales. Second, you are still hurting the artist--that is still money you are not giving them. Third, if an album doesn't sell well and makes no profit for the label, what do you think happens to that artist? Now you get it.
Record companies made their money by distributing music to consumers more cheaply than any alternative means. The cost of buying a CD is factors of magnitude less than the cost of hiring your favorite band.
This argument has been shot down countless times. The cost of a CD includes the marketing, distribution, recording costs, and tons of other expenses. It's not like the label is supposed to just take the expenses for getting those sales in the first place. They make it up in the sales, as does the band.
In an age where the distribution of recorded music was difficult this made sense. It no longer makes sense. Most of the cost of recorded music goes to promotion and distribution, but the internet has made promotion and distribution cheap and easy.
Then why is it not working? The only instance I've seen is iTunes, and even that is dwindling out. The answer is--free piracy. Advocated by places like Slashdot for some inexplicable reason. Honestly, nobody has ever actually given a morally or legally sound reason. It's always half-baked "culture movement" lectures or other similar excuses.
It's time for a new business model.
People love to say that. "It's time for a new business model. That means I get to take their copyrighted works!"
Perhaps less music will be recorded if there isn't a profit to be made anymore, but maybe more people will be involved in the creative process.
How could more people be involved if less people are recording?
Why these things get modded down (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, folks like the parent like to whine "they mod me down without responding", but really, EVERY thread on the **AA has 500 responses to his/her initial statements. Most posts like the parent get modded down because they insist on whining. "You're all a bunch of thieves!" "See, this is Slashdot hypocrasy!!!" "What if someone stole YOUR code/violated the GPL!".
See, what you and the parent seem to miss, is that most Slashdotters respond to stories like this in the usual fashion, because most of us disagree with the laws as they stand.
We don't have a problem with laws being enforced per se, it's more of a statement of "the laws really, really suck". And no, it's not some black and white issue of "she shared music, therefore she must be guilty because the law says so". For one thing, she's a minor. For another, there is the concept of evidence, due process, etc, which seems to be entirely missing from the RIAA's current tactics. Oh wait, that would assume they're a law enforcement agency, which they most certainly aren't, even if they act like one.
Yup, some kid is accused of having copyrighted material on her hard drive. Coming to the RIAA's defense by saying "she's guilty, she's a thief, what they're doing is right!" isn't insightful, it isn't informative, and it sure as hell isn't interesting.
Although in all fairness, I think everything on this issue has already been covered a million times here, so I'm not too sure just what is interesting or informative anymore.
Re:I'm not afraid of you! (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, and the new Kazaa Lite lets you continue to share files while at the same time preventing others from listing the entire contents of your catalogue. Sure you downloaded a song from me but how many more do I have? 1? 50? 10000? You'll never know...
Re:You know what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1100 FILES??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:1100 FILES??? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, she didn't. Neither did her parents. Read the article.
You have no problem with companies buying 'harsh penalty' legislation for crimes without proof of harm?
Re:how the opinion changes (Score:3, Insightful)
Naturally the RIAA probably sends people NDAs and settles for free if someone declines to pay anything. A couple thousand bucks is pennies for them. BUT the cost of going to court, and the publicity, and the risk of losing, is worth millions for them to avoid.
So it's extortion.
Organized Crime (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:1100 FILES??? (Score:2, Insightful)
The other problem is the amount they're demanding.
Re:You know what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a bit like prohibition basically -- everyone at the time thought it was a good idea, but no one lived up to it, and it turned out to be mind bogglingly stupid. We were best rid of it.
Sometimes laws that are at odds with people's norms of behavior can and should be pushed through anyway. Desegregation for example. But look at how important of an issue that was. And how hard and painful it was to set things right, or at least make them better than they had been.
Copyright is not so important as to warrant that sort of effort. I think we'd be better off reducing it, and thus cases like this are useful in showing us _why_ we ought to reduce it; so that these suits are not brought in the future.
Re:"It's against the law!" (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. No one ever said that the laws had to be favorable towards their making money. There used to be a thriving industry in patent medicines in this country -- then we created the FDA and it ran all of those snake oil hucksters out of business. This was not a bad thing, despite destroying their ability to make money.
As for why we might want to do this, it's for the same reason. If we thought that the public would be better off being able to copy works (assume that we might merely alter, rather than outright abolish, copyright, e.g. by reducing term lengths) than we would be otherwise, even taking into account the effect that this might have on the creation of works, than frankly we'd be stupid to _not_ do it.
After all, why would you not want to be as best off as possible?
We only grant copyrights in the first place due to a belief that we're better off doing so than we would be if we didn't; certainly through most of history we didn't have copyrights and no one complained.
Given people's attitudes, the increased ease of publishing and creation (e.g. not every movie needs to have a zillion dollar budget -- those may be unsustainable with regards to the laws they need to be worth creating not being justified), etc. the time might be ripe for cutting back on copyright protection in order to make everyone better off than we are right now.
Re:So what? (Score:1, Insightful)
IANAL, but arn't there laws concerning the methods used to obtain evidence? I'm sure that evidence can't be obtained in an illegal manner. EG: phonetapping, then using it as evidence to incriminate someone.
If the RIAA is using tainted evidence, then the whole case is rendered moot.
I hope that someone with a little more legal knowledge can reply to this, as I'd be happy to know the answer.
If the evidence is tainted, I'd be happy to take on the RIAA any day.
Be a hypocrite. Hippos need crits. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you dispute that, please explain how this is different from the people who download full version warez under the premise "I need it to fully evaluate it" - despite the existence of a fully or almost fully functional trial version - and having these "evaluations" last.. well.. permanently.
The "Information wants to be free" argument invariably falls down when a person who'll quite glibly throw out that catchphrase suddenly falls quiet when asked to "free" their full address and credit card number.
Finally, I am NOT trying to justify the actions of the RIAA here. I think their behaviour is completely draconian and yet another really bad PR move on their part, but I also think it's somewhat over reacting to paint them as the big mean evil bully picking on the poor little girl for no reason whatsoever. Fact remains, she HAS committed a crime. The only question is whether the punishment is fitting. Personally I would say no, it isn't. It's complete overkill, but that's the ONLY problem I have with the situation here.
Incidentally, for the triggerhappy mods out there - If you really feel you must mod this as troll or flamebait, then go ahead, but please at least think carefully about it first. Troll != Devil's Advocate
Hurt Them WIth Your Wallet, Not With Piracy! (Score:1, Insightful)
Movie distributors, record companies and software houses know they can get away with monopolistic overcharging because gutless Joe Average is constantly bombarded with advertising making him believe that he *HAS* to have the latest music CD, DVD or game / application - therefore he goes and spends money and buys the products.
If you want to hurt these companies then *DON'T* buy the products at the prices they want for them, it's that simple. As a result, they'll be forced to reduce prices and we all benefit.
This teenage girl is basically too stupid to recognise that she is *NOT* entitled to free music and is giving in to peer pressure probably because her friends do it all of the time. She was unlucky, she got caught.
However, I don't support the RIAA whatsoever. If these actions were about paying musicians properly and delivering talented artists to the masses then I would be happy about this. Instead, it's about swelling record company profits to make more money while they still churn out sub-standard plastic artists on overpriced plastic CDs...
Re:You know what? (Score:1, Insightful)
in fact5 the very idea of redress comes from the fact that a person felt they'd suffered at the hands of someone in the commons. someone with their sheep out grazing in the fields (which before the Enclosure acts were considered as belonging to no-one) and they were somehow attacked by someone's dogs for example. suffering damage through the actions/inactions of another they had cause to seek that redress. well baldric, your dog killed that man's sheep, you'd better replace it. don't you have a old date you can drum up?
but these laws were unwritten, agreed upon in principle without ever having been debated. this stuff predates king john let alone any of your magna cartas or consitutions or bills of rights. this was always just edmund telling baldric to make it up to the fellow.
then royalty & nobility came along and said who's queen? and all of a sudden replacing one sheep didn't seem like recompense enough if it was one of the royal sheep. (sorry that word is a little more 15th century than 14th) so of course they write them down, and becaues they've been written down, they get a little more severe.
then lawyers, then colonisation, a couple of republics, more lawyers (more than even ancient greece). and pop stars. can't forget about them.
the idea of redress is something rooted in common law, but in this case we're not talking aobut common law. we're talking a law that was founded beyond common law, and has progressively empowered corporate entities (and their lackeys) with the nominitive rights of a person but with bigger budgets.
so poor Mr. RIAA was walking through the meadow with his herd of 9-digit-income, platinum-wool-sheep and spots some kid snatching wool from a pile that another kid has previously dared to snatch from those sheep. granted maybe enough to make a nice cable-knit sweater sure- hell at 150,000$ her clump of yarn, it better be a damn nice sweater. [or maybe the math is more like 11 Million Dollars for every year old a person is]
the thing is, back in the day, the redress would be something like: well geez megan, could you make us a nice sweater or sing us a few songs?
but this, this is closer to reparations. like all of Asia asking Japan to repay war crimes. or Germany trying to pay off its karmic debt to Holocaust survivors
maybe the price is a little steep -- i know we're no longer talking about a sheep for a sheep, but maybe they're trying to help a certain eighties star with his legal fees...
Re:"It's against the law!" (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright is supposedly a limited monopoly on distribution of a given work granted by the public in return for the owner's courtesy of sharing their work. This was meant to encourage creators to share their work widely, as it would enrich the public domain when the clock ran out on the limited monopoly.
However, copyright terms have been getting longer and longer. Since the moment distribution of recorded music became commercially possible, new works have stopped entering the public domain.
Add this to the fact that the RIAA does do an incredible job of promoting their own music, but doesn't do such a good job of making it clear that their music is used with permission. Usually the use of music in a movie is mentioned late in the credits, when most of the audience has wandered out. Listening to the radio spew out song after song at no cost to me other than the time spent dealing with (listening to or avoiding) commercials, I hear no legal notices explaining that the songs were used with permission from the relevant parties. Stations have to pause periodically for identification. Perhaps it would clarify to the general public that the music is used with permission if they would pause from time to time in a similar manner to explain whose permission allowed them to play such music and to remind the public that the music is a tightly controlled resource.
When you see a trademark used in print, there's a little symbol used to explain to people that the symbol in question is, indeed, trademarked. The fact that copyrighted works require no similar annotation allows the RIAA to dangle their music in front of our noses before slapping us the minute we start to believe that they're actually giving it to us for free.
All of this has lead to a public which doesn't understand why the radio can redistribute music, but we the people cannot. The situation also leads me to believe that the public is attempting to get a refund for the time-limited monopoly it has granted.
To put it in real-world terms, if I agree to let you borrow my car for a few hours in exchange for you washing it for me, that is a reasonable deal. You have exclusive possession of my car, but I benefit in the end.
However, if you were to try to extend the term beyond hours to days or even weeks without offering me significantly more benefit, I'd definitely reconsider the arrangement.
The RIAA hasn't brought the car back yet, and Congress keeps telling them that they can extend the joyride longer and longer. Decades beyond the death of the creator is too long, and the public is saying that the RIAA needs to wash the damned car and bring it back to the public with whom it belongs.
Our Priorities... (Score:5, Insightful)
This fifteen year old is accused of illegally distributing music and faces a fine of up to 165,000,000 dollars.
Glad to see we have our priorities straight...
Re:Why these things get modded down (Score:2, Insightful)
What on earth does her age have to do with anything? My 64 year old mother was heavily into downloading music from the 1950's from Kazaa until I told her to knock it off. As for the Macintosh bit... are you positive she doesn't have Virtual PC? Don't assume someone is innocent or technically inept just based on their age or platform. Even if you rule out virtualPC there are a number of Mac P2P apps that connect to the fasttrack network and can claim to be Kazaa.
Broke the Law...Fair `Nuff HOWEVER... (Score:2, Insightful)
To extort money from a 15 year old and before that a 12 year old? WTF is that about and WTF is that going to solve? Law is Law, even if it is complete shit and designed to help line the pockets of the greedy and toss the scraps to the artists. But to leverage money out of a teenager/child even at the amount of $3,500 is just plain stupid. Even if they had a silver spoon in their mouth and mommy and daddy could pay it, nothing has been accomplished. It's this flagrant display of greed that makes me sick.
I'm not saying I have a solution, I'm not saying you should get off unscathed for breaking the law. I beleive there is a better solution to them addressing this then feeding lawyers [slashdot.org] and pissing a lot of people off despite words on paper that say you are in the right. Just because words say you are in the right, does not make your actions right. I'm not even saying I have a solution here, but with the amount of money they have already extorted and ripped off from bloated prices...you think they would have hired at least an MBA to figure out, "Hey lets try to save face and instead of trying to get money from the people who probably don't have and won't have it...have them repay it by working community service." As much as I wish horrid things upon everybody associated with the RIAA, I would be hard pressed to keep such a view were they to make their point and show they are not a greedy giant too important to see the humanity side of things.
On a personal note, I think the kid would learn their lesson sucking exhaust up their nose for a month picking up trash on a local highway or freeway.
A little on the harsh side (Score:2, Insightful)
I know what this person did was illegal, and, depending on who you ask, probably immoral... But doesn't $3,500 seem a little bit on the steep side?
I'm not saying we should all violate copyright wherever we see it, I'm just saying that the punishment shouldn't be quite that severe. How long would it take a 12-year-old or 15-year-old to pay off that kind of money?
Re:You know what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this a joke? Prohibition today is more destructive, more wasteful, and more immoral than ever before. For christ sakes, the US has the highest inmate/population ratio in the world, and over half of those "criminals" were convicted on non-violent drug offenses.
Alcohol prohibition was certainly destructive to society, driving up the murder rate and transforming a legitimate, peaceful market into a free-for-all for violent criminals. How exactly is modern prohibition any different?
Re:You know what? (Score:2, Insightful)
The girl was illegally sharing copyrighted materials.
Really? - Did the matter go to court? Was evidence seized from her computer?
She has been accused of sharing copyrighted materials, but as we know very well the RIAA has previously made grave errors in identifying their suspects and I'm sure similar errors will be found in the alledged shared stuff.
But regardless of whether she did it or not, the idea to persecute kids for these offenses is obscene. Copyright law is a very complex beast and I find it hard to believe that it is possible to prove that this girl understood the law well enough to know that by placing files in a certain folder they'd be shared with the net and that this was illigal. That means that the violation was unintentional and thus that damages should not be awarded at all.
Sometimes I think the best defence against RIAA and similar organisations is to advocate massive sharing on a scale that makes certain two objectives are reached:
If RIAA and all similar organisations were destroyed and the cost of running them were returned to both the artists and the customers through lower prices, the entire business would benefit immensely.
There are not - and should not be - room in the world for such obscenely greedy organisations that will stop at nothing to bleed everybody dry -even children - just for a few dollars more.
Re:Be a hypocrite. Hippos need crits. (Score:2, Insightful)
Morality does not enter into it. The RIAA can sue anyone they like, it does'nt mean the defendant is a bad person or has actually done anything "wrong". The moral argument falls flat especially when you concider the moral framework that the RIAA opporates under. Their PR about "artists rights" is cynical and hypocritical to the extreme. If you think that the RIAA is some bastion of moral fortatude, setting by example a brave a righteous vision for the soceity of the 21st century the I am afraid for you. So if you don't mind I'll just discount the "moral" argument against p2p sharing.
"If you dispute that, please explain how this is different from the people who download full version warez under the premise 'I need it to fully evaluate it' - despite the existence of a fully or almost fully functional trial version - and having these "evaluations" last.. well.. permanently."
Both software and music costs are inflated beyond what market forces would otherwise dictate. These inflated costs directly cause the "piracy" that you describe. These are simple economic forces at work. The market system exists ostensibly to benefit soceity as a whole, not to make a few people wealthy beyond reason. If the system starts to break down than people will start to develop a new system. It's no wounder that the people who were benefitting most from the corrupted system would try to frame the dissenters as criminals. You, and I mean you the original poster, can only call this 15 year old a criminal if you can defend institution of the RIAA as a just and socially equitable company. We, as people do not exist to fullfill the wishes and needs of the RIAA.
"The 'Information wants to be free' argument invariably falls down when a person who'll quite glibly throw out that catchphrase suddenly falls quiet when asked to "free" their full address and credit card number."
The argument is that dispite our best efforts to contain information, it will become free. with respect to your quote above, just check any marketing database to verify this. the "Information wants to be free" argument is that if this is so, it is counter productive to develop a soceity that requires information to be restricted.
"Finally, I am NOT trying to justify the actions of the RIAA here."
No, I don't think you are. But I also think that you are not concidering the deeper implications of what we are witnessing here and that puts you in the dangerous position of an unknowing pawn for the RIAA PR machine. you read Slashdot, so I doubt I have to remind you of the ridiculus state of copyrite in the United States.
Kind Regards
Re:Oh, FFS quit with the "she's only 15" crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Side note - though I agree with your post. Neither example you cited are legal.
Time-shifting/format-shifting for personal use is legal and protected, but not distribution - which both of your examples include. You can record from TV on a VCR or TiVo just fine, and watch it at your leisure. However, you can't give that recording away, even to a friend (they could come to your place to watch it with you, and it's a grey area as to whether it's a 'public showing' or not, but you'd probably be able to argue it wasn't).
Nonetheless, since your friend could legally record the show himself, and since tapes have no source watermark, there's no way to prove, once he has it, that he didn't record it himself...
This is the same reason why possession of MP3s is perfectly legal. However, the distribution of them isn't. In every case, the RIAA is going after uploaders - because that's the only type of infringement they can prove.
-T
Re:Why these things get modded down (Score:3, Insightful)
You're assuming they would have the financial resources to do so. That is something the average person doesn't have, given the likelyhood that the legal fees will run into the tens of thousands of dollars at a minimum. There is something wrong with the system when defending ones self, even from baseless accusation, imposes such a high financial burden.
Re:You know what? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure I buy into that statement. Prohibition ended because it created an even worse environment. It created far more criminals who broke far worse laws. Murder, extortion, racketeering, rising in lessor crimes and general violence. All with a reduction in tax income (IIRC). Worse, there were a number of cases where cops and judges were being paid of to allow violations to get off with minimal pain.
Until you can prove that p2p is causing murder, racketerring, people being beat up on the streets, or corrupt judges and police, it's fairly hard to even begin to compare the two.
Re:End of an era...? (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is that the law is wrong. No, not on general principles -- the appropriate parties should be able to go after pirates -- but it's wrong that the penalties per violation are so mind-bogglingly high, and have no relationship to the actual loss suffered by the copyright owners. Thus even an innocent party must roll over and pay whatever the RIAA demands, simply because the possibility of losing would wipe almost any of us out financially.
Re:1100 FILES??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Except this isnt the case of "We're going to sue you for 10,000, but we'll take 3,500 if you settle," it's "We're going to sue you for 300 million dollars, a sum of money you'll never, ever see in your entire working life. If you want to avoid being in debt to us the rest of your life, you'd better take the 3,500 settlement."
The first statement is pretty reasonable. The second is extortion. These people really don't have much choice *BUT* to settle. If they try to fight the accusations and lose, the law, as it is written, will basically ruin both her entire life as well as her family's life.
All this for sharing music. On a first offence.
The copyright laws were written to heavily punish commercial copyright offences (Selling bootleg $2 pressed CD's) and not to punish the average Joe or Jane who rips off a copy to cassette or CD (or the internet). Perhaps it's time to revise the laws to create a lower infringement class for people engaging in this sort of infringement.
Re:You know what? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get people around here.
The girl was illegally sharing copyrighted materials. She was one of many who have been contacted.
Slashdot, in a typical tactic of propoganda latches onto one example and drives it home. A 12 year old! A 15 year old!
Meanwhile, no matter how you shake it, they're still doing the legal thing--protecting their copyrighted works! Even Jamie of Slashdot knows what that is about--threatening the daily Slashdot summary site because they are "illegal."
Both girls professed a profound ignorance of teh technical and legal issues involved. They did not even know they were sharing files. They found the website for kazaa and paid for a software program that lets you download music. I mean, hey, it was cheaper than iTunes, right?
She installed the software and searched for music. In a hidden dialog deep in the innards of the interface is the checkbox that is checked by default that makes all the files you download sharable by default. But she would not bother to look for it, of course. Now she gets hit by all this lawyerese and stuff and is freaking out.
You have to realize that 99% of the world does not read slashdot and has no idea how any of this stuff works. A growing percentage have heard of mp3s, but they have no idea what the big deal is with the RIAA if they even know who that is, which most don't. All they know is you can get movies and MP3s on the internet. Time Warner says you can get them faster if you buy their service, and they are even part of the RIAA (and responsible for the clueless fucks at CNN that are misinforming the public).
This RIAA suing people crap is a scam. They are going to try to squeeze more blood from a rock by force. I mean do you think that girl's parents would have bought $3500 worth of cds before she got to college? Probably not.