This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
2191.78 Years for the RIAA to Sue Everyone
Related Links Top of the: day, week, month.
Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue. - Seneca
Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue. - Seneca
At that rate... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:At that rate... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:At that rate... (Score:4, Funny)
I wouldn't put it past the RIAA. Imagine how much money our grandchildren will have. They can pay it all in damages to the RIAA with interest.
Maybe they will make vague SCO threats against our grandchildren telling them to pay for their grandparents licensing, or face litigation.
Re:At that rate... (Score:3)
Re:At that rate... (Score:3, Interesting)
Many of us outside the USA are increasing what we make available via peer to peer -- out of sheer vindictiveness.
Re:At that rate... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a profit model to me... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like a profit model to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Thus the cases RiAA has would to deal with would grow exponentially every year.
Re:Sounds like a profit model to me... (Score:5, Funny)
No wait, don't answer that...
Re:Sounds like a profit model to me... (Score:3, Funny)
If the RIAA can milk recording artists for money well after the artist is dead, I should be able to, erm, liberate the music well after I'm dead. Not that I will die - I'll have my friends renew me.
Re:Sounds like a profit model to me... (Score:5, Funny)
RIAA: Who says copyrights expire!? Damn liar, step up and be seen!
PS: Has anyone else ever chuckled at the irony of perhaps lobbying for copyright to be extended retroactively forever, just so Mickey Mouse (and Sonny Bono's estate!) could get the bejeebers sued out of him by the estate of the Brothers Grimm, et al? It'd force a reality-check on the lobbyists who are whitewashing congress with this belief that consumers are the only cheap-ass nigglin' thieves who want to use stuff without paying a royalty.
Re:Sounds like a profit model to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like a profit model to me... (Score:5, Funny)
And so would the amount of damages they could (potentially) claim.
Which basically means that the RIAA can stop publishing music altogether and just turn itself into a consortium of lawyers. After all, with infinite future income (from damages) guaranteed by Congress and Disney Corp., how can they lose!
Re:Sounds like a profit model to me... (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist.
I suggest an opt-out model... (Score:5, Funny)
Failure to opt-out would mean that you plead guilty, the penalty for which is 95% of all earnings, including future earnings, over the next 2191.78 years...
PS: If you have paid our associate SCO, you have been automatically opted-out.
Done.
-
Why even try? (Score:5, Insightful)
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."
Re:Why even try? (Score:5, Informative)
A) They actually maintain this level of lawsuits, they could easily step up the amount.
B) All file sharers remain online, I read a while back that their has been a dip in kazaa usage since the start of the lawsuits.
They never intended to sue everyone that uses p2p, they are intending to scare everyone out of using p2p.
Put simply, if they sued half, I could almost guarentee the other half would stop. Thus cutting their time to 1 millenia
Re:Why even try? (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe not... didn't one of the court workers get quoted as saying they had to bring in extra help just to handle the stuff that's being filed now?
Re:Why even try? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this is a real obvious flaw in their strategy. Their biggest artists are best known for their shock value. Using the "scared straight" tactic on a group of consumers who are specifically self selected as seeking out shock as entertainment is questionable.
Re:Why even try? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why even try? (Score:4, Interesting)
On the contrary. Although there was a short dip in Kazaa useage after the RIAA announced their new program of suing the pants off of everyone who even looks at copyrighted material, yesterday WinMX came back on-line with a vengeance. Something in the nature of 4000 trillion (is that a quadrillion?) songs went on-line for download over WinMX. My room-mates and I went on a DL/UL spree, filling many gaps in our respective collections (combined total somewhere in the 50 GB range).
As mschoolbus said (quoting Rage, all hail Rage!!): "You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."
Re:What song is that from? (Score:3, Informative)
Here [musicfanclubs.org] are the lyrics.
Re:Why even try? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why even try? (Score:3, Informative)
Implying hypocrisy on their part is deeply unfair.
When am I gonna get served? (Score:5, Funny)
Article text (Score:2, Informative)
Sum hope
By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 29 July 2003, 10:31
READER MICHAELA STEPHENS says that if the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is right and that 60 million US folk are file sharing, it's going to take the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) a mighty long time to get round to them all.
She said: "I pulled out my calculator to see just how long it would take the RIAA to sue all 60 million P2P music file traders at a rate of 75 a day. 60,000,000/
Re:Article text (Score:3, Funny)
Fuck the RIAA and Mitch Bainwol
if their objective is to sue everyone (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:if their objective is to sue everyone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:if their objective is to sue everyone (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing this will accomplish in the end is a slight and temporary vacuum at the top end of file sharing. No one has managed to stamp out crackers (the guys who break copy protection, not the pasty white people) yet, because for every one at the top that gets knocked off, three more rise up and take their place. For serious file sharers, the ammount you have to share is status, just like 0-day warez.
"You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike." --Mentor's Last Words
Terrorism (Score:3, Informative)
However, it doesn't matter anymore. Technology will always provide a solution to "get around the system." Even now, Kazaa Lite and many others have changed their system so that it protects users against the RIAA for now. And once the RIAA breaks that, another protection will exist. You can't fight a system that goes underground.
It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of my days in that co-ed dorm.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:2)
You'd be more believable (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
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:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
Similarly with the RIAA. If a majority of the population uses P2P networks then shouldn't the rights and freedom of the public overthrow the rights and freedoms of the corporations? Afterall their actions do not cost the corporations anything, except perhaps forcasted profits, which is impossible
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, someone had to give a mock anti-filesharer response.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Informative)
The fines aren't between $750 and $150,000 per offense. These people are being sued for that amount in civil court cases. The vast, vast majority of these cases aren't criminal cases, they're civil. Huge difference. If they were criminal cases you'd pay a fine and go to jail for a while, but you'd also get a court appointed lawyer if you couldn't afford one and have the option of a jury trial.
In a civil case there's not much for a limit on damages and no governmental checks and balances on what those limits are. So basically the RIAA can almost literally sue the pants off you for doing something that doesn't physically hurt anyone and just has minor monetary effects on their being. Isn't America great?
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:4, Informative)
Proof is Here [msnbc.com]
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
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:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not in most states you aren't. They can break into your home and if they don't have a weapon, you can't harm them. I shit you not. The family can come back and sue you: "Oh, he was just drunk, or stoned, or lost and confused. He didn't know where he was. He thought he was in his own house, and then the defendent shot him!" And if the police report doesn't show that the guy had a weapon, you're SOL.
This is why most
Are those "cops" of yours ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Make my Day laws (Score:3, Informative)
ALOT of criminals have been shot because of it
Some innocents and even cops have died too, but they
intend to keep the law on the books
The cop that died here did, the knock, yell, bust door
down real quick and rush in . What he got was a sleeping
person on the couch with a double barrel shotgun
The dead cop was the district attorneys son, the guy on
the couch got away with it
Makes the cops a little more careful about busting into
houses, deserve
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:2)
Highway Patrol might be effective in slowing traffic when they are immediately present, but it doesnt stop someone from slamming on the gas as soon as they are out of sight. Same goes for the RIAA, File trading may slow as long as the lawsuits are publisized(and successful), but the instant the media tires of the story it will pick up again. (Not that it has really slowed, Kazaa still has like 5 Petabytes of data available on ave
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
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/priva
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.
Re:It's the deterrent, stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Prior art: (Score:5, Funny)
Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)
Stupid analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Stupid analysis (Score:2)
The real reason CD sales are down! (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:The real reason CD sales are down! (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been saying that since they started complaining about Napster.
It seems rather obvious to me because they want to sell one artist's music to a million people, not a million artist's music to a million people. People claim they buy the music of the artists they like, but the RIAA doesn't care if you buy those albums they want you to buy the flavour of the month.
Re:The real reason CD sales are down! (Score:3, Insightful)
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 po
Yes, I realize (Score:5, Funny)
But if there are 60 million p2p users, the probability of getting sued is pretty low, even if it does depend on the number of files you have shared.
Perhaps the next version of KaZaA will have a suit-o-meter, that will actively display your probability of being sued by the RIAA
Re:Yes, I realize (Score:2)
Article author doesn't take into account FUD (Score:2)
Attacking the problem at the root (Score:2)
But won't most of the copyrights expire by then? (Score:5, Funny)
Should have read THAT on the contract before signing.
Re:But won't most of the copyrights expire by then (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
What bothers me (Score:4, Insightful)
A Different Approach... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is an obvious solution (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
RIAA is turning me pirate.. arrr (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a strong supporter of property rights, intellectual and otherwise (yes I know the IP rights situation is a bit more complicated). However, the RIAA's strongarm, bullying tactics are pissing me off. I would not vote for any politician who supported that organization. Yes, people have a right to make a dollar or thousand for their intellectual contributions, but people also have a right to such as "innocent until proven guilty," and "freedom from unwarranted search and seizure" and a dozen other rights the RIAA, MPAA, and their highly funded Washington lawmakers would trample on in the rush to stamp out music piracy. I used to have sympathy for the RIAA's viewpoint. No longer.
Re:RIAA is turning me pirate.. arrr (Score:2)
I have gone from spending a reasonable chunk on their warez each month to a conscientious objector purely on the strength of their insults. Talk about biting the hands that feed you...
Unfortunately they don't need that long... (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:Unfortunately they don't need that long... (Score:4, Informative)
Some people have gotten a clue and moved to other methods (like BT) for getting their TV episodes, porn, music, etc. BT speeds are BLAZING fast compared to most of Kazaa (not for music, for movies, etc). I average about 100kB/s for most songs on Kazaa, I can download entire albums from BT at 200kB/s+
Imagine... (Score:3, Insightful)
RIAA doesn't need to sue everyone. Just some suitcases and "Who wants to be next?"
Question (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Distributed Sueing ! (Score:4, Funny)
A cascade chain of Court Letters will be sent from Lawyer branch to Lawyer branch and only the lasts in the distribution tree will have to send the letters.
After the close observation, the RIAA has been put to court by Bittorrent inventor.
Also, the Courts are looking at this apparent pyramidal scheme as a new, innovative way to collect money from unsuspecting lusers.
See you later, this was AN, from Slashdot News Channel...
Think subpoena farming! (Score:2)
Couldn't we? Oh...
That's better than winning the lottery (Score:3, Interesting)
In a sense, RIAA is betting on the right horse. They'll win their big jackpot 118.58 times faster than I'll do.
They'd have to sue our great grand children! (Score:2)
Michaela says that as if she expects that they won't. Oh, yes. They will. They've developed a company called Life Extension (LE) that will store their physical bodies while allowing their minds to roam free, suing P2P users, their children, their children's children, etc.
the solution is obvious (Score:5, Funny)
i will start by suing myself. you can help too by donating your spare cpu cycles towards our cause.
Doing the math (Score:5, Funny)
That's enough attorneys laid end to end to cover every sidewalk in New York [nycvisit.com].
Let A Man Do The Calculations (Score:5, Funny)
Hey babe, let me show you how a man calculates all this: After whipping out my sliderule and factoring in the size of the aforementioned subpoenis', I come up with 2200.25, a much bigger number.
Lawyer's Job Security (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
When they file the BIG one... (Score:3, Funny)
Book sales down too... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think they have figured out that they can blame it on P2P yet.
How to profit from the RIAA (Score:4, Funny)
It's a futures market for RIAA lawsuits, aka "America's New Economy".
More Realistic Analysis (Score:3, Interesting)
There are several variables missing from the equation that they propose.
First is the one that everyone picks up on...the intimidation variable (sue enough people and win and others will panic and leave). There is also the number of people that will stop pirating because they have what they need and don't want any more. Then there are those that finally get a fast connection and learn how to use the software...more than enough to negate those leaving by choice. Next, you have those that have been sued, but damn the consequences, they return to share more files. Finally, you have those that light themselves on fire in protest...and die.
There are a number of off and on rates not in the steady-state calculation that led to the 2K+ years to get them all. There are also just those that die of natural causes while file sharing.
My guess is that the on-rate of swashbucklers is more than the off-rate and rapidly increasing (for now), which means the population is in an exponential growth and 2000 years is only going to cover about half or 1/3rd of the people still sharing in 2000 years' time...
File Sharing will Evolve (Score:5, Interesting)
Like everyone else, I first thought all this legal hoopla by the RIAA and other private, quasi-governmental and the U.S. Congress would eventually put an end to file sharing, but thinking about it more I realized that file sharing will just evolve. It is simply becoming too easy to transfer bits of data for file sharing to stop.
What are some of the likely outcomes?
1. Anonymous file sharing. I think the technical challenges to this are pretty huge. There are legitimate reasons to allow anonymous information exchange, and even the US government seems to desire this to promote favored political dissidents. If someone can geninuinely overcome the challenges, I imagine peer-to-peer networks will survive, but I'm not very sanguine about this.
2. Private networks. Rather than letting just any yahoo search the files on your computer and suck down your precious bandwidth, I forsee private networks where friends and family can share files, but strangers can't. As long as you keep your list of buddies under reasonable control, it's going to be difficult for anyone to track file back to you.
3. Local exchanges. Even more extreme than a private network, people might make direct device-to-device copies. Go over to a friend's house and download their entire music collection to your laptop. Meet someone at the library and sync up your iPod. Whatever - by cutting out the middleman, there are no sticky subpoena issues with your ISP. Think about it - as data storage and data transfer rates improve, it'll be feasible to exchange files with any person you casually meet. Instead of meeting for the coupon swap, you can bring your PDA/iPod/laptop/hard drive and swap with your friends.
I really don't see how encryption, watermarking, or stronger enforcement of IP laws is going to put this genie back in the bottle.
The music industry, just like every other content provider, is going to have to adapt their business model, by providing a reasonably priced service that provides consumers what they want.
I think the only viable business model is subscription based access to a music catalog. For something like $10 or $20/mo., subscribers will have access to the entire catalog - and maybe special features like "webcasts", web radio, etc. But the current distribution system is done.
That and the music indutry needs to turn out something better. Honestly - I haven't downloaded ANY music and I've still only bought about 2 CD's in the past year. It's all crap.
Re:File Sharing will Evolve (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd buy that, but only if it were a conglomorate site (eg. has more than one label's catalog) and didn't require a contract.
If consumers had to pay separate fees to each lable's site in order to get music that they want, this would cut out some of their potential clientel.
Re:File Sharing will Evolve (Score:3, Informative)
News flash- people are already doing this. It beats all the hassle of searching for a file and then ensuring its quality, and then filing it in the right place with the rest of the songs by that artist/album/mp3_bitrate_trackname. If you have a fried with a computer (I bet you do!) and you have $200 to spend [outpost.com]
How ong until they sue someone who can fight back? (Score:4, Interesting)
What I mean by that is that they are picking IP addresses at random and starting legal procedings against the people these IPs belong to without knowing who they are.
We should really be making sure that every IP that is listed is followed up on. We can't let them discover that one of the IPs belongs to someone with power and money and let them quiety drop that case while still prosecuting people who are unable to defend themselves.
If they want to play Russian roulette like this we have to make them suffer the consequences if they pick the wrong IP. We can't let them find out who these IPs belong to and then cherry pick cases to fight - it should be all or nothing.
What do ppl shair (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Imagine if the Scriveners tried to sue? (Score:3, Interesting)
Face it RIAA, you're dead as you exist today. You can sue all you want and claim Piracy all you want and hire as many republicans as you can afford, but you'll never ever ever be the necessary evil you were for most of this century. Take your money and get out of the cartel business. The world is wise to you, and all it wil take is a few brave musicians who won't use you to make millions and you'll never survive the blow. The people you're calling theives today are the musicians who'll drive the nails in your coffin tomorrow.
2200 years... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't be naive! (Score:3, Interesting)
BSA has been doing likewise.
This kind of litigation becomes a commodity practice, easily executed because of the verisimilitude of the litigation facts. Indeed, with a decent database and document assembly program, you can pretty much automate this, and train lawyers to do it at relatively low cost.
Because prevailing plaintiffs collect attorney fees almost 100% of the time, the hammer of this kind of litigation is significant: "Here's the deal, you can settle this case in advance for $XX,000. We can do this today, if you like, or if you would rather firght, tomorrow. I'll leave this offer open until a week before trial. The difference is that the clock is running -- the offer goes up as our attorney fee bill goes up. Let us know when you are too tired to go on."
Oh, and by the way, a judgment for Copyright infringement is not dischargable in bankruptcy.
Re:So says some clown from the EFF (Score:2)
- Oisin
Re:I told ya so (Score:5, Insightful)
Who will they sue when they can't sue the p2p or it's users?
The ISPs.
Re:Buying the CDs after they sue you (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you get a subpoena. Whats to stop a user from simply low-level formatting their drives, writing zeros to the drive, re-formatting and reinstalling their OS? Sure, the RIAA can show that you were sharing, but what is the court going to do if you no longer posess the 'pirated' works?
Re:i was wondering (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Record yourself dropping some friends off at the pool.
2. Find out the track length for the latest Madonna album
3. Make copies of your recording, all with the name, track info, etc. like it was ripped using CDex.
4. Share them.
5. Wait for the RIAA to subpoena your records
6. Wait for your courtdate.
7. Ask the RIAA lawyer to play the tracks in open court
8. Bring your copy for comparison
9. Sue the RIAA for malicious prosecution and have them labeled as a ve
Re:Why do I owe damages? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.