Students sued by RIAA
p2pnet.net News:- The Big Four record cartel members already routinely use the mainstream media to spread their misinformation releases, and now, under Leave No Stone Unturned, they’ve hired Collegiate Presswire to help ram The Word down the throats of US schools and their pupils.
“On the student side, Collegiate Presswire has been written up several times in Trends, the newsletter of the Associated Collegiate Press,” boasts the service on its web site.
Neither the studios, the labels nor the media have ever been able to explain how 100, or even 1,000, downloaded compressed and lossy mp3s, or heavily pixelated, low-resolution movie file with half the frames missing, even comes close to representing a single lost sale.
Nor can they explain how the studios and labels can be reporting eye-popping revenues in one breath, and terrible financial troubles in the next.
Both the major movie studios record label cartel are trying to sue people, including students, into buying their product via their MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) faux police units.
Yesterday, the RIAA announced plans to sue another 761 p2p file sharers, and just before that, the MPAA said it’s going to do the same to people who’ve downloaded even a single file.
But not one of the now 6,952 ordinary people sued by cartel members EMI, Sony-BMG, Warner and UMG has ever appeared in court. But this doesn’t stop Big Music from using the ever-helpful mainstream media to suggest it’s successfuly sued thousands of people for “violating” (wonderfully emotive word) copyrights.
The RIAA’s Main Man is Cary Sherman, a lawyer who’s achieved considerable fame and fortune – literally, in both instances – as the cartel’s most quoted spinmeister, and who presents himself as a kind of Knight in Shining Armour, doing his utmost to protect students from harm.
The problem is, the harm – all of it – comes from the cartel which keeps him shiny.
The enforcement unit’s latest action, with Sherman well to the fore, targets students at the American University, Amherst College, Assumption College, Boston College, Boston University, Bridgewater State College, Emerson College, Iowa State University, James Madison University, Mount Holyoke College, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts, as the Collegiate Presswire points out.
And it’s interesting to quote Sherman in full, al la Collegiate Presswire, to wit:
“Cary Sherman, President, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), pointed to new partnerships between universities and legitimate music services as an example of the continuing positive developments that have resulted partly from the record industry’s legal strategy.
” ‘During the fall, we have seen a flurry of additional agreements between schools and legal online music providers,’ said Sherman. ‘That`s exciting news for the university, students, and all those involved in the creative chain of making and distributing music. The lawsuits are an essential educational tool. They remind music fans about the law and provide incentives to university administrators to offer legal alternatives.
” ‘College students are some of most avid music fans,” added Sherman. ‘The music habits and customs they develop now are likely to stay with them for life. It’s especially important for us to educate them about the law, the harm suffered by musicians, labels and retailers alike when music is stolen, and the great legal ways to enjoy music online’.”
Could anything be more blatant?
As a p2pnet Reader’s Write says, “These universities had better jump on the bandwagon and force students to pay up for RIAA-approved commercial download services.
“It might be ‘protection money’ well spent. Blackmail can be Hell.”
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See:-
RIAA-approved - University p2p ‘report’, p2pnet, August 25, 2004
