RIAA to stop suing individual file traders

[vansmack]

If you know so much about the best way to run a music company, go start one....but to act like because you think it's smarter for them to accept an alternative way of selling music they therefore must or people have carte blanche to break the law is ridiculous.

This isn't some brilliant idea on my part.  Shawn Fanning stood at the table of the music exec's after they sent him a cease and desist letter, with a multi-million dollar check, a mulit-billion dollar business plan, and they told him to fuck off and sued him.  They have never recovered since.

His plan was simple.  He said look - I have investors.  Here is a check for $XXX Milllions.  This should cover what you've lost because of Napster in the past year if you drop your suit and we go into business together.  And here's my plan - I have 26.4 Million subscribers worldwide.  We'll charge them a monthly/yearly fee to have access to your entire catalog on the service and split the proceeds.  I'll get rich, you'll get rich and we'll all be happy.  Even with a 50% recitivism rate (13.2 Million subscribers) and a fee of $10 a month (where the industry is headed), that's $1.5 Trillion in revenue.  The industry has never been close to this, before or after Napster.   

They said no and have to yet succeed in finding a model that works.  The industry has lost millions every year since, they've pissed off their consumers, enjoyed a PR nightmare, and where are we 9 years later?  The most popular digital music library, iTunes, at the industries request, changed to a DRM-free purchase to catch up with the rest of the industry, and to balance their negotiating power with Steve Jobs, because if there's one thing industry hates more than losing money, it's someone making money while they're losing money.

Those sued by the RIAA are being unjustly punished (and rather haphazardly which raises due process/equal protection issues), the industry has gained nothing from it but a black eye, and they had all the power and chose this failed route - so no, I have zero sympathy for the industry and all the symapthy in the world for those being sued simply because it didn't have to be this way, and it won't be - it's just a matter of time.

[vansmack]

Prada shoes cost $500. I can argue that Prada shoes only cost about $30 to make, so they'd probably sell way, way more if they priced them at $200 and make a bigger profit. Their business model is out-of-date, even. Still, if I go into Nordstrom's and steal a pair because their business model is out-of-date, no one should feel bad when they turn on their consumer and charge me with larceny.

You're not hurting Prada in that instance - if anything you're helping them by making their shoes more popular.  You're hurting Nordstrom because they already paid Prada for them.

So yes, record stores were suffering - but they were already suffering with a different new business model supplied by Amazon and other online retailers.  Even with the Industry's defense of their old model - where are record stores now?  They weren't savable because people were switching to digital music anyway.  Tangible media is a dying breed no matter how you look at it since the birth of the internet. 

[Julian, Alleged Computer F**kface]

Those sued by the RIAA are being unjustly punished

What's unjust about committing a crime and then being punished for it? Answer that, and don't go off on a tangent about business models.

[vansmack]

What's unjust about committing a crime and then being punished for it? Answer that, and don't go off on a tangent about business models.

I should have used the word "unnecessarily", not unjust.  The only way to defend "unjust" would be to write a thesis about the Rule of Law the lack of due process, and I'm just not going to do that for a message board.

[Julian, Alleged Computer F**kface]

I would think its up to the entity whose had their rights infringed upon to determine necessity, not Joe Q. Public.

[vansmack]

I would think its up to the entity whose had their rights infringed upon to determine necessity, not Joe Q. Public.

And I would argue, as I have from the beginning, that they had all the power 9 years ago despite Joe Q Public's representative providing a viable alternative, chose this route instead, have been slowly back-tracking to the posititon that was offered to them 9 years ago and it's time they finally end this non-sense of randomly selecting a handful of infringers to make examples of.  9 years of a failed strategy where everyone is losing is long enough...

[Venerable Bede]

RIAA is NOT the government.

not yet

[Venerable Bede]

So yes, record stores were suffering - but they were already suffering with a different new business model supplied by Amazon and other online retailers.  Even with the Industry's defense of their old model - where are record stores now?  They weren't savable because people were switching to digital music anyway.  Tangible media is a dying breed no matter how you look at it since the birth of the internet. 

i just want to say that i agree with vansmack on this topic. . .i'd also add that the quality in music being sold by the large record companies has declined, which also hurts the market model the record companies have been trying to salvage.   that, i would argue, has also driven people online where they are able to listen and download/purchase music that the large record companies wouldn't produce.

[godsshoeshine]

i'm with julian here. clearly murder

[vansmack]

This is a clever move....

Defendants in Music-Industry Lawsuit Ask for Trial to Be Broadcast Online

And surprisingly successful.  I wonder if a settlement is coming...

Court Hearing in Music-Industry Lawsuit Can Be Broadcast Online

A federal judge ruled today that Harvard University?s Berkman Center for Internet & Society can broadcast online a hearing in a recording-industry lawsuit scheduled for January 22.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment is suing Joel Tenenbaum, a graduate student at Boston University, for alleged copyright infringement. Charles R. Nesson, a Harvard law professor representing Mr. Tenenbaum, had filed a motion last month to ?admit the Internet into the courtroom.?

Today?s ruling goes beyond simply approving that request.

?The public benefit of offering a more complete view of these proceedings is plain, especially via a medium so carefully attuned to the Internet Generation captivated by these file-sharing lawsuits,? Judge Nancy Gertner wrote. ??Public? today has a new resonance, especially in this case.?

Sony had opposed the Internet broadcast, arguing in court documents that the goal of the request was ?to influence the proceedings themselves and to increase the defendant?s and his counsel?s notoriety,? The Boston Globe reported.

Judge Gertner called Sony?s objections ?curious.? Recording companies? mass-lawsuit campaign, she said, ?effectively relies on the publicity resulting from this litigation.? (In a footnote, however, she acknowledged the recording industry?s move away from mass lawsuits, saying, ?It is possible the plaintiffs have now changed their minds about the virtues of this strategy.?)

A spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America declined to comment on the ruling. Mr. Tenenbaum?s Web site, Joel Fights Back, announced the decision on its Twitter feed.

Proceedings in an RIAA case have never before been televised, according to the blog Recording Industry vs. the People. But next Thursday the Courtroom View Network will narrowcast the hearing ? an oral argument ? to the Berkman Center?s site. Whether that arrangement will continue for further hearings and a trial remains to be seen. ? Sara Lipka

[vansmack]

Tracy Mitrano: Why the Recording Industry Stopped Suing Students

When the Recording Industry Association of America decided in December to stop filing bulk lawsuits against college students, several students in my ?Culture, Law, and Politics of the Internet? course asked me to comment on the strategy. Here is what I said:

Over all, the [recording industry?s] approach was increasingly losing steam, both as a public-relations tactic and financially. More important, if the RIAA had any hope of creating tension between students and administrators, it ultimately backfired. Although when the first wave of letters went out there were upset students and parents who expressed themselves openly, the more that everyone involved came to understand the issues of who was threatening to sue whom, the more solidarity it created among those of us [at colleges]: students and their families, staff and faculty members. Legal costs and complications also boomeranged.

Be that as it may, the end of suing students does not signal the end of the RIAA?s efforts. The RIAA has shifted its immediate focus to Internet-service providers. As a rule, ISP?s enjoy ?passive conduit status??that is, immunity from legal action because the alleged infringement is neither uploaded nor downloaded by a server of the ISP. But under the same safe-harbor provision (512(a) of the DMCA), an ISP also has an obligation to ?terminate? the accounts of ?repeat offenders.?

Stay tuned. No definitions or case law exist to determine what those terms mean. So while it is smart on the part of a content user to probe this potential liability, doing so could also result in extensive litigation. That the RIAA is motivated to find a deep pocket is not a new observation; whether the organization?backed by the labels and their stake holders?has money enough to last through extended litigation is where the real question lies, especially since entrepreneurs are offering new business models every day.

Out of this creative class, I expect legal scholars and activists, entrepreneurs, keen social observers, and great technologists to emerge! For it is this generation that has the challenge of balancing intellectual-property laws with market models, appropriate social norms, and emerging technologies. In my rocking chair, if not before, I look forward to watching this new generation of talent remake the world! ?Tracy Mitrano

Tracy Mitrano, our January guest blogger, is director of information-technology policy in Cornell University?s Office of Information Technologies, where she also directs the computer policy and law program.

[HoyaSaxa03]

Tracy Mitrano, our January guest blogger, is director of information-technology policy in Cornell University?s Office of Information Technologies, where she also directs the computer policy and law program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBUz4RnoWSM

[vansmack]

Sources: AT&T, Comcast may help RIAA foil piracy

January 28, 2009 4:00 AM PST
Posted by Greg Sandoval
CNET staff writer Marguerite Reardon co-authored this report.

AT&T and Comcast, two of the nation's largest Internet service providers, are expected to be among a group of ISPs that will cooperate with the music industry in battling illegal file sharing, three sources close to the companies told CNET News.

The Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group representing the four largest recording companies, said last month that it had enlisted the help of ISPs as part of a new antipiracy campaign. The RIAA has declined to identify which ISPs or how many.

It's important to note that none of the half dozen or so ISPs involved has signed agreements. The companies are "skittish" about negative press and could still back out, said the sources. But as it stands, AT&T and Comcast are among the companies that have indicated they wish to participate in what the RIAA calls a "graduated response program."

There's more...

[sonickteam2]

   This sounds like it will be much ado about nothing.  especially blackballing users who have been kicked off other accounts!  These ISP's must be getting paid handily to be on board with this. 

[vansmack]

Well, I suspect it's not blocking individual IPs as much as it's filtering file types, but we shall see.  Of course, the general public is always ahead of the companies when it comes to using technology for their own purposes. 

I would support this type of remedy that the RIAA is trying but only if it doesn't interfere with legitimate uses of Bit Torrent (I use Bit Torrent all the time for Beta software) and legitimate MP3 downloads (from retailers, for example).