p2pnet - rss feed: RIAA: the Walrus and the Carpenter
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA piously says its bizarre sue ‘em all attacks on US students are nothing more than an essential part of their education; that the corporate music enforcement unit is helping them to become aware of penalties associated with the awful crime of sharing with each other.
“Years ago, college students were our best customers,” RIAA spin doctor Cary Sherman (right) once lamented, wiping away a crocodile tear.
“Now they’re among our worst customers.”
One could draw a parallel between Sherman (and his boss, Mitch Bainwol) in Lewis Carroll’s the Walrus and the Carpenter.
In the last verse »»»
“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none -
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.
We’ve frequently said the lawsuits are not only driving away the Big 4’s former, actual and potential customers, they’re also seriously interfering with students’ educations and mental welfare, not to mention staff who are expected to act as corporate copyright enforcers.
Not so, claim the labels. It’s all good, positive education. It teaches students their proper roles in life; one of the most important lesson for them to learn is to respect intellectual property law as we define it.
‘Seems like a steal’
“Jacob is just one of 42 students who received pre-litigation letters from the RIAA last year, and even more students received letters during the 2006-2007 school year,” Duke University’s The Chronicle.
Earlier, it quotes Jacob (not his real name) as saying, “Considering that the fines could have amounted to $250,000, Jacob’s $3,000 deal with the Recording Industry Association of America almost seems like a steal,” but, “Struggling to come up with money he did not have, Jacob said his grades slipped and his social life nose-dived. He refused to let his parents bail him out, but he said he is convinced there is more the University could have done to help him cope with the consequences of his illegal music downloads.”
‘Jacob’ goes on:
“At first, I didn’t tell [my parents]. I’m on heavy financial aid and most of the money that I have to spend is money that I have saved and I have made. I made sure the fine was from my money. My mom didn’t do anything wrong, why should she have to pay for that?” Jacob said. “But Duke didn’t help me one bit…. Duke doesn’t get the picture that their students are their family. It shouldn’t be how can we help Duke, it’s how can we help our students.”
Continues The Chronicle »»»
Isabelle, a junior, downloaded music illegally just once last year to round out a mixed tape that she was making for her boyfriend’s birthday with two songs that were unavailable on iTunes. She is paying off her $4,000 debt by working as a freelance writing tutor, taking advantage of free food and social opportunities and participating in studies conducted by the Fuqua School of Business.
“I would rather myself get caught than someone who truly had no way to pay for their expenses,” Isabelle wrote in an e-mail. “[But] to this day, I do not know why the RIAA singled me out to steal my hard-earned money. I’d like to see them try to pay their way through a Duke education.”
Carl, a junior who illegally downloaded music habitually, decided to settle out of court after performing a cost-benefit analysis. But he said the choice was not easy.
“It didn’t make any fiscal sense at all,” he said. “But I wanted to fight [the charges] on principle.”
“Frey explained that Carl is not the only student to object to the RIAA suits on ethical grounds,” adds the story.
” ‘Students just fundamentally believe that this ought not to be infringement,’ he said.”
once lamented - Howard Berman attacks US schools, March 11, 2007
The Chronicle - RIAA fines attracting student ire, September 19, 2008
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September 20th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Jon, did it or them (your news sources) mention how or what evidence the RIAA to serve these notices?
Data Mining is illegal and an IP are private information and the way they harvested that information in my opinion probably isnt legal
Id Advise those Students Class Action Suits Privacy, Fraud. Emotional Distress you name it and recommend the judge strip the RIAA title and bar business in the US for life
September 20th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
We will sitll need to teach a lesson to the parasites at the RIAA beside just puting them out of business, task that will be completed soon.
September 20th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Shame on her to give $4000 to these parasites!
We have to cost them $400,000 in retalation now!
Fortunatly soemone is working on it right now as I write this.
September 20th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
In a way, these lawsuits do teach a valuable lesson. It would be “Watch your back!” because the creeps that do this stuff are not all working for the RIAA. Graduating students will find them in the workplace, renting them apartments, selling them cars and they will be their new neighbors, maybe even their potential spouses. Kids: open your eyes. This is what the world is; nasty people looking for legal ways to rip you off. As the for music thing….well 3 grand won’t seem like much in a few years, as long as you DO graduate. Just keep in mind that the next ripoff artist may be looking for a lot more than that!
September 20th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
all your students are belong to us
September 21st, 2008 at 12:43 am
Taken from: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/20/1513224
A game costs roughly $60.00. For each act of infringement, Activision wants, at the very least, 50000% of the initial price, or at the most, 250000% of the initial price. How is it even legal to demand that much? I truly don’t understand our legal system. If he had stolen the game 5 times, he’d probably be fined $500 - $1000, but for distributing 5 copies, he now has to pay (if activision gets their way) $150k?
The penalties for copyright violations were actually written for cases like this. The assumption is that someone selling a pirate game/movie/book/CD has sold many of them, and they’re doing it to make a personal profit. The only way to stop the crime is to take the profit out of it - if he sold them for $20 each, and the fine was only 500 bucks, he’d only have to sell about 25 to make up for each time he was caught. He probably sold a hell of a lot more than that, if he’s like many of the pirated goods dealers I’ve seen.
I had to post this simply because it exposes the fundamental flaw in the RIAA’s payment scheme, which is that the average Judge/Lawyer cannot see (or simply chooses not to see) the difference between downloading something for ones personal use and reselling it for profit. Now I for one do not condone ANY form of piracy, but it seems that people are using a loophole in logic to justify sueing people for insanley large ammounts of money for crimes which hardly justify the amount.
September 21st, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Is it just me that is seeing the propaganda in the chronicle article?
The law quite clearly states copyright infringement can only occur on a p2p network if you UPLOAD there is no downloading offence, lets not let these corporate morons mislead people, clean up this point wherever you see it or these extortioists win, Downloading is legal, uploading violates the owners right of copy, its all rather simple.