Quote :

"I like how the jury will side with corporate America in the case of a woman falsely accused of downloading music via P2P yet they will side against McD's when some dumb cunt doesn't use her brain and question the manager's request to strip down naked and put a broom in her twat."

O I C, so that was all the jury had to base their decisions on, right, just those two statements you made?


Did you read any about this case? I hate the RIAA as much as the next guy, but this one is a slam dunk for them. You also can't fault the jury when the law is written such that the fine for copyright infringement/distribution is huge. I think she'll come out better on appeal as there have been other cases that ruled against the "distribution" aspect causing this fine per song to be so large. I doubt MediaSentry will actually be able to prove she distributed anything (the idea is she is at the top of a pyramid of distribution which causes multiplicative damages to copyright owners, this is what has been struck down in court), and the fines per song should get reduced greatly.

One of the most bizarre aspects of the legislations the RIAA lobbyist have bought is, she could go into a record store, steal the equivalent CDs of all the songs she has downloaded, and the fine wouldn't be anywhere close to that large.

10/8/2007 7:35:21 PM

people aren't getting caught for DOWNLOADING. how many fucking times does this have to be said? it's for UPLOADING. she is getting fined for enabling piracy, just the same as if someone was selling the cds out of the back of their truck

10/8/2007 8:44:38 PM

^ Jury Instruction from the Virgin vs. Thomas case via:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/jury_instructions.pdf

Quote :

"JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 14 The act of downloading copyrighted sound recordings on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive reproduction right."

Don't think not uploading makes you safe.

10/9/2007 12:58:03 AM

^ of course it doesn't make you safe...but the RIAA isn't focusing their cases on downloading, it's uploading they're aiming for as that allows them to use the aforementioned pyramid of distribution argument in demanding landmark fines...what jury in their right mind would award a corporation hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution for downloading a single song? the point of this case (again, as mentioned above) was that her actions enabled others to break the law in a cascade effect...hence the massive fine

[Edited on October 9, 2007 at 8:15 AM. Reason : .]

10/9/2007 8:15:16 AM

^

Quote :

"what jury in their right mind would award a corporation hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution for downloading a single song"

The same jury that would give them a huge award with zero proof that anyone downloaded a song you made available for upload.

10/9/2007 1:50:35 PM

Quote :

"One of the most bizarre aspects of the legislations the RIAA lobbyist have bought is, she could go into a record store, steal the equivalent CDs of all the songs she has downloaded, and the fine wouldn't be anywhere close to that large."

exactly and this actually effects someone more b.c i am stealing a CD the store paid for that is unless I am hurting stray electrons by downloading a random song off of bittorrent.

10/9/2007 4:28:34 PM

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/theluddite/2007/10/luddite_1011

Quote :

"RIAA Hits a Sour Note With Its File-Sharing Witch Hunt By Tony Long 10.11.07 | 12:00 AM If I were a big-shot L.A. music mogul, Jammie Thomas would not be my ideal poster child as the face of illegal file sharing. Thomas, you'll recall, was convicted last week in a Duluth, Minnesota, court for violating copyright law by making a couple of dozen songs available to the multitudes. For this she was ordered to pay the recording industry $222,000 in damages, and she could lose even more to court costs and appeals. All because she was among the 26,000 people sued by those Brioni suits known collectively as the Recording Industry Association of America, and hers was the first case to actually reach trial. The RIAA, faced with plummeting CD sales and increasingly restive artists, wanted to "send a message" to all the lowlifes out there who download music for free and undercut their profit margins. The message, apparently, is this: "We're idiots." The RIAA, after all, is the guardian of an industry so antiquated and oppressive that having sympathy for these guys is a little like feeling sorry for a Georgia slaveholder after watching Sherman's troops fire his mansion and scatter his livestock. So when their first victim, Thomas, turns out to be a single American Indian mother of two making a measly $36,000 a year -- latte money for the RIAA boys -- you have a hard time picturing these guys nailed to a cross. But that's the image the RIAA has tried hard to foster since some pimply-faced intern first explained to them what file sharing was. All of a sudden it was, oh, boo-hoo. Poor us. Cry me a river. Here's an industry so bloated with executives and middlemen, all of them greedily slurping up profit like bluepoint oysters, that the people who actually write the songs and play the music -- the "talent" -- are getting royally screwed in the royalty department. It's been like that for years. The Dylans and the Stones of the world might be able to rise above it and name their price, but for the rank and file it's "Dance to our tune, or go back and rot in that crummy little club." The usurious nature of the business is the main reason that the average CD, which at most costs a couple of bucks to produce, routinely sells for upwards of $20. Sometimes the songwriter makes out all right (forget about the singer or the musicians), but licensing and contracts have been sufficiently rigged by the boys in legal to ensure that the lion's share of the carcass goes to people who have absolutely nothing to do with the actual music. If there's an industry where the Marxist exhortation for the workers to control the means of production makes sense, this is it. Some artists are beginning to wise up to this. Thanks to technology (and when have you ever heard the Luddite say that?) bands are discovering that they can, in effect, become their own publishers, cut out the middleman and go directly to their audiences. Radiohead is the latest band to offer an album's worth of music online, for free. Fans are being asked to pay what they feel is fair, and my guess is that most people will kick in something. Given the chance to be reasonable, we usually will. The record companies are greedy, not reasonable, which is why it's hard to get worked up at the thought of people sharing "their" music for free. Thieves stealing from thieves? So what? It's this new artist-to-audience business model, though, that poses the real threat to the long-term survival of the traditional music companies. If you're among those who consider corporations and conglomerates to be evil incarnate, you'll be rooting hard for this new model to take hold. Not just for the sake of the little guy in the music world, but for the sake of little guys everywhere. Meanwhile, I think Jammie Thomas is going to turn out to be a public-relations nightmare for the RIAA. Crucifying someone who falls into about five demographically challenged categories to "send a message" hardly represents sound battle tactics for an entity already perceived as arrogant and overweening. Talk about a Pyrrhic victory."

I don't even like radiohead, and i'm going to download their album and pay $10 for it, just because I want to see this thing succeed.

10/11/2007 2:20:55 PM

Go Wolfpack!
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/10/four-north-carolina-state-students.html

10/11/2007 2:46:33 PM

The Technician is all the RIAA lawsuits today. I even got quoted by the lawyers who are defending some of the students.

10/19/2007 9:03:11 AM

I feel bad for the students being fined but demonizing the RIAA is getting ridiculous. They wouldn't be doing all this if people would just cut back on what they feel is their right to download copyrighted music for free. I don't get why people think this is ok.

Really though, they should find ways to go after the websites.

10/19/2007 10:22:09 AM

Quote :

"even if it is "unlawful" ; legality does NOT equal morality. "

Explain how it is moral to take for free what you should be paying for. I understand if you're a communist or anarchist or whatever but if not shouldn't the music industry get paid if you are using its products?

10/19/2007 10:26:24 AM

It isn't just the downloading. The RIAA said it is STEALING to make a backup copy of the record you legally purchased.

So, you buy the rights to the work, and when the physical media that it is on wears out, they expect you to pay for the full rights again.

Not to mention they go after completely innocent grandmothers and minors as well.

They are utilizing a buckshot approach and hitting everyone in the way. If they limited their cases to egregious abuses and didn't make statements like in my first paragraph, they wouldn't be demonized as much.

10/19/2007 10:28:06 AM

the recording industry is just trying to ensure its retirement,
digital media is cheap and easy all you really need is a studio and a pc to make an album and release it to the world and they know that once real artists re-emerge and all this factory made Brittney crap goes away there will be no place for an industry that takes 90% of an artists profit or more for itself.

10/19/2007 10:35:57 AM

Quote :

"It isn't just the downloading. The RIAA said it is STEALING to make a backup copy of the record you legally purchased. "

That's kind of dumb.

That doesn't make it right to illegally download music. I highly doubt they're really going after the guy who put his cd on his computer. Maybe the guy who put his cd on his computer then uploaded it though.

10/19/2007 10:37:09 AM

Quote :

"I feel bad for the students being fined but demonizing the RIAA is getting ridiculous. They wouldn't be doing all this if people would just cut back on what they feel is their right to download copyrighted music for free"

10/19/2007 1:19:20 PM

Quote :

"once real artists re-emerge and all this factory made Brittney crap goes away there will be no place for an industry that takes 90% of an artists profit or more for itself. "

its already there and has been for a long time, you just have to look other places than the radio and TV. The amount of phenomenal musicians and bands is at an all time high in my opinion and these artists have already been using the internet for their a huge chunk of their market for years

10/19/2007 1:36:59 PM

bttt for the seach impaired

11/30/2007 12:02:55 AM

I'm tired of people listening to the radio for free, that's gotta be illegal somehow

11/30/2007 9:28:51 AM

^ look at internet radio.... The RIAA is giving it to them hard, deep, and unlubricated

11/30/2007 12:35:58 PM

The consumers in this country are getting a big fuck you thanks to RIAA lobbyist

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071204-doj-says-222000-damages-in-capitol-v-thomas-trial-not-unconstitutional.html

I understand the concept of statutory damages, but somewhere along the way, common sense has to happen and someone realize that $220,000 is just a bit excessive, especially when the RIAA has not ONCE shown legitimate numbers in re of the damages they suffer to file sharing.

12/4/2007 9:36:08 PM

my thing is, if I wouldn't buy the music anyway, who is losing anything if i happen to download an mp3?

12/5/2007 8:43:08 AM

^ You, when they sue the crap out of you.

I wish that a non-idiot judge could be found that will through out these lawsuits for a complete lack of evidence.

12/5/2007 8:48:20 AM

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/29/riaa-suing-citizen-for-copying-legally-purchased-cds-to-pc/

sued for ripping to his computer(stolen from packpride)

12/30/2007 11:45:13 AM

So therefore anyone that has taken all their CDs and imported them to iTunes is breaking the law?

Or am I misunderstanding the point here?

12/30/2007 12:17:00 PM

Quote :

"I'm tired of people listening to the radio for free, that's gotta be illegal somehow"

listening to the radio is okay, as far as the media cartels are concerned
you only get to hear what they want and there's 30 minutes of advertising per hour

internet radio operates outside of that because there are endless internet streams... they can't control it like the airwaves (which they do via the FCC)

12/30/2007 12:23:27 PM

Update: We got some more info on the case -- it looks like Jeffrey's actually being sued for illegal downloading, not ripping, but this whole "ripping is illegal" tactic is still pretty distasteful. Check out this post for the full story.

12/30/2007 9:53:02 PM

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080111-under-pressure-from-emi-riaa-could-disappear.html

sweet!

1/11/2008 1:25:27 PM

nice.

1/11/2008 1:32:42 PM

^^Perfect can't wait to see that happen RIAA

1/13/2008 10:06:47 AM

a couple days old, but riaa's website got hacked >.<

http://mashable.com/2008/01/20/riaacom-down-for-the-count/

1/23/2008 12:30:47 PM

A new free and legal site with access to 25 million songs... no mention of any exceptions, so I'm assuming all of the majors are on board with this. The catch is files you download have DRM and can only be played through their proprietary player, which features advertising on the player itself.

Article about it:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article3261591.ece

The site itself:

http://www.qtrax.com

1/28/2008 4:28:26 AM

i'm going to link to Oeuvre's thread in chit chat, since there are some valid links/articles in there: message_topic.aspx?topic=512221

1/28/2008 1:59:33 PM

^repost
http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=512198

BTW, the deals were made with EMI, BMG, other labels, this is not coming from the RIAA

[Edited on January 28, 2008 at 2:19 PM. Reason : ,]

1/28/2008 2:15:07 PM

Quote :

"Even though we still have a quarter of the year remaining, I think we can already select the 2006 winner of the Economics Chutzpah Award (Non-Political Division): Robert Wright, chair of NBC. From the online Hollywood Reporter (link via Biz of Showbiz): In a speech Friday titled "A Time of Reckoning" before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Wright said the threat piracy poses to the country's economic security was nearly equivalent to the threat terrorism poses to the nation's physical security. "Five years ago we learned, tragically, that our physical security is under attack," he told the audience at the chamber's symposium on counterfeiting and piracy. "Since then, we've been a nation at war, with immense resources mobilized to fight a difficult struggle against an elusive enemy. Today, I want to suggest that the second pillar, our economic security, is also being challenged." Even a brief review of the relevant history should have persuaded Mr. Wright to be more cautious in predicting imminent Doom. Drawing on the work of economist Hal Varian, I note: 1. High speed photocopying was once supposed to be the death of the publishing industry. 2. Television was once thought to be the death of the movie industry. 3. Jack Valenti once testified before Congress that video cassettes would kill the movie industry. 4. Musicians once feared that records would be the end of live concerts. 5. Radio was once thought to be the death of the music industry. 6. Audio cassettes were once thought to be the death of the music industry. And yes, there are reasonable arguments that today's threat to intellectual property rights is different. But history should still give one pause. And I would also note that we should, once again, be thankful that blogging has not yet driven out of business all our diligent, skilled professional journalists and editors. Like the ones at the Hollywood Reporter who report that Mr. Wright alluded to a loss of tax revenue from piracy of 837 billion dollars. The report Mr. Wright referred to, readily available here, claims a loss of 837 million dollars. Oops."

ncsu is home to one of the great economists imo, craig newmark. his blog is great http://www.newmarksdoor.typepad.com.

2/7/2008 11:15:00 AM

lol, i had newmark for ec301 back in the day - he was entertaining.

he once claimed that economics could prove that time travel was impossible because interest rates would go to 0.

2/7/2008 11:54:08 AM

Quote :

"The madness continues as it renews its ill-conceived anti-piracy campaign targeting poor college students across the country. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of its member record companies, announced that it had sent a new wave of 401 pre-litigation settlement letters to 12 universities late last week. It continues its campaign of unfairly singling out the least able to afford the so-called "settlement" letters in the first place. College students are a ripe target because they have little income or time with which to defend themselves in court, plus they on average have parents willing and able to come up with a few grand in "settlement" money to keep their kid out of trouble. According to an RIAA press release, of the 5005 total letters sent in prior campus crackdowns the RIAA has reached settlements with more than 2,300 of the recipients. Of the remainder, formal lawsuits have been filed against 2,465 individuals so far for which the RIAA blames on a combination of students refusing to settle along with not being given the opportunity to do do because their university failed to forward the letters. It's for all intent and purposes a form of legal extortion that seeks a quick and courtroom-free resolution. Nevermind that it does little to address piracy as a whole or the root causes for the decline in annual revenue for the music industry. You'd think that with all the billions spent on lawyers and lawsuits that somebody somewhere on their payroll would point out that people just don't buy CDs anymore. Nobody wants to tote around a clunky portable CD player or have to invest in bulky CD jukeboxes when a simple digital media player and PC will do, nor are they willing to lug around stacks of CDs merely to play a handful of their favorite tracks at a friend's house. Music is going digital and the music industry is running scared, for it knows that now anyone can distribute music. Here's the latest list of RIAA targets: * Boston University (35) * Columbia University (50) * Drexel University (33) * Indiana University (40) * North Carolina State University (35) * Ohio State University (30) * Purdue University (28) * Tufts University (20) * University of Maine System (32) * University of New Hampshire (32) * University of Southern California (50) * University of Virginia (16)"

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9288/RIAA+College+Crackdown+Part+13%2C+Targets+401+More+Students

2/26/2008 8:06:11 AM

The easiest argument and most logical is what others have said. If I couldnt get it for free, I wouldnt buy it or listen to it in most cases. Also, how many bands would I have never heard of, hence never buying their CD if I hadnt found them through free downloading. I'd imagine I have spent more on CDs due to downloading than I otherwise would have. Although I'd imagine a lot of those CD's didnt give any profit to the RIAA so I guess that is why they are crying about it.

2/26/2008 8:35:23 AM

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/02/judge-in-north-carolina-case-laface-v.html

Quote :

" Judge in Raleigh, NC, case, LaFace v. Does 1-38, follows Maine decision by Magistrate, dismisses for improper joinder, but upholds complaint In LaFace v. Does 1-38, the Raleigh, North Carolina, case targeting 38 North Carolina State University students, District Judge W. Earl Britt basically followed the recent decision by a Magistrate Judge in Arista v. Does 1-27, the case against University of Maine students. In the Maine case the students had moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. They did not attack the subpoena or ex parte discovery order, and did not move to dismiss for misjoinder. The Magistrate upheld the RIAA's boilerplate complaint, but raised the issue of improper joinder, and even recommended to the District Judge that the Court consider imposing Rule 11 sanctions against the plaintiffs and/or their attorneys for making false statement to justify joinder. In the North Carolina case, the NC State students attacked everything, the subpoena, the underlying ex parte order, and the complaint, and moved to dismiss for misjoinder. Judge Britt, following the reasoning of the Maine Magistrate Judge, (a) upheld the complaint, but (b) dismissed as to all but one of the John Does, for misjoinder, and ruled that the RIAA had to re-file separate cases for each of them. "

2/28/2008 1:40:01 PM

aha

2/28/2008 2:03:05 PM

Quote :

"dismissed as to all but one of the John Does"

i guess they let everyone off except jackleg

2/28/2008 2:23:55 PM

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/03/north-carolina-state-university-john.html

John Doe #2 in one of the NCSU cases doesn't exist. (Reported by our very own Technician)

3/12/2008 7:19:13 PM

^ perfect RIAA gets bent over once again

3/17/2008 12:55:07 PM

Can we say "glass house"? Yes, that's what I thought ...

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080331-sony-bmgs-hypocrisy-company-busted-for-using-warez.html

(I know not RIAA, but definitely related.)

3/31/2008 7:32:18 PM

4/26/2008 12:22:40 AM

I'm not sure if I should find it funny or infuriating that the RIAA is even ripping off the artists and the recording industry. It's just built off a model of a self-sustaining lawsuit engine designed to feed and finance the lifestyles of its legion of lawyers.

I can't seem to find confirmation of this one way or the other, but I was under the impression that:

1.) The lawyer fees from RIAA suits are taken from the judgment amounts and not the actual amounts that are able to be collected. In addition, these fees are payed first before any remaining money is distributed to the labels. Worse still (from the label's perspective), the full judgments are rarely collected as they usually drive those who choose to fight them bankrupt.

2.) Though most of the defendants choose to settle (this is required in any successful racketeering enterprise) and this income does survive the lawyers fees and bankruptcy, none of it makes it to artists.

3.) RIAA pays itself and its employees based on lawsuits filed even when the supposed defendant can never be contacted (does not exist.) Though this is small compared to fees from settlements or suits, it represents a massive amount of money eaten by RIAA staff and partners that ensures less actually makes it to the labels.

I don't remember where I read this, but if someone could find the articles I'd be grateful. I found the one about them keeping settlement money and am pretty sure it's linked in here anyways. It seems somewhat fitting that the recording labels that formed the RIAA monster seem to have trouble keeping it from eating their dinner.

[Edited on April 27, 2008 at 10:21 PM. Reason : ]

4/27/2008 10:21:06 PM

^ The RIAA lawsuits have never been about compensating artists. It's all about punishing potential customers.

4/27/2008 10:55:44 PM

Actually by stealing music, they've made it very clear that they have no intention of ever being a potential customer.

4/27/2008 11:12:49 PM

^does not compute

i know plenty of folks who will download an album, decide that they like it, and buy it within a span of a day or two.

4/27/2008 11:18:28 PM

It's about protecting the aging business model that centers around distributing albums by way of CD while corralling people into a few select DRM laiden online outlets where you have to buy the rights to use and listen to the music piece-meal. While the money they pulled in for the rights-holders was obviously never the aim of the operation, it was nominally. This is a legal necessity because forming a group whose stated and primary purpose was to intimidate and terrorize thousands of people through lawsuits would be fairly clearly extortion. It's the same reason that telling your neighbor they need to keep quiet at night or else you're going to call the cops about their pot plants would be considered extortion as well. Though the legal complaint would be technically valid, the threat of it is being used to leverage action on part of the neighbor.

A more direct analogy would be if a store-owner caught someone shoplifting. Let's even say they had good reason to suspect this person had been stealing from them for weeks. What the RIAA does would be like the store-owner telling the shop-lifter that if they pay 100 times the value of the items they were stealing that the cops will be left out of it. In the case of the RIAA they offer an exhorbitant but often slightly less than ruinous settlement figure and threaten certain bankruptcy and probable criminal charges if the accused refuses.

This is what the RIAA is basically doing, they're threatening anyone who downloads illegal music with technically valid lawsuits to coerce them into shopping for music the way they want. They don't really care about the so-called restitution. None of this is making it to the rights holders that the RIAA is acting as a proxy of. The practice can only continue so long as the argument that they are protecting their clients rights in that failing to prosecute offenders would invite even more piracy; hence they fear actions by bands like radiohead where artists give the music away. Freeing the music distribution and changing the source of income to merchandise, donations, and concerts not only cuts out the labels but it severely weakens any legal standing for suit of piracy.

That's the biggest reason I hope more bands go this route. It would destroy the RIAA and the large top-heavy labels.

[Edited on April 27, 2008 at 11:30 PM. Reason : ]

4/27/2008 11:24:22 PM

Quote :

"^does not compute i know plenty of folks who will download an album, decide that they like it, and buy it within a span of a day or two."

I'm sorry, but that's not how it works. Music piracy is wrong. Just say you're selective about which morals you want to follow, and please stop trying to justify it.

Repeat after me: "I know it's wrong, but I do it anyway, because there's a pretty good chance I can get away with it."

4/28/2008 9:40:08 AM