RIAA spends $16,000,000 to recover $391,000
p2pnet view P2P | RIAA:- In a rare outburst of subjectivity, I commenced my blog post ‘Ha ha ha ha ha’ when reporting that, based upon the RIAA’s disclosure form for 2008, it had paid its lawyers more than $16,000,000 to recover $391,000.
If they were doing it to ’send a message’, the messages have been received loud and clear >>>
- The big 4 record labels are managed by idiots
- The RIAA’s law firms have as much compassion for their client as they do for the lawsuit victims
- Suing endusers, or alleged endusers, is a losing game.
I don’t know why p2pnet.net begrudges the RIAA’s boss his big compensation; he did a good job —- for the lawyers.
Ray Beckerman – Recording Industry vs The People
[NOTE: Ray's post is based on the second of two IRS filings. Click here for the first - Jon]
… and identi.ca
July, 2010
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July 13th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
That’s a good laugh. Great ROI!
July 13th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
fucking hysterical!
July 13th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
I guess this just proves that crime (or organized crime, in this case) doesn’t pay. And when it does pay, it pays very little. LOL
July 13th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Well in 2007 they lost around 24,000,000 dollars and in 2008 they lost around 16,000,000 dollars, so it didn’t pay at all.
July 13th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
‘impressive, most impressive’
-in my best Darth Vader voice
July 13th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Ha! Not only do they waste tens of millions of dollars on legal fees which have no concrete evidence to support their ridiculous accusations, but that doesn’t even come close to the amount of sales they’ve lost from vilifying their own customers.
July 13th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
I’m pretty sure it cost ‘em more than that.. this was only their legal fees!
July 13th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
With the boycott of corporate “product,” just let the RIAA continue to shoot themselves in the crotch with those continuing expense. They’ll eventually bleed to death.
July 13th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
I’ve got a great idea:
Does anybody know how to set up some kind of foundation, so that p2p advocates/copyright-reformers/abolitionists/anybody who just fucking hates the multinational corporate media oligarchy, could simply *BUY* the fetid, collapsing behemoths, before those running them do any more damage?
Best part of this, would be that the NEW OWNERS can then simply rectify a significant amount of the damage caused by these scumbags over the past several decades, by ceding every shred of corporate “product” controlled by these people, Into the public domain (where it should have gone, a long time ago?)
I mean, think about it — they’re supposedly so “threatened” by (so-called) “online piracy”, and the vanishingly-few “wins” keep getting whittled down to mere fractions of the original award. Meanwhile, no matter *what* they try to do, p2p and other forms of “infringement” are rampant, have been rampant for a decade or more, and are only increasing.
So, how about it? Does anybody actually know how much it would cost to buy these assholes out? If they really *are* just in this for the “bottom line”, then selling these unprofitable, collapsing dinosaur corporations would not only make better economic sense than any of their other “solutions”, but would also be beneficial to global culture itself, in that the new owners could ensure a VAST, long-overdue increase in works entering the Public Domain.
Just a thought — I’m actually serious about this, because it’s an approach that hasn’t really been mentioned. True, the vermin don’t deserve to “own” the stuff they’re monopolizing, and it *would* have entered the Public Domain on schedule years ago — well, most of it — barring the actions of lobbyists, but you get the idea.
Just a thought, like I said.
July 13th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
So, in a way, ‘Piracy’ IS costing them millions, just not the way they want everyone to think it is.
Just imagine if all of those lawyerly expenses managed to make it to actual artists instead.
Wouldn’t that be weird.
July 14th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
All of which means that the lawsuit business is, generally, only good for lawyers.
Sure, once in a while some lawyer clients get a big bang windfall from a lawsuit but that is very infrequent and then tangled laws, faulty judgment, judge bias or lawyer or judge corruption is involved.
And the criminal legal business is worse: light sentences for the wealthy and heavy sentences for the poor and again, the only winners are lawyer all of which end up being rich.
Its time to develop a new an non money based model for dispensing justice.
July 14th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
And how much they lost in sale because of the boycott still expanding right now?
July 14th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Do you know how much Cancer Research we can do with 16,000,000?
July 14th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
“Does anybody know how to set up some kind of foundation, so that p2p advocates/copyright-reformers/abolitionists/anybody who just fucking hates the multinational corporate media oligarchy, could simply *BUY* the fetid, collapsing behemoths, before those running them do any more damage?”
And feed the parasites?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
July 14th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
What’ s amaze me is that million of people are now paying $5 for VPN service instead of spending this money on the entertainment parasites!
They are clearly determined not to pay this nefarious industry!
Sorry RIAA/MPAA! you are fucked!
July 16th, 2010 at 3:13 am
@RW:
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”
Actually, no. Several reasons for this:
Until (and unless) some kind of meaningful copyright reform/abolition reins monopolists (”Rights-holders”) in, they’re going to keep trying to do stupid and evil bullshit like they’ve been doing for years. So let’s assume the multinational corporate megaliths backing the RIAA (and BREIN, and IFPI, and such) *DO* collapse, from their own ineptitude.
Exactly what stops some other wannabe-monopolist outfit from “buying” the monopolies, and continuing the attacks, hmm?
Nothing, that’s what.
Assuming the (current) thugs behind the RIAA do, in fact, destroy their own corporations via quixotic lawsuits and bad publicity, they’ll most likely just do what monopolists *ALWAYS* do in cases like that, and sell the “rights” to somebody else.
That’s how Michael Jackson got to “own” the Beatles catalog.
And, that’s why I posed the idea:
2. At least, if people with better motives “buy” the MAFIAA out, they can then effectively hamstring (most) future attempts to re-monopolize the stuff, by promptly — and explicitly — ceding it to the Public Domain.
No more (fruitless) bullshit against “piracy”.
I’m not advocating “feeding the parasites”, because regrettably, even if they *DO* collapse, it’s exceedingly likely that *somebody else* will “feed” them, walk away with the ill-gotten monopoly privileges, and continue the harassment.
Keep in mind that this was *JUST AN IDEA*. Given the fact that the U.S. Supreme court has explicitly okayed the Re-monopolization of stuff that *already* entered the Public Domain, it probably wouldn’t even work, since wannabe-monopolists could probably have the “law” twisted in such a way as to get the stuff re-monopolized.
But I *love* how the first reaction is to accuse me of wanting to “feed the parasites”.
As I said, just an idea that *might* accomplish a few things:
It would get a lot of stuff out of copyright, and into the PD (where it should have been already)
It would prevent the multinational corporate behemoths (or any subsequent “rights”-holders) from doing further damage)
And *MOST* importantly, it would be a more efficient use for all the money currently being used *FAR LESS EFFICIENTLY* in fighting lawsuits, etc.