RIAA ramps up anti-student PR
p2pnet.net news:- The Big 4 organised music corporate propaganda machine has accelerated into high gear, spewing out a new wave of misinformation press releases making capital out of students who’ve become victims of the student element of the sue ‘em all campaign.
“At first, Sarah Barg thought the e-mail was a scam. Some group called the Recording Industry Association of America [RIAA] was accusing the University of Nebraska-Lincoln sophomore of illegally downloading 381 songs using the school’s computer network and a program called Ares,” says Associated Press in a wire story being carried by major newspapers across the US.
It goes on, “The letter said she might be sued but offered her the chance to settle out of court.
“Barg couldn’t imagine anyone expected her to pay $3,000 – $7.87 per song – for some 1980s ballads and Spice Girls tunes she downloaded for laughs in her dorm room. Besides, the 20-year-old had friends who had downloaded thousands of songs without repercussion.”
Says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Putting a price on art isn’t easy. But $750 for one copy of Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” might be a bit much.
Downloaded files of Christina Aguilera’s “What a Girl Wants” and 10 other tunes cost Sisouda Soysouvanh of Seattle $8,250. The Dolencs of Sammamish were hit for $7,500 after being accused of stealing music.
After big wins against online music-sharing networks, recording industry leaders are now turning their copyright infringement fight toward individual residents.
Relying on deep pockets and prying into personal computers for evidence, the companies compel people to pay thousands in fines without ever presenting a case at trial.
The chances of any one person, student or otherwise, being snagged by the RIAA are akin to them winning big on the lottery or being struck by lightning. But using the mainstream media as unpaid cartel disseminators, the Big 4 labels are convincing the public at large there’s a very real danger of landing in court for sharing files, a practice the labels claim is ruining them.
Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG have been going after men women and even young children since 2003, subpoenaing around 20,000 people. Then, this year, they escalated their anti-P2P campaign, adding students into the mix and introducing an ‘incriminate yourself‘ web site.
“Everett resident Mark Roy thought the letter accusing him of lifting MC Hammer’s ‘U Can’t Touch This,’ along with other songs, was a joke,” the Seattle Post-Intelligencer goes on.
“The letter emphasized the statutory maximum fine – $30,000 per illegal file, though the companies usually ask for much less in court. On average last year, Western Washington residents sued by the record companies paid $4,924 for their illegally obtained playlists.
“Recording industry representatives say the corporations are only exercising their legal right to protect against theft. But the industry threats have drawn complaints that the companies are using the expense and complexity of the federal court system to bully people.”
The RIAA is swamping schools with threatening letters, using school staffs and legal departments to carry the message: co-operate or be sued.
“Barg is still angry about her letter from the recording industry group, which she calls bullying,” says the AP piece. “Technically, I’m guilty,” it has her saying. “I just think it’s ridiculous, the way they’re going about it. We have to find a way to adjust our legal policy to take into account this new technology, and so far, they’re not doing a very good job.”
“Litigation was not our first choice,” the Seattle Post-Intelligencer quotes RIAA spokeswoman Jenni Engebretsen (upper right) as saying. “But what we found several years ago was that education alone was not enough.”
In 2003, the RIAA insinuated Napster, the corporate version of the original P2P file sharing application, into Penn State University. The idea was students would use it to download corporate product, turning away from the independent online sites and free P2P networks. But that didn’t happen, subpoenas and threats notwithstanding, so now the RIAA has upped the ante, launching the so-called settlement site and sending out a barrage of PR pieces.
RIAA spokespeople such as Engebretsen try to claim the lawsuits and threats are nothing but attempts by the big four labels to educate students.
However, far from educating anyone, the threats have introduced a significant impediment to the educational processes at America’s senior schools. Instead of concerning themselves about their studies, students are worrying about whether or not they’ll be the next to somehow have to find thousands of dollars to keep the labels off their backs.
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, spokeswoman Kelly Bartling said no one wants students to have to worry about how to pay tuition because of an expensive settlement: “It is a hugely expensive lesson,” states the AP story.
It also says UNL freshman Andrew Johnson paid the RIAA $3,000, but Johnson, “doesn’t think the threats from the recording industry group are going to solve the problem. Friends who know he got in trouble still share music online.
“People are still going to do it until they get caught, and they can’t catch everyone,” he says.
And even Sherman admits the lawsuits aren’t working.
“We know that some audiences – particularly campus music downloaders – can sometimes be impervious to even the most compelling educational messages [threats] or legal alternatives [other threats],” he says.
Also See:
Associated Press – Help Key: The Essential Guide to Piracy, May 14, 2007
Seattle Post-Intelligencer – Downloaders face the music as record industry sues, May 14, 2007|
incriminate yourself – RIAA college settlement plan, February 28, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by goverment restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (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!
May 16th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
“And even Sherman admits the lawsuits aren’t working.’”
And they don’t care. The more chances of getting extortion money from their customers for them, the better.