RIAA victimizes 925 people
p2pnet.net News:- The warped and vicious music industry marketing campaign to sue online music lovers into buying its grossly over-priced mp3s continues.
“With offerings from legitimate online services expanding and evolving every day, this is an incredibly exciting time for digital music,” said RIAA president Cary Sherman yesterday, in the same breath announcing his masters are suing another 725 innocent men, women and children for the sin of sharing music with each other online.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is owned by the EMI (Britain), UMG (France), Sony BMG (Japan, Germany) and Warner (US) record label cartel, and is being used to enforce their principal marketing message:
Buy our product. Or we’ll sue you.
We’re losing count, but we believe the number of Americans who’ve now received RIAA subpoenas is 9,843, although it may now have broken 10,000.
The Big Four are also attempting to have Canada’s copyright laws amended so they can sue Canadians in the same way. At the moment, music lovers north of the US border can download with impunity as long as the files are for personal use.
The labels are also waging a similar campaign in Europe where they recently proudly announced they’ve so far sued 963 people.
The “John Doe” suits filed yesterday were in California, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
On top of that, 200 people in California, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Texas, whose identities have been discovered by the RIAA, have been subpoenaed through their ISPs.
“The future looks bright, but its potential can only be achieved when legal services are given the chance to truly flourish on an even playing field where music fans understand right and wrong,” says Sherman.
“These lawsuits – coupled with ongoing education and aggressive licensing from the music companies – continue to be an important component of our overall effort to discourage illegal downloading and encourage music fans to turn to legal music sites.”
‘Ongoing education’ is the innovative.cartel marketing program under which it uses schools and school staff funded by tax-payers and parent fees to push product, under the guise of saving students from being sued by its RIAA and similar units in other countries.
However:
- File sharing isn’t a crime
- File sharers aren’t criminals
- File sharing hasn’t been shown to result in a single lost sale
- Not one of the almost 10,000 people being relentlessly victimized by the Big Music cartel has ever been convicted of anything
- File sharing is rapidly increasing, cartel claims to the contrary notwithstanding
Music fans can tell right from wrong. Unfortunately, the music industry can’t.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
sue Canadians – Frulla backs Big Music, p2pnet, April 5, 2005
marketing program – Big Music goes after Princeton, p2pnet, April 2, 2005
saving students – University p2p ‘report’, p2pnet, August 25, 2004
ever been convicted – File sharing, p2p criminals, March 12, 2005
April 30th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=767
A historical breakdown would be nice. has anyone been keeping tabs?
April 30th, 2005 at 8:36 pm
“The future looks bright, but its potential can only be achieved when legal services are given the chance to truly flourish on an even playing field where music fans understand right and wrong,” says Sherman.
The fans do know right from wrong. that’s why Sherman and his goons are in this mess. BTW I know most everyone has settled but there are many still unaccounted for. is any of these going to court and their lawyers are just keeping it mum for now?
Rick
May 1st, 2005 at 12:03 am
Jon, 925 people or 725 people?
<— Your Joss Stone hater
May 1st, 2005 at 12:04 am
Anonymous Coward! thanks!!! think i’ll register instead now
May 1st, 2005 at 5:13 am
It’s a shame that these folks are financially terrorised.
It is indeed my hope that they get their wish. That is that no one shares any of their music ever again. That no one hears it anymore. Mainly, that no one wants it anymore. In such a manner they will sue themselves into obscurity. With that obscurity will come the need to sell it off to someone else. Since the majors haven’t a clue that times have changed and their music is only worth that much to themselves it should be time for someone else to figure out that money can be made by cheaper sales, that the product doesn’t have to user unfriendly, and that customers have faces, needs, and wants.
This made problem they claim of everyone stealing their product is only in their minds. Problem is that they haven’t had the robust music sales ever since non-music oriented companies bought them out and turned it over to the accountants to run. With accountants it is never about quality or art, it is about cost. Had it been about costs when Dark Side Of The Moon was recorded, it would not have remained in the charts for 14 years running. That is part of the music industries woes today. If it don’t fit the computer model of what might be a hit it ain’t done. As a result, we have cookie cutter sounds and the customers are drifting away from it. It is more that the new artists have been cut to the bone, far less new releases are going out, and far less new music is heard from commercial stations. With that going on, it isn’t people stealing their stuff, it is the majors not able to figure out what the market is and addressing it. People are leaving commercial music in doves as it doesn’t do anything for them anymore. The result is that people aren’t spending money on overpriced 30 year old music anymore. It isn’t new and it isn’t worth the price.
May 1st, 2005 at 7:04 pm
725 unnamed + 200 named = 925
Cheers!
May 3rd, 2005 at 2:35 am
it’s a shame they were stupid enough to share in public on kazaa
they are only victims of their own stupidity–if you are lawsuit # 1, maybe you’re a victim–if you are #10,000, you know the risks involved
you’d have to live in a hole to not know about RIAA lawsuits, and very few holes are wired with electricity and internet