p2pnet - rss feed: RIAA lawsuits are ‘tough love’
p2pnet news view| RIAA News:- If you’re among the millions of people wondering why Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG are suing their own customers through their RIAA, wonder no more.
It’s “tough love” says Cary Sherman, the RIAA’s most experienced dissembler who’s said on numerous occasions the members of the Big 4 are losing “billions” of dollars to people who share copyrighted music with each other online.
Because sharing is exactly the same as thieving, n’est-ce pas?
Jennifer Pariser, one of the RIAA’s star witnesses in the recent Jammie Thomas trial, is the “top litigator for the Sony-BMG Music Group” and, “when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song,” she stated unequivocally.
Sherman was prevented from giving jurors the benefit of his spindom at the trial but no worries; CNET News is just as good and there he writes suing the Big 4’s own customers was, “never a step we wanted to take, and we recognized that it would generate criticism in some quarters,” going on:
It’s tough love - for the first time, despite years of educational efforts and the availability of plentiful legal alternatives, we are holding people personally and financially accountable for the theft of creative works.
But the backdrop was a community hemorrhaging jobs, careers and investment in new music, amid a pervasive culture of looting in which there was little understanding of the law or the negative consequences of breaking it.
Got it? Here’s the hard-pressed but honest music industry labels trying to make a living surrounded by hundreds of millions of men, women and children around the world who get up every morning hell-bent on depriving them of their rightful dues by sharing with each other online.
“What would the online music world look like had we done nothing?” - Sherman asks earnestly, going on:
It’s not a pretty picture: skyrocketing illegal peer-to-peer downloading without even a second thought about its legality or morality, and a small handful of legitimate businesses struggling to gain traction in a marketplace overwhelmingly dominated by piracy.
If you have the stomach to read more of this slick, self-serving cant, head over to CNET where you”ll also find a comment from someone named George P.Riddick, III which says, among other things:
Thanks for listening and standing tall. I sincerely hope some of these readers will think before they complain. What exactly would they do in a similar situation?
Let’s hope this determination by the RIAA teaches other copyight industries how to protect its property. It sure would be nice if other industries started to get this word out, as well.
Stealing is NOT legal in this country!
Actually, George, it is. Ask the Big 4 record labels who’ve been robbing their artists and customers blind for decades.
And these lawsuits are no more than part of a carefully crafted, cleverly orchestrated international campaign created to allow them to keep on doing so.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for the download, and here for details. Click here or here to learn how to by-pass censorship in your area.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
“It’s not a pretty picture: skyrocketing illegal peer-to-peer downloading without even a second thought about its legality or morality, and a small handful of legitimate businesses struggling to gain traction in a marketplace overwhelmingly dominated by piracy.” Sherman says.
I have given a second thought to the legality and morality of file sharing. Legality DOES NOT matter in the Police States of Amerika because there is no law. There is only policies which are selectively enforced or ignored based on the interests of big government and big business. As far as the moral considerations are concerned, I believe that the moral thing to do IS TO SHARE FILES if one likes the crap that is put out by the media cartels. The right thing to do is to put this band of thieves, swindlers, liars, and robbers out of business. The entertainment cartel has done so much to destroy the morality and culture of what was once the U.S.A. The moral thing to do is to destroy the power these animals have over the government and court system of this once free country. In order to do that one must remove the source of their power, and that source is the money used to purchase the crap they peddle.
I personally don’t file share cartel material simply because I do not want the crap in my home or on my computer. If the day day comes that I do want it, I will be sure to download and share it for free. However, I won’t be doing it from my own computer but rather through the unsecured wifi router of some corrupt local official. That way, If the ip address is targeted, the public official will get some of what he or she dishes out every day to the general public.
My contempt for the Police States of Amerika, its public officials and the big business that runs it runs deeper every day. I long for the old country that existed on the same land mass. The only way to get that old country (U.S.A.) back is for the people to collectively stand up to the bullies and say, “NO MORE!!!”
October 18th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
He is one sick puppy.
Where is the “tough”? “Tough” isn’t a gang of multinational corporations ganging up against a single mom with no money. “Tough” is the brave lady who stood up to those thugs.
Where is the “love”? Ruining people’s lives, deposing children, oppressing poor and working people and students and kids and hurricane survivors and disabled people.
This man should get help.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
You know, this really IS sick? How can Cnet allow such utter rubbish without qualifying it in some way? It speaks just as badly for Cnet as it does for Sherman.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Yeap, tough love. It is the very theme that tells me never to buy another item of product from the major labels as long as the current outlaws control it.
It is the music industry that killed the dat tape. It is the music industry responcible for the outrageous lengthening of copyright laws far beyond its usefulness and beyond all reasonable reasons for copyrigth to exist to begin with.
It is also the music industry responcible for it’s own plight. One that file sharers have taken into their own hands to do something about. While the lapdog, the RIAA may persue one or two here or there among the thousands, the rest of the community continues to do what culture has long established to be it’s right. Culture, in spite of what the music industry believes is for sale to the highest bidder.
Everyone that does business with the industry is abandoning it in favor of better deals if they can. The deal with the devil is over for all but those who think it is the only way to steal. You see the real theives are those that steal from the artist, customer, and everyone around them.
As far as the industry losing jobs, that too goes back to bad decisions on the part of itself. Sweethart deals with the chains that no other store could match to stay in business results in what? Loss of jobs is the answer if you have no clue. Places that can not make a profit because they have had their sources of livelyhood undercut results in closing. You can’t lose the nationwide distributor chain and then think you are going to continue making the same profits with less. It don’t work that way and never did.
So what happened to all the savings that the industry made from the jobs no longer needed to be paid for? You know, the warehousemen, the truckers to move the product, the makers of jewelcases, the artists that supplied images for the covers, the salesmen, the order fillers, the groomers of the artists careers, and all the other side line jobs that digital made not needed anymore or were simply dropped as not needed anymore? It didn’t show up as a cost savings at the price. No, the labels sucked up those savings to continue to feed the theft rackett at the expense of the customer.
Is it any wonder there is no love for the music industry? But continue on with the lawsuits by all means. It results in a pure hatred for the industry by the victim and by their circle of friends, once again providing fodder to keep p2p going.
Artists are finding out they don’t need the industry any longer to record, mix, make album art, or distribute in the digital world. The true theif is no longer needed.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
“First they ignore you; then they mock you; then they punish you; then you win.”
October 18th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
They say that it is stealing. Well, how much money did they spend on the bandwidth? Nothing. What were the overhead costs of you getting a song off of a P2P network? Nothing. To top it off, they don’t have a shred of evidence that the person who downloaded the song would have actually bought it and yet congress buys this shit about them losing money and yet, when they launched the sue ‘em all campaign, they began hemorrhaging funds. It’s funny that they call it stealing when they rip off their artists and strip them of their creative freedom and ruin good music with MTV. Our congress now is supported by bribes (campaign contributions) made by the MAFIAA.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
“… nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.”
October 18th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
I am a pencil artist. When I sell prints the owners are entitled to do what ever they want with them except make copies to sell. I do not expect to be paid every time someone looks at my pictures. I do not expect to make money for years and years on the same picture either. I set a price for a picture and that is what I expect. I set the number of prints to a reasonable number and cost. If the print is sold by the owner for more money I am not entitled to any of it. Why in the hell is music so different and why do people believe RIAA and musicians deserve constant payments for the rest of their lives for a single piece of work? I don’t get it. Music should be like any other art. I have never made a million on one piece of work and if I did I doubt I would be complaining that people were now copying it.
Musicians and record companies are squeezing every cent out of people for old products and when those same people refuse to buy any longer they sue them. With this logic I should sew everyone who has purchased my art in the past because they have not bought anything recently and they must therefore be stealing it.
Freaking Incredible that there are people who actually side with the RIAA!
October 18th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Sherman gets paid a lot for what he does. I think I read here somewhere that he is a miklionair. He must be worth it or they would not be paying him. What I cannot understand is why people are still buying their music. That money pays Sherman and ogher scum like him.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Can I make a confession? I’m really proud of my article on cnet. It’s really getting our message across.
We keep winning all the important legal precedents, don’t we? If dear Jammie (what’s that, Jammie Dodger biscuit huh??) wants to appeal, we’ll make sure it goes right to the Supreme Court, if we have to and then we’ll win that and set another wonderful precedent. I just love that feeling of power!
We are slowly, but surely, wiping out file sharing - can’t you see it coming? Your figures might show now how it’s supposedly increasing, but we are one by one, taking out all the major players in that arena. We have proved that their is nowhere to hide from our lawsuits - and our evidence doesn’t even have to be watertight; witness poor little Jammie’s case. At some point soon, the whole thieving file sharing culture will collapse, because you just won’t be able to steal music from the internet any more. Wake up and smell the roses people.
Remember children, sharing IS theft, it’s just like stealing from a record shop and 1 file shared DOES equal a sale lost. Period.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
“Remember children, sharing IS theft, it’s just like stealing from a record shop and 1 file shared DOES equal a sale lost. Period.”
HAHAHAHA That is funny as hell cause if we shop lifted a CD it would be thrown out of court or we would get a slap on the wrist.
So Children remember go into the record stores and steal. Remember if you are under the legal age you pretty much just get sent home to mommy. Steal the CD’s and rip them into quality tracks (192 or above) and share them with us! Just remember to rip out that pesky magnetic strip before walking out. Or get a real good magnet and rub the cd before you leave.
Someone trying to be funny but I am sure that is what the real idiot believes.
October 18th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
I don’t see a morality problem with downloading music. No one is deprived of anything. The stealing from a record store analogy is inapplicable; both economically (scarcity cannon exists only in a tangible environ, not in a digital one where copies can be made at zero cost) and rationally (almost everyone can differentiate between the usurping of physical discs, and the dissemination of digital files through sharing). The latter being both morally and ethically acceptable.
If the law doesn’t approbate what is deemed acceptable by the majority, then it’s superfluous.
October 19th, 2007 at 1:58 am
“we are holding people personally and financially accountable for the theft of creative works”
Creative, creative Madonacrap and BritneySlut creative? Eminus and DrDrunk that teach you kids moral depravation creative? A bunch of noises and garbatic lyrics for idiots creative?
And we are holding personally and physically responsible all the RIAA parasites for the violation of the supreme law of the land and the corruption of our governement and judges.
Ok! Hey Chitman! Paf! Paf! Paf! Paf! paf! paf! paf! This is tought love. We had to teach you a lesson. Call us from hell if you need more. Are we nice or what? Now Glueman!
October 19th, 2007 at 3:38 am
if you steal a CD you could be fined up to 5x the value of the CD ~$70 if you steal a digital file then you could be fined ~$9000 per track.
so moral of the story go out and steal real CD’s or use Ebay so RIAA get no money
October 19th, 2007 at 5:04 am
Jon: you’ll be interested in the article below. Note that the RIAA’s sue em all campaign is so outrageous, that it’s even getting reported on a hardcore hardware tech site!
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3722&Itemid=1
October 19th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Cary Sherman, RIAA Says:Can I make a confession? I’m really proud of my article on cnet. It’s really getting our message across.
You think you are winning well your future looks pretty black to me, let me open your eyes, lets start at the college level. Students are impressionable and boy do they have a bad impression of the RIAA. Now think 10 years into the future when the students start running for political offices and begin to become the political power in this country, If you do not think you are going to be a target for these people you need to wake up. Your worst times are yet to come, time will remove your corporate whores in washington and the RIAA will be put back in the box. You think your winning, well let,s talk about High school and below, the shifting from direct p2p sharing to what seems to be the big deal now a days for the groups (kids) that have no money to spend on cd’s . The sleep over has become the decathlon center for cd ripping and burning, Their mission like the college students has become very simple, screw the RIAA any way you can. If you beat your dog and he bites you, thats your fault. I am retired, and worked for the goverment for 33 years
and I feel I have to point out something, I have no file sharing program on any of my computers
and have never downloaded any music, I do have 35 years of videos from film to digital,(handy cam). I have transfered many to cd’s and you know ever time I burn a cd it equals a theif from from me by the riaa, you are collecting fees you are not entitled to or in other words
1 CD Burn = RIAA theft
January 12th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Another examples of “tough love” will be when someone blow out the head of these parasites,
It will just be “tough love” back!