2191.78 Years for the RIAA to Sue Everyone

este writes "According to an article in the Inquirer, if the RIAA maintains its rate of lawsuit issuance, it will take more than two millenia for them to sue evey P2P file trader. The author accounts for many additional difficulties facing the RIAA in this daunting task."

Why even try?

[mschoolbus]

As put by Rage Against the Machine:

"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."

Re:Sounds like a profit model to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the counting model is flawed. You should also consider the fact that every year new P2P traders will be born and they will start distributing the stuff at about 15 years of age.

Thus the cases RiAA has would to deal with would grow exponentially every year.

if their objective is to sue everyone

[civilengineer]

then, it will take two millenia. They want to just terrorize the significant majority from sharing MP3 and I guess about an year is enough for this.

It's the deterrent, stupid.

[LazloToth]

It's not about getting them all - - it's about nailing a few and scaring the rest. State highway patrolmen are effective pulling over maybe one of every several thousand cars that pass. Ditto, in principle, for the RIAA.

Stupid analysis

[JohnGrahamCumming]

That's a totally boneheaded analysis if ever I saw one. The RIAA does not have to sue every file trader, they just have to sue that ones with large caches of files (because they can get the biggest bang for the buck there... more files, more damages) and then they have to make a noise about what they are doing.

By suing a few, they'll scare the many and reduce file sharing to a background noise nuisance... at least that's what they hope. Their point is to be very public about the fact that they are willing to go after individuals so that many individuals will simply stop file sharing because they are afraid.

John.

The real reason CD sales are down!

[Wacky_Wookie]

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=3654 4&rel

It turns out that it's the Record Companies themselves. It's not loss of profit that the RIAA is worried about anyway, it's always been about loss of controll. If the RIAA can't force the public to think the artists it hand picks are cool, then they can't be sure of profits from manufactured bands.

My .5 pence ;)

Incorrect Math

[Anonymous Coward]

The math used to arrive at 2191.78 years is incorrect. We must also account for a courthouse being capable of having multiple court sessions at one time. Let's say that the average court house can have 4 cases at a time, we'll call this 4X.

If the united states is capable of having one million court houses, each working at 4X then that's 4 million cases all at one time! At that rate it will only take one day!

What bothers me

[phorm]

Is not only are they at many times taking the law into their own hands (and somewhat frivolously I might add), but could also be tying up mass amounts of the legal system in such a venture. In the end, will hurt not only those being sued unjustly, but all of the country as the legal system gets bogged down by idiotic cases.

So says some clown from the EFF

[stratjakt]

What a stupid article.

- the RIAA is not suing everybody, they're picking the most prolific sharers, not leechers

- they dont need to sue everyone, for every one they sue, they scare another dozen away.

It isnt legal, and isnt right, to put 1000 cd's up for download. It's no different than any other warez ring. I dont feel sorry for people caught doing it.

A Different Approach...

[mgcsinc]

I'm gonna be the first to make some crazy numerical speculations to bring this number down to a more sensible time in which the RIAA can disable national file sharing. Please, these numbers are meant as argument-starters, so by all means, argue against them. Let's say of 75 people a day who are subpoenaed, 25 are scared shitless and settle. They each have 15 close friends each, who they also scare shitless, and who stop sharing (I say sharing, because it is those who are sharing who get subpoenaed, and they keep the networks alive). Also, publicity from the settlements brings 50 sharers down per settlement. That's 1650 sharers gone, per day. Then let's say 25 of those who are subpoenaed battle it out in court, and lose. A loss will have much larger publicity, so let's say we lose 200 sharers per loss, and the friend effect should bring down another 50 people a piece (think about seeing your friends lose thousands of dollars to the music industry after a court ordeal). That's 6275 sharers down per day. Finally let's say 25 people never see continued legal battle, or just win. That inspires 100 sharers to get back online, apiece. This all makes for 5425 sharers lost per day, net. Finally, there is an effect whereby sharers will be generally afraid of being subpoenaed in general. We can probably safely bet that for every 10% of the current sharing community which is subpoenaed, 2% of other sharers will be scared out of sharing, and that proportion would probably grow exponentially as the RIAA gains monster effect. Finally, consider that once the community loses more and more sharers, sharers are able to download less and less music in return for their contribution, and will share less and less. With all these effect coupled, I dare say that two millennia is a bit of a longshot...

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[Dutchmaan]

It's not about getting them all - - it's about nailing a few and scaring the rest. State highway patrolmen are effective pulling over maybe one of every several thousand cars that pass. Ditto, in principle, for the RIAA.

...and yet people still speed regularly.

There is an obvious solution

[heironymouscoward]

And that is for the RIAA to use the P2P network to sue itself. Perhaps we will see an RIAA-sponsored feature in upcoming releases of W2K3: 'autosuit', in which your computer automatically formats you an appropriate lawsuit and sends a log of incriminating evidence to the RIAA.
Maybe the most effective resistance against the RIAA would be for 10,000,000 people to voluntarily go to the authorities and confess to having downloaded exactly 1 song. "I did it, and I can't sleep cause of the guilt, please punish me."
Kind of like burning ID passes in Apartheid South Africa. If everyone does it, punishments become unenforcable.

Re:But won't most of the copyrights expire by then

[Rhubarb Crumble]

Last I checked the copyright termes were 90 years after the death of the artist.

Except that next time you check, it will be 100 years. If you check in 10 years time, that is.

Basically, anything post Walt Disney will NEVER stop being in copyright.

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[garcia]

and amazingly enough it doesn't deter anyone. Have you been on a highway recently? Average speeds are in the low 80s.

Fines are usually in the $150 range for speeding (which could possibly kill someone).

Fines for downloading music are $750 to $150k PER OFFENSE.

That's just wrong.

Unfortunately they don't need that long...

[Alkarismi]

It is simply the chilling effect of the *threat* they are after.

You only need look as far as slashdot to see posts suggesting that kazaa et al usage is declining. Speaking with non-geek users of these services also shows that the threat is slowly being taken seriously.

Of course the **AA are merely playing King Canute as usual, in the long run suing the f*ck out of their customers will not restore their fortunes, merely delay the inevitable.

I used to spend several hundred a month on DVDs & CDs. Now... well I guess I never did like bullies much!

Imagine...

[SharpFang]

A guy has a gun pointed at crowd. Whoever goes to attack him, will be shot. If they rushed all, they would surely overpower him, but the first 2-3 would be killed, for sure. Who wants to be first?

RIAA doesn't need to sue everyone. Just some suitcases and "Who wants to be next?"

Question

[tomstdenis]

of the 57M [or whatever the number of the day is] P2P users, how many are actually allowing people to download significant quantities of files?

I bet if the RIAA managed to stop say the top 5% of P2P "senders" they could cripple a network.

I dunno about you, but when I used P2P back in the day I didn't wait 8 hours for some lame as 56K to send me a music file.

Until P2P truly becomes a balanced network [e.g. everyone with decent speed] it will remain fairly easy to knock out a P2P usefulness.

Tom

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[91degrees]

...and yet people still speed regularly.

Whereas if they didn't pull anyone over for speeding, even mnore people would speed, and probably speed a lot more. I know I stick to the speed limit because I don't want a ticket. I don't think I'm the only one.

Re:I told ya so

[KillerHamster]

Who will they sue when they can't sue the p2p or it's users?

The ISPs.

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[Bonker]

Correct. The RIAAs goal here is to make a big deal out of what happens to the file sharers THEY sue.

Lawsuits have been mostly targetted at Verizon users and have been 'mysteriously' targetted away from AOL/Time Warner users. (Hmm... I wonder why?)

The goal here is to create a scare tactic. They want to be able to say 'If you share music, we'll do this to you!'.

Like TheInquirer said, though. Our current legal system just isn't up to prosecuting over a sixth of our population and probably isn't up to prosecuting over a thousandth. The RIAA companies KNOW they can't do anything about the reality of file-sharing. They also know that if they do much more, then they're going to start seriously alienating their customer base. (If they haven't already. I haven't spoken to ANYBODY about the recent lawsuits who didn't say they felt upset about ever buying records or CDs.) The only way they can acheive their goal is to create the peception of a new criminal class, and sadly for the RIAA, it's not working. CNN is running a story this morning more or less martyring Justin Frankel and talking about the bonuses of using WASTE.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/29/privat e.fileshare/index.html [cnn.com]

Even the people who are theoretically on the music industry's side-- CNN being yet another AOL/TW company-- are standing against the RIAAs wave of mass stupidity.

it just doesn't make sense.

[tlacicer]

How much money is the RIAA spending on chasing these people. The are trying to squeeze blood from a stone. They should worry more about the future of the record industry and start using new technology to help them rather then trying to stop the technology, which will never happen.

Record companies I believe at one time served a purpose, now with digital media and the internet, and cheaper production equipment I think they are going to start fading into part of our history.

This whole thing is pointless and scary to say the least.

Lawyer's Job Security

[LoneStarGeek]

Well at least the RIAA lawyers will have work the the the next 2,000 years.

In my opinion there is no logical way they can sue everyone file sharing songs around the world. The courts would be so blocked up from these frivilous lawsuits that no real trials could be heard. To be fair they would have to raid everone's cassette tape collection from the 70's/80's and sue people that made taped copies of albums and CDs then gave them away to friends.

The RIAA and it's fleet of lawyers are insanely greedy. If only the artist got their fair share of what a song grosses then maybe they would get more sympathy.

Re:if their objective is to sue everyone

[LostCluster]

P2P networks rely on their network externiality to be effective. That is to say, a P2P network doesn't work very well if there are fewer people on it. So, they don't need to sue everyone... if they just knock out the biggest sharers the network will become useless so that the small people stop using it too.

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[91degrees]

To be fair, the police and entire judicial system use the tactics of a police state. "Don't break the law or we punish you". That said, the RIAA seems to relish the idea of absolute domination of the populace.

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[jmo_jon]

Fines for downloading music are $750 to $150k PER OFFENSE.
Well, lives aren't worth as much as property. You're allowed to shoot someone for breaking in to your house, even without being threatend.

Re:There's a cheaper alternative...

[The Masked Fruitcake]

Do they honestly expect to get any cash out of a 13 year old kid in his basement, trading 50 cent and Shakira tracks?

That's something that I've pondered through this all. A vast majority of these lawsuits surely surely must be costing the RIAA dearly in legal fees that won't be recouped in damages collected from the average victim. They're making a rather expensive point, and a foolish one in my opinion, but it's their money...

I realize these lawsuits are meant to target the 'worst' of the filetraders, but quantity shouldn't define level of illegality, should it?

In a technical sense, no, but in a practical sense, yes. Who do you expect to receive more attention from the police: the guy who ripped off $10 million from a bank in the middle of the night, or the guy who stole the TV set out of your living room? Both are guilty of burglary, but one is worth a lot more time and effort to track down.

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[civilengineer]

Traffic fines are lesser because everyone NEEDS to drive to work or wherever, and they may go over speed limit sometimes due to lack of concentration or traffic conditions or whatever. How many people NEED to download music?

Re:At that rate...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wont happen. The Earth is a world without end.

Could you provide a reliable source? Perhaps one that doesn't involve mythology.

Book sales down too...

[frenchgates]

There was an article today about how the book publishers are going through a very rough sales period. Like record companies, they can only count on profits from a few guaranteed big sellers like H. Potter and H. Clinton.

I don't think they have figured out that they can blame it on P2P yet.

Faster Development

[rigga]

All that these lawsuits will do is push P2P and media sharing deeper underground on the Internet. Push forward better P2P technologies and advance better ways to move MP3's, Movies and Pr0n. Everyone has had a taste of how easy it is to get these files. I don't think that everyone is going to move en masse back to purchasing CD's. RIAA\MPAA, Want to stop file sharing? Come up with a fair and reasonable Internet subscription service. Maybe working with P2P to make them more profitable would be a better idea. After all the guys that create P2P are usually greedy business men just like the RIAA. I am surprised that this idea has not been kicked around. RIAA is running scared, kind of like SCO. Kick, Scratch and Bite hoping that you will stop your eventual fall into obsolescence. Music and Movie distribution is changing, better roll with the times.

Re:Why even try?

[Kneo24]

The dip that was reported was done over the fourth of july weekend. Of course there's going to be less people online during that time. Just more propaganda to fuel their machine, that's all it was.

Re:Why even try?

[RightInTheNeck]

The message is good, although its rumored a revolution can be killed if you cluster bomb all the revolutionaries at once. They all probably shouldnt stand around together in the same place.

On a side note : Dont even get me started on Rage Against the Machine. Its great angry highway driving music but, lets be honest, they broke up because they ran out of shit to bitch about. Plus riding around in limos and living in mansions really killed that whole anti-capitolism message they had huh?

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[DarthWiggle]

There's a pretty big difference between law enforcement enforcing criminal laws and corporations suing civilly to protect marketshare.

The way I see it, filesharing is a tremendous expression of the Market's belief that most music product has no value, or at least not the value that the studios allege. People are voting with their pocketbooks, and since we live in a retail rather than a bartering (or, truly, market) world, it's a zero-sum situation: either the consumer loses by paying more for product than he otherwise would, or the producer loses through the disappearance of revenue as people refuse to buy. It's likewise interesting that you don't see as much classical and jazz on filesharing services, both because fewer people listen to those genres and because people who do listen are probably more willing to spend the money to get the recordings they want.

These lawsuits are the ultimate in frivolity. And this is coming from someone who will be a lawyer soon. Yes, copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property must be protected. But those protections cannot extend to the propping up of broken industries which seek to extract obscene prices that do not reflect the creativity, novelty, or utility of the product they're peddling. Intellectual property protection is supposed to encourage innovation, not ossification and stagnation. It's supposed to DISCOVER markets, not PROTECT them.

If you get sued for this garbage, find me, and I'll try to get you a good lawyer.

Selective enforcement == CORRUPTION.

[Thud457]

"The goal here is to create a scare tactic."

Isn't that loosely equivalent to barratry? Shouldn't they sue everyone that they catch?

Statute of Limitations?

[schalliol]

Wouln't there be a statute of limitations that would not allow them to sue you in 50 years if you stole "Baby One More Time" today? ;)

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[dasmegabyte]

Actually, there seems to be a lot of evidence that speed limits are not effective in reducing average motorist speed or in reducing accidents. Reduced speed increases survivability but not the likelihood of a crash, so it's a noble goal. But speed limits aren't the way to do it (http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html).

The most effective method of reducing speed is a visible patrol car. People are guaranteed to slow down when being watched. Which is interesting, because many state policeman seem to think that sneaking around is going to slow people down -- around here, they love parking in the shadow of underpasses and the like. Which is silly, because here in NY people flash their beams to indicate "hey, hidden cop ahead." The fastest guys slow down, while the rest of us play it cool.

Average traffic speed around here is 70 MPH. I mean, all three lanes are doing at least 15 MPH over at all times during the day. Only bluehairs drive the limit, and that's not hyperbole -- I bought a beetle with a max speed of about 63 and I get passed by people on the damn offramp. HOWEVER -- when a cop is visible in the U-turn lane, speed drops to about 60 MPH average for at least a mile before and after. Which is good, because during rush hour they lurk in the most dangerous parts of the throughway.

The parable here is this: the RIAA could save a LOT of money by simply sending a letter to people "caught" file sharing that says "Cut it out, or we'll sue you." I think most of us would be sufficiently scared to curb out practices. And those of us sharing legal files (there's got to be somebody else besides me sharing Proj. Gutenberg texts on KaZaa) wouldn't have to worry about some fool legislature BANNING peer to peer.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:The real reason CD sales are down!

[felis_panthera]

Then let's remember the bands that heven't been signed to a label, but have some snazzy digital recording HW/SW. Then we can consider all of the albums that have been discontinued.

If this was really about money, then the RIAA would be using P2P as a tool, not a weapon. Send talent scouts out to the networks to see who is actually popular rather than telling us what's popular. Find out if a particular album should be re-issued. Take a page from the book of Lucasberg(TM), and put out "Special Editions" of popular CDs.

It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the RIAA is going after people primarily sharing NON-copyrighted material, with a little bit of copyright material. After all, they discover bands, not us.

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Average speeds are not in the low 80s. That would mean for every person traveling 55, i.e. for every person traveling at the speed limit, there is one traveling 105. The average is probably more like 65. Some people do travel in the 80s and 90s, but undoubtedly not more than 10%.

Re:Why do I owe damages?

[MImeKillEr]

This argument has been said before.

I downloaded a bunch of instrumental jazz - a totally different direction from my normal music taste (which ranges anywhere from KISS to Mudvayne, CCR to Techno, etc). I like the tunes I downloaded, so I bought some Jazz CDs.

Had I not been able to listen before I bought, I likely would've never purchased them as I, like most people, don't blindly purchase something without having first been exposed to it.

Unfortunately, the RIAA doesn't see people like me as a consumer. They see me as a pirate, despite the fact that the eventual outcome was that I purchased the music I 'stole'.

I don't listen to the radio, with the exception of two [klbjfm.com] local [krox.com] stations, and even then some of what they air is utter crap. I only purchase music I've heard via the rare times I do listen to the radio or via exposure to music through a friend (like with Insane Clown Possee).

Re:It's the deterrent, stupid.

[theLOUDroom]

Sorry... I just have to say this. Songwriters don't make a dime unless a physical cd sells. So to them it is stealing.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. CDs aren't the only source of royalties. They aren't even a good one. They are plenty of ways to make a dime without selling CDs. If you really know any songwriters, you should know that.

Most artists would make more money if you mailed them a quarter than if you bought their CD. Many artists have actually lost money by releasing an album.

As far as the songwriters you know, you've already explained why that example is worthless.

Of course maybe the songwriters you know consider copyright infringement to be rape and murder as well. They could possibly be some pretty messed up individuals.

Maybe your friends should get involved in live performance, instead of expecting to do a small amount of work once and get paid for it the rest of their lives.

I perfectly willing to pay $20 to go see an artist I like perform. I am not willing to pay $20 for a CD, of which $19.50 or more will go to a few megacorps which want pass laws I don't like and promote bands which suck.

What do ppl shair

[ThePilgrim]

What are people using P2P to share.

Is it nSync, Britny and the rest of the modern pre packaged cr*p that is produced thease days. Or are people shairing back catalogs of songs that are hard to impossable to get.

And yes I know I'm showing my age now :)

Re:Terrorism

[pebs]

You can't fight a system that goes underground.

Well, sure. But the whole point is that file-sharing is above ground. Its out in the open for everyone to see. I remember the days of private warez BBSes, that is underground. Then ftp lists downloaded off of IRC; underground, but a little more out in the open depending on how private the channels were (and risky since then FTP sites could log your IP address). Then list of ftps posted on web pages, not underground anymore. Then Hotline (more of a Mac thing), underground depending on how private the sharers were, but many were public. Then P2P file-sharing networks, which was not underground at all, and you expose your IP address to everyone.

The only way to go underground is to go private. I'm surprised things are so open these days and how much people can get away with while being completely careless doing things out in the open.

Pirates unborn

[eddie can read]

That time-to-completion no doubt ignores future generations of pirates. The war on music piracy will in reality never end (sort of like the war on terrorism).

Re:Sounds like a profit model to me...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Of course the "cheap-ass nigglin' theives" have this habit of voting for said congresspersons...

Re:At that rate...

[Geek of Tech]

God created all that is, all that has been and all that will be. He knows the past, present and the future. How much more reliable can you get than that?

Re:At that rate...

[Geek of Tech]

If it makes it any easier for you, we could sum all the rules up:

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6