RIAA sues 12 year old

[PHILBERT]

Yep.

[Shitoryu Dude]

Like many people, I download music when it suits me. There are several reasons why, but basically I refuse to pay $20 for a CD that contains one track I like and 15 that are worthless filler.

Were I not able to download this music I would either do without it or eventually borrow the CD from someone who did buy it, and copy it for myself even if I had to put it on a cassette tape. In no way has the RIAA ever lost a penny to me even though I have some 200 .music files I have never paid for because there is no way I would have ever purchased them.

Aside from all that, the recording industry has traditionally been its own worst enemy for decades. Talent is treated like crap and customers are treated like idiots. Musicians are commonly suckered into signing vampiristic contracts that leave them destitute while the label makes millions off of them.

Screw the RIAA. With a splintery stick. In the butt. No lube. For all time.

[Soulend]

[tmanifold]

harvey I am with you. The RIAA can go pound sand. I used to purchase about 3-4 cds per year. Now I purchase 3-4 CD per year.

Also this crap they are spewwing about musicians not making music if they don't get paid 10 mil is a lie. Musicians make music because they like music not the money. If the economy is will to support 10 mil then fine they can have it. The problem is the economy is no longer willingto support that. Supply and demand.

Tony

[bgigas]

The types of "musicians" that won't make music without the $$ are the crappy kind like all those stupid boy bands. As far as I see it, them not making music is a public service. The real musicians will not stop, they do it for artistic release.

I'm totally with Harvey on this one, screw the RIAA straight to hell.

[tenchijin2]

Theft is theft. The rights to duplicate or otherwise copy music belong to the company that owns it. You have no claim on their property.

It is, basically, like copyright law and literature. You can't copy a book without the consent of the holder of the copyright.

It doesn't matter if you think it's stupid, or expensive, or full of filler. You can hate the industry or the artists. However... It's NOT YOURS unless you buy it.

And to whomever, above, it is not your place to criticize others for making money off their own effort, whether you deem it worthy or not. You have a right to the fruits of your labor, they have a right to theirs.

There is, also, the possible presence of adverse posession, or whatever it's equivalent is regarding intellectual property. If a company/individual/artist doesn't defend his copyrights, then it's possible that he may lose them. It's a longshot, but not impossible.

[heatMiser]

Record companies used to stop radio stations from playing their music because they thought people wouldn't buy if they could listen for free. Now try getting an album into the charts with Clear Channel against you. These people are marketeers, like big oil and computer companies, they reckon that the best way to make a profit is to hammer the competition in every way possible, and capitalise on increased market share.

File sharing doesn't cost them money, any more than doesthe black market in any other product. It does coast them market, and this scares them.

Also they rely so much on hype and marketing that they are afraid of what will happen if people hear their crappy music in a situation outside their control.

Also on the list of the "to be sued" is a 77 year old grandfather who is guilty of nothing more than having an IP address that was used by his grandkids. These are scare tactics, not serious lawsuits. Suing children for hundreds of grand is designed to make people think there is a chance of being caught for their crime.

[tenchijin2]

It is not yours to take as you want. It is stealing. Rationalize it all you want.

[Shitoryu Dude]

Put as system in place that allows for the purchase of music files at a reasonable price and most people will use it. Supply and demand has spoken - music is overpriced and mismanaged. How many people pirate video tapes anymore? In the beginning everybody did because the cost was exhorbitant - now nobody does because the cost is reasonable.

Primarily, the RIAA needs to be told to take a hike - it is 99.999% of the problem.

[tenchijin2]

You want access to the product without paying the owner what he wants? That is really a bizarre sentiment coming from a free market capitalist, Harvey.

It is stealing, despite your protestations that it is 'someone else's' fault that you do so.

[heatMiser]

There is such a system in place. iTunes, and unfortunately it's Mac only. I think it's about 50 cent a song, falling to 33 when you buy by the album. By all accounts the copy protection and legal restraints are fair enough. All the big companies are on board, and apparently the system works well.

Here in Ireland, new CDs are often €25 or more. I'm not paying that. On the other hand, when I heard the leak of "Hail to the Thief" I was dying to buy the real thing, and you couldn't have fought me away from a record shop with a big stick. I can only afford so many CDs, and I don't see it as wrong to copy others.

Notice how the RIAA focuses exclusively on copyright now. It's given up on claiming that CD copying hardware is illegal, because there are just too many reasons to copy CDs. The RIAA is making it up as it goes along, and it must go through shoes at an alarming rate with the amount it shoots itself in the foot. Maybe that's why it needs all the money fro mthe lawsuits

[Kimpatsu]

From today's Guardian:

Several hundred Americans received a rude shock on Monday, when the Recording Industry Association of America began suing the users of popular file-sharing networks such as KaZaA.
The RIAA has started by claiming up to $150m (£94m) from each of 261 users. But with an estimated 60 million further targets in the US alone, this could prove to be a highly profitable new business venture for music companies. Teenagers may make up half of that number, but their parents certainly have assets that could be seized.

Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, the European commission is doing its best to double the size of this exciting new market opportunity. A draft law will provide fast-track legal powers similar to those in the US to demand the names and addresses of file-sharers from their internet service providers.

This "enforcement of intellectual property rights" directive will be debated by the European parliament in October and November. While the British Phonographic Industry has said that it wouldn't be so foolish as to sue its own customers (to paraphrase just slightly), it is hard to see the parent companies of the large multinationals taking a similar view if these powers were available here.

All of this could have been so different if the music industry had seized the opportunity presented by the internet over the last 10 years. Every user could by now have effortless access to all of the music ever published.

Artists could have received royalties from a vastly expanded marketplace. Instead, their employers have expended all of their energy suing their customers and lobbying for increasingly harsh copyright laws.

Even now, the RIAA is unsatisfied with its powers to bankrupt file sharers. They have pushed legislation in the US Senate that would force all electronics manufacturers to include copy restriction technology in devices such as CD and DVD players.

And Senator Orrin Hatch, songwriter and chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, said entirely seriously in June that after two warnings, file-sharers' computers should be remotely destroyed.

This may seem like a disproportionate response to the sharing of the senator's songs (although doubtless Our Gracious Lord, Climb Inside His Loving Arms, and How His Glory Shine are a pleasure to the ears). But the RIAA was clear that "Congress may be forced to consider stronger measures".

The EU is playing catch-up in this area, but is a fast learner. Its copyright directive - soon to become law in the UK - bans consumers from using copy-protected CDs or other media in perfectly legitimate ways, such as by listening to them on a personal computer.

The commission's draft enforcement directive collects the most punitive intellectual property powers that exist in each of the member states and insists that they be imposed across the union. The music industry is still not satisfied that these measures go far enough.

Apple has been "thinking differently" on this subject, with remarkable success. Customers of its new iTunes online music store have downloaded more than 10 million songs at 99 cents each over the last four months.

While music companies have bleated that "you can't compete with free" (file-sharing networks), Apple has shown that consumers are very happy to pay reasonable prices for the convenience, range and quality of its service. And its "rip, mix, burn" philosophy could usher in a new era of creativity - if it is not strangled at birth by new copy-restriction technologies and laws.

The music industry should learn from this example. Rather than threatening users and their internet service providers, it should go full-tilt at developing services that consumers have shown they are eager to sign up to, such as iTunes. Legislators would also do well to draw back from hasty and wide-ranging measures to bolster the industry's unwillingness to adapt.

Finally, artists, consumers and the music industry's shareholders would be able to reap the benefits that the internet could provide.

[PHILBERT]

Alright, here is an idea.

The RIAA wants there songs back right? So here is what people should do. Lets all record ourselves onto an MP3 singing a song they own, but sing it really poorly and not have there music at all playing. Then one afternoon, at the exact same time, everyone sends and MP3, 4 megs or whatever to them. It would over flow there computers. And if you really wanna screw with them, sue them for downloading our songs.

[Kimpatsu]

And a Guardian followup to the preceding article:

American music industry officials have agreed to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit against a 12-year-old New York girl for $2,000 (£1,258).
The announcement of the settlement came a day after the Manhattan schoolgirl, Brianna LaHara, was identified in the US media as a target of the Recording Industry Association of America's first wave of lawsuits aimed at cracking down on internet piracy.

In a statement, the RIAA said it had reached a settlement with the schoolgirl's mother, Sylvia Torres.

In an apparent attempt not to turn Ms LaHara into a cause célèbre, the statement included an apology from her for downloading music from the peer-to-peer service Kazaa. "I am sorry for what I have done," she said. "I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love."

She could have faced fines of up to $150,000 for each copyright infringement.

Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the RIAA, said: "We're trying to send a strong message that you are not anonymous when you participate in peer-to-peer file sharing and that the illegal distribution of copyrighted music has consequences. As this case illustrates, parents need to be aware of what their children are doing on their computers."

Ms LaHara had more than 1,000 copyrighted songs stored on her computer hard drive. By using the desktop file-sharing programme, the songs were available for other users to copy for free.

According to court papers she had copied songs from other computer users including Madonna's Material Girl, Dido's Here with Me and Paula Abdul's Opposites Attract.

The first wave of suits has also included a Yale University photography professor, two New York University students, a music programmer for a commercial radio station and a 71-year-old Texan grandfather.

The RIAA has said that thousands of other suits could be filed.

[Shitoryu Dude]

I can always hear the songs for free over the radio....