RIAA Wants $1.5 Million Per CD Copied 408
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Not content with current statutory damages, the RIAA is pushing for higher damages for infringement, damages that would total $1.5 million for copying a CD with ten songs. It's all part of debate over the proposed PRO-IP Act. William Patry, a lawyer who wrote the seminal seven-volume reference on US copyright law, called it the most 'outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US.'"
$1.5 million? (Score:5, Funny)
Or is this just for the ones that go platinum?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me get my checkbook.
Strange, because the last time I was in a record store (a few years ago, honestly) the price tag was only about 14 bucks.
What a bunch of wankers the RIAA is. Talk about having an inflated sense of worth.
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:4, Interesting)
Good thing I didn't copy the 50Gigs of mp3's from CD, or I could be on the hook for a lot of money!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I never buy CDs, though. I've purchased quite a few CDs last year (or at least CD's worth of music) directly from the artists. I really like dealing directly with artists when buying their work. Not only is all the money going directly to the people who did the hard work, but it creates a personal relationship with the artist. You'd be surprised how many of my favorite musicians have corresponded with me personally just because I bought their music directly from their website. In at least two cases, they've sent me free previews of their next releases, and one even put me on the guest list at an upcoming show in my area (naturally, I declined and paid my way). Hard-working musicians really appreciate it when their fans think enough of their work to lay down a few bucks which goes right into their pockets, without doing a detour through several colonies of leeches and skimmers, none of whom have done a goddamn thing to help, and in many cases have made life harder for them.
I love music and musicians. I make a significant portion of my own livelihood by making and selling my music. The RIAA, MPAA, intellectual property lawyers, record company execs, A&R people, radio program directors, Clear Channel, major concert promoters, etc etc do nothing but hurt the quality and quantity of music. More and more creative people are realizing there's a better way. God bless 'em.
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:5, Insightful)
The artist on the first album will 1 to 3% of the net, so with the remaining 3 and half million or so, that means the artist only owes the company an additional $150,000.00. Luckily there are 4 or 5 members in the band, so it's relativly painless. You should be able to make most of that back on your next album assuming you can come up with quality material in 9 months when the first album took 12 years of writing. (It's easier to just use the same songs with different lyrics.)
Have a cigar!
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, duh. Of course, I have no idea why an architect is bloviating about music, but who can understand Italians?[1]
[1] No one, not even other Italians.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
[1] No one, not even other Italians.
My sister's husband is Italian, you insensitive clod.
Nobody unbderstands him though.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what that is in Libraries of Congress.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If a CD contains, say 700mb; 8.7 million copied CDs = approx. 300 LOC's
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, what about the artists? (Score:4, Insightful)
Colour me skeptical.
Re:$1.5 million? (Score:4, Funny)
S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (Score:3, Funny)
The Society for Patent Enforcement, Copyright, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion was expecting a considerably larger figure...
(strokes cat)
Goodbye, Mister Bond.
In the RIAA's defense (Score:3, Insightful)
Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist? (Score:5, Funny)
I think this is the first, and probably last, time on
RIAA SUX0RZ (Score:5, Funny)
\''\
'=o='
.|!|
.| |
RIAA wants $1.5 million per goatse viewed [goatse.ch]
We Love ASCII.cx???! (Score:3, Funny)
I have to admit that this is one troll I actually have a soft spot for; the ASCII representation is pretty clever (even down to the use of exclamation mark) and the text for the infamous link always makes some effort at tying itself in with the discussion.
I can't believe I just said all that.
Re:Does the RIAA have a licensed proctologist? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
heh (Score:5, Funny)
And I want a pony. Somehow, I think we're both going to be disappointed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow, I think the RIAA have better lobbyists than you have.
And I think the point is not to actually get $1.5mil per CD, but to have that statute on the books as leverage to get more settlements.
Re:heh (Score:5, Informative)
And I think the point is not to actually get $1.5mil per CD, but to have that statute on the books as leverage to get more settlements.
1. Who is sponsoring the legislation?
Sponsor:
John Conyers [D-MI]
Co-sponsors:
Rep Berman, Howard L. [D-CA]
Rep Cohen, Steve [D-TN]
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [D-TX]
Rep Schiff, Adam B. [D-CA]
Rep Wexler, Robert [D-FL]
Rep Chabot, Steve [R-OH]
Rep Feeney, Tom [R-FL]
Rep Goodlatte, Bob [R-VA]
Rep Issa, Darrell E. [R-CA]
Rep Keller, Ric [R-FL]
Rep Smith, Lamar [R-TX]
2. Where did the model legislation for this Act come from?
Re:heh (Score:5, Informative)
I'd suggest american friends to change from a Duocracy system to a real democracy. As much is proven that a duopoly is not effective in favouring the consumer, why whould a duocracy do any better in the political field?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Excellent piece. BTW: Republicans = Democrats = Sold out.
I disagree with the notion that Republicans = Democrats = Sold out
There are real and serious differences between the two parties and anyone who tries to marginalize those differences is usually agitating for a 3rd party or giving in to apathy.
The +5 Funny AC below me made an insightful commentary that I had thought about saying, but decided to avoid editorializing.
Basically, the people sponsoring this bill are:
Disneyland x 3
Hollywood x 3
Texas x 2
and Nashville Tennesse, the home of country music
People alway
Re:heh (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree with the notion that Republicans = Democrats = Sold out There are real and serious differences between the two parties and anyone who tries to marginalize those differences is usually agitating for a 3rd party or giving in to apathy.
Indeed. Back when I was getting my feet wet in the field of data mining, I decided to download the voting records of the US Senate, at least for the last 20 or so years. This data is publicly available on the government web site. A few Perl scripts later and I had reduced the entire voting record to a single CSV file. Each "issue" (an item being voted on) was represented by a single row. Each column represented a specific Senator, and the values were either "For," "Against," or "No Vote."
I also created a perpendicular data set, where each row represented a Senator and each column represented a specific issue, with the values again being "For," "Against," and "No Vote."
I loaded these data sets into a general data mining tool and ran some trials. Among other experiments, I ran J48 to produce decision trees to predict vote values for each Senator, based on how the Senator voted on some specific "model issues," such as gun control legislation. In other words, based on how a Senator voted on certain issues I could predict how they voted on some target issue. If somebody voted against a pro-life abortion bill, how would they vote on a matter of pollution control? Etc. I also ran the perpendicular analysis: based on how other Senators voted on issue X, how would any given Senator vote on the same issue? These decision trees achieved predictive accuracies of greater than 80% in standard cross-validation testing.
The decision trees are also very informative in that they describe the political influences between Senators. If the topmost branch of the decision tree for Senator X is Senator Y, then we can assume there is some kind of friendship, similarity, or power relationship between those two Senators, at least to some degree. These decision trees are powerful tools for political analysis.
But more to the point, one of the best tests I conducted was the application of EM-clustering to the Senators themselves, with the goal being to divide them into "camps," where each camp had similar voting preferences. I allowed the EM-algorithm to decide, on its own, how many clusters to produce, using an MDL principle. I was only somewhat surprised when the algorithm created three clusters. All the Republicans ended up in cluster 1, along with two Democrats. The rest of the Democrats, as well as all the independents, ended up in cluster 2. The third cluster contained Senators who had run for President. (My theory on why the algorithm created a "Presidential cluster" is because Presidential candidates often spend a long time away from the Senate, during their campaigns, and therefore have long stretches of "No vote" on their records. This makes them appear somewhat similar to each other from a statistical viewpoint.)
When "dumb," statistically based data mining software is capable of grasping the clear differences between Republican and Democrat, it becomes impossible to argue with a straight face that the two parties are the same. A fucking computer can tell the difference, why can't a human?
(By the way, one of the Democratic Senators the computer placed into the Republican party was Hillary Clinton.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To start with when I was 20 I proudly applied statistical data analisys to the breast size of the playboy's bunnies in order to find out whereever they had implants or not. I think statistics belongs there. Otherwise following your reasoning of statistics in politics we could have robots voting istead of people.
That said and getting a serious conversation going on, it is not the specific case of pro-abotion pro-life issues that matters here. And that's because clearly the health ser
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Decision trees? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:heh (Score:5, Funny)
1. Who is sponsoring the legislation?
Sponsor:
John Conyers [D-MI]
Co-sponsors:
Rep Berman, Howard L. [D-Hollywood]
Rep Cohen, Steve [D-Nashville]
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [D-TX]
Rep Schiff, Adam B. [D-Hollywood]
Rep Wexler, Robert [D-Disney]
Rep Chabot, Steve [R-OH]
Rep Feeney, Tom [R-Disney]
Rep Goodlatte, Bob [R-VA]
Rep Issa, Darrell E. [R-Hollywood]
Rep Keller, Ric [R-Disney]
Rep Smith, Lamar [R-TX]
Fixed some typos for you.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Are you sure that shouldn't be:
Re:heh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:heh (Score:4, Funny)
Wrong decimal place? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrong decimal place? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since filesharing is on average 1:1, It's not that each person uploading ten songs is causing thousands of dollars worth of damages, its that thousands of different people are causing ten's of dollars of damage each. But if that were how it was stated in court, legal fees would outweigh damages, and lawsuits would no longer become lucrative sources of income.
Careful: Don't double dip (Score:5, Informative)
Statutory damages for infringment of a registered copyright is 3x actual damages, so you could come up with a figure of $45-60 per total album upload/download. I'm with you guys though - I'm not sure where they get 1.5 Million from.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The thing is that average is likely propped up by a small minority of high ratio users and your average john doe would have a low ratio. From reporting here, the RIAA has been going after average people rather than high ratio people. at a guess I'd say my r
Walmart (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Walmart (Score:4, Insightful)
foil linings in coats.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not like software that we might need for work to get paid. It's not like clothing where you tend to get in trouble if you go around without it(damn conservative society). It's not like food where you starve to death without it. This is entertainment. It's just not neccessary. If they get this
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course, it starts with us as individuals. There's some artists I will buy from because of their public stance on all this, and some who will never see a dime of mine again(I used to be a big Metallica fan, now they can sod off and die no
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
WAIT... maybe the RIAA *WANTS* people to boycott them?
Think about it -- lower sales means PERFECT cover to lobby Congress for another copyright extension.
Sound far fetched? The RIAA already uses lower CD sales for this goal... they leave out legal MP3 sales, and neglect to factor in consumer preference for downloads to begin with.
(I realize the RIAA really *doesn't* want lower sales, but they'
Innovation through Litgation!(tm) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Innovation through Litgation!(tm) (Score:4, Insightful)
Should he claim insurance?
Who do you think the insurance company would sue to reimburse their costs? The estate of the pedestrian.
Granted it's an unsavory thought, but if that car was your livelihood, and the accident was not your fault, why in the hell should you not try to recover costs?
It's grim and should be approached with tact, but...
Re:Innovation through Litgation!(tm) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Innovation through Litgation!(tm) (Score:4, Insightful)
The question that comes to mind... (Score:2)
What have these guys been smoking ? (Score:2)
Wow (Score:2)
Right then (Score:5, Insightful)
All you trolls that insist copyright infringement is the same as stealing, please point out a single instance of somebody being fined $1.5 million dollars for stealing a CD.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory Austin Powers Quote (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligatory Austin Powers Quote (Score:5, Funny)
IOW: steal the physical CD from a store (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IOW: steal the physical CD from a store (Score:5, Insightful)
An above-average wrongful death compensation award for a healthy working parent would be in the $1-3 million dollar range. You could go murder somebody. It'd be cheaper than pirating a few CDs. And if the CDs had DRM, the jail sentence would be shorter for the murder too! The US military pays out $600 for wrongful deaths in Iraq. A pirated CD copy is worth more than 2500 Iraqis!
In reality though, they're probably asking for so much in hopes that the compromise amount will be high. Hopefully congress tells them to fuck off instead of coming up with a "compromise" that is right in line with what they were really hoping for anyway.
Re:IOW: steal the physical CD from a store (Score:4, Funny)
Not $600 (Score:5, Informative)
These things often seem like really great ideas to people sitting on their asses in North America, banging away at a computer keyboard, but in real life they don't work nearly as well. For instance, I can't count how many times some clown on an internet forum has suggested we offer a cash incentive for people to turn in explosives. Of course, the real world result of that would be a lot of civilians being killed while trying to bring in unstable ordinance. Or the suggestions that we pay people to turn in weapons - usually the only result is villagers selling us their WW1 era muskets, and then using the money to buy AK47's.
So, long story short, paying out large amounts for "wrongful deaths" is a bad idea. The cash currently paid out isn't meant to replace the person who was killed, and it's certainly not an admission of culpability or responsibility. It's just a gesture to say "we're sorry this had to happen to you, here's something to help you get back on your feet".
Dollar worth less these days (Score:5, Funny)
I know (Score:2)
Like lethal injection.
About the author (Score:2, Informative)
So, no axes to grind there, right? ;-)
In other words his current job is work for weak copyright protections.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071213-house-committee-hears-the-cons-of-the-pro-ip-act.html [arstechnica.com]
In other words his current job is work for weak copyright protections.
From reading that blog entry, he really seems to care about how screwed up the copyright situation is with respect to the public good.
Never Gonna Happen (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
More money than there is? (Score:2)
No wonder the RIAA is ramping-up their tactics, look at how much they've already lost!
Over the top? (Score:2)
How much of that $1.5 million... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Something is wrong here (Score:2, Insightful)
"Engineering Expectations" (Score:5, Interesting)
They introduce this outrageous dreck, then suggest something which is still outrageous but comparatively mild, like, for instance, forcing ISP's to disconnect users a-la france, or forcing them to pull great firewall of china style 'filtering', or prison sentences for college students.
Then, they'll bloviate on and on about how these new proposals are a "compromise"
Or.. this dreck is merely a red herring to distract activist groups away from that rider they put into the college funding bill to force schools to 'filter' their internet on pain of losing their federal grants.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Explain this, RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)
This suggests that if I were to publish a copy of a CD online , even assuming it retails at $20, I would have to serve 75,000 copies of it personally to justify that infringement penalty. Consider that the only feasible way for me to do such a thing is to torrent it, and in this case I personally am not responsible for the entire distribution, the total distribution must be subdivided across every single person who downloads a copy, because they are also uploaders. Claiming penalties against every distributor for the total distribution is like double taxation, but tens of thousands of times worse - I should not be liable for the activities of others, except to the extent you can prove that I facilitated the very first unlicensed distribution and that said unlicensed distribution was directly responsible for the entire cascade of further infringement, and that all other copies of the works were suitably protected.
Complete B.S.
Typical lawyer's wrinkle (Score:5, Insightful)
"The issue is compilations, which now are treated as a single work. In the RIAA's perfect world, each copied track would count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million if done willfully."
Neat trick, eh? I fail to see the common-sense logic, but I guess that's never stopped the legal-beagles before...
For those posting about changing the business model, (earn money by prosecuting the shit out of your consumers). Yes, but it's probably more to get headlines and increase the imagined "deterrent" effect... Yeah right. Sure worked with the death penalty and murder/serious crime rates, eh?
For those posting about stealing the CDs, well sorry, but the way these desperate dudes are going, pretty soon it'll be illegal to rip those tracks to your Ubuntu box/iPod/whatever anyway. Fair use? Byeeeeeeee... Next up, 2Bn$ fines for those who rip music from stolen CDs!!!! Think of the children!
PRO-IP (Score:5, Informative)
This is related to the PRO-IP Act [house.gov] (press released on Dev 5, 2007) that is in Congress. Here is who to blame:
Here's the "SHOCK AND AWE" value that the industry is using to get people's attention:
Obviously, any rational thinking individual knows that 750,000 individuals are not "out on the streets" because piracy has taken away the revenue streams necessary for employing them.
Similarly, *if* $200-250 Billion isn't flowing into the pockets of Imaginary Property companies each year, doesn't that just mean that Americans are free to spend that same money elsewhere? Shouldn't Americans NOT NEED A $150 Billion handout from the government, if they have all this extra money from their copyright infringement?
Something isn't right...
Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
1) It is one heck of a leap to suggest that if there was no internet that so many more CD's and singles would be purchased.
2) I seriously doubt that those numbers of job inflation are accurate anyway (that is roughly 10-20 times the number of em
Comparing the RIAA with bands (Score:5, Insightful)
If you live in a city with a local music scene, support your local independent bands, and support the independent bands that come through directly by buying CDs from them. No musician has ever attempted to extort 1.5 million from their audience. There is plenty of great content out there without having to go to the RIAA and their ilk.
By Public Demand (Score:4, Funny)
I'm almost starting to believe RIAA is the favorite.
Riptopia (Score:5, Funny)
Then I come to
It almost makes me feel like they have a new money-making scheme:
calling filthy rich old guys. (Score:4, Interesting)
if i was a multimillionare i'd do it just to see the reaction.
cost analysis (Score:4, Funny)
In euros that is... (Score:5, Funny)
If wishes were horses... (Score:3, Insightful)
This doesn't seem to be about the money. Make it $250,000 per CD, or make it $50 million. What they want the power to do is destroy someone forever. One CD means you lose your house, your family, your future. One CD indentures you to them with no hope of retiring. They're asking for $1.5 million because they know that asking for lethal injection is a tad over the top.
Well, I'm screwed then... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have many records...the original quadraphonic recording of Dark Side Of The Moon, for instance...that have been played ONCE. And that was to RECORD THEM to a more durable, portable media so I could enjoy the music as much as I wanted without damaging the original album.
Sure, vinyl isn't a CD. Doubt if the RIAA makes a distinction. And considering I have some excellent gear, and that I'm a professional musician with lots of studio time, and so on, many of my "copies" sound better than the CD version.
Of course, silly me...I assumed that when I bought an album...Led Zepplin IV...it was mine. Should I be penalized, brought to penury, and vilified simply because I've outlived some technology? If I could still get a sealed, cherry vinyl record album, I'd still buy them. That's not the case, so I feel well within my rights to record an irreplaceable piece of music every decade or so to the latest storage medium.
So, by my calculations, I can apparently offset the National Debt all by myself simply because I have old records.
Brilliant.
I want... (Score:4, Insightful)
I finally understood it (Score:3, Insightful)
We prosecute the illegal immigrant rather than recognize that what's happening is an economic migration caused by an excessively high minimum wage in the US and a corrupt Mexican government.
We consider criminal prosecution of file traders rather than notice that the **AA are attempting to support price gouging in an effort to capitalism with mercantilism.
It's time to bite the bullet, as the saying goes, and start fixing the real problems.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Either that, or see if I can catch them in possession of some of MY music (independently produced) and ask them to pay up.
If I play some of my music in the background while I call their customer relations line and they record and archive the call, can I sue them?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Using the industries language changes the debate into one that is inherently biased.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But you have to consider that compensatory damages or even statutory damages are not fines or punishment in the sense of the government fining or punishing someone. You really have to look at the differences between a civil suit and a criminal suit and the laws behind them as well as who is behind the act.
Typically, statutory damages are there to help you recover losses. I can see a path where someone could lose 1.5 mill because of the first copying of a CD but it i
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is the artists choice as to how they want to make money. If they want to sell CDs for cheap and tour, so be it. If they want to sell their CDs for $1,000 and never tour, they are welcome to. They should be in control of the product that they want to offer. If they choose to screw around with my unwritten contract with them, and offer s