RIAA college settlement plan
p2pnet.net news:- If you’re a p2p, file-sharing college student, here’s your chance to volunteer your name, address and other personal details to the Big 4 record labels so they won’t have to actually go looking for you themselves.
As p2pnet posted recently, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has launched a new incriminate yourself site, and it’s more than vaguely reminiscent of the failed Clean Slate program the RIAA tried on between September, 2003, and April, 2004. Check it out here.
Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, ex-RIAA lawyer Matthew ‘The Dentist‘ Oppenheim said, at the time, the so-called ‘amnesty’ program was an easy way for people to avoid a costly RIAA lawsuit.
The idea was: kids would in effect ‘confess’ to the RIAA, signing notarized affidavit promising never to download copyright-protected songs again and saying they’d delete whatever songs they’d already downloaded.
Said Oppenheim in the story, “if you would like some comfort that you can sleep at night after you engaged in illegal behavior, here’s a way to get that comfort.”
Then Eric Parke took it on himself to sue the RIAA..
In his court document, he said:
In brief, the RIAA’s assurances of ‘amnesty’ for complying with its ‘Clean Slate Program’ are hollow and deceptive, and provide members of the general public with no real legally binding assurance that those individuals who are induced by the RIAA’s empty promises to admit activity objectionable to the RIAA, its members, or other recording companies, will be free from later prosecution by the government or lawsuit by Copyright owners for the very copyright infringement admitted under the ‘Amnesty’ program. The RIAA describes the program as ‘Clean Slate’ but yet does not promise to destroy any data or evidence collected on members of the general public who submit affidavits under the ‘program’ leaving the ’slate’ anything but ‘clean’ for those Copyright owners or Government prosecutors who subpoena such information from the RIAA. This lawsuit seeks a remedy to stop the RIAA from engaging in unlawful, misleading, and fraudulent business practices including advertising an ‘Amnesty Program’ that does not provide real amnesty from lawsuit and a ‘Clean Slate Program’ that does not provide a real ‘clean slate.’
That was then and now, here’s a way for college students to avoid a costly RIAA lawsuit, says Associated Press, beating the RIAA’s drum.
The RIAA says it’ll give, “hundreds of college students suspected of illegally sharing music online a chance to reach settlements before being sued for copyright infringement”.
AP is talking about the RIAA’s so-called ‘crackdown‘ on US colleges. Of it, “It’s something we feel we have to do,” said RIAA president Carey Sherman, quoted in another AP article which went on:
“A few schools, including Ohio and Purdue universities, already have received more than 1,000 complaints accusing individual students since last fall – significant increases over the past school year. For students who are caught, punishments vary from e-mail warnings to semester-long suspensions from classes.”
Ohio, specifically singled out, says it’s had more RIAA p2p file sharing notices than any other college in the US this academic year.
But university officials have serious concerns about the validity of RIAA data, they say in The Post Online.
“The RIAA sent OU 1,287 notices of copyright infringement this academic year, up from 232 last year,” says the story. But the amount of bandwidth, which determines how much students can download, isn’t limited for p2p programs at OU, cio Shawn Ostermann is quoted as saying.
“A large number of students living on campus and the ease of Internet access also contribute to the high number of notifications,” says David Hendricks, quoting dean of students Terry Hogan.
“They’ve never said anything about why they looked, where they looked,” says Hogan. “The list of notifications doesn’t indicate how much music is being pirated or that the amount has increased from last year. The only thing that the RIAA’s information shows is that they sent more notices.
“If there’d been a tenfold increase in students downloading, we’d have noticed. The university monitors network traffic and bandwidth use, which would have dramatically increased if that had occurred.”
Meanwhile, the new RIAA incriminate yourself site says it’ll, “guide you through the settlement process for your case. You can pay the settlement by credit card, using either Mastercard, Visa or Discover. If you wish to pay the settlement by cashier’s check, you will need to telephone one of our settlement representatives [913-234-8181/ 8182].
“In order to process your settlement, you will need to have your case identification number. That number appears above the salutation of the letter sent to you by the record companies.”
Stay tuned.
Also See:
incriminate yourself site – RIAA ‘extortion’ letter to ISPs, February 13, 2007
San Francisco Chronicle – Novato man sues RIAA over amnesty program, September 11, 2003
The Dentist – RIAA’s Oppenheim hits the road, March 8, 2004
Associated Press – Music labels offer college piracy deal, February 28, 2007
crackdown – RIAA boosts attacks on US schools, February 22, 2007
AP – Music companies target colleges in latest downloading crackdown, January 21, 2007
than any other – Ohio U No 1 on RIAA p2p chart, February 13, 2007
The Post Online – University questions RIAA data, February 23, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the end (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
February 28th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I suspect that the main reason they are doing this instead of taking it directly to court is to keep it “off the record” by demanding an under-the-table payment that is harder to trace.
Filing a frivolous lawsuit is a crime – threatening to do so is not.
February 28th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Threatening legal action without actually taking it is also a crime in the U.S.
February 28th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
They get this koind of thing rolling in America and then you see it all over the place. I expect it will soon arrive also in England, France, and so on.
February 28th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
This is for educational/entertainment purposes only – standard dislaimers apply.
Go to http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html
In the Your phone number: filed, put 001+areacode+telephone number of your most ruthless, hated attorney, judge, congress critter, etc.
In the Destination phone number: field enter the following
0019132348181
or
0019132348182
Now click the call button. It costs nothing to do this, and it will probably make interesting conversation between the two. Just do it from a proxy.
It would be funny if their whole extortion center was busy with these types of calls.
February 28th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I am always amused when the RIAA says it is going to ‘educate’.
I think it is the RIAA that needs education, especially in the fields of (a) copyright law, (b) morality, (c) business administration, and (d) common courtesy.
Anyone who takes their lessons on any of these subjects from the RIAA is going to be seriously misled.
I hope the universities will see through this obvious ploy to increase the RIAA’s stream of easy settlement revenue, and will assist their students in finding out what their true legal rights are.
February 28th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Looks to me like they’re getting so much “bad publicity” in the public media that they are trying to remove it as much as possible from the spotlight.
This means that the public harressment and trying in it in the court of public opinion in the sense of blabbing it all over the world has backfired.
It also looks like they now see this as another cash cow to milk as a second income. So they want to keep it going at the same time.
There’s a reason that the cd sales are dying. The cartels aren’t putting as many out to buy. Naturally this means less sales. They’ve also ceased to groom artists for the long haul, long term appeal. Now it is the formulaic song, picked by the computer to be the hit that is going out for sales. They sound so much alike that very few are as interested in music as they were in the heyday of the 60’s and 70’s.
Digital sales aren’t booming because of the high price, low quality, locked down product that no one really wants. The latest ploy of thinking of offering non-DRM for a higher price is only greed peeking out once again. DRM hasn’t stopped anything from being shared when people want to share. So they are offering to make non-DRM at a higher price while removing the cost of licensing each copy with DRM? lol. That won’t work any better than the DRM infested product has.
I hear there is a story about the dinosaurs hearing the passage of that asteroid before it hit. Is it true the sky is falling I wonder?
For myself, it isn’t a problem. There is nothing on the market today I want to hear coming from the major labels. They’ve lost touch with my tastes in music. It makes it far easier just not to purchase or even want their product. They won’t have to worry about me downloading it. They couldn’t give it to me for free. Maybe that’s the root cause of their proclaimed lackluster sales. Piracy is just an easy drum to beat.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:00 am
newspeak: filesharing service = file-trafficking service (sounds like illegal drugs. RIAA-Richard loves to draw illegal drug analogies but was shut down on that by an intelligent judge)
And the question: “If I have Wi-Fi at home, how can you be sure it was me who did the downloading?” Isn’t answered at all!
They say “The fact that a wireless connection is involved does not mean that the individual engaging in copyright infringement cannot be identified. Cases are routinely pursued where a wireless connection is involved.”
Dear RIAA:
The question wasn’t if the individual responsible for copyrightinfringement can be identified in such a network setup, the question was how you can be sure who did it!
But yes, you are right, cases that involve wireless netconnectivity are persued;
They even get reinstated if a default judgement on wireless is challenged by a defendant.
You might want to add that to the FAQ answer. Here’s the link: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/02/default-judgment-vacated-in-illinois.html
Thanks RIAA for your cooperation in providing objective information. How about adding a link to http://p2plawsuitssuck.com/ out of fairness?
__
Alter_Fritz
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
any way to listen into the call?
March 5th, 2007 at 3:00 am
“If the record companies negotiated a settlement with the P2P service I used, can they still sue me?
“Yes. You are still responsible for your actions and the harm that you have caused.”
The harm I caused? WTF?!? And settling is not enough to immunize further suing? What’s the point?
Also, their website is a piece of crap. Was it designed by college students who are paying off their debt?
March 5th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Activities like this by the RIAA are why every time I read an article(by a pro p2p person) about “working with the music industry to find alternative methods of paymnent”, I want to puke. The only “work” people involved with p2p should be doing is to see these dinosaurs become extinct as soon as possible.
March 5th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Not without going through a lot of trouble. You can tap the ruthless lawyers phine, or you can tap the extortion centers phone. Other than that, I have no other idea.
March 5th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
How many leeters, digits, etc is in the case number. Is it something like LLLNNN, NNNLL NLNL (where N=number and L=letter)? I’m just curious.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:13 am
FUCK YOU
March 7th, 2007 at 9:23 am
i think you hit the nail right on the head
March 7th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
oook, looks like we gotta fanboi of the RIAA. Nice you know you’re teed. Good to know some folks are doing something right if the fanbois are upset.
I hope they get more than just teed. Theres an archaeological dig I would like to see their remains show up at.
March 9th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Surely one of these students knows a lawyer who would love to take on this case. The RIAA is going after students because students are usually living off of loans and working part-time and the idea of being sued for a lot of money scares the hell out of them so they will probably settle and give the RIAA $3,000 each. Record sales are fine. Look at the Billboard 200 chart and you will see many Platinum and Multi-Platinum records. I don’t understand why the RIAA cries about losing money all the time. It sounds like they have bad accountants because records are indeed selling. Downloading music for free does not kill the music industry. iTunes is doing well and albums are selling still. Concerts continue to do well. Musicians and record companies get their money. Sharing music with friends is a way to promote music. If you email a friend an mp3 by an artist he’s never heard before, it can open up his mind to a whole new world of music that he had never thought about. He might end up buying that artist’s CD or going to the artist’s concert. He’s not sitting there, downloading the artist’s music and laughing the whole time in some evil genius way. The RIAA wants to criminalize people who are just sharing their favorite songs in a social way. I hope a good lawyer will stand up to them one day and fight back.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:01 am
[...] the RIAA sends out what it calls ‘pre-litigation’ settlement letters. Actually, they’re self-incrimination documents and they’re designed to extort preset amounts of around $3,000 from students with the empty [...]
October 13th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
With one in five Americans swapping music online, it should be clear that severe lawsuits are not the answer. In the end, copyright law should be updated to include a mechanism that gets artists paid, while making file sharing legal. If the files are copyrighted, then the file sharing application should allow for payment. Until then, however, colleges and universities should make every effort to get themselves out of the cross-fire by configuring their campus networks so that they protect the privacy of students, staff, and faculty.
Lets make the internet safe for everyone.
I know the political process sometimes seems superficial and worse. Lets make the internet safe again for everyone.
October 14th, 2007 at 8:41 am
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