RIAA breaks ‘We won’t sue’ promise
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Did anyone really believe the RIAA was really going to stop suing people?
“The mass sue ‘em all campaign, run by Mitch and Cary and the other spinsters over at the RIAA, isn’t being halted because the executives who run the Big 4 have finally come to their senses, realising suing music lovers isn’t the best way to win customers and generate good will,”" said p2pnet recently.
“They don’t give a damn about that. They believe they’re big enough and powerful enough and well established enough to do whatever they want.”
With that in mind, on December 26, in a Massachusetts case, UMG Recordings v Briggs, “the RIAA served a summons and complaint on the defendant on December 26, 2008,” a mere eight days after announcing it was ending its sue ‘em all campaign, notes Ray Beckerman in Recording Industry vs The People.
And the UMG filing against a lady named Dianne Marshall Briggs looks like something lifted out of a police charge sheet.
Signed by one Daniel Dalton, it includes the details that she’s a, “white female approx. 30-35 years of age 5′5″-5′6″ in height weighing 120-140 lbs with black hair”.
It doesn’ t say what size shoes she wears, or how much she pays for eggs.
Do US summonses normally include these kinds of details?
But maybe it’ s justified this time because according to the criteria cited by the WSJ, Ms Briggs’ alleged infringement(s) against UMG Recordings, Lava Records, Arista Records, MG Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Atlantic Recording Corporation and Zomba Recordings must have been exceptionally grievous to have caught the RIAA’s attention.
However, judge Nancy Gertner is hearing the case and she has in the past, “shown marked impatience for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA ,” as p2pnet posted.
‘Innocuous and purely commercial matter’
Meanwhile, “the labels have achieved their primary goals of creating a climate of fear which, for people sucked in by their Goebbelogue, means buying their ‘product,’ and only their ‘product’ because it seems to be the only safe way to go without being sued,” said p2pnet, adding »»»
They’ve succeeded in turning an innocuous and purely commercial matter, copyright infringement, into an international crime, warranting the attention of governments and police forces around the world.
They’ve undermined the authority of universities across America, turning them into marketing and enforcement divisions, and staffs into music industry cops, paid for out of school fees and state and federal funds.
And now, having firmly established copyright infringement and file sharing as major crimes in the eyes of significant portions of the public at large and lamescream media, it’s time to create a frightening new spectre — ISPs as RIAA-controlled barracudas.
And while the pundits and media argue about whether this latest act of misdirection is for real (which if course it isn’t), Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG are consolidating, slowly and surreptitiously gaining control of how and by whom ‘product’ is distributed online as they strike deals with music ’services’ run by entities they’ve designated as safe and secure conduits between them and the music buying public.
Stay tuned.
p2pnet – P2P Minnows and RIAA Sharks, January 5, 2009
Recording Industry vs The People – RIAA serves summons and complaint on December 26th, 8 days after it said it wasn’t bringing any new lawsuits, January 9, 2009
Wall Street Journal – Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits, Dember 19, 2008
p2pnet – Will court ruling kill some RIAA school attacks?, November 24, 2008
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January 12th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
id use every public quoted source in court and shove it up there perverbial butt.
in other words like SCO whose own words in public ended up forcing it to bankruptcy…where you htink these idiots are heaidng the last attpemt of capitalism is lawsuits. IF they stopped suing that would mean they will survive.
January 12th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Well, since they started this campaign I haven’t broken my promise to never buy their product until they play fair.
At least some of us stand by their word.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Who ever thought they were done with sue’em all when they dropped MediaSentry and went window shopping for BayTSP? Why else would they want BayTSP?
Like the reader above me, I have not altered my boycott of the majors and to date have purchased no music from them. At least by not buying their product I can’t be sued for not using it. Unlike some that have purchased music from the majors only to find they are the target of a sue’em all.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Of course the Racketeering Industry Association of America would lie on its promise to stop it’s mass sue ‘em all campaign. They are heartless selfish fascists trying to turn America into a police state. What else did anyone expect.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
“Racketeering Industry Association of America”
Beautiful!
January 12th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Breaks WHAT promise ?
They never stopped suing to begin with.
It was only a promotional piece for the media to lap up.
There was never any intention of stopping. Just an attempt
to make people think they were stopping.
Ridiculous.
No wonder the printed medias are losing so many readers.
They can’t be trusted, and more people each day are discovering that.
January 13th, 2009 at 7:03 am
<Signed by one Daniel Dalton, it includes the details that she’s a, “white female approx. 30-35 years of age 5′5″-5′6″ in height weighing 120-140 lbs with black hair”.
It doesn’ t say what size shoes she wears, or how much she pays for eggs.
Do US summonses normally include these kinds of details?”>
I’m definetly not the right guy to answer that question competently [read: I can not charge you since i have no american law degree. It does not mean however that I might not know the right answer somehow] but it seems to me that what we have there is just the proof of service and the process servers put this info into them so to claim they have not given the papers to a black female, 24 inch high with a tail. Though it might be a fun view to see a process server after he had put such a description down on who he served the papers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rottweiler