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RIAA Wants to Depose Dead Defendant's Children
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Aug 14, 2006 02:44 AM
from the stuff-you-can't-believe dept.
from the stuff-you-can't-believe dept.
Exchange writes "In Michigan, in Warner Bros. v. Scantlebury, after learning that the defendant had passed away, the RIAA made a motion to stay the case for 60 days in order to allow the family time to "grieve", after which time they want to start taking depositions of the late Mr. Scantlebury's children. Recording Industry vs The People have more details"
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RIAA Ends Harassment of Grieving Family 256 comments
denebian devil writes "According to Cory Doctorow at Boingboing, the RIAA has dropped its case against the family of a dead man. 'Today, an RIAA spokesperson, Jonathan Lamy, contacted me today with this statement: Our hearts go out to the Scantleberry family for their loss. We had decided to temporarily suspend the productive settlement discussions we were having with the family. Mr. Scantleberry had admitted that the infringer was his stepson, and we were in the process settling with him shortly before his passing. Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case.'"
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Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
what do they want? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Low grade manure? Why, the RIAA has some of the most impressive bullshit I've seen in years!
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Grieving Time? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Grieving Time? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Grieving Time? (Score:5, Insightful)
However that isn't taking into account that this should have been dropped the second the guy did. The fact that the RIAA is continuing negates any "gestures" they might make.
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Re:Grieving Time? (Score:5, Informative)
A hooker will stop screwing you after you die.
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What, are their lawyers salaried? (Score:5, Interesting)
There ought to be a law against that. (Salaried lawyers, that is. There's already laws against extortion.)
Re:What, are their lawyers salaried? (Score:5, Informative)
KFG
Parent
Where is Haley Joel Osment for the film portrayal? (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks, I'll be here all night, please try the fish, it's great tonight.
History repeats itself... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Get Ken Lay's lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely, if Ken Lay could get himself acquitted on technical grounds, then this poor guy should also be.
Where's the outrage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where's the outrage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Over here in the UK the only channel i've seen question the recording industries actions has been the BBC, but that's because they're required to be neutral in such things and the fact they aren't owned by any big media companies helps.
Parent
Yuck... (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA's actions consistently shows the world some corporations show absolutely no emotions. RIAA is ready to walk over corpses, quite literally, to cash in what's to them a ridiculous sum of money. I wonder what's more scary -- this action alone, or the fact that actual people make these decisions.
Re:Yuck... (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet somehow the outrage only seems to be restricted to certain areas like
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Well, you know what Shakespeare said... (Score:5, Insightful)
Expecting morality from an amoral organization or its lawyers leads to disappointment. The RIAA exists to maximize profit without concern for anything else be it fair play, Fair Rights or human decency. One has to wonder just what kind of person would work as a lawyer for the RIAA, since they must know as does anyone who's been following along on Slashdot that their lawsuits are unfair and an abuse of the legal system by a very powerful organization funded by multinational corporations against comparatively powerless individuals. They must be either atheists or fools to not fear the cost of abusing the bereaved for profit upon their souls. The person is dead. Find an unrelated living person to extort money from and leave the poor grieving family in peace.
Re:Well, you know what Shakespeare said... (Score:5, Insightful)
True, some lawyers work for the RIAA. By the same token, some programmers make spam software. Most lawyers don't work for the RIAA and many work for people's freedoms. Most programmers don't help spammers, and many actively work against spam. I think you should get the point -- it isn't the profession, it's the individual that goes bad. Fact is, by and large it is "people" who are cruel and vindictive.
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The RIAA doesn't care about public image (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an industry association. It seems their strategy is to go after their targets as aggressively as possible, in order to send out the clear message that they can and will sue regular folks like you and me. They are effectively the "bad cop" while the individual record companies play the "good cop" giving the people the Brittany Spears and Korn they so desperately need.
You can argue that filesharing is on the rise, or that the RIAA's enforcement actions have cut filesharing, depending on whose facts you use and how you slice them. But in the end the strategy of using the industry association to attack customers, while individual labels try to pretend they play no part in it, probably won't work. In a world where alternatives to label-centric distribution are nonexistent, the labels would be able to make this good cop, bad cop strategy work. But the irony here is that the tighter they squeeze, the more systems will slip through their fingers (apologies to G. Lucas). Sure, there are no "good" big labels to defect to, but there is much more incentive to escape the entire label system altogether.
I keep waiting for one of the major labels to break ranks and start acting intelligent, giving customers fewer restrictions and defecting from the RIAA. It seems though, that none of them has the guts to do it, so they'll all keep pushing on consumers as hard as they can. The end result of the crackdown will eventually lead to a new business model in which the labels play a small or nonexistent role. Ironic, isn't it?
The RIAA limbo, how low can they go? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are people addicted? (Score:5, Insightful)
My impression is that people just love to bitch but 99% will end up in a record store and buy the latest copy protected crap anyways. And that is exactly why DRM solutions are more and more becoming an everyday reality too.
Re:Are people addicted? (Score:5, Insightful)
But we don't. We just don't touch that junk. It's like your parents told you, kids, it's bad for you. And not even the first one's free.
Parent
First reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
But thinking about it, we aren't RIAA:s customers. Nothing any of us do or say will affect RIAA directly. Their customers as it were are the copyright holders, and their business is to maximize return to these people. The copyright holders (usually the recording companies) don't have us as customers either; their customers are radio and television stations and other broadcasters, and retail outlets from Amazon and Wal-Mart to record stores to gasoline stations.
They provide content produced by artists - and it's the artists we are customers for. We don't go to Amazon to buy the latest Sony Music album, we go to buy AC/DC (or Jessica Simpson, or Luis Armstrong, whatever your taste is).
It's this disconnect that keeps RIAA in business. We don't connect their actions with our favourite artists. The artists, in turn, have little incentive, and a huge downside, to raising their voice (most are, after all, not big enough to actually influence their company). The recording companies have no incentive to change RIAA's actions from their customers (Amazon et al) since those customers don't feel any backlash from us either.
The solution? I don't see one. In my case it has gradually soured me on music altogether. I haven't bought a CD in years - but neither have I downloaded anything either. Most people will never make any emotional connection between music and this legal harassment, however, and so RIAA will never have a reason to change.
Where's the usual "think of the children" BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been said before, the RIAA doesn't give a rat's rear 'bout public image. Their business partners aren't normal people, their business partners are companies. And companies have no morals. The people in a company may have morals, but morals are easily brushed aside when you have someone else to blame. "I have to do it, or else I get sacked and someone else does it" is the usual comfortable excuse.
To invoke Godwin, that excuse has worked before. All too perfectly.
Re:separation (Score:5, Funny)
. .
KFG
Parent