Record Labels Sue Napster's VC

zemkai writes "From the "wtf?!?" department... Universal Music Group and EMI are suing Hummer Winblad Ventures for contributing to copyright infringement due to that firm's investment in Napster... I'd like to put something witty here, but I'm just speechless."

Let me check my logic...

[coupland]

Lemme verify my logic here...

1. Napster lets you share music while viewing banner ads. Napster gets sued for everything it has.
2. Napster VCs made money from banner ads. VCs get sued for everything they have.
3. I viewed banner ads that made money for VCs.

Holy crap, we're all next...

Departmental misfilings

[Anonymous Coward]

So is it the "wtf?!?" dept. or the feeding-frenzy dept.?

Did you get the memo about the TPS reports?

The only surprise here

[Capt. DrunkenBum]

Is that they took so long to go after someone.

Re:Departmental misfilings

[infiniphonic]

yeah but somebody forgot the cover sheet.

Cut to the chase!

[BrynM]

in a fake FOX Newsish voice...

In an effort to fight rampant piracy, the RIAA announced that law enforcement officials will be arresting customers exiting music stores carrying product of any kind. "We've got to stem the flow of piracy at it's source" says Robbie Flack, the RIAA's cheif advisor to the Bush Administration. "These people are taking our intellectual property and playing it loud enough for other people to hear or showing it to their friends. Clearly this violates 'public performance' laws."

When asked whether this would discourage music sales, Flack responded that "those sheeple should just stay home and listen to appropriately licensed broadcasts of their favorite artists." RIAA officials stated that this is merely the first step in a long plan that they term the "War on Privac.... er Piracy" [ed note: this is how all RIAA staff pronounce it]. The next step according to the plan is to arrest executives from the very labels that the RIAA represents. "[the executives] are putting all of this copywritten material out there and giving consumers a sense that they own it. This is just wrong.", said Flack. The plan will culminate with the RIAA arresting themselves once Congress passes IMGOD-327, a controvercial new bill that would make RIAA staff federal law enforcement officers. The bill is expected become law in 2004 with very little resistance.

Re:Why are you speechless?

[Rick the Red]

Oh My God! Windows comes with an FTP client! I'd better sell my Microsoft stock before they sue ME!

Enron?

[Tailhook]

Let's arrest former Enron employees for contributing to corporate fraud. After all, by allowing Enron to utilize their retirement funds they enabled, and profited from, Enron's criminal activity.

Re:The new business model

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ask me, it should be ILLEGAL to base a business on suing people and otherwise abusing the legal system for your own gain.

50,000 lawyers would disagree with you.

Re:Limitations of liability

[WCMI92]

"The attempt to sue a major investor of Napster is equivalent to attempting to sue every mutual fund, investment bank, or major shareholder who owns Philip Morris for "Supporting a product that causes death and disease"

So, can we now all file lawsuits against every director, every major investor, VC firm, etc, associated with a RIAA label, for their contributon towards their illegal collusion in CD price fixing?

Proven now more than ONCE.

Scary

[Dr Reducto]

By the time of its close, Napster had contributed to billions of separate acts of copyright infringement, according to Monday's complaint. The record labels are seeking punitive damages of no less than $150,000 per violation of copyright, among other awards. This means that the entire world GNP for 10 years will be given to the 6 major record labels.

Re:Staying in business by suing the world.

[__aaevmb228]

That's the Rambus business model.

(Did Rambus patent that?)

Record Labels Sue Napster Mom

[timotten]

Universal Music Group announced today that it had filed suit against Josephine Fanning, mother of Shawn Fanning, the founder of the defunct Napster peer-to-peer file sharing service. Mrs. Fanning allegedly contributed to copyright infringement over a period of twenty years.

"Mrs. Fanning knowingly nurtured and encouraged her son, who in turn facilitated file-sharing among millions of internet users, who in turn made unauthorized reproductions of our clients' copyrighted works," said Universal lawyer Duey Screw. "What began as a 'good time' with Mr. [Robert] Fanning grew into an international piracy ring. By intentionally providing food, clothing, and education to her son; by encouraging him to pursue his interests; and by failing to report inappropriate activity to the authorities, Mrs. Fanning indirectly caused $98 billion worth of copyright infringement."

Asked for comment, Shawn Fanning said that his mom "was just doing her job." He suggested, using terms we cannot quote here, that the record labels would regret filing the suit. "They just shouldn't go there", he suggested, because he had located revealing "pictures of that ___ ___ ___ that raised Hilary", he said referring to the mother of an authority in the Recording Industry Association of America.

A lawyer representing Mrs. Fanning complained that the labels had rejected his attempts to settle the matter out of court. "They want $98 billion, but my client doesn't have $98 billion. We offered several batches of home-made cookies, but the labels wouldn't bite."

@!#%! Lawyers

[gillrock]

A former Napster employee was walking along the beach one morning and contemplating his current plight of having NOTHING, no wait.... LESS THAN NOTHING. It gets taken away from him before he can even get it.

He stumbles upon a genie's lamp. Without Hesitation, he rubs the lamp and a genie appears.

"Thank you for freeing me from my lamp. To show my grattitude, I will grant you three wishes. However, each wish you make has a side effect. Whatever you wish for, every lawyer in the world will get double." The Genie said.

"Great!", Exclaimed the former Napster employee.

"For my first wish, I wish for a Ferarri.", the gentleman said with fist raised in triumph.

POOF!!! A candy apple red Ferarri rolls up right on the beach.

"Every lawyer gets two of these you know.", The Genie reminded.

"Yes...yes. For my second wish I'd like 1 million dollars so that I may pay for the outrageous auto insurance on this fine automobile.", stating again with fist raised in triumph.

POOF!!! Into the man's hand appeared a large bag with a $ on it.

"Don't forget...every lawyer gets two.", The Genie spouted again.

The man thought for several minutes and pondered seriously what he'd like for his third and final wish.

Finally in a calm and rational voice he stated to the genie, "I've always wanted to donate a kidney."

POOF!!!!

"EVERY LAWYER GETS TWO!!!"

We can all only wish.

Re:Let me check my logic...

[xigxag]

LOS ANGELES (Embreuters) -- The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) today lodged suit against a Mr. Eldrad E. Barge for $38 million in statutory, compensatory and punitive damages. Using the DMCA to subpoena his credit card records, the RIAA was able to establish that Mr. Barge charged $129 in CD purchases in 1998, $144 in 1999, $163 in 2000, but then his purchases precipitously and illegally dropped to $93 in 2001 and only a measly $68 in 2002. Meanwhile a suspicious $20 in blank CD-Rs were purchased in 2001 and $39 worth in 2002. Their court papers claim that this is incontrovertible proof that Mr. Barge has resorted to piracy to avoid buying record albums, even though the defendant alleges that he just got tired of the nigh-endless stream of uncreative Mariah Carey bombs and dead-rapper Tupac Shakur remixes being foisted upon him. He also claims the recordable CD purchases were "mostly for Phish and pr0n." The high monetary damages, says RIAA spokesperson Ibeah Bigg-Gonad, are to deter other pirates from stealing food out of artists' mouths. "However," she adds, "we'll consider dropping the suit if Mr. Barge agrees to a lifetime membership in Columbia House or the BMG Group's record club."

Re:150 TRILLION in damages? Guiness Record?

[coolgeek]

Dude they had to say "trillion" or risk lookin' a fool like Dr. Evil.

An Obvious Solution...

[Master of Transhuman]

Let's sue the record labels and the RIAA for producing the product that was pirated!

After all, you can't have piracy without a product to pirate, right?

So the labels and the RIAA ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR PIRACY!

This logic is no worse than the RIAA's...

You could also argue that the excessive prices charged for music CD's encourage piracy and that suing people for it after the fact is in fact entrapment, which is illegal...

More convoluted and perfectly legitimate logic comparable to the RIAA's...

Let's face it, folks, there is no logic involved in any action by these people. It is naked greed and power grabbing, just like everyone else in industry, religion, education, government, etc.

The only proper response is cut their balls off...
any way you can. Legally, illegally, whatever.

I just had a relevant discussion with someone today who pointed out that journalistic investigations always only go so far before they run into the government as those responsible for whatever is being investigated (name the crime, government or the cops are behind it somewhere down the line). He said the journalists are always forced to back off. I said as long as you use ethical journalism, you will lose. You have to use ILLEGAL means to combat ILLEGAL actions by LEGAL authorities. That means a journalist has to wiretap, trail people around, break-and-enter, and hack computer systems - just like the government will do to anyone investigating them. If you aren't willing to go all the way, you're just wasting your time - go home and forget about it.

My friend pointed out that journalists don't want to go to jail. Well, I told him, that's the price you pay for resisting the state. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime... The Arab saying is, "When you draw your sword against your Prince, you must throw the scabbard as far away as possible."

I did eight years for picking up a gun to destroy the state. Now I'm using different tactics. I'll see you, statist assholes, next time - but you won't see me...

Re:150 TRILLION in damages? Guiness Record?

[SN74S181]

You forgot to mention that they probably kick their dogs. And drink milk right out of the carton.