RIAA sets up a Maxim gun for lawsuits.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2003-06-26 01:49am

Hundreds of "large-scale" personal file-sharers to be mass-sued.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-06-26 01:53am

Hear that? It's the RIAA in it's most deserved death throes.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-26 01:55am

citing significant sales declines

Sounds like another bulkhead collapsed on the wreck. Suits like this destroy people's lives but don't provide significant amounts of money to the organization, its incredibly stupid. They need boosted sales, not millions of increasingly angry computer users.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2003-06-26 01:58am

Sea Skimmer wrote:
citing significant sales declines
Sounds like another bulkhead collapsed on the wreck. Suits like this destroy people's lives but don't provide significant amounts of money to the organization, its incredibly stupid. They need boosted sales, not millions of increasingly angry computer users.

I bet your chances of being in a car accident are still better than being sued by RIAA after this starts.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-06-26 02:02am

The costs alone incurred in these lawsuits will limit just how many they can sue at any one time, plus you have to estbalish jurisdiction, serve papers, file them, draft them up. Its not as easy as it sounds and if some of these people really decide to fight...now THAT would be something to see.

Anyway notice how the movie industry smartly is staying out of this. Despite rampant pirating of movies box office sales are UP this year and have been up now for many years in a row.

What the RIAA refuses to understand is that the product their putting out sucks and most file sharers are not downloading whole albums but the one or two songs on a CD that they're selling for 15 bucks. The consumer does not want to be robbed.

The Motion picture industry is putting out good product and so the pirating may hurt overall sales numbers but the box office is up and thats all that should really matter.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-06-26 02:05am

Seriously, now, the RIAA needs to build a better mousetrap. Lawsuits, lawyers, and laws that infringe upon civil rights are simply a way to force the world onto a pre-beaten path.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-26 02:29am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:
I bet your chances of being in a car accident are still better than being sued by RIAA after this starts.

Almost certainly, IIRC American roads kill over 40,000 people per year, and a couple million more are involved or injured. Piracy will probably rise after this and music sales will slump further wile the RIAA would be hard pressed to turn a profit from all the suits.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-06-26 03:37am

The RIAA said its lawyers will file lawsuits initially against people with the largest collections of music files they can find online. U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person's computer, but Sherman said the RIAA will be open to settlement proposals from defendants.

Seems to be they want to do the same sort of shit as they did to that student recently....

Hethrir · Post by **Hethrir** » 2003-06-26 03:50am

Simple solution: Everyone boycott buying music while they take this moral highground.

Damaramu · Post by **Damaramu** » 2003-06-26 04:31am

According to this comment made on the Slashdot website, it sounds like the RIAA doesn't have a leg to stand on:

Contrary to what the RIAA wants you to believe, it appears that making a copy of an audio recording may be perfectly legal in the US, even if you don't own the original recording, as long as it is for noncommercial purposes. The reason for this is the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA).

Since 1992, the U.S. Government has collected a tax on all digital audio recorders and blank digital audio media manufactured in or imported into the US, and gives the money directly to the RIAA companies, which is distributed as royalties to recording artists, copyright owners, music publishers, and music writers:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/ch10.html
[cornell.edu]

In exchange for those royalties, a special exemption to the copyright law was made for the specific case of audio recordings, and as a result *ALL* noncommercial copying of musical recordings by consumers is now legal in the US, regardless of media:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1008.html
[cornell.edu]

"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."

The intent of Congress was clear when this law was passed

http://www.cni.org/Hforums/cni-copyright/1993 -01/0018.html
[cni.org]

From House Report No. 102-873(I), September 17, 1992:

"In the case of home taping, the [Section 1008] exemption protects all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings."

From House Report No. 102-780(I), August 4, 1992:

"In short, the reported legislation [Section 1008] would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use."

Therefore, when you copy an MP3 the royalties have already been paid for with tax dollars in accordance with the law. If you are a musician whose recordings are publicly distributed, then you are entitled to your share of these royalties by filing a claim under Section 1006

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1006.html
[cornell.edu]

Napster tried to use this law to defend their case, and the court ruled this law did not apply to them because they are a commercial company. But as a consumer it seems to me you are perfectly within your rights when you make a copy for noncommercial private use.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2003-06-26 08:05am

Damaramu wrote:According to this comment made on the Slashdot website, it sounds like the RIAA doesn't have a leg to stand on:

Then somebody with some guts should get the ACLU or the Cato Institute behind them and let themselves get sued by RIAA and then present their defence in court on those grounds.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-06-26 08:06am

Stravo wrote:The costs alone incurred in these lawsuits will limit just how many they can sue at any one time, plus you have to estbalish jurisdiction, serve papers, file them, draft them up. Its not as easy as it sounds and if some of these people really decide to fight...now THAT would be something to see.

Anyway notice how the movie industry smartly is staying out of this. Despite rampant pirating of movies box office sales are UP this year and have been up now for many years in a row.

What the RIAA refuses to understand is that the product their putting out sucks and most file sharers are not downloading whole albums but the one or two songs on a CD that they're selling for 15 bucks. The consumer does not want to be robbed.

The Motion picture industry is putting out good product and so the pirating may hurt overall sales numbers but the box office is up and thats all that should really matter.

Volunteering for some pro bono work Stravo?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-06-26 06:11pm

Kazaa (search), the most popular software package for file sharing, reported that the number of its users online fell roughly 16 percent by late Thursday morning to about 3.8 million people, compared to more than 4.4 million users shortly after the RIAA announced its new campaign Wednesday afternoon.

This is now false by the way. The number's back up to 4 million plus.

Ya can't frighten us, RIAA.

justifier · Post by **justifier** » 2003-06-26 06:18pm

They just don't get it, the music they're putting out sucks and people have been activly boycotting them

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-06-26 06:20pm

justifier wrote:They just don't get it, the music they're putting out sucks and people have been activly boycotting them

Easier to go after a scapegoat rather than try to fix the actual problem.

Yuri Prime · Post by **Yuri Prime** » 2003-06-26 06:32pm

These hatfuckers are really hanging on to the sinking ship now. Maybe they'll figure out that people don't exactly like their talk of destruction, viruses, and mass lawsuits. Maybe they should just look at it as a punishment for charging $17 for a cd, and fix the problem, but no, let's piss everybody off and kill ourselves very dramatically.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2003-06-26 07:02pm

I`ve just heard that Canadians are safe from this lawsuit,for now anyway until the RIAA decide to charge.

Yuri Prime · Post by **Yuri Prime** » 2003-06-26 07:16pm

Montcalm wrote:I`ve just heard that Canadians are safe from this lawsuit,for now anyway until the RIAA decide to charge.

Who knows what those fuckers will do next. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to sue a penguin in Antarctica because it's there.

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2003-06-26 07:48pm

Wow, my mom's been a Nazi about downloaded music cuz of illegality, time to shove it back in her face...

Sriad · Post by **Sriad** » 2003-06-26 08:42pm

Shinova wrote:
Kazaa (search), the most popular software package for file sharing, reported that the number of its users online fell roughly 16 percent by late Thursday morning to about 3.8 million people, compared to more than 4.4 million users shortly after the RIAA announced its new campaign Wednesday afternoon.
This is now false by the way. The number's back up to 4 million plus.

Ya can't frighten us, RIAA.

That fluctuation is totally normal; most people shut off their computers or at least take them off direct internet hookups over night.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 2003-06-26 10:30pm

Hmm--so what do yall think about the one Congressman's plan to have the Government create a computer program that would infest a person's computer and then make the computer fry itself after downloading three songs (and recieving one warning)?

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2003-06-26 10:41pm

Jeremy wrote:Hmm--so what do yall think about the one Congressman's plan to have the Government create a computer program that would infest a person's computer and then make the computer fry itself after downloading three songs (and recieving one warning)?

How many millions did the RIAA put in is bank account?

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-06-26 11:14pm

Jeremy wrote:Hmm--so what do yall think about the one Congressman's plan to have the Government create a computer program that would infest a person's computer and then make the computer fry itself after downloading three songs (and recieving one warning)?

I think the congressman needs to earn some goddamn COMPREHENSION.

And hey, why don't we install sensors on cars that make the cars self-destruct (although probably in a manner not fatal to the owner) after they exceed the speed limit too many times?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-26 11:25pm

Uraniun235 wrote: I think the congressman needs to earn some goddamn COMPREHENSION.

And hey, why don't we install sensors on cars that make the cars self-destruct (although probably in a manner not fatal to the owner) after they exceed the speed limit too many times?

I'd favor a bomb in every person to put a stop to jaywalking

Rubberanvil · Post by **Rubberanvil** » 2003-06-27 02:01am

Sea Skimmer wrote:I'd favor a bomb in every person to put a stop to jaywalking

There goes Las Vegas.