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"No more lawsuits" position contradicted by a number of recent filings

Well-known anti-RIAA crusader Ray Beckerman, who runs the weblog Recording Industry vs. The People and has assisted with or defended a number of RIAA defendants, says he’s debunked the RIAA’s new “No more lawsuits” stance.

“Being very familiar with the RIAA's penchant for ‘misspeaking’, even when under oath, I investigated the matter a bit, and learned that a large number of suits have been brought by the RIAA quite recently,” wrote Beckerman.

Supporting his claim was a list of lawsuits the RIAA filed, some as early as the beginning of last week:

  • Atlantic Recording v. Williams, Pennsylvania, 12/15/08
  • Sony BMG Music v. Linus, Florida, 12/11/08
  • UMG Recordings v. Gulledge, Alabama, 12/10/08
  • Warner Bros. Records v. Kelley, Alabama, 12/10/08
  • Sony BMG Music v. Van Ornum, Arkansas, 12/10/08
  • Interscope Records v. Tabor, Arkansas, 12/10/08

Earlier this month, the RIAA signaled its intent to impose a “music tax” on universities – hinting at its Friday announcement with the suggestion that a music tax would allow the RIAA to free up enforcement resources employed elsewhere.

Interestingly, the RIAA’s intention to wind down its well-known lawsuit campaign sends a curious message for other industries just beginning to experiment with copyright litigation. The gaming industry, for example, is currently trying out legal remedies to protect its copyrights in both the United States and Europe.

Spanning a duration of at least five years, the RIAA’s legal campaign against individual music pirates has met with a mixed bag of successes: large victories such as the historic $222,000 judgment entered against Minnesota resident Jammie Thomas were tempered by a number of cases that saw court precedent swing away from favoring some of the RIAA’s most essential arguments.

The precedent shift was so devastating, in fact, that the $222,000 Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas case is now undergoing retrial – after the presiding judge realized after-the-fact that essential parts of the case’s outcome were entered on faulty jury instructions.

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Well I guess
By MrPoletski on 12/22/2008 9:39:46 AM , Rating: 5
That debunks my ideas about buying any of their manufactured trash they push out and call music.

This is something the real music community cares about. All you need to look at is the X-factor. Some wannabe starlet makes the fatal mistake of 'covering' one of the greatest loved songs of the past century. Ruins it. (she counts 4th and 5th (prior to minor fall, major lift) on her hand for christs sake, does she have any idea what she is singing?!?!).

Well I think the VERY large community of real music lovers out there were genuinely insulted by this, because of that Jeff Buckley is at number 2 this christmas (well done peeps you've made his mum real proud:). Better than toppling that trashy version from number one because in every chart countdown you will hear the JB version FIRST.

Goes to show, the power of music is, always has and always will be with the poeple. Your commercialism will spell your end.

Terminate yourself now RIAA, while you still have the breath left in you to do it.




RE: Well I guess
By Dribble on 12/22/2008 10:21:22 AM , Rating: 2
Interestingly you can buy the X-factor songs as MP3's DRM free, while they may be a travesty musically, they have no DRM so you shouldn't need to pirate them.


RE: Well I guess
By MrPoletski on 12/22/2008 11:46:35 AM , Rating: 4
Why on earth would you want to pirate, buy, download, or even KNOW OF IT'S EXISTANCE!?!?!?


RE: Well I guess
By VitalyTheUnknown on 12/22/2008 10:25:47 AM , Rating: 2
Welcome to the 21st century boy, where everyone have the right to sing, record and promote their work.

Find your very own special idol if you need it, it's not so hard after all.
World Population: 6,602,224,175.


RE: Well I guess
By VitalyTheUnknown on 12/22/2008 10:40:44 AM , Rating: 2
slip-up: HAVE->has


By lagomorpha on 12/22/2008 5:07:56 PM , Rating: 3
You mean to say the RIAA only claimed to stop using lawsuits against random people in order to attempt to improve their image and to get pirates to let their guard down? Glad I saw through that one and left peerguardian up (not that I download music).




RIAA is a fraud
By DebbyC on 12/22/2008 1:32:25 PM , Rating: 2
The way that I see it, the RIAA is giving students permission to download any music that they want. It could easily be argued that students are already paying for the music that they have downloaded by paying the music tax. I have talked to many lawyers and they all agree that a contract where I am forced to pay and I am not getting anything in return is illegal and unenforceable. The music tax is a form of payment for downloaded music as such this invalidates the argument that it was pirated or stolen.




I hope they all get sued
By Beenthere on 12/22/08, Rating: -1
RE: I hope they all get sued
By MrPoletski on 12/22/08, Rating: 0
RE: I hope they all get sued
By MrPoletski on 12/23/08, Rating: 0
RE: I hope they all get sued
By Bateluer on 12/22/2008 10:05:25 AM , Rating: 5
Explain how stealing a song is a federal crime while assault is a misdemeanor.


RE: I hope they all get sued
By whirabomber on 12/22/2008 10:42:22 AM , Rating: 3
When you assault someone it happens at a specific address in a specific state in a specific town. Music piracy spans international borders and that is where the federal jurisdiction comes into play.


RE: I hope they all get sued
By TemjinGold on 12/22/2008 11:00:37 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
When you assault someone it happens at a specific address in a specific state in a specific town.


That depends on how big of a can of whoopass you open up when assaulting... ;)


RE: I hope they all get sued
By Kibbles on 12/22/2008 11:15:50 AM , Rating: 2
What if you're driving across the border to Canada and your kids keep saying "Are we there yet?" and you had to beat them down? Does that constitute Federal Child Abuse?


RE: I hope they all get sued
By ZmaxDP on 12/22/2008 11:56:47 AM , Rating: 5
Listen, I'm somewhere in the middle on this one, but stop with the rationalizations...

Explain why despite it being a federal crime and knowing about it people still do it?

Explain why drunk driving isn't punished as severely as possession of drugs in a car?

Explain why stealing songs electronically should be less of a crime than stealing a CD?

We can all come up with reasons for or against any of those questions, but just because we don't like the laws as they stand doesn't mean you don't follow those laws. It's the law stupid! If you break it and get caught, deal with the consequences. It isn't like you didn't know...


RE: I hope they all get sued
By LumbergTech on 12/22/2008 1:08:10 PM , Rating: 3
some laws are simply not worth following

because they are too one sided in favor of one group or another

I know that for someone like you, who always follows the law, it would be difficult to understand this.

There is a grey area in life.


RE: I hope they all get sued
By plonk420 on 12/22/2008 2:36:17 PM , Rating: 2
i don't know what OTHER laws are "grey areas" but music distribution/promotion is broke as fuck and the RIAA only perpetrates a broke ass system where usually only groups that are seen to have the possibility to sell millions are thrown craptons of cash for promotion.

groups make pennies up to a quarter per album sale and sometimes have to put the first bit towards recouping the money the label "fronted" them.

many (if not all?) RIAA artists don't even have rights to the music they've made. so much for copyright law allowing them to "make a living" off their own top 20 hits until death+90 years or whatever.

tell me how (more aimed a the thread starting troll) i can discover music since all of what i've recently bought is not played on the radio .. WITHOUT being a "pirate"?


RE: I hope they all get sued
By plonk420 on 12/22/2008 2:39:52 PM , Rating: 2
or does the RIAA not care if you're not downloading music they "protect"? i notice their main site doesn't have a lot of fluff about how "HORRIBLY WRONG" downloading music is. it seems VERY business oriented. "we protect or people .. that pay their protection "contributions.""


RE: I hope they all get sued
By Screwballl on 12/22/2008 2:14:52 PM , Rating: 2
We are part of a new age where people think that as long as it is in the digital realm, it should be free, and literally is to them since it is available online. Anything that cannot be held in your hand, a physical object, is not worth any money, thus modern terminology uses the words "pirated" or "stolen" or whatever phrase they choose to use.

People around the world is tired of paying for crap. If they want one song, they download it, if they like that song they search out other songs by the same group... then that expands to similar groups and then the domino effect... Now we have a generation of people that used to copy cassette tapes and CDs once they became cheap enough, they are having kids now that are growing up in this "pirate" culture.

This means there is only 2 ways for this to go:
1) get the government to spend billions on cracking down on this "pirate threat" which would ultimately fail, or
2) the downfall of RIAA and MPAA and royalties. Artists of any type whether it is software, music, pictures or whatever will have their own online stores (or use others like iTunes, Amazon, etc...) and have some people pay for it while the rest use it as they wish. Digital Domain becomes Public Domain, if it is digitized, it is free to use on your computer or internet, a type of "if it is digital, it is free". Massive companies such as EA will slowly dissolve and the real talented programmers/teams will be releasing these great games for little to no money (per person)... but it will have a wider base of potential revenue over the current CD/DVD/physical media.
Advertisements will slowly become minimalized and unobstructive in everything we do...

Give it about 100 years and see how close I am with these predictions.


RE: I hope they all get sued
By exanimas on 12/23/2008 12:52:18 AM , Rating: 2
In 100 years we will have all moved on to the Super Internets by then, which will mean your post will be lost forever.


RE: I hope they all get sued
By jhb116 on 12/22/2008 8:52:01 PM , Rating: 2
Although I agree with you that the law is the law - if you don't like it - change it.

The problem is that RIAA is not a gov't agency enforcing the law. RIAA is about money. Look at their tactic to have universities pay a fee passed on to the students. What if I don't want mp3's from the university? Logical but RIAA doesn't care. Its about revenue to them.

I hope their unavoidable death comes sooner rather than later so I can actually think about buying mp3's legally and not worry about getting sued by RIAA just because.....


"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen











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