Four Reasons why RIAA Won

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Rich Tate

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C|Net has their take on the post mortem RIAA verdict. They also believe this could now set a precedence for the RIAA to start moving full bore.

As my colleague Greg Sandoval wrote a few hours ago, a Minnesota woman named Jammie Thomas was sued by the RIAA for allegedly making available some 1,702 songs through the Kazaa network (though only 24 were at issue in the case). A federal jury sided with the RIAA and returned a verdict of $222,000.
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Well my take is, first off, corporations own the courts and politicians, secondly the jury instructions these days have pretty much nullified the jury in a way similar to mandatory sentencing. It basically just makes them puppets, because they are being told how they have to decide before they even start the decision process.

So it's not surprising, we, as a society, have allowed our system to be savagely raped by politicians and special interest groups for decades now. After all, it was the RIAA and MPAA that wrote these laws, not lawmakers. They just rubber stamped it.
 
UrielDagda said:
Well my take is, first off, corporations own the courts and politicians<snip>
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I think you might ought to include in that sentence that they OWN the music too that this woman was giving away free of charge.

Don't get me wrong, the model of music distribution and sales is BROKEN. But that does not give a person the right to simply give away that property just because it can easily be broken down into 1s and 0s.
 
Well sure, they own it, but why should any law apply for them, if none of the laws apply to them? The law only works properly when applied equally to everybody, it's hard to give a shit about their ownership when they themselves are shady and seem to be above the law.

Plus the refuse to change, instead they want to litigate their way into forcing the system to stay 20th century, instead of changing with the times. It baffles me that they even take this stuff to court because they are bleeding even more money into the pockets of lawyers than they probably actually lose in the first place. No wonder they feel like they are going broke, the only ones getting rich off of this are the lawyers!

I always wanted them to litigate individually because I didn't think they would actually be stupid enough to throw more money into litigation than they could ever hope to get out of it. I guess you can't underestimate the stupidity of the extremely greedy. They will bankrupt themselves trying to squeeze every percieved owned penny out of everybody, instead of intelligently using their money to figure out a way to operate in a modern connected world.

They may own the stuff, but they also owe to those that actually made the music.. And they definitely aren't doing anything in the interest of the artists with these lawsuits. In fact they are probably passing most of the cost of their bullshit on to them.

I can't pity them in any way, because they are acting like monkeys that have a lap full of gourmet food, and throw it to the ground to run around to chase all the other apes with half eaten bananas. They might own the content but what about common sense?

At this rate, two to four years from now we will be reading news of the industry complaining about how broke they are because they sued so many people for gazillions of dollars they didn't have, and boo-hoo, the industry had to pay billions in lawyers fees and now they don't have anything. Well, I will just have to have a nice, long belly laugh then.

Sure maybe the law (which they wrote) says they are right. But being right, and being smart enough to do what is right for the overall picture are two vastly different things. Look at the greedy sub-prime lending market.. Those companies thought they were going to make money hand over fist, and then they pressed it too far and all went right down the toilet. They got greedy and wound up with less than nothing, screwing over a lot of homeowners in the process. The RIAA is going to do the same thing. Sue until they go broke, and screw over all the artists.
 
UrielDagda said:
Well sure, they own it, but why should any law apply for them, if none of the laws apply to them? The law only works properly when applied equally to everybody, it's hard to give a shit about their ownership when they themselves are shady and seem to be above the law.
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I am not really sure what you are talking about. It would be great to have some solid examples to back up your opinions rather than a bunch of generalities that seem to support your opinions without any real proof.
 
The defendant in this case shouldn’t have gone to trial – she should have settled beforehand (hindsight is so easy).

She won’t be able to pay the judgment of $222k on her own (annual income of $36k). Declan makes a comment at the end of the article that “…if the RIAA's smart, its lawyers will offer her some kind of not-entirely-punishing settlement that's a tenth of today's damage award and strongly encourage her to take it.”

The defendant better hope the RIAA is in such a forgiving mood, or that others chip in and establish a fund on her behalf.

But the case and the RIAA effort isn't really about her so much as it is about establishing a new vision of copyright law to the digital world – and the RIAA is winning, so pay attention – or just pay!

“4. Copyright law is harsh. Once the jury decided that Thomas was behind the IP address in question, there was almost certainly going to be a stiff fine--of at least $18,000.”

Have a great weekend!
 
This statement by Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation for Sony BMG, on the first day of the trial also got my attention.

She stated that “…when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, Sony can say he stole a song. Making "a copy" of a purchased song is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'.”

Do you ever copy music for personal use on a portable player or as a backup?
 
I dont see why a fund should be started, why help pay the RIAA, and help someone who knowing broke the law, it is the law period, as much as we hate the RIAA, she broke the law and now she is paying the price, period.
 
MrGuvernment said:
I dont see why a fund should be started, why help pay the RIAA, and help someone who knowing broke the law, it is the law period, as much as we hate the RIAA, she broke the law and now she is paying the price, period.
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Ditto. Nearly everyone does it now, and everyone knows it wrong, and they are breaking the law. Thats the risk we take, and we all know it.

But I do agree that we need a better, more modern way of buying music. Down with DRM I say, it complicates things. But I can see why we have it.
 
The RIAA isn't wasting its money...it is spending the money we give it when we buy material put out by the RIAA.

We are, in effect, funding our own prosecution.

Solution? Don't buy music put out by the RIAA. Don't steal it either, so that way you don't have to give them money through settlements.

Also, call your local radio station and request music not put out by the RIAA. You don't have to listen to it, but every person who calls for and requests an independent label is just a little bit less money in the RIAA's pockets. (at least, if my understanding of royalties is correct)
 
I wouldn't worry about this case too much. Yes, it's one of the more public battles against the RIAA, but nobody should have been betting their ass off that she'd win this case. She had absolutely 0 chance of winning this case and I wonder why she contested it. Hrm... perhaps she just wanted the case to be public so that fools hating "the man" would send her money to pay it off? Then again, that's just my speculation.

If you want to use a case as representative of the real situations, the situations where the RIAA should NOT win, then find a victim and not someone who blatantly violated the law. Seriously, I don't really like the RIAA and it would have taken a damn lot to convince me of any wrong doing, regardless of the evidence they presented, but this was obviously the lady disregarding the law. Anyone stupid enough to claim their IP was spoofed and have a hotmail e-mail address the same name as the "alleged" Kazaa account would get convicted by even me in about 3 seconds.
 
hbar98 said:
The RIAA isn't wasting its money...it is spending the money we give it when we buy material put out by the RIAA.

We are, in effect, funding our own prosecution.

Solution? Don't buy music put out by the RIAA. Don't steal it either, so that way you don't have to give them money through settlements.

Also, call your local radio station and request music not put out by the RIAA. You don't have to listen to it, but every person who calls for and requests an independent label is just a little bit less money in the RIAA's pockets. (at least, if my understanding of royalties is correct)
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I don't buy CDs anymore, and I don't bother listening to the radio, because most of the music sucks from too much overplay, and the commercials are just stupid. Oh, and the talk shows just drive me up the wall. It's amazing if I even watch MTV anymore to see if music still exists. I find that it doesn't. I go onto On-Demand and see if Music Choice or Havoc or the others have anything, and I still find myself frustrated that maybe 10% of what they have on there for viewing is even worth listeing to.

In my opinion, if this is what the RIAA calls music, they need to go back somewhere between a couple decades, and a couple centuries. This crap we have to listen to today is NOT music. I've heard better musical talent out of someone farting on a snare drum and bashing guitar strings with their fists than some of these bands that get airtime now. And getting sued over this overlooped, overfiltered garbage is wrong. If you're going to sue someone over 'theft', sue them because they stole something of value. The RIAA knows this garbage they put out isn't worth anything. They know because they don't even give the artists a fair cut. So if they're not going to give them a fair cut, why in the hell should we as consumers give them theirs?
 
hbar98 said:
The RIAA isn't wasting its money...it is spending the money we give it when we buy material put out by the RIAA.

We are, in effect, funding our own prosecution.

Solution? Don't buy music put out by the RIAA. Don't steal it either, so that way you don't have to give them money through settlements.

Also, call your local radio station and request music not put out by the RIAA. You don't have to listen to it, but every person who calls for and requests an independent label is just a little bit less money in the RIAA's pockets. (at least, if my understanding of royalties is correct)
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and finally do not buy recordable CDs, considering they get a cut of that too.

Just face it, they will always be funded, and their cause is just considering people are breaking the law. It's stupid to say they are doing something inappropriate or wrong, they are just trying to enforce copyright laws in their sector for which they have been paid to enforce.

It's like how Phillips has shut down lots of Chinese companies for selling DVD players without buying the proper rights to use the copyrighted material owned by Phillips...is it wrong for Phillips to try and hunt down these companies breaking their copyrights? Of course, and the companies have to deal with the harsh punishments and fines for doing so.

The point of the fines is to keep others from doing it, they are meant to be pricey and life changing, just the way it is.

I dont know what the answer is, but I can say the RIAAs battle is not entirely wrong, just the whole music system is setup a bit wonky which lets it be so easy to rip off.
 
Grentz said:
It's like how Phillips has shut down lots of Chinese companies for selling DVD players without buying the proper rights to use the copyrighted material owned by Phillips...is it wrong for Phillips to try and hunt down these companies breaking their copyrights? Of course *not*, and the companies have to deal with the harsh punishments and fines for doing so.
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Darn no edit :p, forgot the word not in there, sorry about that :rolleyes:
 
I am a little surprised at the lack of sympathy for the lady.I am as much against stealing
music and movies of the net,as anyone could be,but still this decision is excessive in the most extreme of ways !! :eek:
 
Sharing CDs with a couple friends I see no problem with. Downloading stuff to see if you like it before you go buy it, I think is probably okay...but can't you just use the radio for that? Sharing it with an indeterminate number of strangers so you can avoid buying CDs...no. Not really sure where in the middle the line goes.

She's not right. But she's less "not right" than an obsolete organization using the socioeconomic imbalance of our legal system as a weapon of terror to fuel an extortionist campaign. This goes right in the bucket with companies that patent things they don't do the research on and don't intend to market so they can make money off suing other companies that do. Except then they're picking on rich companies with loads of money and loads of lawyers. The RIAA largely goes after helpless targets.

This aside from the "copying music to your MP3 player is stealing" comment. Copyright and patent law are seriously screwed up...corporate interests vs. individual rights in general, really. Drug patents and HMOs really need fixing much more than the RIAA's little copyright infringement == piracy/stealing propaganda and extortion campaign.
 
Oh, and $220,000 for 24 songs without having to demonstrate she actually even distributed any song as much as once? Seriously, seriously broken. This should be speeding ticket grade stuff. Speeding can kill. Kazaa can't even be proven to economically cost anyone a single cent.
 
Hey her losing might actually a good thing. Because now she can appeal. Maybe she'll be able to take it all the way to the Supreme Court and have a pro-end-user precedent set at the federal level. I was really hoping to see the jury come back and sentence her to a fitting fine. 1 cent per count of infringement. That's more than the RIAA and the labels deserve.
 
Nice to see it might work out for her.

Still, though, I wouldn't bank on it for the reasons mentioned in my above post; find a smarter "poster-child." Then again, if she wins it just shows how stupid you can be and not be found guilty! Regardless, even though I think she's guilty, I suppose that it would be impossible to convict her at this point.

My prediction: the RIAA figures out a legal or illegal (which wouldn't be able to be tied back to them and that could somehow be introduced as evidence in a court case with a reasonable explanation of how it was obtained) method of obtaining the information necessary to avoid future losses for this very same reason, but that they will lose this specific case.
 
interesting development. it will be interesting to see if she goes ahead with an appeal now.
 
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