January 29 – Judge accuses RIAA of ‘gamesmanship’
p2pnet news | Freedom:- A judge has accused Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA of using “gamesmanship” tactics in joinder cases where defendants are linked together. One such is Arista v Does 1-27 in which two of the victims are being officially represented by two University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic students. These kinds of cases allow the corporate enforcer to efficiently terrorise a number of people simultaneously, in effect. It also means they’re spared the time and expense of going after their victims one by one and, “it is difficult to ignore the kind of gamesmanship that is going on here” writes magistrate judge Margaret J. Kravchuk.“A cadre of owners and licensees of certain copyrighted sound recordings, including Arista Records, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, Capitol Records, Elektra Entertainment, Motown Record Company, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Virgin Records America and Warner Bros. Records, brought this copyright infringement action against a collection of University of Maine students, identified to date only as Does 1-271 having certain IP addresses provided by the University, for their alleged use of an online media distribution system to unlawfully download and/or distribute various copyrighted works,” she says . She sustained the action, but, “suggests sanctions for RIAA lawyers’ ‘gamesmanship’ in, “pretending to have grounds for joinder” when in fact there aren’t any, says Recording Industry vs The People.  “Suppose,” she writes, “instead of university students, the record companies chose to target all individuals within the District of Maine who had used these P2P services and had TimeWarner Cable for their ISP. “Would all those individuals be properly joined in a single complaint? I think the Plaintiffs know the answer to that question because on May 5, 2007, many of these same plaintiffs filed a very similar lawsuit, Atlantic Recording Corp., et al. v. Does 1-22, 1:07-cv-057-JAW. A procedure similar to the one used in this case was adopted in that case, but no motions to dism

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February 5 – Cease & Desist, RIAA MediaSentry ordered
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Massachusetts state police have ordered MediaSentry, the unlicensed “investigator” for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA, to cease and desist, according to court papers filed by a Boston University student who’s asking the court to to quash an RIAA subpoena. MediaSentry perpetrates ’spoofing,’ a seedy practice used to try to trick people into downloading fake files, or to get information they later hope to use in P2P filesharing lawsuits,.as one of its special activities on behalf of the RIAA. One of the first, if not the first, people to show MediaSentry in its true light was disabled Oregon mother Tanya Andersen who, with her lawyer, Lory Lybeck, sent RIAA attorneys scuttling off, their tails between their legs. “Recently it has been discovered that as a part of this secret enterprise MediaSentry has for years conducted illegal, flawed and negligent investigations of many thousands of private United States citizens,” she said in a court document:, which goes on:

These illegal investigations are then used as the sole basis for pursuit of tens of thousands of lawsuits throughout the US.

Other attacks on the seriously discredited RIAA”investigator” include one by the Oregon attorney general, counterclaims in Florida and Texas, a class action in Oregon, and a motion to exclude filed in White Plains, New York, says Recording Industry vs The People.

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February 9 – RIAA’s Sherman ’simply musing’ on spyware
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- “Filters can be put in the applications for example. You know, one could have a filter on the end user’s computer that would actually eliminate any benefit from … encryption because if you want to hear it, you’d have to decrypt it, and at that point the filter could work.” The statement, recorded for posterity in a video (see below), was made by RIAA sophist-in-chief Cary ‘Tough Love‘ Sherman during a recent State of the Net Conference put on by the Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus. However, an unnamed RIAA spokesperson who attended Sherman’s panel discussion told Ars Technica Sherman was, “simply musing in response to a question that required it. He was not proposing or suggesting anything specific but speaking in the abstract about a few general ideas.” It’s now Standard Operating Procedure for people working for, and with, the RIAA and brother organisation , Hollywood’s MPAA, to make false statements or issue grossly inaccurate statistics they know will be picked up by the ever-faithful lamescream corporate media and repeated as though they came from reliable sources. The statements and/or statistics can later be discarded as “mistakes”. But by that time, damage has been done.

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February 14 – RIAA bid for $513 from Michelle Santangelo fails
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has inadvertently given Michelle Santangelo a Valentine’s Day present. “I find it interesting that you choose to vilify Mr Gabriel for the amount he earns. $375 is by no means an unusual rate for a senior, or even mid-level, attorney and many are paid far more than that, particularly those who work within the entertainment industries. Lawyers are paid for their expertise and for using their knowledge to represent their clients to the very best of their abilities. It’s as simple as that.” That was a comment post to our story observing that Holme Robert & Owen, “the RIAA’s current legal gun-slingers,” were trying to weasel $513 out of her and her brother, Bobby, for “processing the paperwork”.
“Richard Gabriel is a primary RIAA out-sourced attack lawyer,” the p2pnet story went on. “He’s front and centre in more than just a few of the cases and the proceeds from a good week’s work for him would be enough to settle claims lodged against one or two of his victims.” But magistrate judge Mark. D. Fox hasn’t give in to the RIAA demand, says Recording Industry vs The People. “Plaintiffs’ fee application is denied without prejudice to renew based upon sufficient documentation – either the contemporaneous time records upon which the chart was based or, if that is not possible, a partner from Plaintiffs’ counsel’s firm must submit an affidavit describing the firm’s record-keeping and billing procedures sufficient to make the required showing,” he ruled.Until recently, Michelle had a $30,750 judgement against her as the alleged illegal distributor of 41 copywriting songs, with an additional order of $490.00 for costs. But last summer, federal district court judge Stephen C. Robinson ordered the judgment against to be vacated which, to all intents and purposes, meant it’d been dropped, allowing Michelle to go back to square one, pleading her case as if the ruling had never been made. Equally important, it had also given her a negative credit record, which would have followed her through life.

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February 18 – Hilarious RIAA training video online
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- It’s called In Trial and it starts off with a judge’s gavel slamming down onto a wooden pad. Hard. The latest Hollywood courtroom flick? Lawyer drama, Yes. Hollywood, No —- unless the MPAA had a hand in it which, these days, is entirely possible.Because In Trial is a flick made jointly by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the National District Attorneys Association, with Jonathan Lamy, Cara Duckworth and Liz Kennedy (no ladies first at the RIAA) as the points of contact. Starring ex-prosecutor Deborah Robinson and Frank Walters (right), an ex-Maryland State trooper, it was made to “assist in the training of U.S. prosecutors responsible for handling music piracy cases”. It includes footage from “surveillance” videos and, “techniques on how to identify illegal sound recordings and highlights,” not to mention, “examples of how illegal music is sold”. And here’s the kicker. It even claims to provide instructions on, and we quote, “qualifying an RIAA investigator as an expert”. So that’s where Doug Jacobson and MediaSentry acquired their skills!

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February 21 – Johan Pouwelse vs RIAA’s Doug Jacobson
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- In the latest contest of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG against their own customers, it’s Dutch P2P expert Johan Pouwelse versus RIAA ‘inexpert’ expert Doug Jacobson. And it’s no contest. Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG claim their very existence is being threatened by their own customers, whom they’ve labelled p2P file sharing criminals and thieves. They say they’re fighting the good fight on behalf of their contracted performers. But there never was P2P file sharing battle. The moment it became evident there was an inexpensive, efficient way to distribute digital product — movies, music, books, games, software — online, the old, physical way of doing things was dead. But in the manner of vested interests throughout history, the cartels believe they nonetheless can stop the tide by sheer weight and wealth alone. Now, the RIAA is about to suffer a devastating blow against Doug Jacobson (right). His testimony has been found to been “borderline incompetent” and his allegations of copyright infringement levelled at a 57-year-old New York home health aide “unproven” by Dr Johan Pouwelse, the internationally acknowledged Dutch expert and visiting scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). And, Pouwelse writes, Jacobson admits in a deposition that two of his reports were together based on only about an hour effort – 45 minutes for one, and 15 minutes, for the other.

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February 22 – Tanya Andersen RIAA complaint dismissed
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Oregon mother Tanya Andersen has been fighting Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA ever since she was wrongly accused of being a massive online illegal distributor of copyrighted music files in 2005. What she and her 10-year-old, Kylee, have had to suffer at the hands of the highly paid Big 4 legal teams would make a movie. Except no one would believe it. Andersen, who’s disabled, has refused to cave in, suing the RIAA for alleged negligence, fraud and misrepresentation, racketeering and corruption, abuse of the legal process, malicious prosecution, outrage and intention to inflict emotional distress, computer fraud and abuse, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright laws, and civil conspiracy. However, federal judge Anna Brown has dismissed Andersen’s complaint, asking her to resubmit it within 30 days, going into more detail on which specific laws the RIAA and MediaSentry are said to have violated.

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February 22 – RIAA boss ‘earned’ $1,472,944 in 2006
p2pnet news | RIAA News | MPAA News:- Want to know how much RIAA spin doctor in chief Mitch Bainwol pulled down as principal front man for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG in their grim and relentless pursuit of their own customers, whom they call criminals and thieves? Are you sitting down? Bainwol raked in $1,472,944 in 2006. But for 2008, the figure need to be adjusted —- upwards —- says The Patry Copyright Blog, quoting DC political magazine National Journal. It doesn’t say what RIAA president Sherman ‘earned,’ but it’s probably significantly more than Bainwol. After all. chairpersons come and go but ……………. In 2005, he got “$1.13 million, but his boss, Bainwol, received a trifling $908,848,” said p2pnet,  and in 2003, Sherman took home $1 million, says ZDNet.

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February 28 – Ohio University buys RIAA ’silver bullet’
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Ohio University is patting itself on the back for a good job, well done. Once at the top of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (s)hit list as the, “recipient of more music sharing complaints than any other university,” it’s now a fully fledged corporate copyright cop, passing on RIAA extortion demands to students and spending thousands of dollars in school funds on dodgy ‘filtering’ technology. The labels claim files shared equal sales lost. Sharing music is exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing a CD, say the likes of the RIAA’s Cary ‘Tough Love’ Sherman, mischaracterising file sharers — their own customers — as criminals and thieves. However, in sharing, nothing has been stolen, no one is deprived of something they used to own and no money changes hands. The labels have never come even close to proving the patently absurd contention that when someone shares something with someone else, they’re blocking a sale. But the statement is picked up and rebroadcast by the mainstream media as though it’s fact. Now Ohio is boasting it spent more than $75,000 for a device that “scans data crisscrossing its network for copyrighted media”. Cosying up to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA may not do students a lot of good, but it makes for an easier, softer life for school administrators.

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 February 28 – University of San Francisco joins RIAA fight
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA hold their customers and artists in supreme contempt, heaping outrage upon outrage on them as they push forward with a warped sue ‘em all campaign designed to force people into buying Big 4 ‘product’. Students across America have been singled out for special treatment as the carefully orchestrated scheme moves into its fifth year. RIAA president Cary Sherman calls the bitter attacks “tough love“. But the tide is turning, inexorably, with major universities deciding students’ interests must come before those of the corporate music industry. Now the University of San Francisco Internet/Intellectual Property Justice Clinic has taken the unprecedented step of assigning students to a New York law firm, Vandenberg & Feliu, to help them defend clients under attack by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

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March 4 – EFF wades in on RIAA Howell case
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation ) says it’ll add its voice to those speaking out against the RIAA’s efforts to tar and feather Pamela and Jeffery Howell, two more people accused of being massive online distributors of copyrighted digital music. Howell’s case rocketted to international prominence when RIAA lawyer Ira Schwartz tried to argue MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs were ‘unauthorized copies’ of copyrighted recordings. “I couldn’t believe it when I read that,” said Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman. “The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation.” Connecticut district judge Janet Bond Arterton recently threw out the RIAA’s infamous “making available” claim, “which comprises the bottom line for all the Big 4 P2P file sharing cases,” said a recent p2pnet story, going on that Matt Foster, a lawyer with Indiana Legal Services, unearthed the case, according to Beckerman.

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March 11 – Is RIAA’s MediaSentry illegal in YOUR state?
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Is Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG ‘investigator’ MediaSentry operating illegally in your state? The Massachusetts State police have already banned the company, it’s been accused of operating without a licence in Oregon, Florida, Texas and New York, and now similar charges have been levelled at it in Michigan. A complaint was filed by a Recording Industry vs The People reader with the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Growth resulting in confirmation that MediaSentry has no official authorisation to carry out so-called ‘investigations’ there. “We encourage parties to pursue complaints against unlicensed parties and the local prosecutor,” says the response. “The prosecutor can prosecute these cases as felonies, with a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and/or up to four years in prison.”

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 March 20 – RIAA ‘tough love’ statement #2
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- RIAA mouthpiece Jonathan Lamy is parroting one of the more pharisaical statements made by his boss, Cary Sherman. “As any fan of ‘The Sopranos’ knows, the mob often takes out its enemies in a gruesome fashion as a way to warn others to fall in line,” says MarketWatch’s Therese Poletti in a story picked up by Ray Beckerman’s Recording Industry vs The People.She goes on >>>

The same can be said of the campaign over the past four years instigated by the dreaded Recording Industry Association of America, more commonly known as the RIAA, which has been on a mission to stop or slow down the practice of illegal music downloading online.

Their special target, as most people know, has been college students, with some seeing their very education come under threat for what used to be a time-honored tradition – copying their friends’ music.

That copying, of course, has taken on a much larger scale with the Internet, which allows students to share songs and albums by the thousands – often without paying a dime.

“This is a form of tough love,” said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the RIAA …”

Lamy is referring to the extortion letters being delivered to students by university staffs. But his hypocritical comment is in no way his own. “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,” p2pnet posted last year, going on: “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?” “It’s tough love,” Sherman went on because, “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.” In this latest iteration, “Much like the New York mob family in ‘The Sopranos,’ the RIAA is trying to send a blunt message,” says Poletti, adding: “It isn’t right to jeopardize someone’s education. Granted, some wealthier students just show the letter to their parents, who quickly pay to make the case quietly go away. The RIAA should just charge students double the rate of a song on iTunes (99 cents) for every song they are found downloading. “But Lamy said settlements need to be of ‘consequence’ to deter the activity in the first place.”

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April 10 – RIAA MediaSentry violates C&D order
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Yesterday, p2pnet posted seriously discredited RIAA private eye MediaSentry was complying with an all-out ban filed by the Massachusetts State Police. Has MediaSentry Ceased and Desisted in Massachusetts? – we asked a state certification officer, “As far as I know, they have,” she responded. But according to Recording Industry vs The People, the company, owned by SafeNet, has violated the order.

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April 26 – 2008 SoundExchange 40,000 lost artists: more
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- The [un]SoundExchange was originally dreamed up by the RIAA and later spun off as a supposed, “independent, nonprofit performance rights organization” designated by the US Copyright Office to, “collect and distribute digital performance royalties for featured recording artists and sound recording copyright owners (usually a record label) when their sound recordings are performed on digital cable and satellite television music, internet and satellite radio (such as XM and Sirius),” as it says on its site, stating >>>

SoundExchange currently represents over 3,500 record labels and over 31,000 featured artists.

The trouble is, as Nashville entertainment lawyer and p2pnet correspondent Fred Wilhelms consistently points out, the not-so-ex-RIAA outfit has an unfortunate, and on-going, tendency to ‘lose’ thousands of the artists it’s supposed to be paying. John Simson is the organisation’s front man who, “apparently said that SX has failed to track down 40,000 other artists,” said Wilhelms in a post a little more than a week ago. “40,000 unfound artists,” he went on >>>

Wow. They’re paying 31,000. They are not paying 40,000, and they know the names of that 40,000, so God knows how many they miss in sampling that would increase that number.

Imagine that.

Which is exactly what the Rev Keith Gordon did over at Dancing On The Edge.

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May 1 – 18 universities named in RIAA DMCA attacks

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- [Revised] When p2pnet first wrote about the sudden upsurge in DMCA notices seen at universities across America, we couldn’t name the schools involved. Now, however, Wired has followed the story up citing Indiana University, the University of Chicago, George Washington University and University of Cincinnati as four of the schools affected. Ars Technica added two more (Update) and we supplemented the list with another 12  (Update II).“A significant number of senior US school and universities are noticing ‘an enormous spike’ in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices,” p2pnet said almost a week ago, going on: “Does this mean students are ramping up their file sharing activities? “No, says a reliable source, stating, ‘There’s no identifiable spike in bandwidth usage at the campus level.”Now, “Universities are getting as many notices from the RIAA in one day as what they would typically get from all content owners in a month,” Wired has Educause vice president Mark Luker saying.

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May 7 – RIAA lawyer Gabriel named as a judge
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Incredibly, Richie Gabriel, the Colorado-based Holmes Owen and Bird attack lawyer used by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA to terrorise scores of innocent American men, women and even children, has been named as a judge . Richard Lance Gabriel takes his place on the Colorado bench as of July 1, says state governor Bill Rittter.Gabriel has personally argued all of the RIAA’s main cases, including Elektra v Barker, Atlantic v Howell, Atlantic v Brennan, Capitol v Foster, Atlantic v Andersen, UMG v Lindor, and London-Sire v Doe 1, says Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman who, as a lawyer defending RIAA victims, has himself crossed swords with Gabriel on many occasions. Gabriel tried the Jammie Thomas case, the only one that’s ever gone to trial, Beckerman notes, also pointing out Gabriel was, “working directly under the supervision of the RIAA’s Matthew Oppenheim” Matt ‘The Dentist’ Oppenheim left the RIAA’s employ some time ago but continues to pop up in RIAA cases.The saying that justice is blind is meant to convey impartiality, but in this case ………………

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May 13 – LimeWire: RIAA, MediaSentry ‘anti-pirate’ app
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- P2P file-sharing application LimeWire is routinely castigated by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). But, says Catherine Rampell in the Chronicle of Higher Education, neither the RIAA, the Big 4 nor their ‘investigator,’ MediaSentry, banned by the state police in Massachusetts, could get along without it.

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May 15 – Tanya Andersen awarded $108,000
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- RIAA nemesis Tanya Andersen has achieved another milestone victory. She fought Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA to a standstill, forcing it to drop its spurious file sharing case against her, and now an Oregon court has awarded her close to $108,000 in fees and costs.The amount, the highest ever, also signals what is in effect a default victory for other lawyers representing RIAA victims. It means they now know they’ll be able to proceed with counterclaims bolstered by the knowledge they’ll be paid their work. “This will assist in levelling the playing field in other cases,” Andersen’s lawyer, Lory Lybeck, told p2pnet.It’s also only the second time these kinds of fees and costs, which count for up to July 1 last year, have been awarded, he says. But Andersen’s fight to prove even a single mother on a medical disability pension can take on a multi-billion-dollar Big 4 labels and win, isn’t over yet.The RIAA, with soon-to-be Colorado judge Richard Gabriel still fronting for it, has been failing to produce discovery documents demanded by Andersen’s lawyers, Lybeck and Ben Justus. “Tanya has suffered long enough and must be allowed to fully litigate her claims and the claims of other potential class members without further delay of the RIAA,” Lybeck told p2pnet recently. The subject of a major Business Week feature, she was selected by the Big 4 extortionate outfit is an easy mark in its bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign. But she decided she wouldn’t be terrorised by the Big 4 bullies who, as part of their efforts to bring her to heel, also targeted her then seven year old daughter, Kylee.

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May 15 – Jammie Thomas judge cops to ‘manifest error’

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- In what’s likely be the worst upset yet for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA, a judge has admitted he made a “manifest error of law” in ruling Jammie Thomas was guilty of copyright infringement. A federal jury in Duluth, Minnesota, decided Thomas had willfully infringed on the record label copyrights, awarding the labels $222,000 in damages. At the time, “I’m sorry to hear that Ms. Thomas lost, but I don’t think the case is over by a long shot,” predicted Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman, going on, “the verdict – based as it upon an entirely erroneous jury instruction going to the very heart of the case – will almost definitely be set aside on appeal.” Now, judge Michael Davis (right), who presided in the original Thomas case, is, “contemplating granting a new trial … on the grounds that the Court committed a manifest error of law when, in Jury Instruction No. 15, it instructed the jury that ‘[t]he act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without licensefrom the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown’.”Thomas has consistently denied RIAA accusations that she was an illegal online distributor of copyrighted music.Significantly Davis, ruling on the only case the RIAA has so far managed to get into court despite the 40,000 subpoenas it’s fired at equally innocent men, women and children across America, brought up the Jeffrey and Pamela Howell case which effectively destroyed the RIAA’s theories of ‘making available’ and ‘offering to distribute’ theories. He also specifically invited “interested parties” to submit amicus briefs.

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May 24 – RIAA goes after the Greubel children
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG their RIAA have often been compared to the Mafia and, like the Mafia, they go after the weak and helpless, knowing their muscle and their goons will terrorise most people into accepting extortion they believe they can’t refuse: pay the RIAA to go away. But there is a difference, and it’s a substantial one >>>

Mafia hoods don’t go after children.

RIAA hoods do, and not in any collateral sense.

Ask RIAA victims who have kids. Children are from the very beginning the designated targets with parents used as stage one in the RIAA softening up process. And it doesn’t matter how young they are, or that they’re the customers of the future. Ask Brianna LaHara, Brittany Chan, Kylee Andersen, Michelle and Bobby Santangelo, or any of the other literally thousands of kids who, despite their ages, became RIAA victims in the literal sense of the word.

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May 26 – RIAA claims victory over AllofMP3.com

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Multi-billion-dollar Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) are crowing loudly and proudly about the apparent destruction of AllofMP3.com, a small Russian music download site which had the temerity to go online as competition to the Big 4 labels. When you go to http://www.allofmp3.ru (formerly allofmp3.com) you’re immediately bounced to http://www.allofmp3.ru/press.shtml quoting a Bloomberg News story which kicks off >>>

Sony BMG Music Entertainment and other record companies dismissed their copyright lawsuit against Russia-based Internet music store AllofMP3.com, which was accused of distributing millions of pirated song files.

Members of the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group, didn’t say why they were voluntarily dropping the case in papers filed May 20 in federal court in Manhattan.

The Big 4 and their US extortion outfit, the RIAA, are claiming credit. However, the reality is: it took a massive collaboration on the part of the corporate movie and music cartels, with unstinting assistance from the George W. Bush administration, to bring the site to its knees.

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June 18 – RIAA caves in over Lindor case
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Having made Marie Lindor’s life utterly miserable by falsely accusing her of illegally distributing copyrighted music, the RIAA now wants a voluntary dismissal without prejudice, says her lawyer, Ray Beckerman. “When several years ago Marie Lindor (right) found the RIAA camped on her metaphorical doorstep, blood in its eye, she could have had no idea what was to come,” said p2pnet in March, continuing >>>

A home health aide from Brooklyn, New York, she quite literally barely knew how to even switch a computer on.

She didn’t know what the RIAA meant, either. But that changed, and quickly, because there were Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), publicly accusing her of being a massive online distributor of copyrighted music.

The motion RIAA motion also demands discovery sanctions against her, discovery sanctions against Beckerman, and a stay of all proceedings, he posts on Recording Industry vs The People. “It never ceases to amaze me the things these people will attempt to say to a judge with a straight face,” he says, going on: “This has got to be the most ludicrous thing I have ever seen from these attorneys, and I have seen many, many ludicrous things from these attorneys on a daily basis”.

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June 25 – Pay Tanya Andersen $108,000, judge orders RIAA
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- The RIAA have had their chance. Now it’s Tanya’s turn. p2pnet posted that towards the end of last month, the subject being efforts exerted by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA to avoid paying Tanya —- Tanya Andersen, the Oregon mother who, with her lawyers Lory Lybeck and Ben Justus, has the Big 4 and their attack dog in full retreat —- the money they owe her. Following years of vicious and unmitigated attacks by the RIAA and its cohorts, John V. Acosta awarded her nearly $108,000 in fees and costs,.But Pay? No Way! – says the RIAA. The RIAA tried to dime her down to $30,000, but that didn’t work. So they tried $60,000. That didn’t work either and now judge A. Redden has affirmed the Acosta award.

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June 30 – RIAA ACTA wish-list

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- “You can’t see the text of the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) because it’s being drafted in secret, but it’s not so secret that the RIAA doesn’t get to submit its own wishlist to the government,” posts Nate Anderson on Ars Technica. “Knowledge Ecology International, an NGO that works on trade and public knowledge, published the alleged list (hat tip to Michael Geist) late last week. I hope you like mandatory ISP filtering.” In Canada, “the Powers that Used to Be are doing their best to keep the public in the dark about ACTA,” p2pnet posted recently, going on: “If Hollywood could order intellectual property laws for Christmas, what would they look like? This is pretty close.”ACTA is short for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and that’s how David Fewer, staff counsel at the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, summed it up. Splashed online by whistleblower site Wikileaks, ACTA was, “shrouded in secrecy until a leaked summary of the agreement appeared on the Internet last month,” sparking, “widespread opposition as Canadians worry about the prospect of a trade deal that could lead to invasive searches of personal computers and increased surveillance of online activities,” blogged Ottawa law professor and Internet advocate Dr Michael Geist, adding, “the Canadian government has been among the most secretive of all ACTA negotiating partners.” Now, “These are the substantive suggestions for provisions of the ACTA that the RIAA sent to the USTR on March 17, 2008,” says Knowledge Ecology International

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July 12 – North Carolina RIAA MediaSentry probe

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- RIAA “investigator” MediaSentry has been caught with its undergarments around its ankles. Again. Massachusetts State Police at the beginning of the year MediaSentry to cease and desist, according to court papers filed by a Boston University student who was asking the court to to quash an RIAA subpoena . So did it C&D?Nope. Now, “We have just learned from court papers filed in Capitol v. Doe, one of the six (6) John Doe cases targeting North Carolina State University students in Raleigh, North Carolina, that a Grievance Committee hearing, to determine the existence of probable cause, has been scheduled by North Carolina’s Private Protective Services Board, in connection with the complaints that have been filed charging MediaSentry with the crime of unlicensed investigation,” says Recording Industry vs The People.

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July 16 – Adrian22 Q&A with Fred Wilhelms

p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA News:- “That’s a huge long post Jon,” says Emerald in an email from the UK. “I admire the thought but you are only wasting your time. No one in the industry cares.” She’s talking about Project Unfound Artist, an effort to let the 7,575 artists the Big 4’s unSoundExchange just can’t seem to find know they have money coming to them.“[…] you are wasting your time.”Not really, Emerald. In April this year, the number was 7,874 and if people such as Fred Wilhelms, the Nashville entertainment lawyer who started this, and people like you, keep it up, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG will care. Because the pigeons are coming home to roost not only here but in all kinds of other areas. Adrian22 says he’s posted questions to the thread on the Velvet Rope (StarPolish site) which are worth asking here as well. Wilhelms obliges…….

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August 4 – Major RIAA upset looms in Jammie Thomas case

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- On the heels of a court win for RIAA victim Tanya Andersen, it looks like the Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music’s (US) enforcer is about to receive another major slap in the face. Short for Recording Industry Association of America, the RIAA spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a vain attempt to have Andersen, a single mother who lives on a medical disability pension, railroaded  as a “massive illegal distributor” of copyrighted corporate music. RIAA nemesis Andersen  fought it and the Big 4 to a standstill, “forcing it to drop its spurious file sharing case against her, and now an Oregon court has awarded her close to $108,000 in fees and costs,” p2pnet posted in May, going on: “The amount, the highest ever, also signals what is in effect a default victory for other lawyers representing RIAA victims. It means they now know they’ll be able to proceed with counterclaims bolstered by the knowledge they’ll be paid their work.”Now the RIAA is looking another disaster squarely in the face. District Court judge Michael Davis seems set to declare the only case the RIAA has ever won in in all its years of trying to sue American men, women and children, a mistrial. Minnesota mother Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay the Big 4 $222,000 for sharing allegedly sharing 24 copyrighted songs. But Davis, who presided over the case, has since admitted he may have have committed a significant error.

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August 8 – When the ghosts of songs equal copyright infringements

p2pnet news view RIAA | MPAA News:- The Cartoon Network v CSC Holdings case is one of the most important, believes Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.It centres on the much-criticized MAI case which held a copy existing only in Random Access Memory can constitute unlawful ‘copying’ under the US Copyright Act.What!? You read it correctly. A copy which exists only in RAM, can nevertheless be an unlawful ‘copying’ within the meaning of the US Copyright Act.In other words, according to MPAA, the ethereal and transitory ghost of a song floating in RAM also leaves the computer owner open to corporate entertainment cartel depradations. Pretty soon they’ll be after you for even thinking about one of their songs or movies without buying it.

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August 12 – US universities ‘burdened, betrayed’ by RIAA

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Talk to the chief information officer at just about any American university and he’ll probably say his institution has bent over backward to help the  Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA curb illegal file sharing on his campus.

But he’ll, “also tell you he’s angry,” says The Chronicle for Higher Education’s Catherine Rampell in Antipiracy Campaign Exasperates Colleges …

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August 12 – RIAA drops case against MS victim
p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA News:- Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA will finally stopped tormenting multiple sclerosis victim Rae-Jay Schwartz. She’s, “wheelchair-bound by a terrible medical condition which attacks the central nervous system,” p2pnet posted, going on »»»

As well as being plagued by the RIAA, she’s a victim of multiple sclerosis, the debilitating disease which slowly drains the strength and will from sufferers.

“Stress and multiple sclerosis seem at times to go hand in hand,” says Beginners Guide to MS.

“There is a strong correlation between severe stress and exacerbation of MS symptoms,” says the University of Maryland medical Centre.

And yet, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal, Sony BMG and their RIAA, won’t leave her alone.

That was almost a year ago. But only now have the Big 4 relented. Meanwhile, “I’m very relieved that this cruel case against a completely innocent woman suffering from Multiple Sclerosis has finally been dropped,” says her lawyer, Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman told p2pnet, adding:

“The cruelty and recklessness of the RIAA’s lawyers, especially Matthew Oppenheim, knows no bounds.”

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 August 18 – Tenise Barker v RIAA ’settled’

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:-  Elektra v Barker, the case centering on Tenise Barker, the young New York social worker who disputed the RIAA’s ‘file sharing by default’ theory, has been settled. Unlike most Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG cases, “the actual settlement agreement (PDF) is on file with the Court, and a matter of public record,” says Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman, who defended Barker. She said she used Sharman Network’s Kazaa, “but if she infringed anything at all, she did so in innocence,” p2pnet posted last March.She once told p2pnet »»»

 I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums…. So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It’s a slap in the face.

This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.

Now her attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA’s damages theory, as well as her other defenses —-  including unclean hands based on MediaSentry’s illegal behavior, the RIAA’s inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement —- won’t be be adjudicated, says Beckerman. “Ms Barker was a pioneer in leading the fight against the RIAA’s unwarranted  ‘making available’ theory, and by challenging it – and winning on that point – she performed an important public service, by helping to preserve the intent of the Legislature in the US Copyright Act,” Beckerman told p2pnet, adding:

“And although Ms. Barker did admit in her answer that she had used Kazaa file sharing software, I believe that she had important affirmative defenses which would have been successful. Now that Ms Barker has laid down her sword and shield, I hope other defendants will pick them up and carry them into battle.”

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August 20 – RIAA guy Kenneth Doroshow goes a-gaming
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- I guess we may have to rename Recording Industry vs The People “Gaming Industry vs. The People” some day.We’ve just learned Kenneth Doroshow, the RIAA executive who was supposed to debate the statutory damages issue with me back in March, but who chose to avoid that subject and instead recounted his opinion of the facts in Capitol v Thomas, and who later inserted some paper he’d written into the transcript of the conference instead of allowing his talk to be reported, has left the RIAA and joined the ESA (the “Entertainment Software Association”).If he accomplishes for game manufacturers what he accomplished for the recording industry, I’d say the industry’s prospects are bleak.Ray Beckerman – Recording Industry vs The People

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August 25 – Obama picks RIAA, MPAA friend Biden as VP
p2pnet news view | RIAA| MPAA | Politics:- “Public figures commonly use anonymous speech writers,” says the Wikipedia, “If a speech uses plagiarized material, however, it is the public figure who may be cast in a bad light. “For instance, Delaware Senator Joe Biden was forced out of the 1988 U.S. Presidential race (but remained in the U.S. Senate) when it was discovered that parts of his campaign speeches were plagiarized from speeches by British Labour party leader Neil Kinnock and Robert Kennedy.” That’s the same Joe Biden carefully chosen by presidential hopeful Bark Obama as his Vice Presidential candidate in the current US elections.Is plagiarism akin to copyright infringement? Biden is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee who, after taking it over, “became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law,” states Declan McCullagh in CNET News, going on »»»

He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs. Biden’s bill was backed by content companies including News Corp. but eventually died after Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Yahoo lobbied against it.

A few months later, Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department “to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.” Critics of this approach said that the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and not taxpayers, should pay for their own lawsuits.

He’s a proud founding member of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus who’s, “helped the lead the fight against countries such as China, Russia, Mexico and India that need stronger copyright protections,” says the Hollywood Reporter. “When somebody holds you up on the street and takes your wallet, we call it robbery,” the story quotes him is as declaring. “And when somebody steals your idea and creation, we call it theft, plain and simple.”

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August 26 – Napster abandons US universities
p2pnet news view RIAA | Music:- p2pnet was the first to reveal Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG plans to turn universities across America into corporate marketing and enforcement divisions, initially using Napster as the spearhead and Penn State as the first point of penetration. “Napster is the leader in legal online music services and provides access to over 500,000 songs,” said Rod Erickson in 2003. Must be a Napster guy, or an RIAA minion. Yes? No. He was the Penn State executive vice president and provost and in one of the most blatant examples of a senior university official toadying to a hard-core commercial enterprise, “Thanks to our partnership with Napster, Penn State students will be able to play songs directly from the network, download songs onto their hard drives, and transfer songs to other computers–all for no additional cost to students,” he said.But he neglected to mention students who didn’t want to buy corporate ‘product’ through the disinterred Napster could end up as RIAA victims. Five years on, it seems Napster which, despite endless lamescream media hype and help from the corporate music industry, has gone from one marketing failure to another, is at last pulling out of the University music business altogether. “Napster’s decision to terminate their nationwide Napster on Campus program effectively ends their 4-year partnership with Vanderbilt,” says a post on Vanderbilt ITS News, going on: “However, Napster has agreed to continue discounted rates for current faculty and staff subscribers, and to offer a 33% 3-month discount on Napster to Go accounts for new Vanderbilt subscribers.”

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August 28 – RIAA, Big 4 labels, gang up on Skwerl
p2pnet news view Freedom | RIAA News | P2P:- Big News, picked up by the world media —- —- —- Obama again? Nope. McCain, then? Nope. New Orleans may be evacuated because Gustav might become another major hurricane? Not that either. Kevin Cogill is looking at three years in jail for leaking Guns ‘N Roses tracks online »»»

Blogger who leaked Guns N’ Roses tracks arrested
Guardian.co.uk, UK
At first he was the bold internet pirate who posted tracks from Chinese Democracy online. Now he’s facing three years in prison and a hefty fine …

US blogger arrested for leaking Guns N’ Roses online
Agence France Presse
US federal police on Wednesday arrested a blogger for posting songs from a yet-to-be released Guns N’ Roses album titled “Chinese Democracy” …

Blogger arrested over leaked Gunners tracks
Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand
A blogger has been arrested over claims he posted nine unreleased Guns N’ Roses tracks on the internet …

Blogger arrested over leaked Chinese Democracy tracks
CBC.ca, Canada
US federal authorities have arrested a Los Angeles-area blogger accused of posting leaked tracks from the forthcoming Guns N’ Roses album online …

And not even nearly finally »»»

‘Arrest Signals Tougher Stance On Music Piracy’
Wall Street Journal, US of A
Signaling what could be a more aggressive stance in the fight against online music piracy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a …

Yet-to-be released Guns N’ Roses album titled “Chinese Democracy”? It’s Chinese-style democracy, alright. The band has been “yet to release” the album for — how long is it, now? And thanks to Cogill, it’s had all kinds of priceless free PR to precede it. “More aggressive” stance? Like how? Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA are  already suing disabled mothers and children. Thanks to this kind of one-sided lamescream media reporting, created out of whole cloth by endless (and baseless) RIAA BS, copyright infringement, a purely commercial matter, is supposedly “devastating” the multi-billion-dollar Big 4 record labels and has, therefore, been boosted to the level of murder and rape. RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America. But only one of the Big 4 companies principally behind the so-called ‘trade’ outfit can be said to be American. And even it, Warner Music, is run by a Canadian.

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August 30 – US schools say No! to RIAA extortion letters

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- The Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and RIAA sue ‘em all campaign launched at students across America, falsely accusing them of being file sharing criminals and thieves, has had, and is still having, a seriously detrimental effect on their studies. But now, “Administrators and IT chiefs at public universities nationwide say the recording industry’s search for students accused of online piracy is cutting into their faculty’s work day,” says eSchool News, going on:“In recent months, some universities have refused to forward ‘pre-litigation’ letters to students offering them a settlement to avoid further legal action from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It’s, “between the recording industry and the people who may be violating their copyrights,” the story has Brian Rust from Wisconsin at Madison’s Department of Information Technology, saying. The school  has, “seen a steady increase of subpoenas and ‘cease-and-desist’ notices forwarded from RIAA officials in recent years,” it states, with Rust declaring public institutions are an easy target. “We’re very transparent about access to our network,” he says.Interestingly, “Rust … says UW will, ‘participate in the study and provide documentation of the extensive steps taken to dissuade students from copyright infringement,’ p2pnet quoted the school’s Badger Herald as saying in May last year, continuing: “The University of Wisconsin was one of the universities declining to act as an unpaid RIAA copyright cop, refusing to forward RIAA ’settlement’ letters to students. The ‘UW-Madison and all of our peer institutions have gone to great lengths to notify people, warn people and post notices via e-mail,’ the Badger Herald has Rust declaring.”

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September 5 – RIAA v Greubel: ’settled’
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Elisa Greubel, 15, made headlines when she contacted Nettwerk Music artist MC Lars to say his ‘Download This Song,’ a track on his then latest release, really meant something to her. “That was because Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG were trying extort a lot of money from her father, David, for supposedly sharing nine copyrighted songs online,” said p2pnet, going on: “MC Lars passed Elisa’s message to Canada’s Terry McBride, who runs Nettwerk, and he decided, ‘Suing music fans isn’t the solution, it’s the problem,’ as he told p2pnet in a Q&A. “So he decided to pick up the Greubel’s legal bill.” The case has been ’settled,’ but it’s all taken place behind closed doors, so to speak.Back in May Elisa’s father, David, agreed to a Q&A but later, on the advice of his lawyers, Browning and Mudd, changed his mind. Now, “The settlement document contains no information on the terms,” says Recording Industry vs The People. That’s a shame. It’s in the interests of anyone and everyone attacked by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA to be as public as possible, especially where young people are concerned. “Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG their RIAA have often been compared to the Mafia and, like the Mafia, they go after the weak and helpless, knowing their muscle and their goons will terrorise most people into accepting extortion they believe they can’t refuse,” said p2pnet. “Pay the RIAA to go away.”

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September 12 – RIAA says woman stole ‘You know I’m a hoe’
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Hapless RIAA not-so-private private eye MediaSentry was long ago identified as a sham by the P2P community. Now, a new RIAA victim from Kansas City, Mandy Johnson, a full time stay-at-home day care worker for young children, has accused it of computer fraud and abuse, and civil conspiracy. Included in the valuable corporate ‘product’ she’s accused by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA of stealing are “Fuckers And Friends”, “You Know I’m a Hoe”, and “I Wanna Fuck Your Sister.” She also says the company, “engaged in the investigation business without a license,” says Recording Industry vs The People.MediaSentry, “strongly disputed accusations, made by legal opponents of the Recording Industry Association of America and some state officials, that the company is engaging in what amounts to an unlicensed private investigation practice as it gathers evidence for the RIAA to use in music piracy lawsuits,” said Computerworld recently, going on, “Through its parent company, SafeNet Inc., Belcamp, Md.-based that it needs to obtain private investigator’s licenses in order to legally continue its work on behalf of the RIAA in many states. The provider of online content-protection services also denied that it infiltrates the computers of users in search of evidence to back up copyright infringement lawsuits filed by the RIAA, as some have suggested. All of the information gathered by MediaSentry for the RIAA is publicly available on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and has been made openly available by the users of such networks themselves, SafeNet spokeswoman Donna St. Germain said via e-mail.”

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September 18 – RIAA sues Ray ‘RIvTP’ Beckerman
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- RIAA nemesis Ray Beckerman says he wants to thank the Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG enforcer for suing him. Beckerman, the New York lawyer who’s defending several several RIAA victims and who runs the now-famous Recording Industry vs The People blog, has for years been an outspoken critic of the corporate music industry’s sue ‘em all campaignNow, in its most ridiculous lawsuit yet, the Big 4 hit outfit is accusing Beckerman of being “vexatious,” among numerous other charges. “I want to thank them for making this outrageous claim,” Beckerman told p2pnet.

“I’ve already had 7,500 visitors to my blog and people are offering to send me financial contributions. This motion is completely frivolous and based on lies and nonsense.”Interestingly, named at the top of the 31-page court document is ‘judge’ Richard Gabriel, the Holme Roberts & Owen lawyer used by the RIAA to attack its victims, including Marie Lindor, the New York health worker who doesn’t know one end of a computer from the other. For three years Beckerman defended her against the labels, who ultimately gave up.According to the RIAA, Beckerman stood in the way of corporate recording industry “good faith efforts” on to uncover what it calls “crucial evidence,” in the Lindor farce. “Congrats, Ray!” – says Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Victory is around the corner.”Or as Mahatma Ghandi once put it, “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”They’re both correct. Good on ya, Ray.(Maybe you should get Gabriel to defend you. But on second thoughts ……. )

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September 23 – Kazaa class action ‘quietly settled’
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Kazaa seems to be almost always front and centre in every Big 4 Organized Music cartel sue ‘em all case, p2pnet said or, to be more accurate, repeated, a couple of years ago. Owned by Australia’s Sharman Networks, Kazaa boasts it’s ‘Fast, safe’. Fast it may be, but thousands of people who used it in all innocence have found themselves named in an RIAA subpoena, and with threats of court cases they can’t possibly afford hanging over their heads. Not that even one of the approximately 40,000 men, women, and even children, singled out by the Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG hit outfit the RIAA has ever been successfully sued. For anything.There are no statistics detailing exactly how many Big 4 victims were identified because they were using Kazaa. But it’s safe to bet the vast bulk would fall into that category, one of them involving Catherine Lewan, a Kazaa user sued by the RIAA. She was among those who paid extortion money to the RIAA and in a court document, said Sharman, “configured KaZaA such that its intended use would be illegal“. However, her case “was quietly settled,” and behind closed doors, last fall, says Recording Industry vs The People.Did Kazaa’s owners dispose of it because they were fearful a court and/or jury would find in Lewan’s favour, not at all incidentally also leaving a staggering number of RIAA claims open to serious doubt, to considerably understate the potential situation? We’ll never know — unless other Big 4 victims find a lawyer or lawyers this time willing to follow through to the bitter end.

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 September 25 – RIAA v Jammie Thomas: back to Square 1
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P| RIAA:- Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s success rate in their efforts to sue some 40,000 of their own customers to force them to buy corporate ‘product,’ and to gain control of who distributes it online and by what means, has just been reduced from one to zero. Judge Michael Davis last year presided over the civil trial of Minnesota mother Jammie Thomas who was ultimately ordered to pay almost $250,000 to the labels for alleged copyright infringement. But he later said he was considering a mistrial because he’d made a “manifest error of law” in telling the civil jury the, “act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without licensefrom the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown”.Heavyweight legal gun Donald B. Verrilli Jr, named by the Hollywood Reporter magazine as one of the top 100 ‘Power Lawyers‘ in the entertainment industry, was hired to  convinced Davis a new trial wasn’t necessary, that damages of $9,250 each for the 24 allegedly infringing music tracks Thomas was said to have made publicly available via the Kazaa P2P file sharing application were correct. But late yesterday the news broke that Davis has ordered a new trial on a date yet to be decided. He’s also urged the US congress to amend the US Copyright Act so it addresses liability and damages in P2P file sharing cases such as Thomas’.

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September 29 – PRO-IP RIAA MPAA act passed
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P | Politics:- The Senate has passed the PRO-IP Act,” writes Soulskill on Slashdot, going on »»»

While they stripped out the provision to have the DoJ act as copyright cops, it still contains increased penalties for infringement, civil forfeiture provisions, and creates an ‘IP czar’ to coordinate enforcement.

Even though the civil forfeiture provisions are ostensibly intended for use against commercial piracy outfits, history indicates that they will probably get used against individuals at some point.

Worse, because they left out the only part of the bill that Bush threatened to veto, it is expected to pass.

It is going back to the House where they’re expected to pass it on Saturday, after which the President will probably sign it. So, if you want to contact your representative, hurry.”mobilizing to fight this legislation. The Senate vote was unanimous. We’ve been following the progress of this bill for quite some time.

An anonymous reader notes that DefectiveByDesign.Org is mobilizing to fight this legislation. The Senate vote was unanimous. We’ve been following the progress of this bill for quite some time.

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 October 1 – EFF to RIAA: sue ‘em all campaign hasn’t worked
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- The bizarre sue ‘em all marketing scheme launched by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA against the latter’s own customers suspected of sharing copyrighted music online, is an abject failure. It hasn’t got artists paid, or reduced P2P file sharing. Those are the main points in RIAA v The People: Five Years Later, an EFF report named with a perhaps unconscious nod to Ray Beckerman’s Recording Industry vs The People, whom it quotes.The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) paper usefully encapsulates many, if not most, conclusions which have become obvious to all but the Big 4 since they initiated their anti-P2P, anti-consumer, anti-any-music-but-theirs campaign five years ago last month. For example, its says judges have repeatedly rejected the RIAA’s “making available” theory which asserts having a music file in a PC “shared” folder constitutes copyright infringement — even if no one ever copies the file. And, “Just last week, a federal judge ordered a new trial for Jammie Thomas, found liable for more than $220,000 because the jury had been instructed erroneously that liability could be premised on this ‘making available’ theory,” it says. Downloading continues unabated, “while some people simply choose to share files in ways that are harder to monitor, like burning and exchanging CDs among friends,” says the report.“More than 30,000 Americans have been targeted for legal action by the recording industry without putting a single penny into the pockets of any artists,” says EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann. “At the same time, everyone agrees that P2P file-sharing is more popular than ever. The RIAA’s litigation campaign arbitrarily punishes tens of thousands of people for what tens of millions are doing. It’s futile and unfair. It is high time that the recording industry let fans pay them a reasonable fee for the P2P file sharing that we all know has become a fact of Internet life.”The report kicks of with »»»

On September 8, 2003, the recording industry sued 261 American music fans for sharing songs on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks, kicking off an unprecedented legal campaign against the people that should be the recording industry’s best customers: music fans. Five years later, the recording industry has filed, settled, or threatened legal actions against at least 30,000 individuals. These individuals have included children, grandparents, unemployed single mothers, college professors—a random selection from the millions of Americans who have used P2P networks. And there’s no end in sight; new lawsuits are filed monthly, and now they are supplemented by a flood of “pre-litigation” settlement letters designed to extract settlements without any need to enter a courtroom.

But suing music fans has proven to be an ineffective response to unauthorized P2P file-sharing. Downloading from P2P networks is more popular than ever, despite the widespread public awareness of lawsuits. And the lawsuit campaign as not resulted in any royalties to artists. One thing has become clear: suing music fans is no answer to the P2P dilemma.

And that says it all. Click here for RIAA v The People: Five Years Later in full.

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October 17 – Kazaa, the RIAA and Jammie Thomas
p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) can be quite properly described as hate organisations. They hate anything which even looks remotely like competition. They hate independents and independence. They hate anything which interferes with what they see as their God-given right to control how, and by whom, music is distributed online. They even hate the people who keep them in drugs and booze and who pay their bills.

But there’s one commercial outfit that’s central to the vast majority of the RIAA hate lawsuits, but which has nonetheless escaped virtually unscathed: Australia’s Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa, the P2P file sharing application used by almost every RIAA victim. Currently, the highest profile Kazaa case centres on Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota mother ordered to pay the corporate music industry almost a quarter of a million dollars for allegedly infringing music copyrights. Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA thought they’d finally scored when judge Michael Davis told jurors that simply making songs available in a shared folder written to her computer hard drive by Kazaa amounted to infringement, even if actual distribution hadn’t been proved.  Davis has since admitted his instructions were wrong and as things stand, the RIAA is desperately trying to salvage the only case it’s ever managed to bring to court.

Meanwhile, thousands of people continue to use the application. “Its presence in these cases is ubiquitous,” says Ray Beckerman, the New York lawyer who runs Recording Industry vs The People, the famous online archive of RIAA cases and associated documents, and who himself represents people singled out as RIAA targets. “It’s shameful.”

 October 28 – Stop ‘bankrupting’ pro se defendants, RIAA told
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Judge Nancy Gertner has in the past shown marked impatience for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) . Now, “In the massive consolidated Boston case, termed London-Sire v. Does 1-4,” where she’s been presiding over five years of default judgments and forced settlements, “we have learned that the Judge held a conference on June 17th covering a number of the cases,” says Recording Industry vs The People.RIAA lawyers were present, but although a few of the defendants were in the courtroom, there were no lawyers representing them, says the post, going on  among remarks made by Gertner was »»»

… counsel representing the record companies have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers… to understand that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it’s terribly critical that you stop it …

Transcript of June 17, 2008, conference attended by RIAA lawyers and pro se defendants

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October 31 – RIAA caught in ‘legal bees’ nest’
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- “Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA has so many thorns in its side it’s starting to look like a porcupine,” p2pnet posted on Tuesday, going on: “And one of the most painful must be professor Charles Nesson (right) of Harvard Law School. Harvard is the one senior US teaching institution the Big 4 have been unable (afraid?) to touch in their twisted campaign to reduce every American university to the status of marketing-unit-cum-copyright-cop, and every American student to servile consumer of corporate ‘product,’ and only corporate ‘product’. Nesson has moved from outspoken critic of the guilty to active defender of the innocent,” we added.

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- RIAA boss Mitch Bainwol (arrow) is a contented man. He’s recruited another important copyright cop on behalf of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG, which explains the happy smile on his face. In what has to be one of the most shocking examples of an American politician blatantly aligning himself with hardcore commercial interests, Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen has signed into law a bill aimed at, “curbing the disproportionate amount of music theft occurring on state campus networks via peer-to-peer (p2p) services”.The words are those of the RIAA. Behind the bill are the self-serving efforts by the Big 4  to turn American students into cowed consumers of corporate product, and only corporate product; and, to gain control of the distribution of music on the Net. That’s Bredesen in front with a happy smile on his face.

“The University has stepped up its support for students with the new policy, scheduled to go into effect before the end of the semester,” says the story, continuing: “In the past, the University did not provide student information to the RIAA without a subpoena, but forwarded all pre-litigation notices to students without evaluating the validity of the infringement claims.”

But at least one student isn’t impressed, saying the new P2P policy is as, “frustrating than having to pay thousands of dollars in fines” in the first place. “So basically what they’re saying now is that before this they didn’t have proof?” – the unnamed student is quoted as saying. “They allowed for ‘not good proof’ to be shown beforehand, or just not shown at all?” he said. “So now Duke is requiring evidence — so what? It’s still not going to change anything.”

And, “While it is good news that a university is requiring the RIAA to put up or shut up, the forwarding — or not forwarding — of letters is pretty insignificant,” says Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman. “What I want to know is: When the RIAA comes knocking with its Star Chamber, ex parte, ‘John Doe’ litigation to get the students’ identities, is the University going to go to bat for the students and fight the litigation on the ground that it’s based on zero evidence, and on the ground that the students weren’t given prior notice and an opportunity to be heard?”

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December 2 – RIAA targets transplant patient Ciara Sauro
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Could Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s sick sue ‘em all campaign get any worse?It could. And it has. Their RIAA is suing a young transplant patient in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Nineteen-year-old Ciara Sauro has pancreatitis and because she needs an islet cell transplant, she’s hospitalized every week, a situation resulting in a huge accumulation of medical bills. Now, “Because she didn’t defend herself against a copyright lawsuit, a federal judge in Pittsburgh ruled she’s a music pirate, and that could cost the Sauros almost $8,000 in fines,” says Pittsburg news channel WTAE.com.

“I already have severe depression,” the story has her saying. “I mean, it’s so hard to sit there and think that I have to get in trouble for something that I didn’t do. It’s not fair.”It isn’t. But then, fairness isn’t a word the Big 4 or Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman, the two spinsters who run their RIAA, understand.Sauro is accused of of illegally sharing 10 songs online and, “You want to know the truth?” – the story has her mother, Lisa,  saying. “I make $8.25 an hour. She can’t work. This child is very sick. I mean, what am I supposed to do?I just want them to know that I have to go through enough stress in my life with my sickness and my family, and I don’t think that they should go after people just because they want money for something that’s not even fair to us.”

Not surprisingly,  a lawyer for the record companies failed to return phone calls, says WTAE.com.

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 December 4 – Concord law students defend RIAA victim
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- New Hampshire law students have joined others in the US who are determined to help innocent RIAA victims who lack the financial and legal resources to defend themselves against false claims of illicit online distribution. This will have a powerful effect, encouraging professors and students at other law schools to take on hitherto defenceless people being pilloried by the corporate music industry.In a case slated to go to trial in the fall of next year, student attorneys at the Consumer and Commercial Law Clinic of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, are acting on behalf of another alleged “massive illegal distributor of copyright music”. They’re defending Mavis Roy, targeted by the RIAA in New Hampshire, in UMG Recordings v Roy, says Recording Industry vs The People. She’s accused of distributing 218 music files online.

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December 11 – ‘We’re not RIAA factotums’: Vanderbilt U

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- What do Harvard –  not at all incidentally, the only major university to have escaped the RIAA’s attention — and Vanderbilt University have in common? – p2pnet asked on Monday. Answer? They both  feature RIAA-inspired classes.We included the pic on the right in our post but, “Vanderbilt is not a facototum for the R.I.A.A.,” says the university’s Sara Manus in a p2pnet Reader’s Write. In the story, “Almost exactly a year ago, ‘We want to play nice’,” p2pnet quoted Cindy Frank, director of service delivery and project management for information technology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, as saying. She was referring to Vanderbilt’s efforts to, “keep on the good side of the corporate music industry and its adherents, which had at that point so far cost it in the region of half-a-million-dollars,” said the story, going on »»»

“We’ve negotiated very inexpensive deals for students,” she said unblushingly. “Napster is $2 a month and offers 3 million songs. We have also spent a lot money and time marketing them. We encourage these legal methods for downloading music.”

The “bald faced admission from Frank in InsideVandy makes it clear not only is the university working — unpaid — for Napster, a desperately broke, hard-core commercial music marketing service, it’s also acting up-front for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG” we said, adding:

“Are Napster and the Big 4 footing the bill? No. That’s down to parents and state and federal authorities responsible for America’s educational systems. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

Now, “As one of the co-instructors of the class mentioned above, I thought that it would be helpful to clarify a few things,” says Manus in the comment……..

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December 16 – RIAA thumbs its nose at judge Real
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Lawyers hired by  Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA will stoop to any level in their relentless attacks on people chosen to feature in their bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign. Now, the RIAA was granted ex parte discovery in Motown Record Co. v Doe, notes Recording Industry vs The People, “but is using information obtained for purposes of extracting monetary settlements”.“Because Plaintiffs [ie, the Big 4] routinely obtain ex parte discovery in their John Doe infringement suits, as they themselves have pointed out, their factual assertions supporting their good cause argument are never challenged by an adverse party and their investigative methods remain free of scrutiny.” So said Oregon state attorney general Hardy Myers who at the time also noted the RIAA might have been illegally spying on University of Oregon students and ferreting out data they’re not entitled to. “They often settle their cases quickly before defendants obtain legal representation and begin to conduct discovery,” he said.In this latest travesty, Motown Records, owned by Universal Music, is demanding $4,000 and up from USC undergraduates, “in exchange for not being named in a copyright infringement lawsuit currently pending in federal court in Los Angeles,”  says LAist. Judge Manuel L. Real’s October 7, 2008 order states USC student information is, “to be used for the sole purpose of obtaining injunctive relief,” says the story. But what’s a judge’s order to the RIAA, headed up by Mitch Bainwol with Cary Sherman as his #2? “As of last week, representatives of the record companies were telephoning and writing USC students to propose settlements,” says the story.

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 December 19 – Big 4’s RIAA to drop mass lawsuits
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:-  After years of persecuting and terrorising thousands of innocent families and their children across the United States, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG are trying another way to to force people to use their ‘product’.Their RIAA is, “set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy,” says the Wall Street Journal.Instead, the RIAA will get ISPs to do its dirty work, getting them to rat-out their customers, using the results to continue the sue ‘em all war from behind the scenes. “The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003,” says the story …..

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p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- RIAA assistant chief dissembler Cary Sherman says suing Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG customers was the only way to go. The Big 4 extortion unit is trying to convince the world its new policy of muscling ISPs into doing its dirty work for it represents a significant and positive policy change.“If you can go back to that time in your mind and remember that file sharing was growing at logarithmic pace,” Sherman told CNet News, “referring to 2003, not long after file-sharing service Napster had triggered a music-swapping frenzy. It was unbelievable how much infringement was going on and there was no sense that it was illegal,” he says earnestly, continuing in a quavering voice (at least, we assume it was quavering), “There were no legal cases or precedent, nothing to discourage people from this kind of behavior.”Sherman once described the RIAA victimisation campaign against thousands of American families as tough love, and his  latest ruminations came, “hours after The Wall Street Journal published a story on Friday about the RIAA’s decision to end its five-year-long legal campaign against individuals who the group accused of pirating music,” says the story. To support his bafflegab that the RIAA sue ‘em all campaign lawsuits were effective, “Sherman also points to the meteoric growth in legal sales since the RIAA began taking file sharers to court,” says CNET.

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December 25 – RIAA Christmas Message
p2pnet news view RIAA News:-  It’s Christmas Day. But it’ll be far less enjoyable than it might have been for thousands of families not only in the US, but around the world, thanks to the mean-minded, mean-spirited Big 4 labels, Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US). America’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is synonymous with lies and dirty dealings.It’s front and centre among the many ‘trade’ associations used by the Big $ to deliver their messages of misery and thanks to the likes of Mitch Bainwol, Cary Sherman, Jonathan Lamy and Cara Duckworth, among other RIAA employees, music disks from the Big $ will be significantly absent from under America’s Christmas trees, not to mention Christmas trees from other parts of the globe.

When the Big 4 are whining grizzling about declining sales, they never say anything about losses due to the fact their sue ‘em all campaign means they’re haemorrhaging customers, whom they call file sharing criminals and thieves, left, right and centre. We’re sure it’ll be even worse for them in the New Year when ever increasing numbers of music lovers will buy anything rather than copyrighted ‘product’ from Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US), or RIAA members. For now, click here for the RIAA Christmas Message.

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Stay tuned. Definitely more to come …..