RIAA sues more children...

[epp_b]

I don't think there are any entities for which I have more hatred and contempt than the RIAA and MPAA. I can't describe in words how disgusted I am.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061103-8150.html

[chaos386]

http://www.riaaradar.com/

[Lilleput]

How can these lawyers sleep at night? i would have killed my self long ago.

[KaJuN]

My former college's newspaper had a story about this RIAA stuff a while back and they raised a good point: aren't the prosecutors supposed to issue a cease and desist before taking legal action?

[Z102]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

My former college's newspaper had a story about this RIAA stuff a while back and they raised a good point: aren't the prosecutors supposed to issue a cease and desist before taking legal action?

Reading this article you realise how the RIAA bypasses a person's basic right to defend himself by twisting the laws. The worst is that, once the RIAA sues you, you're done. Either you embark on a hopeless, expensive as hell, series of lawsuits where the odds of winning are grim, or you admit that you did something wrong and pay the RIAA. And from that moment on, you're in the hands of any waning star's lawyers, who could sue the hell out of you because you admitted you downloaded illegally their songs. In my book that's called extortion. Used to happen a lot in Chicago, in the 20s...

I'm glad I live in Spain, where nothing like that could happen. In a recent ruling, the judge declared the person being sued innocent because under the Spanish law file sharing is legal as long as there's no profits involved. This means that, as long as you don't sell the songs you download, you have the right to fileshare like a maniac. Unfortunately, our Minister of Justice is drafting a new law to abolish the right of private copy to prosecute more efficiently us downloaders, who to him must seem to be responsible of climate change, the Irak war and poverty in Africa. Man I love these socialists...

[matt_shaw]

Well downloading music and movies is illegal (in some countries, hehe). Don't break the law, and don't get sued. Pretty simple.

[Lilleput]

Originally Posted by matt_shaw

Well downloading music and movies is illegal (in some countries, hehe). Don't break the law, and don't get sued. Pretty simple.

Thats very true, i just have a problem with how the RIAA and Antipiratgruppen (Danish equivalent) do their lawsuits. You do NOT send threatening letters addressed to 12 year olds filled with all kinds of legal mumbo jumbo telling them their life is over and their parents are going to die.

There are a lot of ways to address legal claims and the RIAA / Antipiratgruppen way just gets to me.

[epp_b]

Well downloading music and movies is illegal (in some countries, hehe). Don't break the law, and don't get sued. Pretty simple.

Yes, but be realistic: the law is wrong and it needs to be updated to reflect technology.

[KaJuN]

Thanks to Z102 for that great article! I didn't realize the whole process was that complicated. It's shocking that they can take you to court without really proving you did anything wrong. Maybe the recording industry wouldn't be losing so much money if they'd just stop paying for their lawyers to basically cheat the system. It sounds like the RIAA makes the whole thing so overly complicated that it confuses the defendant and the judge. The court would almost certainly have to rule in favor of the big organization if this is the case. After all, corporate backed groups never make mistakes, right?

The whole process seems flaky and on the edge of illegal. But the sad thing is the government really won't do anything about it since nobody's getting killed. I'm wondering how much these iffy cases brought on by the RIAA are costing the legal system. There are a lot of real, legitimate cases out there that the courts need to be spending their time on. Lawsuits based on loose accusations don't fall into this category.

[epp_b]

But the sad thing is the government really won't do anything about it since nobody's getting killed.

That is truly sad, because that's the only thing that could possibly open this up the incredible amount of the dumb and ignorant masses.

[West]

Originally Posted by epp_b

Yes, but be realistic: the law is wrong and it needs to be updated to reflect technology.

Rubbish. Theft is theft.

Just because you can magically teleport the CD from the store to your home doesn't mean it's not stealing.

[Peter3hg]

Originally Posted by West

Rubbish. Theft is theft.

Just because you can magically teleport the CD from the store to your home doesn't mean it's not stealing.

It is a bit strange really, people don't blink about downloading a whole album off the internet but would never dream about walking into a record store and shoving a cd in their pocket. At the end of the day it's the same thing and costs the artist the same amount.

[TomCat]

Originally Posted by peter3hg2

It is a bit strange really, people don't blink about downloading a whole album off the internet but would never dream about walking into a record store and shoving a cd in their pocket. At the end of the day it's the same thing and costs the artist the same amount.

If your friend gave you an old CD, would you consider yourself a thief?

[chaos386]

Originally Posted by peter3hg2

It is a bit strange really, people don't blink about downloading a whole album off the internet but would never dream about walking into a record store and shoving a cd in their pocket. At the end of the day it's the same thing and costs the artist the same amount.

Actually, if you steal a physical CD, the record label still gets paid because the store you nicked it from already paid for it. It basically goes like this:

Steal a CD physically: Record label makes money, store loses money.
Steal a CD over the net: Nobody actually loses any money, but the record label and store don't get the money you would have given if you bought the CD. Multiply this amount by the amount of people you continue to share the songs with.

[epp_b]

Just because you can magically teleport the CD from the store to your home doesn't mean it's not stealing.

You mean, kind of like how cable television used to work? Remember, those people were "stealing" and look what happened...

The RIAA needs to realize that P2P is the next wave of technology that is going to change their business. As did radio, record players, cassettes (remember that BS about "Home recording kills the media industry...and it's illegal"?), etc.

If we are to be considered "thieves" for this kind of thing, the RIAA is be considered to be a "thief" all the more. They completely rip off the artists they falsely claim to represent. "Buying" your music from iTunes (for example) does hardly anything to support the artist and you're only kidding yourself if you think the artist is getting more than a few cents on the dollar you pay for a song.

Do you think any of the artists -- even one -- thinks that someone who is supposed to represent them should be suing their own fans? The actual artists the RIAA say they represent don't see a penny from any of the lawsuits. The RIAA will stop at nothing to keep their own flimsy business model with the private laws to prop it up.

We need to stop this "old" way of thinking and realize that IP sales are not the same as selling real, tangible, physical products. It's not about paying for every single piece of media and for every single bit and byte you receive -- especially when we live in a time where technology makes such a model is impossible to maintain.

Often times, giving things away is a better way to benefit in the long run. IP sales for music artists are mere advertising. That is especially enforced by the amount (or lack thereof) that the RIAA actually pays them. No artist, unless extremely world-wide famous (at which point, they don't really need to be making a whole lot of cash, because they'll already have enough for the rest of their life) gets more than a few cents per CD and/or song sold. And don't kid yourself, file sharing of IP is not zero sum: nobody downloaded a song that they like and thought, "These guys are my absolute favorite band! But I've heard it on my computer speakers, so I don't need to go to a live performance".

[Peter3hg]

Originally Posted by TomCat

If your friend gave you an old CD, would you consider yourself a thief?

No but then my friend isn't also using the CD. P2P creates multiple copies, giving old CDs to your mates doesn't.

[ESPNSTI]

Originally Posted by chaos386

Steal a CD physically: Record label makes money, store loses money.
Steal a CD over the net: Nobody actually loses any money, but the record label and store don't get the money you would have given if you bought the CD. Multiply this amount by the amount of people you continue to share the songs with.

That's almost right other than if someone downloaded a song then that doesn't mean they would have purchased it if they couldn't download it.
So it's more like "multiply this amount by a certain percentage of the amount of people you continue to share the songs with".

Having said that, I think the RIAA and the like bring it on themselves by being inflexible and greedy bastards.

[TomCat]

Originally Posted by peter3hg2

No but then my friend isn't also using the CD. P2P creates multiple copies, giving old CDs to your mates doesn't.

It could. I wonder how much money companies have made off CDRW Drives? Think about it. Who the hell really needs a CD Burner? Or a DVD Burner? How many billions of blank CDR's and DVDR's do you think have been sold over the recent years? Also, who the hell needs a 400G hard drive? How many high capacity hard drives do you think have been sold over the recent years? MP3 players as well. I wonder how much money Apple made from illegal downloading for their IPod's...?

I've bought quite a few CDs in my life. Movies as well. But a lot of the stuff being sold today just plain sucks. It's not worth the gas money driving to the store. It's usually a single good song with a bunch of crap filler. I've downloaded whole CD's, found that I liked them, and so I went and bought the CD. Same with movies. It's nice not having to deal with some crooked video rental store that'll charge you $9.87 if you return the movie 35 minutes after 12:00pm, even if they have 280 other copies on the wall.