p2pnet.net news:- A great story broke when a Hollywood lawyer thought he’d spotted a neat way to sic Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) onto the First Twins, George W’s daughters, Jenna and Barbara.

It all started when, last weekend, Associated Press reported J&B gave their dad a special Father’s Day present, namely a CD they’d made for him to listen to while he pumps iron (or whatever he does when he’s exercising

The lawyer, Mitchell L. Silverman, “calculated statutory damages of $1.8 million” and sent a letter to the RIAA asking them to, “display the same vigor in prosecuting this matter and protecting the rights of your rights-holders” it’s been displaying, “in enforcing those rights against other alleged violators,” says tanman on Slashdot.

Tanman quotes a line from the letter, to wit: “This is a serious violation of copyright. As you know, whichever of your member organizations that are right[s]-holders for the copied musical works may be entitled to statutory damages of $150,000.00 per musical work copied.”

Fair is fair. Right?

Then, “The original contents of this post have been removed, as they may not have contained all pertinent information. That information was not necessarily available to me, or to the public,” Silverman blogged hastily on The Scrivener. “I apologize for any confusion I may have caused or any mistaken impression I may have given,” and he says much the same thing in a retraction the following day.

Under the first post, “What’s worse than copyright violation is that the sentence ‘Bush’s twin daughters gave him a CD they had made’ could mean they wrote songs and recorded them,” said Mark. “Now *that* is scary!”

“Well I liked the post,” said Anonymous, continuing:

Damm some of these comments are so rude.

And I empathize with the humor. And yes, there is no proof of definitive copyright violation, and the fine is insane. But that is also part of the point? After all many of these lawsuits (Or THREATS of lawsuits) and damages have been just a ludicrouse.

(I saw an article where parts of the recording industry were claiming lost revenues due to on-line piracy of music in France…in excess of the GNP of France!?)

*shrug* So if a single mother of 3 can get a letter demanding thousands of dollars in fines (or face trial) – because her 8 year old /might/ have downloaded a song (well someone did as they own a PC). Why can’t the first twins at least be /asked/ if there mix CD is legal?

And, Hey… Not a Bush fan, but WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF,” says another anonymous poster.

YOU’VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME.

1) “Downloading music is like taking it from the store” NO. DOWNLOADING MUSIC IS LIKE MAKING TWO COPIES OF A PICTURE YOU TOOK AND THEN GIVING IT TO YOUR FRIENDS. If copying is stealing from the store, then HEY! UHOH, GO TO JAIL, YOU JUST COPY AND PASTED THAT QUOTE!

2) I doubt any of those songs are worth THAT MUCH money. C’mon… That is WAY over what they should be charged.

3) RIAA SUCKS; SCREW THEM; THEY CAN GO TO HELL. Why? Let’s make little kids not have a future because they downloading a song! WHO HASN’T illegally downloaded a song ANYWAYS, let ALONE COPY IT FROM A CD.

OOPS, SUE MY IPOD IT DOWNLOADED A SONG FROM MY CD.

OOPS SUE MY STEREO, IT CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THAT WAS COPIED

It’s sad that you people need it spelled out for you that the blogger is on our side, not the RIAA’s, says a third AP.

“Bush’s side” is irrelevant in the context of this article, since the whole thing is hypothetical since the RIAA will never sue them. But forcing them to comment on it can embarass them and force them to evaluate their own practices.

If the crime is so bad that the RIAA will sue starving students and force them to settle for thousands of dollars, why won’t they hold the adult-children of the President equally responsible, especially considering their responsibility to set an example to the public?

But here’s a thought: maybe Silverman should dust his letter off.

Remember in April, 2005, when George W. was featured biking along to his favourite song?

“The president also has an eclectic mix of songs downloaded into his iPod from Mark McKinnon, a biking buddy and his chief media strategist during the 2004 campaign.”

Among them were Circle Back, by John Hiatt, (You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care, by Joni Mitchell, and My Sharona, by the Knack.

Hmmmm. Very suspicious!

But he also has other tunes such as Van Morrison,’s Brown Eyed Girl. Were/are they legal, or illegal? p2pnet asked at the time:

• Where does Bush get the tracks from?
• Does he rip them from the family vinyl collection?
• If so, who showed him how to do it and what does he use?
• Does he download them, and if so, from where?
• Does someone else rip/download them?
• If so, who? And from where?
• Does the Big Music cartel supply Presidential Tracks for the George W. iPod gratis?
• If so, how do they know which songs to send along?
• Or do his daughters snag them from one of the online p2p networks and pass them along to Daddy?

Could it be this tale has not yet been fully told? Should we stay tuned?

(Thanks, Frank S ;P)

Slashdot it!

Also See:
Associated Press – Bush has a rainy Father’s Day, June 17, 2007
Slashdot – Lawyer Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins, June 22, 2007
The Scrivener – Copyright is Dead, June 21, 2007
biking along – George W Bush’s ‘Biking’ CD, April 5, 2005

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official 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!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 at 10:03 am and is filed under RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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