|
RIAA wins case in Minnesota?
Quote:
|
Nothing gets the public on your side like making a single mother of two pay two hundred thousand dollars for stealing twelve dollars of material.
|
You know. Stealing is wrong. I understand this point.
What I don't understand is how the RIAA is going to survive just suing people into the ground. It creates nothing but bad press for the industry as a whole. I can guarantee you a lot more people have looked into independent music that isn't under the branches of the top record labels. I know I have. Besides, when's the last time anyone has heard anything new and decent on the radio anyways? Most of the radio stations might play one or two new songs total in any given month, and the rest is just early 90s alternative like Pearl Jam and Nirvana. RIAA needs to slow down with the piracy nonsense (since OBVIOUSLY suing people hasn't slowed down piracy, infact it has only increased), and work on rebuilding the image of the music industry as a whole. PS. I'm an iTunes downloader, not a file-sharer. Last thing RIAA should look into doing is making iTunes go away by getting greedy and demanding more money for the music. Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
If this is indeed true, talk about someone that should have settled. Takes one idiot to ruin it for everyone else, eh?
|
the Defense Attorney kinda screwed it up for her. Before he had a really really good case, but the second you mention Zombies its kinda like stickin your fist up your ass.
Cause if I remember right, he mentioned things about her using Kazaa to store music (I still don't understand who in their right mind would use Kazaa...but still, when you use a wireless router doesn't the IP come up at 192.whatev.whatev.whatev cause cable modems put out a single IP |
That said though Slash, you are still responsible for securing your own router and connection.
|
To true. I still really do not believe the RIAA should have won that case and that the jury was on crack.
|
I think the RIAA should have won that case given the law. The fact that that was considered a reasonable fee for damage is what's absurd. Hopefully this will give someone cause to look a bit more carefully at copyright infringement law.
|
This will just make it easier to settle any pending lawsuits with other people. As the article stated, they can reference the case and say "you can fight the law, but the law will win, always". Truth of the matter is, it will take just take one damming judgment against the RIAA to really do some damage, something they will no double regret when their accountants figure they spent more money on litigation then they could have developing a product that people would actually want to spend money to consume. One would think they would have learned from how the US government (and others) have failed in the "War on Drugs". If people really want to do something, they will do it regardless how illegal it is; you can't force them into it.
|
What I would like to see is how these records are being obtained though. Since the RIAA has no authoritative clout, how do they just get the right to scan computers? And under what criteria do they get the computers they choose to investigate?
If the RIAA ever came and knocked on my door, and said "Hi, can we look at the files on your computer?", even though I don't even have |
They don't need to "scan" your computer. The people they find are using peer-to-peer filesharing programs that show what files you have to anyone that wants to look. They only catch idiots, really.
|
Quote:
Its even tougher with media since its a very specific thing. If you want Metallica, you have to deal with the Elektra label, and so on and so forth. Independent labels are nice and dandy - but they don't carry anything heard on the radio past 91.1 on your dial. Quote:
|
She should have used emule and just kept her share folder empty. Yeah i know..that defeats the whole purpose of p2p..but better to be paranoid and out of jail than sharing everything like this women obviously did.
Not saying emule is foolproof..but she used KAZAA?! I didn't even know that was still around. Ive never heard of someone getting pinched by the RIAA on emule. Of course if youre REALLY paranoid..there is always TOR, Privoxy and PGP:cool: |
Or buy the music you want to buy.
Like I said people, stealing is still stealing. iTunes is great, and I don't mind paying 99 cents a single. But again doesn't mean I support the RIAA or frivolous lawsuits either. |
People still use Kazaa? Ever since I found out about torrents and rapidshare files I haven't touched one of those p2p programs ever since.
While the RIAA certainly does have the law on its back, you'd think that their tactics in dealing with these people (tactics that in my mind at least amounts to financial terror tactics) would galvanize the jury to nullify. But I guess some people are simply okay with allowing these kinds of terror tactics to continue. |
Quote:
Her fault for hiring the stupidest lawyer in the world, though. As I heard it, they even had her MAC address logged, which combined with the IP address is as good as leaving your fingerprints all over the scene of a crime. Someone would have to be directly framing her to have spoofed both numbers. The amount she's being ordered to pay is way outrageous, but she totally deserved to lose the case. A defense attorney who deserves his law degree would have shot the RIAA out of the water by forcing them to provide proof of damages. The music industry hasn't actually been able to say how much damage has been done by file-sharing, and they go out of their way to white-wash that fact. No damages, no case. So really, there was plenty of stupid to pass around. |
Not to mention the Defense Attorney said others who could have downloaded were Zombies and Crackers.
ZOMBIES AND CRACKERS!? |
Quote:
As for "negative publicity", thats a really stupid "internet" line of reasoning. Even the most staunch, stupid middle schooler knows file sharing is illegal. Of course the RIAA is going to do this, since they're in the right. |
I think what he means it that the RIAA is spending millions to watch people, get all their information and stuff like that, then to prosecute and whatnot as well
|
Quote:
|
While it is most certainly within the RIAA's rights to sue people for infringing on their copyrights and denying them their very hard earned money, why are they targeting everyday users and not say, the groups that rip and release the pirated music or shut down the servers that host the pirated music? Because
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
I know someone who solely uses Kazaa to download all of his music, illegal progs, and movies. I think he's an idiot but he loves to use it. The funniest part is that he keeps downloaded virus-infected .exes that are masked as mp3s. |
Quote:
So the question really is, why are they bothering? If they're not preventing any real revenue loss, and this is costing them so much money, they'd be better off just leaving well enough alone. Millions might not make or break a big company like Sony, but I bet there's some stockholders who'd like to have that in their pockets nonetheless. It really comes across as the music industry allocating part of their capital for the sole purpose of being colossal dicks, just because they can. Legal right notwithstanding, there's something that seriously needs addressing when you have massive companies going out and completely destroying random middle class families with punitive fines over something that barely affects the companies in the first place. Nobody should just get away with breaking the law, but this shit with music execs masturbating furiously as they slam yet another family with a $5000settlement claim needs to stop. Any legal system that awards $9250 per song is a broken system. |
Quote:
It really is bizarre. There aren't many things that have a calculative value that we don't force juries to calculate. The answer in your last post, why are they bothering, is because they can get $10k a song without proving they had $10k in damages. Chalk that one up to your Congressman. But would you say the system is broken if the actual damages were $10k? What if she did deliver the song to 7,000 people. Would you have a problem with that damage then? |
Am I the only person that thinks comparing cassette swapping with a buddy to be even remotely equivalent to hosting a FTP on gamingforce that has over 50GB worth of music is kinda ridiculous?
|
The funny thing about the two cases you presented the former actually gave music with a measurable harm, while we have no idea if the latter shared anything at all.
|
Has the RIAA actually done any kind of study that says "Here are our sales for this record to date. Here is the trend change after we released it for free?"
I've seen posts by artists in all sorts of different media that say they actually experienced an increase in sales of either the older stuff which was released for free, or stuff that was just coming out, which coincided with a free release of older material. The only rhetoric I've heard has been in aggregate and very hand-wavy and unspecific. ie. "Sales are dropping by billions and the internet started, therefore there is causality!" |
I remember going over some logic and there was a specific fallacy concerning this situation (that the existence of the Internet is the sole reason for the drop in sales). I think a lawyer would be wise to use that fallacy, and (as we all have said) challenge them to see whether the defendant really cost the organization THAT amount of money.
Let's do some simple math. Let's pretend it costs 2 dollars per song on the album. Now, she had to pay a total fine of 9,250 per song for the full amount of monetary reimbursement required for sharing that song that the industry lost. Well, that means that she had to share it with 4,625 individuals, correct? That's kinda a bit high, no? And that has to go for all 24 files. Unlikely? Definitely. The industry would need to prove that she actually shared the files with enough people to cost that much money. That doesn't mean that she should get some sort of pro-rated rate, but certainly it should not equal out to a quarter of a million. As for the industry's rep, well, right now it won't hurt them. There are a lot of older customers who will say, "She got what she deserved" without thinking more about it. However, twenty, or thirty years from now, this generation, and the next generation will remember what they did, and simply not buy any music any more. And they definitely won't be able to pay the amount required in court cases. I'm not saying that no one will buy music from the industry, but the cash flow will definitely continue to drop, and not because of people sharing files, but rather their dislike of the industry itself. |
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
The longer run is that you're hurting the artist. Lets say a new artist with a big CD comes out and everyone torrents it. The CD label suddenly has less revenue to pay their bills, legal fees, staff, insurance - and of course, the artist themselves. And while the arguement that "Dur, most artists don't make money from CDs anyway" (which is only slightly true) - promotion departments won't back an artist who's CD doesn't sell as well - and how do they determine that, boys and girls? Ill give you a hint - its not with a torrent. |
Quote:
Let's do another one of those silly analogies. There's this Ferrari you really want, but you don't have the cash. So you hit upon a brilliant plan: you scrape off a bunch of atoms each from a few gazillion identical Ferrari models which are legitimately owned (or still unsold), then somehow assemble those atoms into the original object. The original owners lose nothing of discernable value, and you've just gained a shiny new sports car. Sounds absurd? Well, scraping off atoms isn't exactly the same as making a partial virtual copy of a few digital bits, but the result is close. And collecting those atoms from many different sources, then reassembling them, is a concept similar to torrenting. Can you see it now? Of course, there are plenty of horrible problems with this analogy. It's still better than comparing filesharing to stealing physical goods. |
Negative publicity, eh? I'd be willing to wager that, comparatively, major protesters to the RIAA, knowledgeable ones at that, they may be vocal on the internet or in the industry, but they're probably pretty scant in the big picture. The RIAA has a target to scare. People only informed in the matter that using p2p programs let them obtain for free what they otherwise would have had to pay for, casual media piracy. Fear of randomly being plucked as they next Jammie Thomas could cause this number to decline. Whether or not more discerning individuals hate them more than they already do, who cares. This seems to be exactly the publicity intended and I'd think they'd want the news shouted from the rooftops.
|
Quote:
As time goes on and more material is Torrented, eventually people will start losing jobs. Recording engineers, graphic designers for album art, agents, contract negotiators and people up and down the line from custodians who clean toilets to CFOs will be unemployed because people can have what they want without having to invest anything into it. A counter analogy, far more simpler - "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free" has been tossed out to countless 18 year old girls by suspecting mothers since time forgotten. And it stands to this day - the fact that you want it doesn't suddenly supersede the fact that can't afford to buy it. I think too many people are focused on their personal wants, as opposed to the function of how the industry works. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
The problem with the argument that it isn't stealing is that you don't get to have other things in life that you can't get without paying for them. You don't get to get a Ferrari unless you can pay for it or steal one off the street. You don't get to have a television unless you can pay for it or steal one off the street.
Now we're saying, "Well, you can have music without paying for it, as long as you just download it." It might provide no actual harm if someone who wouldn't have otherwise purchased it downloads it, but how can you tell the difference between someone who would have paid for it and someone who wouldn't have? How do you say, "No, no, I think this guy would have paid for it, so let's prosecute him, but not this guy." You can't separate the two classes, which is why the act is what is punishable, not the intent. |
I really don't think the music industry is losing sales because people are downloading. I know most people I talk to, only download music because they can't afford to buy the cd's and still wanna here the music. I'm the same way. If I didn't download the music, I still wouldn't go buy the cd. So no loss of sale there.
|
Quote:
The fact that you can get it without paying for it is probably the best definition of stealing you can find. The fact that you didn't have intent to pay for it even if you had the money just equates to premeditation to the crime. |
I never said it wasn't stealing. Of course it's stealing. It's someone else's song. I'm obtaining it without permission. Yah. It's theft. I was merely stating that the music industry isn't losing money from my anyhow. The fact that it IS stealing is why I don't download much music these days. Unless I wanna sample something I am considering buying.
|
Quote:
|
Hey, at least they're getting some form of action. But seriously. If I wasn't gonna spend money anyhow, and still get their music. How can they lose money they never had?
|
They are losing their copyrights.
There are damages in this world other than monetary damages, you know. If I hit you over the head with a stick, you didn't lose any money, so does that mean you aren't harmed at all? |
Besides, downloading torrent music by artists you like is akin to inviting friends to your house and then robbing them
|
Fine I'm a theif. Just a second whilst I go to the local church and confess.
|
Well, I am too. But you're trying to excuse yourself by some bullshit reasoning that you aren't harming anyone. You are. The truth is you don't care that you are because you find the RIAA reprehensible.
|
Yah, that's pretty much it. I could care less if I'm stealing.
|
So now heres something I'm wondering. Since Radiohead is basically offering their CD and music for your own price and people are downloading without paying anything...is it stealing?
|
Uh.
No. |
That... doesn't make any sense. David Bowie was posting music for free years ago. If the artist wants to distribute something without charge, they probably have to make arrangements with their agent and their label before releasing anything.
That is - if the artist says its free, its free legally. |
Actually I think from what I've read Radiohead told their label to go fuck themselves and is doing this on their own and I think 4 other groups are following
|
That still requires a contract release or some type of legal proceeding where they're no longer affiliated with the label. By the time they told them publically to fuck off - they had probably done it weeks or months before hand. Speaking ill of any record label is highly unprofessional and not unlike cutting your nose off to spite your face.
(On the other hand, Lou Reed got out of contract by fulfilling his album obligation in producing the legendary Machine Music album. The fact that Radiohead seperated denotes that theres more going on than simply a group of hippies disagreeing with a bunch of suits. |
As I understand it from what I heard on NPR, Radiohead just didn't re-up their contract when it expired. I think they were professional about it, not doing what Slash said in a literal sense.
At any rate, the original question was retarded. |
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 05:23 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.