Big Music vs Ordinary Folks
p2pnet.net News:- “I’ve never had a situation like this before, where there are powerful plaintiffs and powerful lawyers on one side and then a whole slew of ordinary folks on the other side,” said US district judge Nancy Gertner at a hearing in Boston.
Quoted in an Associated Press story here, she was presiding in a p2p file sharing case brought by Big Music’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) enforcement unit.
“Dozens of such lawsuits have been filed in her court,” said AP.
The labels routinely sue people for sharing music online and so far, almost 4,000 people have had ’see you in court’ notices.
However, not one case has ever been resolved because the plaintiffs, including senior citizens and children, can’t even begin to afford going up against the members of the Big Four record cartel with their bottomless pockets and heavyweight legal teams.
This allows Big Music to imply that they’ve ‘won’ the cases.
Where the entertainment industry is concerned, the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ doesn’t apply.
Moreover, the labels are at pains to paint these very ordinary people – moms-and-pops – with the same brush that they use on the organized criminals who counterfeit and duplicate software, music and movies, selling the results on blackmarkets around the world. But they’re mostly professional hoods – not ordinary families and their kids.
The entertainment industry also uses another ploy to accuse its customers of being crooks, and it goes like this: anyone who copies a CD, DVD or piece of software he or she legally owns is going to then sell it or post it on one or other of the p2p networks.
Bob Moore’s 321 Studios was marketing software that allowed users to break through Hollywood’s consumer control Copy Protection applications so they – the customers – could make back-ups of their discs.
The studios sued him out of existence and similarly, they’re trying to sue people into buying ‘product’.
August 21st, 2004 at 12:51 am
She should stick around. It happens all the time, like 4,000 times
August 21st, 2004 at 3:38 am
I’d still like to see one of the little folks challange this in court. hopefully one of the lawyers at EFF or some such orginazation will represent one of these ordinary folks as a test case to defeat it in court. otherwise the intimidation will keep working
August 21st, 2004 at 4:50 am
I don’t particularly like going to a site you reference re:a particular story and then finding that I have to supply personal info to read the story. Is that a normal way of doing things? (the associated press reference )
August 21st, 2004 at 9:14 am
It’s unfortunate that some web sites force you to ‘register’ to access content. That’s why a story was written here, so you dont have to go there yourself. If you must read the original, then you must register. You dont have to register to read here. You dont have to register to post either, Anonymous.
August 21st, 2004 at 2:19 pm
Bugmenot.com is back…
August 21st, 2004 at 5:58 pm
Sweet!
August 21st, 2004 at 7:11 pm
Think dinosaurs and tar pits.
August 21st, 2004 at 8:23 pm
Think Tyrannosaurus wrecks.
(Sorry – I couldn’t resist ; )
Cheers!
August 21st, 2004 at 8:30 pm
The sad reality is that the T-wrecks simile works only too well. Think “huge, slavering creature with a tiny brain that kills and devours everything that stands in its way.”
August 23rd, 2004 at 4:32 pm
Instead of everyone paying $4,000 to settle, they should send their $4K to one set of lawyers that are willing to win the case in court.
October 29th, 2004 at 5:23 pm
most of those big compagny with big tuff lawer are just mug disguise,, because if they were having just a second tough of wath their doing they would not have made cd going on market at all and the use of computer banish all together if it was possible for them to do so but then they would be not possible for them to make money out of people ou doesnt have too much money ,
that my opinion mug that wath they are they tried that with cassette and when tape 8 track were created just tink what they would do next create a new kind of cd not copyable that would used another kind of machine that people going to have to buy again but people like us need 1 stable media for year to come cd are the way to go ,its very rare that people copy a complette disk from internet the quality are not the same but to check what kind of music then buy a cd , i have like 300 original cd at home and 2 mp3 & most of my mp3 are recording of vinil that i had so wy in the hell they sue people for mp3 on internet just to try to make more money ,, end i bet that money dont go to signer at all
most of the signer sign their write to those big compagny and have maybe 50 cent a record for it will the compagny make a profit of 10$ out of it, i say they should do like create there own cd and sell them via internet & fuck the compagny record that way the music gonna be cheaper and the the write people gonna have the profit & that would be the signer