Lawyer Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins

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.

Hit that

[Anonymous Coward]

I would totally hit that. [miamiherald.com]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Bush twins

[Bigby]

It's not about hated their dad. It is about whether the RIAA is selectively enforcing their copyrights; and the Bush twins are high profile collateral damage. I don't know about copyrights, but if you know someone is infringing on your trademark and you do nothing about it, you lose that trademark. The lawyer is letting them know about an infringement of copyright.

Re:Funny but nothing new

[mrscorpio]

No legal way other than buying the CD and ripping an mp3 for yourself, you mean? Because that falls under "fair use" which is still law for a little while longer, last I checked.

Re:Bush twins

[bill_mcgonigle]

Oh, great! Go after kids because you hate their Dad. Sad.

It has nothing to do with their Dad - it has to do with their visibility, due to their dad's station in life. If this were 10 years ago, he'd make the case against Chelsea Clinton.

It's about:

• media attention
• pointing out the absurd damages the RIAA claims
• pointing out that they don't go after those who are likely to be able to defend themselves

This guy's on our side.

I'm curious - if the RIAA decides not to prosecute, does this somehow weaken their future cases or set them up for government sanction? (I know, copyrights aren't trademarks).

Re:Bush twins

[Elemenope]

Copyrights don't work the same as trademarks in that they do not require an active defense to continue operating. But from a moral/political point of view, it is wrong/unwise for the **IA to be selective in their pursuits of 'violators' of their clients' copyrighted works, and doubly so in the public eye (as public officials are "role models", and also a generally privileged class).

Yeah...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Yeah, like that's going to ever happen.

Maybe they'll be let off, like that record exec's son, with a stern talking to by their daddy. Any other person sued by the RIAA that wants to take that option too?

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you read history? Jar-Jar Binks' gonna call for emergency executive powers. He's not going down until Death Star #2.

Re:Bush twins

[enjerth]

You didn't even read TFA, did you? It says "Lawyer Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins". Evidence generally does not preclude an investigation.

The lawyer is not reporting a crime. He's reporting suspicious activity which may be a crime, and calling for an investigation.

This has the potential to be a much more viable case to than having nothing more than a file and an IP address, which the RIAA regularly pursues.

Re:Government moved fast

[aardvarkjoe]

From the article:

Let's assume twelve songs, copied from twelve different CDs.

Let's not. How about let's assume twelve songs, legally downloaded from an online music store and burned to a CD. Total damages: $0.

What a stupid article.

Hold on.

[Elemenope]

I am poor, I do not own a gun, I do not drive an SUV, I do not support Bush and I'm GLAD that Paris Hilton is getting a good taste of the judicial system.

Can you move back to the part where you explain why you are conservative? Particularly re: the part about being poor?

Not a liberal here. Just honestly curious why anyone believes in an ideology whose corporeal manifestations try very hard to deny you are worth the time of day, never mind any more substantial consideration.

Re:Careful Now

[cayenne8]

"Careful now, all of you Slashdotties are going to be grossly guilty of hypocrisy if you don't support the twins right to make a mix CD."

Yeah....I mean, while I'm all in favor of making the powers that be face up to what everyone else had to...I've never considered the modern version (CD) of the classic 'mixed tape' to be a criminal offense.

Surely this lawyer has some better ammo than this??

Re:Careful Now

[Inoyun]

This is a most retarded law that is as difficult to enforce as the speed limit. But after thinking about it...deeply while listening to my ripped copy of my favorite CD, I'd have to say that it is a logical thing to do and actually doesn't really equate to bush hate. Sure it seems odd that someone who received the gift of music would turn in the giver of the gift over a technicality and that the giver happens to be the bush twins but technically a president signs bills into law and there is no better way to force the issue of how retarded the law is than to make sure everyone has to follow it even if it means taking the presidents daughters for 1.8 million dollars. Isn't that like 9 years of paychecks from GWB? Maybe he'll get the picture. I actually hope the RIAA wins but it sucks because my views are diametrically opposed to the story. The RIAA sucks. So by that logic we'd have to kill alot of people to make them obey the speed limit. I mean...its THE LAW.

Re:Careful Now

[*weasel]

Making a mix CD isn't the problem.
The fact that they gifted it to their father is.
(They distributed music to their father that they almost certainly did not have the right to distribute)

Also, it's not a 'support' of anti-piracy laws, it's an apagogical argument:
"if you sue college kids for swapping songs, you should then also sue the daugther of the president for an absurd amount for this obviously harmless activity."

Re:Hold on.

[enjerth]

Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did not work for.

Being poor has nothing to do with that, unless you think that I should be eager to grab for what another person has labored for. Which, having not the attitude of a thief, I do not want to take. I am poor, not desperate.

Any part of that you don't understand?

Re:Careful Now

[Anonymous Coward]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with making a mix cd. However if the RIAA is gonna go on a crusade of lawsuits against copyright infringing people and this action is the same as what brought the other suits then the twins should be prosecuted just like anyone else. It is the job of the president to lead by example. If they can get away with this then every other infringement lawsuit from the RIAA should be dropped as well.

Re:I'm all for it

[drinkypoo]

Now, I think Lars is a monkey as much as the next man, and that his band is a sell-out Country and Western outfit, but to be fair to him, he has made amends for his previous stance on the issue.

"Fair" would be to get into the eye of the media again, tell us who told them to say that shit, and retract it, since it's obvious hypocrisy.

"Fair" would be to determine their percentage contribution to the RIAA's FUD, and for them to pay that percentage of the awards won by the RIAA against people who should never have been busted. Fair would be for them to pay for every copyright violation they have ever engaged in throughout their entire lives.

When they can undo the suffering they have caused by being the RIAA's hand puppets, THEN I will consider forgiveness.

Or, you know, if they tried.

Re:Hold on.

[Elemenope]

Yeah, it's funny how that works. It's almost as if people can't process anything like: "while I don't agree with their competitors, I believe that person/company/ideology/etc. is behaving evilly." Exactly when did criticizing one group automatically mean you were working for the other side?

Conservatives have a tendency toward ethical blindness when it comes to the pracitcal human consequences of certain ideological fixed-points, like for example their belief in the awesome awesomeness of free markets as applied to everything under the sun. Many conservatives have the self-awareness to admit this is a weakness of their ideology, and some even attempt to address it. Damn heretics, I guess.

Liberals, if you want me to criticize those that I often criticize on a daily basis, have an insufficent appreciation for personal self-possession and responsibility, and tend to believe that underwriting centralized, highly inefficient bureaucracies is somehow a good way of providing services in the public interest. See? I can criticize yet another group I don't belong to. I am versatile.

Re:Bush twins

[Esion Modnar]

It's about public humiliation of the RIAA. Imagine a bully, who prefers picking on the weak, is confronted by a real bruiser who starts blowing his nose on the bully's shirt. The bully now has the unfortunate choice of either pretending ignorance, or responding with violence which will end up with him on the ground, bleeding from both ends. Either option is humiliating for the bully.

It shows to everyone what the bully truly is about: cowardice. All the bully can do is glare at the tormenter.

In the case of the RIAA, they are faced with a lose-lose-lose situation: even if they bring a case, and even if they win it, they lose politically. If they lose the case, they establish a bad precedent for themselves. Public humiliation is the least damaging of their options.

Re:Capone and taxes

[jedidiah]

C'mon... at least Capone was competent.

He was probably more charasmatic too.

free money

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the reason liberals offer money to the poor is that those at the top are more vulnerable than they think. Welfare is for society, not the poor. We did have this little thing called the great depression that happened before we had welfare. Every time someone loses a job, they no longer contribute to the economy. A little help up from the government helps the economy from spiraling down -- money, no matter where it comes from, gets spent. . .and that my dear conservative friend, keeps other people working. Yes, some people abuse the system, but that is far outweighed by not letting hardworking people on hard times fall thru the cracks. Why is that so hard for you people to understand? Not that you or anyone will read this comment, by an anonymous coward, buried in a dead end thread -- but what the hell.

Re:Careful Now

[Hatta]

Careful now, all of you Slashdotties are going to be grossly guilty of hypocrisy if you don't support the twins right to make a mix CD. Unreasoned Bushy-hate should be no substitute for doing the "right thing". (That is, if you consider making a mix CD the right thing.)

Hardly. It's entirely possible to be against a bad law, yet be for the even application of it. In this case fair application of the law makes it very clear just how bad a law it is.

Re:Hold on.

[corbettw]

Conservatives have a tendency toward ethical blindness when it comes to the pracitcal human consequences of certain ideological fixed-points

Replace "conservatives" with "people", and then most of your second paragraph becomes redundant. Besides, only a fool would argue that free markets are perfect in the real world, since their "perfection" requires perfect information sharing between parties. That won't even happen. Instead, what most people who believe in free markets say is that they afford the most liberty to and between individuals, and tend to be the most efficient at solving problems. Kind of like Sir Winston's famous quote about democracy, free markets are the worst form of economics ever invented by man; except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Re:Excellent

[rajafarian]

The Republican Conservative defense for all the shit they do: Democrats do it, too.

f u

I hope it takes less than my lifetime to clean up after this administration.

Re:Hold on.

[Boronx]

The liberal-conservative labeling in the USA really sucks and has been harmful to our political debate. Typically they're taken for opposing ideologies, and usually used to mean "someone who holds views I think are stupid".

Some ideas are liberal, some are conservative, some are both, some are neither. Any one person usually holds to ideas and rejects ideas of both stripes.

Invading Iraq, for example, is not a liberal idea: liberalism disavows a nation's right to make aggressive war.

It isn't a conservative idea: conservatism eschews getting unnecessarily embroiled in costly occupations, especially in Asia.

I am a liberal. I am a conservative. I am an American, a citizen of a country founded on two incredible ideas. One is liberal, that the government is subordinate to the rights of people. The other is conservative, that the nation should be ruled by law not easily swayed by the mob or the powerful.

Dividing the country into liberals and conservatives weakens and diminishes us.

Re:Careful Now

[colmore]

Indeed, the fastest way for a bad law to be repealed is for it to be fairly applied to politically powerful people.

Imagine if crooked pharmacists and the millions of middle class Americans who abuse pharmaceutical drugs were treated like other "enemies" in the war on drugs.