Lawyer Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins 529
tanman writes "After reading an article in the Miami Herald that said "[President] Bush's twin daughters gave him a CD they had made for him to listen to while exercising," a Florida lawyer calculated statutory damages of $1.8 million and has sent a letter to the RIAA asking that they 'display the same vigor in prosecuting this matter and protecting the rights of your rights-holders that it has displayed in enforcing those rights against other alleged violators.' From the letter: 'This is a serious violation of copyright. As you know, whichever of your member organizations that are right[s]-holders for the copied musical works may be entitled to statutory damages of $150,000.00 per musical work copied.'" Update: 06/22 18:55 GMT by KD : The lawyer in question has retracted his analysis and now says no laws were broken, probably.
Funny but nothing new (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bush twins (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Inflation or greed? (Score:3, Informative)
$150k/song
That comes out to 12 songs. Sounds about right (mathematically speaking, that is.....).
Re:Government moved fast (Score:4, Informative)
http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyrigh
http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyrigh
Re:Government moved fast (Score:5, Informative)
http://the_scrivener.blogspot.com/2007
http://the_scrivener.b
Yep, it is. There should be an underscore between 'the' and 'scrivener'. slashdot seems to be filtering that out for some reason, so I'm posting as "code" - you'll have to cut'n'paste links.
Re:Government moved fast (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The songs may not be from RIAA artists NOT!!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Keep in mind that the money-whoring, RIAA affiliated, Sound Exchange collects royalties on all songs broadcast by all artists -- even the ones who don't want royalties collected, and don't want to pay the high fees demanded by Sound Exchange just to get their money back. For a small artist it costs more than you'd recover, but then SE just keeps the money for itself. Talk about ripping off artists!!
Re:Must be a slow news day... (Score:5, Informative)
You make it sound like this practice is considered legitimate by the Courts. In fact, if you can show evidence that you are being arbitrarily prosecuted and there isn't a legitimate justification, it is grounds in some courts, to have the entire proceedings Stayed as an 'abuse of process'. You must be harmed to bring a civil action. If you have no problem allowing others to infringe on your copyright, then there is reasonable grounds to believe it isn't really a harm. Under English Common law the Court has the power and responsibility to prevent any abuse of the judicial system. Treating individual offenders differently simply because they are a celebrity or politician or the President's daughter (etc) is such an abuse. In fact, not prosecuting the President's daughter may almost be seen as some kind of a bribe or attempt to improperly influence the Executive Branch.
A plaintiff with limited resources is justified in selectively prosecuting simply because they can't possibly go after everyone at once so have to choose their battles. This is not considered arbitrary, but it is a rational, and necessary evil. But the RIAA can hardly claim they lack the resources to prosecute the President's daughter when they are going after John Doe's, who for all they know, are dead broke.
Now perhaps this selective prosecution takes place behind the scenes where no one is looking. (I think we all know it does). But the courts have no power over what happens outside the court room where there is no evidence. It falls upon witnesses to bring evidence forward.
In this case there is evidence. The president himself has publically stated his daughter is guilty of making and distributing pirate music CD. I think that is actually a criminal offense now, is it not?
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe... (Score:5, Informative)
These audio CD-Rs are a bit harder to find, and a bit more expensive than standard data CD-Rs, because you indirectly pay a tax on them to the recording industry (it's collected at the wholesale level).
So, the Bush twins _might_ not be subject to copyright prosecution. OTOH, they do have GW's genes, so they're likely too stupid to know all of that, and probably used data CD-Rs, opening themselves up to prosecution.
Re:2 words.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Government moved fast (Score:5, Informative)
However, pretty much everyone allows underscores in machine names now, so I'm patching Slash to allow it.
Re:Careful Now (Score:2, Informative)
Off topic, but no such committee ever existed. You're conflating two separate organizations, the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and the Army-Archer hearings presided over by Sen. McCarthy.
Sen. McCarthy was never a member of HUAC, as that was a House committee, and he was in the Senate.
Re:Excellent (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. Ripping DVDs is potentially a legal problem because you are circumventing a protection device (albeit one not much better than ROT13). Ripping a CD does not do this, and as such, is legally protected format shifting. There's some debate about ripping DVDs as well, but ripping CDs is open and shut not illegal. What can be illegal is what you do with it afterwards.
BTW, a computer CD burner is probably not protected under the AHRA, AFAIK. It is not a consumer audio recorder. It is a data drive that can be used to obtain audio data, but in and of itself, most new CD burners do not play audio directly, and I'm not aware of any that record audio directly. Audio recording is also not the primary way in which an optical drive is marketed. Thus, it is very unlikely that AHRA will help someone in a computer-related defence.
The Lawyer is an IDIOT (Score:3, Informative)
Read section 1008 of the "AUDIO HOME RECORDING ACT" Here; (pdf file) [ipmall.info]
The senate report on the act specifically cites making copies for family members as "non-commercial uses", and thus not an infringement.
My view on this is that the Lawyer was simply blinded by his extreme hatred of all things Bush and/or republican. This goes beyond bias this is pure unadulterated blinding hatred on the part of the lawyer and is propagated by other liberal Democrats that simply cannot get over the fact that George Bush beat Al Gore almost 8 years ago. It has nothing to do with the RIAA or President Bushes daughters. Headline should read; "Lawyer Blinded by Hatred Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins"
Everyone reading this knows this to be true yet I am sure this will be modded down as "flamebait" due to that same ongoing hatred, simply because it reads to favor the Bushes when in truth it only reads as facts.
You be the judge.
Read it again and try to find bias on my part.
Don't confuse fact with bias.
Found in Yahoo's cache. (Score:5, Informative)
Yahoo's cache of retracted blog entry. [216.109.125.130]
Re:Government moved fast (Score:2, Informative)
A quick google turned up rfc1912 which says:
"Allowable characters in a label for a host name are only ASCII
letters, digits, and the `-' character. Labels may not be all
numbers, but may have a leading digit (e.g., 3com.com). Labels must
end and begin only with a letter or digit. See [RFC 1035] and [RFC
1123]. (Labels were initially restricted in [RFC 1035] to start with
a letter, and some older hosts still reportedly have problems with
the relaxation in [RFC 1123].) Note there are some Internet
hostnames which violate this rule (411.org, 1776.com). The presence
of underscores in a label is allowed in [RFC 1033], except [RFC 1033]
is informational only and was not defining a standard."
Re:Careful Now (Score:3, Informative)
You are getting confused with Trademark law, and even there it's not true.
With trademarks the issue is that if a mark has been diluted enough that it is in use as a common word then you can't enforce it any more, so in order to prevent that from happening you need to actively defend it.
But copyright is yours till it expires, no matter what happens.
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Informative)
I asked for two, not one.
Ok here are a few from the top of my head:
I didn't hear the original quote,did you? in context? (I have a vague recollection of having come across the quote and that it seemed to be more aimed at users of drugs that are illegal than at people who misuse legal drugs, but that is a vague recollection, but that could be an incorrect recollection.
Big fucking distinction...sheesh! Talk about a fig leaf of an excuse. The fact that he even rails on about "illegal" drugs goes to illustrate that he favors a nanny state. What happened to the "rugged individualist?" He and his kind are afraid of real freedom.
He wasn't calling on me to change my behavior). More importantly has he been outspoken about all illegal drug users going to jail since he was caught abusing drugs?
So even HE realized how hypocritical that would sound. Amazing.
Al Gore still claims that greenhouse gases are the greatest threat to humanity
Actually I think the Theocratic wing of the republican party is the greatest threat to humanity. Look what you folks have wrought upon the world. The ones responsible for this and their supporters should hang their heads in shame...if they had any. Or are they so blind they cannot even see this?
and that all Americans must make great sacrifices
I have not heard that. If you had a brain you'd realize that what Al Gore talks about is not being pig-headed with the Earth's resources. Is that such a fucking terrible idea? Is efficiency not a good thing? But I find that the most critical of Gore have never really bothered to see what he really thinks. They get their info from Mr. Megadittos and his ill informed, mendacious ilk.
to reduce them even after being shown to do more to generate greenhouse gases at ONE of his mansions each month than the average American does in a year (even going so far as to justify this behavior).
See how ill-informed you are? Al Gore pays extra costs per kilowatt hour because he uses green energy. He also runs two fully-staffed offices in his home. Just for giggles, care to guess how much Dick Cheney's electric bill is?
My point was in reply to a poster who said that conservatives say "Do as I say, not as I do." The fact of the matter is that I can name more liberal elites who express this attitude publicly than I can conservative elites.
Even if that is the case, most liberals I know, and I am one, think that consenting adults can do pretty much as they please. Liberals are not the ones moralizing. One more aside: I think liberals govern a fuck of a lot better than you right-tards. Liberals brought us the weekend, the powerlines to the red-state America, they did something about rivers in ohio that were catching on fire, and islands of heavy metals being poured into Lake Erie, they forced corporations to adopt safety standards (actually Nixon created the EPA. He is a liberal now?), and you know what else? Life is just better under Democratic administrations . This has been my experience overall. Furthermore, I have been around the world. I have been around the US. We could learn a lot from Europe, but folks like you cry socialism (but for some reason, you guys tend like the army and NFL, to very socialist-like organizations) and we learn nothing. Life is also better in liberal cities, I know this is subjective, but conservative places tend to be drab, cookie-cutter, conformist, christian communities devoid of cultur
Nothing wrong? (Score:2, Informative)
If you go by the legal definition, which is the context of this article and the RIAA's entire existence, then you are absolutely... wrong.
"Personal use" does NOT apply to giving away to others.
As I and most other understand, you are thinking in the "wishful", not "legal", contexts. In your mind, such copying should never be a problem.
But that is not the context of this discussion, so your argument is specious.