RIAA Grinds Down Individuals in the Courtroom 680
Iphtashu Fitz writes "The Associated Press recently reviewed many of the copyright infringement lawsuits that the RIAA filed against individuals charged with illegally sharing songs on P2P networks. According to the article over 800 of the targeted individuals have settled for approx. $3000 in fines. One man in California had to refinance his house to pay his $11,000 settlement. Many of the defendants are unwilling to face the possibility of even higher fines by fighting the suits in court despite the fact that it could resolve important questions about copyrights and the industry's methods for tracing illegal downloads. It seems that even some of the judges presiding over these cases question the RIAA's tactics. 'I've never had a situation like this before, where there are powerful plaintiffs and powerful lawyers on one side and then a whole slew of ordinary folks on the other side,' said U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner, who blocked the movement of a number of these cases in her courtroom for months. She wanted 'to make sure that no one, frankly, is being ground up.'"
Once again, protest with your money (Score:5, Insightful)
Go on and protest their actions. The louder, the better. But stop supporting them, or your cries will fall on deaf ears.
RIAA targets... (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing, I think, is that those of us who would be brave enough to stand up in court aren't participating in the types of activities likely to get them targeted.
A lot of the people who are doing this probably don't own copies of the songs to begin with, which makes it tough for them to stand up for themselves.
What really needs to happen is that someone with an extensive music collection, and the desire to fight this, needs to leave various P2P applications open 24/7 with access to their vast, legal music collection, so that someone will notice.
huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
the honourable Nancy Gertner has presided over, by her own admission, numerous drug related trials. US government vs crack addicts seems pretty similar to me.
Against intellectual property (Score:0, Insightful)
The original rationale for copyrights and patents was to foster artistic and practical creative work by giving a short-term monopoly over certain uses of the work. This monopoly was granted to an individual or corporation by government. The government's power to grant a monopoly is corrupting. The biggest owners of intellectual property have sought to expand it well beyond any sensible rationale.
There are several types of intellectual property or, in other words, ownership of information, including copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, design rights and plant breeders' rights. Copyright covers the expression of ideas such as in writing, music and pictures. Patents cover inventions, such as new substances or articles and industrial processes. Trademarks are symbols associated with a good, service or company. Trade secrets cover confidential business information. Design rights cover different ways of presenting the outward appearance of things. Plant breeders' rights grant ownership of novel, distinct and stable plant varieties that are "invented."
The type of property that is familiar to most people is physical objects. People own clothes, cars, houses and land. But there has always been a big problem with owning ideas. Exclusive use or control of ideas or the way they are expressed doesn't make nearly as much sense as the ownership of physical objects.
Many physical objects can only be used by one person at a time. If one person wears a pair of shoes, no one else can wear them at the same time. (The person who wears them often owns them, but not always.) This is not true of intellectual property. Ideas can be copied over and over, but the person who had the original copy still has full use of it. Suppose you write a poem. Even if a million other people have copies and read the poem, you can still read the poem yourself. In other words, more than one person can use an idea--a poem, a mathematical formula, a tune, a letter--without reducing other people's use of the idea. Shoes and poems are fundamentally different in this respect.
Technological developments have made it cheaper and easier to make copies of information. Printing was a great advance: it eliminated the need for hand copying of documents. Photocopying and computers have made it even easier to make copies of written documents. Photography and sound recordings have done the same for visual and audio material. The ability to protect intellectual property is being undermined by technology. Yet there is a strong push to expand the scope of ownership of information.
This chapter outlines the case against intellectual property. I begin by mentioning some of the problems arising from ownership of information. Then I turn to weaknesses in its standard justifications. Next is an overview of problems with the so-called "marketplace of ideas," which has important links with intellectual property. Finally, I outline some alternatives to intellectual property and some possible strategies for moving towards them.
Problems with intellectual property
Governments generate large quantities of information. They produce statistics on population, figures on economic production and health, texts of laws and regulations, and vast numbers of reports. The generation of this information is paid for through taxation and, therefore, it might seem that it should be available to any member of the public. But in some countrie
Fear of standing up for one's self (Score:5, Insightful)
If people would take a stand against the RIAA/MPAA when it comes a-knocking, a lot of light would be shed on their lair of demons. As said by the original poster, this would be a great chance to publically question the (RI|MP)AA about their calculations and figured, and tactics, and have the answers on record. Even if the individual being sued had a judgement made against him/her, I do not believe it would be anywhere near what the desired settlement would be, and it would finally set a precedence for limiting what could be sought in future cases.
If no one stands up against them, they will continue to rape and pillage the consumer. Think about "A Bug's Life,"; the RIAA/MPAA grasshoppers NEED us ants, and they KNOW we are strong and outnumber them, but somehow they are able to bully us into submission.
Re:Stop listening to music, addicts! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the correct approach.
The Grokster ruling basically reinforces the notion that the only people that rightsholders can sue at this point are the endusers.
Personally, I agree that you shouldn't generally hold a technology accountable for how some may misuse it. Along those lines, the EFF themselves used to suggest that the RIAA should be suing infringers [com.com].
On the other hand, I think Kazaa is just a scuzzy operation, and I'd rather see them get sued than a bunch of end-users. But the Grokster ruling means that's not going to be the way it works, at least not for now.
If you don't like the RIAA, don't buy their stuff, and don't copy it. Go find new independent artists, and support them directly.
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:4, Insightful)
The only reason they do this is to deter other people from sharing music. I don't think they really care about the awards here...just the publicity.
Re:Class-Action Defense? Class-Action Defeat. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that the sort of "class defense" you had in mind?
Re:Stop listening to music, addicts! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Case disclosure (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article: "lawsuits that the RIAA filed against individuals charged with illegally sharing songs" (emphasis mine)
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:1, Insightful)
A concerted effort to totally curtail ALL buying for a single month to send a message to the RIAA.
There will be one of two outcomes:
1. There IS NO widespread call for action. [put up or shut up!]
2. Send a message to the RIAA that there is widespread dissatisfaction and a larger protest will come in the future.
I agree that people should not steal songs. I don't care that RIAA sues those who do. I DO care that they get laws passed that curtail your ability to perform legal acts on your own equipment.
That makes as much sense as limiting cars to the lowest speed limit to ensure that NO ONE can possibly exceed the speed. Perhaps, even banning cars to eliminate all those highway deaths.
Frankly, I doubt that there is even a plurality of users willing to forego their "fixes", even for a month. If so, suck it up!
Re:Case disclosure (Score:1, Insightful)
What good would that do? They're suing uploaders, not downloaders. However many copies of the song you own, you aren't entitled to make duplicates for random strangers.
Re:Against intellectual property (Score:1, Insightful)
Note that it wouldn't be the first time increased personal freedom has been bitterly faught by those that stand to gain from restriction - see the american civil war and slavery.
Gee (Score:4, Insightful)
Bring it on mods.
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:5, Insightful)
(I feel better now. ;-> )
Re:RIAA targets... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just silly. A person who has a 1000 downloaded albums clearly loves music and would have VERY PROBABLY bought at least a few of them if that was the only way to get them. And when the users of P2P are calculated in millions, that amounts to a HUGE amount of albums, even if there are some who indeed wouldn't have bought any.
IMO, downloading MP3s is no different than when we used to trade tapes at the skating rink or youth center. These tapes were often made from the radio (remember sitting with your finger on the PAUSE button?)
You don't see a difference between a degraded one-off versus hundreds of millions of 1:1 digital copies?
The facts are that MP3s are LOW quality (completely horrid, as far as I am concerned,)
320 kbps MP3's are completely acceptable, in my opinion.
This already has started... (Score:5, Insightful)
The cat is out of the bag...the horse has left the barn....the _________(insert favorite metaphor here). The MP3 Genie is out and they can't put it back in. Sorry, but it's a losing battle.
The industry will change...this is a fact. The RIAA doesn't like this because they're basically going to stop making the huge mark-up on the CD/Record Market they had cornered. But their monopoly is crumbling, and it's crumbling more and more as the day wears on. Their trying to plug the leaks but the whole dam is falling all around them.
Is this good or bad? I honestly don't know, but it's going to be an interesting thing to witness! We've seen it many times in the past here, when a business is failing, the last-ditch effort is to issue lawsuits.
Want to support a band/artist? Go see them in concert OR send money to them directly...and I mean directly TO them...not to the management/record company. Will people send off a check to Chili-Peppers? Don't know, stranger things have happened.
Re:huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to make a statement on her credibility or lack there of, how about saying something about her behavior when presented with such cases in her court...
Can I mod this +6? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't like the RIAA's tactics? Don't like how they rip off artists and sue their customers? Then don't buy from them. It's simply not that hard- buy used CDs if you must, get freely downloadable music from any of a dozen sources, go listen to a local unsigned band and buy their CDs. I've bought exactly one RIAA album in the last three years, and that was because I was curious about iTunes. I still get to listen to interesting new stuff all the time.
As far as file sharing, folks, as the law as written, file sharing of copyrighted works is illegal. No matter how you spin it (It's not theft, it's not wrong...), it's still illegal. If you think this is wrong, you have two options
How it ought to be done (Score:2, Insightful)
For speeding, (which is arguably a more serious offense than file sharing because lives are put at risk) we have a system where people are caught and given a ~$100 fine on the spot. They can choose to drag it out in court later, but most don't.
Some items:
Cars have license plates. Likewise, IP addresses shouldn't necessarily be deep secrets. Put in place a system for instant subpoena of a suspected offending IP to obtain the user account.
Only cops hand out traffic tickets. Likewise, a copyright holder would have to work through law enforcement authorities to initiate any action against suspected violators. Remove all civil liability for small-time file sharing; make it purely a petty misdemeanor. An enforcement officer would verify that the copyrighted files in question were indeed available on the IP address in the complaint.
To prevent abuse of the above system, the suspected account owner would need to be notified in real time whenever such a subpoena is issued. This would detail who was requesting the IP address info and what for. This would be similar to the speeding system, where you usually can plainly see the police car with the radar on the side of the road once you get close enough.
If the suspected activity is confirmed, law enforcement authorities would mail out a ticket for ~$100. The fine would provide the funds to pay for this system. If the suspected infringer voluntarily pays the fine, it's the end of the story.
If the suspected infringer goes to court to defend himself and is found to have been falsely accused, they would be eligible for compensation of ~$5000 from the accuser. This would prevent excessive abuse from the **AA.
I think that this kind of system would essentially halt illegal file sharing (at least within the borders of a single country) without causing undue stress on anyone or violating too many civil rights. To me it makes a lot more sense than trying to make examples by handing out harsh punishments to a small handful of unlucky suspects.
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm curious about though, is that all the cases I've read about do seem to be very much canted in favour of the RIAA. The defendents are almost always financial unable to fight the case and there is also almost always clear cut copyright infringement. Is this merely media bias, or does the RIAA get to pick and choose its cases once they know who the mark is to better meet their goals of deterrence?
As I understand it, the RIAA usually files a John/Jane Doe case to subpoena the evidence needed to establish their victim's identity. Supposing that J. Doe turns out to be a very wealthy and outspoken proponent of fair use and realistic copyright laws who quite probably would be prepared to fight them in court. Issues of whether they would or not aside, could the RIAA make some excuses and "opt out" of the case at that point, or not?
Re:huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
The context is different. The RIAA cases are civil - drug cases are criminal. A destitute defendant in a criminal case is provided a public defender. A destitute defendant in a civil case is provided jack. This is rooted in a principle that government threats to one's liberty (jail) are more dangerous than the threat posed by plaintiffs seeking nothing but money from a defendant.
Welcome to the US Legal System (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dumbass -MOD DOWN! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fear of standing up for one's self (Score:5, Insightful)
Tyranny? Are you out of your mind?
Tyranny is jamming a spear up your ass and then planting the other end in the ground and leaving you to die (cf: Vlad the Impaler)
Tyranny is torturing a confession out of you because "we know you're guilty, so just admit to it."
Tyranny is taxation without representation and quartering soldiers in private homes against the owners' wishes.
Tyranny is not saying "we can prove you were complicit in violating our IP and we'll sue to recover damages."
For goodness sake, people die because of true tyranny and you're whining because you can't get free tunes!
Look, I'm all in favor of slapping the RIAA down when they go after people who haven't done anything, but for the rest of them, well, you play with fire, you burn your fingers.
If you're so in favor of standing up to them why don't you go share a few million songs and send the RIAA anonymous emails about your activity. Then you can have your chance to stand up for the poor oppressed music listeners.
Re:Equal Protection under the Law (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm vastly more ignorant of Canadian healthcare, but I was under the impression that when they say "socialized medicine" up there, they aren't pussy-footing around like John Kerry--the fees a doctor can charge are set by the goverment. So "socialized law" would mean all lawyers charge the same rates and serve all clients equally, I suppose. It's a nice idea, and the grandparent is correct that it makes vastly more sense than socialized medicine (though I think socialized medicine itself makes a lot of sense relative to the current double-digit-inflation American system). You could even make a pretty good libertarian (not anarchist) case for it.
But it breaks down, because the government itself is a party to lawsuits frequently. There's a serious conflict of interest in giving the government that much power over the lawyers who may be called upon to challenge the government.
On the other hand, the status quo seems completely unworkable as well. Forget whatever views of intellectual property you have--here we have huge corporate interests setting their full legal weight against regular individuals, not just to stop them from doing something, but to make an example of them. That's, well, totally fucked.
Re:Can I mod this +6? (Score:4, Insightful)
That people who downloaded or shared music that they had no right to are wrong is not being questioned at all here. WHat is beign questioned is how that is dealt with by RIAA and the legal system.
By going through civil court the RIAA has to comply wuith a much lower standard of proof, and by their tactics they more or less ensure that people will not ghet a fair trial.
Imho they are definitely right to pursue the people who infringe their rights, but things like proof for that should be held to proper legal standards.
Saying how people should not be sharing music is not contributing to that discussion, it is redundant, and in fact, off-topic.
Re:Equal Protection under the Law (Score:2, Insightful)
So then all of us will have legal representation on a par with crack heads and migrant workers? Color me extremist, but if I'm being charged with some serious crime that I didn't commit (or even that I did commit, but under extenuating circumstances), it's my life that's on the line: I'd prefer to be able to shop around and use the resources that I've worked all my life to amass to find a good lawyer, and properly motivate him to defend me.
Let's pose a hypothetical: I run a light, hit some other car, and put someone into a coma.
Under a socialized legal system, the prosecutor works for The State, the judge works for the State...and my defense attorney works for the State. Hmmm...this is already troublesome...
I tell my attorney (who doesn't work for me, and gets paid the same unionized salary for the next 30 yrs no matter how he does on my case) that (a) the light might have been broken: it was definitely green when I went through it; (b) the cop who pronounced me drunk didn't give me a breathalyzer, he merely made me touch my fingers, and I've got a 3 DEXterity; I'm a teetotaler and have never had a drink.
My attorney has a heavy case load, because the State listens to taxpayers and doesn't fund defense attorneys well (and why should they? they do nothing but defend scumbag criminals!). The cop insists that I was drunk, and the attorney doesn't have the time, energy, or inclination to subpoena a public works guy to testify that the light has been broken years. My attorney's best effort is to plea-bargain my sentence down to 5 yrs in jail, and the loss of my home.
In the free legal system, I realize that my life is at stake, I mortgage my house and draw down my retirement account, and hire the best attorney I can afford. He's got a 30-and-1 average in court. His firm subpoenas not just the public works guy, but all of the maintenance records on the light for the last 10 yrs. It turns out that the light hasn't been serviced once, and the records contain several other complaints. My lawyer subpoenas the cop, puts him on the stand, and grills him: "back in police academy, you were taught the proper way to test someone for sobriety? Did that course cover people with poor manual dexterity? What did the course say that you were supposed to do? You don't remember?!?! Well, let's refer to the textbook..."
It's tragic that some folks don't produce enough assets to buy really outstanding legal representation, just as it's tragic that some folks don't produce enough to buy first class platinum-plated super-premium health care...but in neither case are their lots in life going to be improved by outlawing the free market.
When you outlaw the free market, you outlaw competition, and you outlaw excellence. Money may be corrupting, from time to time, but in the absence of money, the corruption is even worse, and harder to track: things are bought and sold, just like always, but with back room favors, etc.
In your hypothetical socialized legal system, some lawyers are still going to be better than others. How do you think they're going to get allocated to defendants? The local school district president's son got stopped with a pound of pot in the trunk, but his dad knows the scheduling official at the Ministry of Law, and he can...
You get the idea.
The free market isn't perfect. It's just better than all the alternatives.
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:5, Insightful)
Same reason the IRS tends not to audit the high-end white-collar criminals with tax shelters in Barbados as much as Joe Sixpack, who may have done some work on a freind's room addition in trade for some cash under the table.
Same reason you get your ass handed to you if you drive with a straight-pipe welded in place of your catalytic converter, while the power company belches filth all over your neighborhood.
The little-guy is always the easier target. It's called "going after the low-hanging fruit".
Re:Fear of standing up for one's self (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not? Because it's a perfectly valid refutation of your argument?
Copying is not theft. Yes, it's illegal. Nobody disagrees with you on that. Law is Law. But it's also illegal in Maryland to drive your car at night without a horse preceeding it by at least 90 feet carrying a lantern.
I think you're missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been doing this for some time now, and there's quite a bit of non-RIAA music well worth listening to. Metropolis Records [industrial-music.com] is a good place to start for industrial/EBM fans.
My ? is - would /. help .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are we just talkers or can we each put a dollar where our mouths are?
I would think a donation thread and an advice thread WOULD help win a case against them.
Re:Will of the People (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I call BS on you. Within "the general population" there isn't even understanding of intellectual property, much less "widespread support". Ask your friends: How many of them realize they're criminals for taping the last episode of Friends and lending it to a friend? How many even know that you have to pay royalties for singing "Happy Birthday" in public, and how many of them think that's a good thing? How many understand that when their high school teacher photocopied articles for them to read, it was illegal? How many think "As long as I don't charge for it, copying is legal?"
If you're honest in the survey, you're going to find the answer is "a lot" -- indeed, probably most of them.
I'm a fan of the general population and, unlike a lot, I don't think they're intrinsically stupid or unfit to govern -- indeed, they probably are better than anyone we've got actually doing it. But on this issue, the public is woefully under-, mis-, and ill-informed.
Re:Can I mod this +6? (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, why must people be forced to abide by this "rule" that civil disobedience means you have to accept the punishment for some bogus crime? Would it have been more noble or correct if George Washington et al. had meekly submitted themselves to be executed for treason? Should all those slaves who escaped from their plantations have willingly surrendered themselves and gone back to face the lash to fit these immutable laws of protest that you are subscribing to?
Being allowed to the pants off of people for garden variety mp3 sharing is a perversion of justice, everybody knows it, and whether or not the act itself is improper, average citizens shouldn't have to fear facing bankruptcy for doing it. No-one expects to be bankrupted for running a red light, and in my book that's a far more dangerous offense, although equally ubiquitous.
Re:Can I mod this +6? (Score:4, Insightful)
???? That basically is the Ghandi model. "We're just not going to listen to what you tell us to do. Go ahead, arrest all of us- you'll run out of jails before we run out of protestors."
Of course, jail construction is a huge growth industry in the US- we jail more citizens per capita than any other democracy.
Re:Equal Protection under the Law (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to take the other side:
Why should you be entitled to a better defense simply because you have more money? What about "equal protection under the law"? And it's very convenient to say, "Oh, but the poor don't produce enough... it's their fault." But maybe you got your money through unscrupulous or even illegal means. Being rich or being poor doesn't really say anything about your moral worth. Even hardworking people sometimes get hit with financial disaster.
You say "the State listens to taxpayers and doesn't fund defense attorneys well" because "they do nothing but defend scumbag criminals!" But by your own rules, they don't defend only "scumbag criminals" -- and everyone knows it because there are no alternatives. Do you really think that people would allow an unbalanced system to persist when they know that, if they ever get called into court, they will have to use those same lawyers? You see, here the holy "enlightened self-interest" argument of rabid free marketeers comes back to haunt them. If everyone's access to lawyers is only to the same pool of lawyers -- if you can't secure an advantage through material wealth -- then there is strong societal interest in having the system be fairer. It's the whole "veil of ignorance" thing.
You argue that the system would still be unbalanced since individual abilities are unbalanced (fair enough), and that there could be corruption because a person of influence could swing a better lawyer by suborning the process. Indeed. Of course, the process we actually have is unbalanced by design and leads to the same result -- and equal protection is equally a joke there. Faced with a choice between a system that does evil by a failure of its principles, and a system that does evil by proper execution of its principles... hmm, I think I'd rather the one where the imbalance is a corruption, rather than a feature, of the system.
Alas... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem goes much further than this specific case--the legal system is broken and needs fixing. We've created this zero-sum game, forcing people to either settle early and choose their own destiny, or go to court and leave it up to no more than a coin flip.
Thing is, under the current system, I'd advise my clients to do the same thing. Settle and get on with their lives. Yes, we need a test case to set some precedent here, but I would not put any of my clients in that position unless they were adamant about it.
There's just too much risk and money involved with going to court, and, so, settlements are creating a practically private legal system with often confidential terms. What to do, what to do...
Stopping corporate terrorism in music (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be a perfectly viable way of ending the reign of RIAA-led corporate terrorism in music, if a majority of music listeners were to join in and stop listening to the crap. As things stand though, 99% of the audience consists of musical sheep, ie. people who despite their good intentions follow exactly the instructions of the music industry in deciding what music is "good" at any given time. The vast majority simply don't realize what's being done to them. Brainwashing is not too strong a term.
It's pretty inevitable. Unless you shut yourself off totally from the media, you get enveloped in the utterly pervasive music machine's output of not just music and video, but celebrity, hype and buzz. You literally cannot avoid it, it's as sticky as napalm. Face it, there is no future in asking the 99% of musically non-militant people to cut themselves off from the media, not even to enter the shopping malls where that sticky music is playing. The brainwashing is everywhere.
That public rating idea is great, and if it were to catch on then it might even improve the quality of "big business music" through perceived audience pressure. But meanwhile, music downloaders are being crucified, and leaving them to it in the hope that a long-term strategy might prevail is less than charitable. Some sort of direct legal action or preventative technical solution offers better prospects for the short term.
Re:Direct Payments (Score:4, Insightful)
If so, have you ever actually verified that the group is getting the funds? I mean, for all you know, their manager or whoever is responsible for handling incoming fan mail might just be pocketing the cash themselves.
I guess what I'm asking is, is there any indication that performers are even aware that folks like you exist? Because if not, you aren't having much of an effect. It seems we would need to raise awareness to the bands directly.
Now, what if someone were to create the proverbial tip jar, but this time, with available options to tip any band or performer you choose who has listed themselves with the service. The money would go directly to the performer's bank account without suffering the middle man. By requiring the bands to sign up, you could at least try to screen them to make sure they understand the money is to go directly to them. Fat chance actually talking to them directly, but you never know.
And I imagine it would have to be in the form of a tip jar or donation or somesuch because of contractual requirements for profit sharing based on sales and such. Better than a "Screw-The-RIAA" jar, legally speaking.
Re:Someday they're gonna hit somebody... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't want to have your life destroyed, don't allow strangers to download works you don't have the copyright for.
Seriously, I have no pity at all for these immensely stupid people who broke the law and now are being punished financially. I think it's fantastic. I can't wait for them to ramp it up further. Because if the RIAA can stop file sharing, i mean really stop it, without having to lobby to make copyright infringement a federal crime, we all prosper. This isn't an issue of fair use or realistic copyright law...fair use should not and does not include the wholesale distribution of potentially profitable modern works. But there also shouldn't be a criminal penalty to it. Proving that current copyright law is MORE than sufficient to protect holders' rights is way more important than fighting a losing battle in the name of "realistic copyright."
Re:Fear of standing up for one's self (Score:4, Insightful)
People aren't "whining" because they can't get free tunes. People are whining because a multi-billion dollar media conglomorate group are targeting and suing everyday people who cannot affor to fight back, even if they are innocent. So through "threatening", they extort what in comparison ios a smaller amount of money as opposed to the amount of money it would take for someone to hire a lawyer and fight them.
In the US legal system, you don't necesarily have to win, you just have to last the longest.
~X~
Re:Can I mod this +6? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes I do. They should be brought to justice in criminal court, not civil court. Once that has happened, it can happen that victims use civil court to get compensation, but that has nothign whatsoever to do with pubishing a crime, and it si extremely exceptional that such a thing stands a chance when someone has been found not guilty in criminal court. (exceptions exist, but like I said, EXTREMELY EXCEPTIONAL and as such no proof of the opposite)
> Frankly, if you want the RIAA to be able to pursue criminal sanctions, then you should be willing to give them full police powers to pursue those sanctions. But somehow I think you'd protest that, too.
No, it means they'll have to file a complaint with the authorities who will haev to pursue it. That the authorities don't do this does not validate their current tactics.
Civil court is not the place for criminal; prosecution, no matter which way you want to turn it.
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:2, Insightful)
Democracy and Justice walk hand and hand, if you don't equip citizens with the tools for them to resolve disputes in a fair, organized, open and systematic way then things start to go awry. Its no wonder we're suffering from this kind of corporate tyranny. I doubt many of these people really believe they deserve to pay 3,000-11,000 for downloading a song. Instead I suspect, they are really terrified at the thought of paying tens of thousands of dollars for lawyers to engage in a legal game of chance.
This begs the question why our legal system has (d)evolved to require such massive amounts of money and why even seasoned lawyers are loath to litigate because of its inherent unpredictability. But those are old questions. Perhaps, in this case we should ask why a private entity is allowed to pursue thousands en mass in what amounts to public policy without some form of legal aid to protect people or at least to resolve the legitimacy of this tactic.
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fear of standing up for one's self (Score:4, Insightful)
No, and let me tell you why... At the moment they are only prosecuting people who they believe have copied thier music, or so they say, but imagine, just imagine, that one day they realize how easy it is to get people to cough up money when threatened and start to file suits against anyone, regardless of guilt.
Could YOU defend yourself if a multinational corporation decided to sue your for whatever? Even if you are GUARANTEED to win, you'd still end up paying tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Even if you are GUARANTEED to win, you could eat months, even years, of your life in the court room. Do you have that much money under your mattress? Does your job let you take off years of time to prepare a case to defend yourself against false allegations? Does your wife/girlfriend mind being penniless, homeless, probably living with your parents, racking up debt on your credit cards, having the negative stigma of a long, drawn-out legal battl eover your head, for a couple of years while you sort this mess out becuase she knows eventually you'll win and then be free to retrain your skills, find a new job and start your life over from the bottom again?
Tyranny comes in many forms.
Re:RIAA targets... (Score:4, Insightful)
The size of a collection acquired at essentialy zero marginal cost has no bearing on the size of the collection that would be acquired at substantial marginal cost.
For example, consider the stereotypical college kid with little free spending money, aka broke, but lots of free time on his hands. He may spend plemnty of hours acquiring music for "free" through his "free" school internet connection. Yet, if the school cuts him off and stops him from using the "free" connection to acquire music, he still won't have any more money to spend on purchasing music. Instead he will seek alternate zero-cost routes, like borrowing CDs from people in the dorm and ripping them. Still zero marginal dollar cost, just less time-efficient. But he's got plenty of time, and no dollars, so its obvious he won't paying money for music anytime soon.
Re:Fear of standing up for one's self (Score:1, Insightful)
Another great example is a large, theoretically illegal confederacy of corporations conspiring to subvert your government in order to rake in money while oppressing distribution of the arts.
Both clearly qualify as tyranny, or "oppressive power". Open your mind.
Re:Stopping corporate terrorism in music (Score:2, Insightful)
The reason popular music is popular is because people happen to LIKE it. I know, a novel concept for someone so self-involved, but try to wrap your brain around it. Take your time.
And can the arrogance. You aren't superior to the "sheep", and you never will be.
Max
Re:RIAA targets... (Score:3, Insightful)
Two things:
(1) There is no Constitutional guarantee for profit; and
(2) There is no Constitutional clause protecting failing business models under assault from technological changes.
Clearly the practices of the RIAA are outdated and outmoded. We didn't give any special protections to buggy whip manufacturers when Ford's first cars started rolling off the assembling line and we shouldn't be giving any to the RIAA either. Their method of collecting money for themselves and their clients *no longer works*; attempting to enforce artificial scarcity is just goddamned silly all-around, and so far the most obvious abuse is that the patent and copyright clause of the Constitution has been perverted far beyond it's original intent - as have the remedies available to those whose patents/copyrights are being infringed on.
Sometimes technology changes and shit happens. A business which worked well before crashes and burns. Either it dies out completely (e.g., the guys who sold buggy whips) or is replaced by something which works in the new, changed market. We call this CAPITALISM.
If actually stood buy and let the free market do it's thing the RIAA and MPAA would be out of business within a few years. They'd probably be replaced by something else, but then again, they might not. And so the fuck what if they aren't? That's the way the ball bounces.
Max
Re:Fear of standing up for one's self (Score:3, Insightful)
You think so? A lawyer showing up one day and saying "We think you did something illegal, so give us 10,000 today or we'll take everything from you tomorrow." when you don't even own a computer and clearly didn't do it (as many of them didn't) doesn't qualify as tyrrany?
At the very least it's racketeering and extortion. Start just randomly demanding 1/2 a year's wage from random people many of whome never did anything like what you claim, and yet you can force them to pay it because they can't take 6 months off of work or pay 5 million dollars to mount a defense. I think that qualifies.
Re:Once again, protest with your money (Score:4, Insightful)
I own a small publishing company that produces learning materials for Japanese language learners. Our customers praise our products, and it is very rewarding to know that we are helping people, but I also need to make a living.
I recently created an audio companion, which can be paid for and downloaded, to complement a japanese flashcard product of ours. I spent over $1000 for the studio time and voice actress' time. If I sell one for $12, and everyone else SHARES it, then I just threw away about $1000 and wasted a lot of my time.
A copyright grants legal entitlement by which the owner derives the fruits of her labor in connection with her literary, dramatic, pictorial, and or other graphic creations, etc. The artist labors to create a copyrightable work and then he or she receives a paycheck for such work by exploiting that work under copyright. If someone else derives monies or rewards from that work, without the copyright owners permission, he has unlawfully violated the copyright owners rights and actually, in essence, stolen a portion of or all of the copyright owners paycheck.
Why would you vociferously opposed to that? Don't you think abolishing copyright law would stifle software, music, and printing industries, as well as artistic creativity, by taking away much of the incentive for producing a work? Don't film makers like Errol Morris deserve to be compensated for their documentary? Don't I? Please explain.
Re:Stopping corporate terrorism in music (Score:4, Insightful)
They would like other stuff too, if it got a reasonable amount of exposure. It doesn't get that exposure because of the way things are. Granted, this is a more complicated concept than the one you believe, but maybe if you "Take your time", you'll be able to "wrap your brain around it".
It seems to me that you are the one who needs to "can the arrogance".
Popular Music (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason popular music is popular is because people have already heard it and are comfortable with repetition. Classical, Musicals, Big Band, Swing, Gospel, Rock, Punk, Metal, BoyBands: each generation did not morph into a new type of human being preferring a new type of music; each generation was indoctrinated by the music aimed at them during their formative years.
Today's popular music is simplistic compared to music before the rise of the guitar. Modern music is complex when it has 2 vocal melodies, 1 instrumental chord pattern, 1 instrumental melody, and a beat limited to what one person can create (hands doing one pattern and a single-note bass drum line.) Songs are limited to 3 minutes because there is not enough content to keep anybody interested longer. (I enjoy LinkinPark, but they usually turn off the music when they sing, and much of the "singing" does not have a melody.)
Today's music is not "better" than older material because it is more popular. It is popular because we hear it more often.
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Please refrain from poorly written personal attacks. I do not know Morgaine, but the post was not "self-involved" and does not exclude Morgaine from the sheep category.
Re:Popular Music (Score:1, Insightful)
"Better" is in the ear of the beholder. Nobody has any business telling another person that the music they like is "crap" simply because it isn't their style. That's the tactic of arrogant little college boys who think their feigned dislike of popular music somehow makes them intellectually superior to the "sheep".
And popular music is popular because people like it. Hence the term "popular". It may not be something you care for, but it's still popular whether you like it or not. Live with it.
Max
The RIAA is building precedent (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the RIAA is both Venue and Victim shopping to build enough precedent so they can survive a robust defense, which has to come along someday.
Bigger concern: Is the RIAA right? And I mean legally, not morally. Does internet file sharing constitute a valid example of "fair use" or not?
In the US legislation, the fair use defense is assessed on a case by case basis, weighing the four factors outlined in 17 USC section 107: (1) purpose and character of use, (2) nature of the work, (3) amount copied, and (4) market effects. Common examples of fair use are criticism, comment, education and research.
So if I own a guitar, can I call it a slam dunk and say: "I was learning those riff's, man... educational fair use!" ? Or how about "those words Eminem rapped really spoke to me... I LEARNED something about myself after that man... a truly educational experience."
If the rumors are true, and music sales are actually up (by some measures), then #4 goes out the window. Can the Record companies post a profit and still use the defense that the market is affected? If they can't when do the shareholders bail?
Lets face it: copying 100% of the work solely for personal listening pleasure so you don't have to purchase the work to begin with (in a market where Big Record Companies are losing their shirts) is a compelling case against an individual claiming "fair use." But that is spinning the case like the RIAA does every time they take on the little guy.
How exactly would Joe Sixpack defend himself? Maybe settling for $3000 is the smart play?
Re:I have never disagreed more in my entire life (Score:3, Insightful)
I am looking at art as something that can contain merit in and of itself. There is something that can constitute good art, and a person can spend their entire life just trying figure that out. Those persons get degrees in Literature, Music Theory,
It appears as though we have a difference of definitions. No conclusion can be reached in this argument. All I can argue in my favor is that the majority of people that really know art would strongly disagree with you.
Re:Someday they're gonna hit somebody... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:RIAA targets... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only "a person", but probably multiple people. Why is it that the RIAA only targets the "a person" who has limited financial resources for legal backing? Why don't they go after the yuppie daughter of a rich CEO who, typically, has ten times as many mp3s as any of her threadbare peers?
The answer to my question is 1) obvious and 2) a glaring demonstration of how lopsided, subjective, and fraudulent the current legal system is.
Re:If the RIAA is targeting poor people... (Score:3, Insightful)
A product is sold. Ownership is transferred. Mumbling and complaining about abstractions such as copyright amount to little more than crossing fingers at the point of sale. The court should hang the vendors from a clothesline and beat them with wooden breadboards for being so childish and naive.
The seller knows that the medium was easily copyable. The seller knows that the copies are easily distributable. There is no secret here. What kind of mindset must the seller have to think that it's an added value to harass the customers in court with a document which nobody reads? The legal implication of being held liable for the contents of a document which nobody reads is frightening and criminal. Use a level-headed market approach to this rather than trying to come up with conniving underhanded "gotcha" schemes. If the vendor is unhappy with their profit margin they are free to raise the price of the product or produce a better product. There is no public benefit to criminalizing the customer. There is no excuse for claiming ignorance of the ease with which the medium can be copied and redistributed.