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Music Media Government The Courts News

RIAA Extends Legal Action 600

Posted by simoniker from the hurray-hurrah-hurray dept.
shystershep writes "An article at InfoWorld tells how the RIAA 'is filing 41 new lawsuits and sending 90 lawsuit-notification letters this week, adding to the 341 lawsuits filed and 308 notification letters sent since September. The RIAA has settled with 220 file-sharers as a result of lawsuits, lawsuit-notification letters and subpoenas. In addition, 1,054 users have submitted affidavits as part of the RIAA's amnesty program.' The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and reduce online piracy."
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RIAA Extends Legal Action More

RIAA Extends Legal Action

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  • clear (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Custard ( 587661 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:38PM (#7623403) Homepage Journal
    The message is now clear: Online piracy has failed!

    • Re:clear (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Killean ( 25381 ) <{steve.kerr} {at} {wizardint.com}> on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:40PM (#7623429) Homepage
      Actually, I think the message is now "just share with people you can trust, not the whole world".

      Between my coworkers and I, we have enough music to last us the rest of the decade.

      • Re:clear (Score:5, Insightful)

        by turnstyle ( 588788 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @09:46PM (#7624496) Homepage
        "Actually, I think the message is now "just share with people you can trust, not the whole world".

        Between my coworkers and I, we have enough music to last us the rest of the decade."

        You may want to reclassify them as "friends" rather than "coworkers" -- you might find that your employer is not inclined to remain your friend if ever confronted with this issue...

      • Re:clear (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @10:18PM (#7624695)
        Actually, I think the message is now "just share with people you can trust, not the whole world".

        This is so true. I now have an extra 80 gig hard drive nearly filled with MP3 music that I freely share with my co-workers.

        I'll often go to the library and just grab 30 CDs off the shelf, bring them home, and rip them into MP3 (while getting the song titles from CDDB). All lot of titles I haven't heard even once and about 2/3rds I just erase {the '1000 Accordians Play The Beatles' wasn't as good as I thought it would be). But, there's lots of incredible World Music that I would have never known existed without using this method.

        In a few years the RIAA will get its wish and people will stop trading MP3 files over the net. They will instead trade 100 gigabyte hard drives each filled with 2000 albums in 192kbps MP3 format with full titles and scanned cover art. With blank 4.7gig DVD disks hovering around $1 each and DVD burners nearing $100 (and sure to be increasing in quality), people will just trade whole genre collections on hard disk and copy the albums they like onto cheap DVDs.

        But that's not the real issue. Eventually people will get bored with non-interactive 20th century music frozen into song units and start exploring ways to customize pre-recorded music.

        The music industry will be the last to realize that people will actually pay money (some money at least) for music that they can remix at home and change the instrumentation, vocals, levels, and so other parameters. Something like you can do now with General MIDI files and classical music instrument synthesizers.

        • Re:clear (Score:3, Interesting)

          by AntiOrganic ( 650691 )
          But that's not the real issue. Eventually people will get bored with non-interactive 20th century music frozen into song units and start exploring ways to customize pre-recorded music.


          I don't think anyone actually cares that they can change the keyboard sounds on Outkast's "Hey Ya." In addition, musicians most likely wouldn't approve of this because it makes it much too easy to "sample" (read: rip off) their work.

        • Re:clear (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Jardine ( 398197 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @10:54PM (#7624919) Homepage
          So when should the RIAA start targetting libraries? They're obviously aiding dirty, dirty piraty scoundrels such as yourself.

          Thanks for the idea though. Section VIII of the Canadian copyright act makes it perfectly legal for me to go to the library, borrow a bunch of CDs, copy them for my personal use, and then return them. Distributing those copies would be copyright infringment because then it wouldn't be for personal use.

        • Re:clear (Score:5, Funny)

          by The Phantom Buffalo ( 613874 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @11:02PM (#7624973)
          the '1000 Accordians Play The Beatles' wasn't as good as I thought it would be

          I just have to know, how good did you think it would be?

      • Sharing with friends/coworkers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by crucini ( 98210 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @10:35PM (#7624806)
        Which raises a question. If you were nailed by the RIAA, and forced to choose between a multi-million dollar settlement and betraying your friends/coworkers, which would you choose? Before getting too heroic, remember that life after bankruptcy might not be fun. Do you know how your friends/coworkers would answer the question?

        Even if you're a tight-knit secretive ring that knew each other from childhood, all it takes is one ring member participating in p2p.

      • Quit using KAZAA ....Use anonymous filesharing. (Score:4, Informative)

        by zymano ( 581466 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @12:07AM (#7625290)

        anonymous filesharing [zeropaid.com]

        Article mentions Blubster,Filetopia and ES5.

        RIAA is going after your IP number.Kazaa is not protecting you. Be aware.

        Good luck.

    • Of course the RIAA keeps suing, and they'll keep doing so. What next? In response, a lot of IP academics are calling for alternative systems that would "get the artists paid" but when it comes to them, the devil is in the details...

      How many people will have to have their Internet use watched in order to generate a meaningful sample?

      If the sampling is truly anonymous, how can it prevent cheating?

      Will 'offensive' works be excluded? If they are, what is the impact on Free-Speech?

      Will such bureaucratic gove

  • Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GearheadX ( 414240 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:38PM (#7623405)
    ... this is what their records and statistics may claim. And as we all know the RIAA is a bastion of honesty, forthrightness and righteousness.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by symbolic ( 11752 )
      Let's say they stop (for argument's sake) 75% of the online piracy. By RIAA math, that should mean a 75% increase in sales (or at least some significant percentage). It's entirely possible (and, in my opinion, entirely likely), that sales will continue to slip. The moment I start laughing is when they're standing around scratching their heads (among other things), wondering why sales are still falling.

      AT this point, one of two things will happen: they'll either realize that they DO produce crappy music, t

      • Re: (Score:4, Insightful)

        by tchdab1 ( 164848 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @01:20AM (#7625785) Homepage
        They are not stupid.

        No matter what they say, I'm sure they have a much better idea of exactly what is responsible for their sales decline, and a very clear idea of the "impact of piracy".

        Financially anyway, I'm sure their perspective on piracy is clearer than anyone outside the industry. For example, did you ever think that cigarette companies really believed their product was not dangerous, or that MS did not understand the position of their anti-competitive licensing policies, all despite what they proclaimed to the public? It's clear now that they were very clear-headed about their actions. My point is not to ding these other industries but to point out that they all either have or rent smart folks who are telling them exactly what is going on. They of course use this info to rationally pick the action that leads to their desired goal.

        And in the midst of this particular situation, probably with a goal of maximizing financial return from assets, this postiion and these actions is the best they think they can do.

  • I can't wait to see them.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:38PM (#7623411) Homepage Journal

    If their previous lawsuits are any indication we'll see them suing:

    A 4 year old Eskimo girl.

    A parapalegic with Tourettes.

    97 year old twin sisters who still listen to their tube powered RCA radio.

    A man who has been in a coma since 1972.

    The Vatican.

    That crazy guy outside my office who plays a harmonica.

    The estate of J. Edgar Hoover.

    Some T-Rex fossils in the NY Museum of Natural History.

    Antarctica.

    • to protect copyrighted material.

    • Re:I can't wait to see them.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:49PM (#7623544) Homepage
      - That crazy guy outside my office who plays a harmonica.

      Actually, that's not the RIAA's area. That's the ASCAP (I swear I'm not making that up -- it stands for American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers). They sue bars who have cover bands who don't pay for protectio... er, a performance license. If your crazy guy is playing anything remotely copyrighted, he'd better watch out or that wild paranoia may become justified.

      Article [sfgate.com] in today's Chronicle about them (I linked to it elsewhere in this thread, too -- it's my "Jesus, I'm not really surprised, but Jesus..." item).

      ASCAP. Ass cap. Huh huh.

    • What's your point? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jason1729 ( 561790 )
      Why should any of those people (or things) be immune from legal action simply for the reasons listed.

      Are you saying it's okay to pirate music if you register your account in the name of a man who's been in a coma since 1972?

      I agree that the lawsuit's are stupid on the part of the RIAA, but why is suing a 12 year old file swapper any worse than suing a 32 year old geek who lives in his parents basement?

      Jason
      ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]

      • You missed the point (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:55PM (#7623601)
        I agree that the lawsuit's are stupid on the part of the RIAA, but why is suing a 12 year old file swapper any worse than suing a 32 year old geek who lives in his parents basement?

        Because the purpose of the lawsuits are a public relations war, and every time they fuck up (sue a 12 year old, sue a Mac-owning granny) they shoot themselves in the foot.

        Also because they are trying to change the term "piracy" to mean "sharing copyrighted material without paying the piper" away from its original meaning of publishing copyrighted material without a license. Funny, folks don't seem to cotton to equating a 12-year old downloading tracks with a criminal bootleg operation.
        • I don't know if it's just me(although, I'd be willing to bet it isn't) but when I hear or read the acronym RIAA I automatically think of suing 12 year old girls. Hell, reading that article, evertime I saw an 'f' I had to check it wasn't 'female' connected with 'suing' and '12'. In my mind that link has been created, and that can't be good publicity. In fact it probably does nothing for the reputations of such organisations, which in turn reflects on the atists.

          In my opinion the RIAA need to watch out, the

      • Re:What's your point? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by the_mad_poster ( 640772 ) <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:29PM (#7623908) Homepage Journal

        You shouldn't expect 12 year olds to have the same understanding of things as 32 year olds. If you're going to start doing that, you might as well just abolish the whole idea of children needing any guidance. Abolish driving ages, drinking ages, enlistment ages. No more juvenile courts or corrections centers. Don't hold parents responsible for anything or expect them to provide for the children at all once they're physically capable of working for themselves, etc.

        NOT a good idea.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @09:19PM (#7624312)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:I can't wait to see them.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Munger ( 695154 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @09:41PM (#7624457) Homepage
      Well here [nwsource.com] is the story of retiree Ernest Brenot, 79, of Ridgefield, Washington. He doesn't own a computer, nor does he know how to use one. The RIAA claims he likes Vanilla Ice, U2, Creed, Linkin Park and Guns N' Roses.

      Where the hell do they get these lists from? They can't have got something like that from ISP records.
      • I wonder if Ernest Brenot would go on national TV to ricidule the RIAA and to demand a public apology for libel and defamation of character? Probably wouldn't stop the RIAA at all, but it might help to raise public awareness of the stupidity of what they're doing.

  • Quick hide the first born (Score:4, Funny)

    by FiveNines ( 235767 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:39PM (#7623423)
    The RIAA are coming for the children!

  • One person doesn't even use a computer! (Score:5, Informative)

    by jtnishi ( 610495 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:40PM (#7623431) Homepage
    The article on yahoo [yahoo.com] mentions one of the persons getting sued doesn't even know how to use a computer.

    These are getting seriously out of hand...

    • ANd you should read a wee bit furthur, where it talks about the old couple's son in law, who got internet installed, did his music downloading, and then canceled it when he left house. Theft occured under their account name.

    • Re:One person doesn't even use a computer! (Score:5, Informative)

      by laird ( 2705 ) <lairdp@gmail.TWAINcom minus author> on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:05PM (#7623708) Journal
      "one of the persons getting sued doesn't even know how to use a computer."

      It's pretty simple. To quote from the article:

      Brenot and her husband said their son-in-law briefly added Internet service to their own cable television account while living with the couple because Comcast Cable Communications Inc. said it would add a surcharge to send separate bills to the same mailing address.

      "There's a mistake in this case," Dorothy Brenot said. "We're innocent in all of this, but I don't know how we're going to prove it."

      It's a pretty simple situation. The son-in-law set up broadband access, billed to the Brenots. He then downloaded and shared tons of music (774 titles, according to the article), and the RIAA found him and logged his IP address. Then the ISP said that the IP address was assigned to the Brenots, so they are the ones whose name is on the lawsuit. IANAL, but this sounds just like the cases where someone gets a parking ticket based on the license plate of the car, even though someone else parked the car illegally. At least where I live, if you prove that the other person was the one that parked illegally, they pay the ticket.

      This is like pretty much all of the other "I didn't do it" cases. Someone was paying for a broadband account that someone else was using, so they got sued for what the other person did. This isn't terribly interesting except to journalists looking for a catchy, if misleading, story, since it's a pretty obvious situation -- I can't think of a way that the RIAA could _avoid_ these sorts of errors, since there's no way for them to know who's actually using the computer, just who's paying for the broadband connection, until they file the lawsuit.

      What _would_ be interesting is if the RIAA sued in a case where _nobody_ was doing any illegal file sharing. But so far, out of 382 lawsuits, I haven't heard of any case where that's being claimed. Of course, anything can happen...

  • Lawsuits (Score:3, Interesting)

    by IANAL(BIAILS) ( 726712 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:40PM (#7623436) Homepage Journal
    So, has anyone that they have sued actually decided not to settle and are mounting a vigorous defence? Has anything actually made it to court yet, or is it still exclusively a scare tactic?

    • Re:Lawsuits (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:44PM (#7623486)
      RIAA has already said: if you file a single piece of paperwork with the court (e.g., motion of discovery [to see what their evidence is], motion to dismiss, etc.), the settlement immediately jumps by $50,000.

      Now, since they are settling everything for $3-5K, and since a good, federal-bar qualified lawyer is going to run $$$, and your downside hits $50K, well, who's the sucker going to be?

    • Re:Lawsuits (Score:2, Insightful)

      by LordK3nn3th ( 715352 )
      Don't be silly. This is America. If you don't have money you don't have justice, 'tis fact.

      If you are wronged by a big corporation you're going to need big bucks to right that wrong, big bucks (and time!) most Americans simply don't have.

      The RIAA knows it, and every other company in the country knows it. Money is power.

  • How many again? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bagels ( 676159 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:41PM (#7623446)
    Considering the number of filesharing users out there, 1,054 takers on the amnesty program is fairly pitiful, actually. What would be more interesting would be the number of people who have quietly dropped off of the networks due to the RIAA's threats... but new arrivals will probably mask any people leaving this way in terms of the overall filesharing "population."

  • Season of Giving (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sonny Yatsen ( 603655 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:41PM (#7623448) Journal
    The RIAA has decided that the holiday season is a season of giving...subpeonas.

  • They are working (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cyberllama ( 113628 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:41PM (#7623450)
    The number of people on the big file-sharing networks is half of what it was before the law suits. But as kazaa declines, edonkey and bittorrent grow. If they're stated goal is to destroy kazaa, then mission accomplished. But if they want to stop file sharing, they'll have to destroy the internet.
    • But if they want to stop file sharing, they'll have to destroy the internet.
      Jesus Christ, don't give them any ideas!

    • Re:They are working (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dollar70 ( 598384 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:42PM (#7624019) Homepage Journal
      There are plenty of other special interest groups working on that too. Software/method patents, copyrights, DRM/Paladium/Longhorn, and the looming H.R.3261 [loc.gov] will all work together to ensure that the internet becomes nothing more than the consumer equivelent of an interactive-television commercial.

      First, they let the geeks do all the hard work in making it technically possible, then they attract attention to all the bells, whistles and general hype, they solidify the sale with the educational angle, then legislate it into a tasteless substance that no one in their right mind would ever swallow.

      But the public will have bought the infrastructure, hook, line, and sinker. It's like watching Jethro Clampet get excited over them fancy city folk fads.

      I could do more with a 56K dialup connection on a P120 with 16megs of RAM than I'll be able to do with a Pentium 7, 24Ghz with 16Tb of RAM and a connection speed at twice the speed of light.

      Most of the people will be content just to "oooooo" and "aaaaah" the blinky lights.

  • I got a letter (Score:4, Funny)

    by The_Rippa ( 181699 ) * on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:42PM (#7623456)
    However, the DRM server was down and I was unable to read it!

  • Go ahead RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by homer_ca ( 144738 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:42PM (#7623463)
    You might scare people into stopping downloading, but that doesn't mean we'll go back to buying your overpriced CDs. $11.99 is a start. Better yet, try $7.99 just like the old LPs.

    • Re:Go ahead RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fryed ( 205364 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:30PM (#7623915)
      Better yet, sell things the customers want! They're getting closer to that, at least. iTunes, Napster 2.0, BuyMusic.com (or whatever that other one is), let people buy music on a per-track basis, which is exactly what I want. Sometimes I want a whole album, if it's buy a group I know well enough to be assured I'll like the CD. But I refuse to buy a cd from an artist I don't know that well, because too often I've forked over cash for a cd I thought would be good, but actually only the track that got radio play was any good. As things stand now, I don't buy cds from artists I've only heard one song from before, but with iTunes and friends, I wouldn't mind risking a dollar on a song I hadn't heard before.

      As soon as a service appears that will let me, for a good price (99 cents is good, but less is always better), download an mp3 with no restrictions on the number of times I can burn it to cd, copy it to my mp3 player, or copy it to other computers, then I will immediately start buying a lot of music.

      Would that be so hard?

  • Congrats to the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:43PM (#7623472) Homepage
    Their tactics are working all right.. I haven't downloaded one bit of music put out by a major label in the last several months.

    Of course, it wasn't really the lawsuits that dissuaded me so much as the utter crap the labels have been putting out. But still, effective tactics are effective tactics. Why, I'll bet they could stop music piracy completely in 2004 if the tunes continue to be as gut-wrenchingly terrible as, say, Britney's last album (or any of those that preceded it, come to think of it. She sure is hot, though).

    On a related note, there's an interesting article [sfgate.com] in the SF Chronicle about how small local bars are getting hit with lawsuits because the bands they hire play covers of copyrighted songs. Wonder how far we are from surgical lobotomies for people who get copyrighted tunes stuck in their heads...

    • I hate these types of comments. Does anyone here realize that there are tens of thousands of albums available for purchase? You don't like Britney's dance music. Fine. There are thousands of other genres of music out there, including a vast catalog of rock albums released since the mid-50s. Or do people really think that they have to listen to music that was released within the last year?

  • The interesting bit... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by madgeorge ( 632496 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:45PM (#7623495)

    ... comes in another year when piracy is down but so are profits. Funny thing happens when you develop an antagonistic relationship with your customers instead of following the age-old law of supply and demand.

    -madgeorge

  • It's not nice, but it appears effective (Score:5, Informative)

    by laird ( 2705 ) <lairdp@gmail.TWAINcom minus author> on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:45PM (#7623496) Journal
    Based on the numbers that you can see on Slyck.com, after years of consistent growth, p2p usage is down substantially for the last few months, especially on the networks believed to be actively monitored by the RIAA, with the decline starting at the same time as the filing of the first lawsuits. And based on the announcements by Apple, Napster, MusicMatch, etc., digital music sales appear to be up substantially over the past few months as well. So while coorelation can't prove causality, it sure looks like the lawsuits are effective at making some people stop using the p2p file sharing networks, and might even be helping with digital download music sales.

    • Re:It's not nice, but it appears effective (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quistas ( 137309 ) <robomilhous@hotmail.com> on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:51PM (#7623566)
      Rather than your point, which is that the RIAA's legal actions may be driving people to buying digitial music, couldn't you also argue that the decrease in p2p activity is due to people finally having access to a number of viable, legitimate, cheap online music outlets?

      I'm sure the number of people who stopped pirating music because they could sample it and buy it for cheap on iTunes is pretty significant.
  • Perhaps the rise of legitimate online alternatives to piracy -- stores that actually give people what they want -- are a bigger contributor.

    • "Perhaps the rise of legitimate online alternatives to piracy -- stores that actually give people what they want -- are a bigger contributor."

      As I said, coorelation doesn't prove causality. So it's entirely plausaibel that the availability of legitimate alternatives has caused some people to leave the p2p networks as well. But the number of people that left the p2p networks (perhaps 1M) is much larger than the number of people buying music digitally (perhaps 100K), so it's probably not the only cause. Of c
  • I don't use KaZaA for music anymore. In fact, I don't use anything for music anymore. I bought the new Viva Voce CD and get samplers with Paste Magazine every few months. That's about all I've done recently.

    Ah, for the days of Audio Galaxy (before they banned searches). I could actually find rare music then...

  • It's working (Score:2, Insightful)

    by NoDoZ ( 232151 )
    I don't think the point of the lawsuits are to really punish the people being sued, but more to get the word out, and get some publicity. Average Joe computer users who used Kazaa and thought that it was legal are now hearing about these lawsuits and uninstalling Kazaa.

    I think the RIAA is accomplishing what it meant to, Publicity.
  • The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and reduce online piracy.
    Of course the RIAA tactics are working. How else could you explain the millions of files [cnn.com]that were unshar^H^H^H^H^H deleted last month?

  • Great! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MacDork ( 560499 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:48PM (#7623530) Journal
    So does this mean they aren't going to be charging me an extra quarter per blank cd now?

  • What has happened to those who haven't settled? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Raindance ( 680694 ) * <johnsonmx@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:51PM (#7623559) Homepage Journal
    It's interesting to see the statistics on how many people have settled, but I'd be more interested in what has happened to those who haven't settled.

    Hardball tactics only work if people think you'll be able to follow through; if they don't follow through on the holdouts, then this tactic collapses.

    Anyone have information?

    RD

  • Working my foot (Score:4, Insightful)

    by enjo13 ( 444114 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:52PM (#7623568) Homepage
    In the last 3 weeks alone I've heard of 4 different private file sharing networks. Just because they're being somewhat effective at ending widespread public sharing, there is a definite growth in the private file sharing arena. Fraternities, dorms, office workers, and almost any other similiar group are forming smaller networks of users, which is going to be VERY hard for the RIAA to fight.

    It seems like one or two users are gathering content from (primarily) overseas file sharers and then making it available to their individual group. The current RIAA tactics don't work, because they simply don't have access to them.
  • The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and reduce online piracy
    People don't care enough to help out people that they don't even know get games, music, movies, etc to spend 6 months in court fighting to stay out of jail.

    Openly letting the world know what pirated software and music is on your harddrive never was a smart idea. Just sitting there waiting for them to come down on them.

  • The message is, don't get caught, not don't do it! If the message were really don't do it, they wouldn't need to hand out punishments, because they'd have set a good example by not overcharging for CD's all those years. I think that any RIAA lawsuit that they win should be deducted immediately from the overcharge on CD's. Once that billion or so $ is reset to 0, then they can start suing people for money. I'd bet that they'd drop all the suits right now if that were the case. How sad! I'll have to go

  • Lets give the RIAA what they want... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:55PM (#7623604)

    Lets give the RIAA what they want.

    Don't download commercial music that you are not allowed to possess.

    Instead, try iRATE [sourceforge.net] and get free, legal mp3s.

    You don't have to pirate music, and you can still kick the RIAA where it hurts (mindshare).

  • RIAA is filing 41 new lawsuits and sending 90 lawsuit-notification letters this week

    I would guess that somebody is willing to go into court and challenge the RIAA's evidence, yet I have not seen any report of a court date being set. Anybody know when we might see how the RIAA's evidence holds up to scrutiny in court?

  • My question... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jeffkjo1 ( 663413 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:56PM (#7623611) Homepage
    My question is, is the RIAA specifically avoiding sueing slashdotters? I find it amazing that we have yet to hear of a case actually going to court, and by the tone of everyone on /. (myself included), it would seem that droves of these cases would be going to actual court, and would in turn attract lots of media attention.

    Something is fishy here...

  • One benefit of the ongoing RIAA actions ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dustpuppy ( 5260 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @07:58PM (#7623626)
    is that they probably help encourage further P2P developments from people trying to avoid the RIAA tactics - eg improved decentralisation, better anonymity, better filtering.

    Sort of like how wars help encourage technical developments.

  • RIAA speaking for labels it doesn't represent (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fatwreckfan ( 322865 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:03PM (#7623683)
    I find it disturbing that the RIAA is claiming it is acting on behalf of record labels that it doesn't even represent.

    NPR [npr.org] radio has a story [npr.org] about several record labels (notably Fat Wreck Chords [fatwreck.com], one of my personal favs) that had to fight for years to get their names removed from the list of labels the RIAA claims to represent, since they do not want to be represented by them.
  • If the average out of court settlement is $1,000 (yes some people have paid a couple hundred and others several thousand, i'm just low-balling my estimate) and you have 341 settlements and several more on the way your pulling in a good chunk of $341,000 oh and since we already know they are not following the correct procedures on how they obtain their subpoenas i'm sure there legal fees are pretty cheap.

    Easy Money for the RIAA - don't make music, just file lawsuits :)
  • Go to someplace like mp3.com. You have to spend time finding good stuff, but you can buy an album for 1/3 the cost of an RIAA CD, and the artist pockets ten times the amount of cash.

    If you must listen to RIAA music, buy it used! Then they don't get a dime and you're still legal. Sorry to the artists, but you're going to have to use a non-RIAA label if you want any of my cash. (Or set up a tip jar so I can pay you directly.)

  • 1,054 users? (Score:3, Funny)

    by emarkp ( 67813 ) <[moc.qdaor] [ta] [todhsals]> on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:07PM (#7623731) Journal
    Actually it was just one user sharing 1,054 files. For a total of 1,054 user equivalents.
  • The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and reduce online piracy

    For some reason I tend to believe that it has simply reduced online piracy....in the places the RIAA can look for it

    There are still plenty of other piracy options and I am sure most people have just migrated to those.

  • Monetary Success (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Veramocor ( 262800 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:17PM (#7623808)
    So 220 settlements, at an average of 5,000(just a guestimate) a settlement. Thats a cool 1,100,000.

    What did the lawyers cost them?

    Are they making money on this endeavor?

  • A perfect analogy (Score:3, Funny)

    by felonious ( 636719 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:26PM (#7623878) Journal
    What the RIAA is the equivalent of plugging holes in a dike

    or in /. terms..

    Plugging up the craters in Morpheus's face as viewed on an IMAX screen with a pixel as viewed on a 15" crt at 1600x1200 res.

    I think that pretty much says it all...or...that would be fucking impossible!!

  • Change the law (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:29PM (#7623906) Homepage Journal
    While the United States Constitution allows Congress to enact copyright laws, it doesn't actually require it to do so. Sharing music files over p2p could be legalized tomorrow if you could just get enough votes in Congress to repeal copyright. You'd either need to also convince the president to sign the bill, or get a 2/3rds majority in Congress to override a veto.

    Stranger things have happened. The United States Supreme Court recently overturned the last of the sodomy laws in the United States, a decision that at one time would have been inconcievable to the majority of Americans, but the gay community worked together patiently to make homosexuality completely legal.

    Now, I want you to consider that there are over sixty million Americans practicing peer-to-peer file sharing. That's more people than voted for George Bush, and also more than the number of homosexuals in America. So it's not unreasonable that copyright could be repealed, or at least reformed.

    I discuss the background of copyright law in the US and what you can do to make file sharing legal in Change the Law [goingware.com], a section of my article Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads [goingware.com]. The steps I suggest you take to make file sharing legal are to speak out, vote, write your elected representatives, donate money to political campaigns, support campaign finance reform, join the electronic frontier foundation, and to practice civil disobedience.

    It is my objective that all sixty million American p2p users will read my article by the time of the 2004 election. I've got a long ways to go to reach that goal.

    The article has a Creative Commons license. I encourage you to copy and distribute it. I'm also seeking help in translating it to other languages; a Romanian translation will be posted soon.

    Thank you for your attention.

    • Re:Change the law (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ziviyr ( 95582 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @10:13PM (#7624665) Homepage
      Using your analogy though, in this case we're feeding a huge business that doesn't like sodomy. They invest millions and millions to make people think sodomy is bad, make newer overly broad antisodomy laws that keep us from legally using q-tips, etc.

      How are we going legalize the new sodomy with homophobes actively campaigining with money given to them by the sodomists themselves? Even dragging economists into the anti-sodomy fight this time.

  • I said it before and I'll say it again... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wrinkledshirt ( 228541 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:52PM (#7624108) Homepage
    The industry fucked up by not taking Napster and using it as a conduit for regular sales.

    I know too many people who love good music to risk buying crap at the store that they haven't gotten a proper chance to preview, but let's leave behind the idea that many people treated the MP3s they downloaded as the equivalent of ads when it came to determining what CDs they wanted to buy.

    Think on this instead. You're already on Napster, downloading music. You've just found out that you can also buy concert tickets there. Or, there's a neat service that, for 5 bucks, will dump a huge selection of thematically-related songs onto your computer in a conveniently located spot for burning to a CD. Or, there's a spot for getting T-shirts, posters, sweaters, stickers of your favourite band. Or, there's a spot for buying 50c's autobiography or that Rolling Stones concert on DVD. Or, there's a spot that lets you buy the CDs themselves, since sometimes people want the jackets and lyrics and higher-quality music.

    Never mind the ad revenue that could be generated by having such a flourishing community that you're at the center of and controlling.

    Feel free to add to this list. On top of it all, you put yourself in a situation where you're working with technology, not against it, and you've got GOODWILL going with your customers.

    Imagine that.

  • Can they get you for torrents? A Debunking or B.S. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by felonious ( 636719 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @08:55PM (#7624140) Journal
    What about sharing via torrent files?
    You gather various, pieces from many user which are then uniformly, recontructed after you have reached 100%.

    Try watching an incomplete torrent divx or any other file for proof of the file(s) being "pieced" together. until the torrent is complete the files sit in an unorganized file inside whatever future extension they turn out to be.

    To me this begs the question...
    How can anyone sue you for sharing on bittorrent if it's only a piece of a file, random at that, and not a full file?

    The only way they could approach this is to catch the user with the complete file on their hd after downloading it.

    How would they do this?
    Can you say invasion of privacy?
    Who knows?

    A good thing to do no matter what you use is to have peer guardian running at all time. You can even incorporate the blocklists in sygate's firewall software if you choose not to use peer guardian.

    Above all monitor and block all traffic when using P2P apps or you might have to pay the piper...guilty or not...it really doesn't seem to matter anymore.

    P.S. Fuck U RIAA
    P.P.S. Thank you internet

  • The solution is really very simple... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bechthros ( 714240 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @09:07PM (#7624228) Homepage Journal
    ...and has been practiced for years by record stores, that is, stores that actually still sell vinyl records (primarily DJ shops). You open the package. You take the record (or cd's in a used cd store) out of the package and place it in a turntable or cd player behind the counter. You hand the customer headphones. Customer listens. If customer likes it he buys it, if not he hands you a different CD to listen to.

    File-sharing isn't as popular as it is because people want to *own* the music. It's popular because people just want to hear what it sounds like before they buy it. If I wanted to actually *own* those songs it sure would't be in mp3 format (80% data loss), and without any liner notes, catalogs, or stickers.

    I mean, when you buy an $8 t-shirt at wal-mart, you get to try it on first, right? When you want to buy a $10 book, you get to browse it at the bookstore before you buy it. Why should an $18.99 CD be any different?

    Try-before-you-buy has always been my reason for using filesharing for music, if I hear a CD I like I buy it, that is if I can even find it at the store (thanks again RIAA).

    But the RIAA will never pursue this method of both reducing piracy and meeting the consumers' needs, because they have zero interest in one of those two things. Guess which one. I maintain my opinion that the RIAA is terrified of file-sharing not because of any loss of profits to them (they're doing just fine, thanks) or to their artists (who they've been ripping off since the '20's), but because it means the average music consumer will no longer be satisfied with the STINKING, VOMITOUS, VILE, REPUGNANT, DISGUSTING, MALODOROUS, REPULSIVE SHIT being passed off as "popular" music by the RIAA. People have no option if they want to hear good music but to turn to the black market, for in this case the black market happens to be the only free, or even fair, market around.

    All that could change if the music stores let you listen before you bought. For some reason, though, I'm not holding my breath.

  • It's working! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Thedalek ( 473015 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @09:15PM (#7624275)
    Hooray! Their tactics are working in decreasing piracy. Now when an album doesn't sell, it's because it stinks, not because everyone's downloading it.

    Honestly, even though they claim their tactics are working now, in a month, they'll be saying how lost profits due to piracy are sky high and increasing.

    This is what happens when Don Quixote starts tilting at windmills, but actually has the firepower to take them out. No more windmills, no more monsters. Solution: Make new monsters.

    So, this time next year, look for the RIAA blaming people humming songs for lost revenue.

  • nice quote (Score:3, Informative)

    by Seraphim_72 ( 622457 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2003 @09:41PM (#7624456)

    The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and...

    ....use of nonstandard ways to file share ala bittorrents, irc, newsgroups, etc., etc., etc.

    Sera

  • How to share files and avoid the RIAA, MPAA, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pherris ( 314792 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @12:09AM (#7625303) Homepage Journal
    Long story short: Get off the Internet and on your own wireless network (kinda like the old days of BBSs). It's a decent solution considering the low cost of 802.11b cards (both PCMCIA and PCI) and routers. The great difficulty for the "powers that be" to track you down makes this a much better choice than over the 'net. Unless the RIAA/MPAA starts sending out trucks with RF detectors you should be safe. Here's the quick step-by-step:

    1. Build yourself a XPC [shuttle.com] or something that size.
    2. Toss in the needed parts including a 200G HD and a PCI 802.11b card.
    3. Post notices around the dorm/building/whatever with the SSID and quick instuctions.
    4. Enjoy.

    While the selection of files in the beginning will be low I'm sure it would take little time for it to become quite varied.

    The other solution is to buy a cheap 802.11b router, hook up to the LAN and bury it behind some sheetrock. The campus IT dept could spend years looking for it (if done correctly).

    Of course this information is for educational purposes only yada yada yada ...

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