10,037 people sued by RIAA
p2pnet.net News View:- TEN THOUSAND AND THIRTY SEVEN
That’s the exact number of people currently being persecuted in the US for sharing music with each other online.
On Friday the Recording Industry Association of America, as it calls itself, although only one of its four owners is American, announced it was suing another 725 unnamed and 200 named individuals for file sharing.
In our story we said, “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.”
We were wrong about the number and right to think it may have gone beyond 10,000.
“The total number of file sharers sued has now broken the five-digit barrier, coming in at 10,037 people sued by the RIAA since September 2003,” says RIAA Watch, going on:
“I just checked the Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics and found that this one wave of litigation represents 2.3% of all civil cased filed in federal court. (The average number of civil lawsuits filed per month for 2003 and 2004 was 21,363; in the 20 months since the RIAA began suing file sharers, the recording industry filed 502 lawsuits on average each month.)
“And given the news reports of $3,000 average settlements, this means the RIAA’s probably collected over $30 million from individual file sharers.”
That’s probably an under-estimate. But even if it is 30 million dollars, where has the money, virtually extorted from 10,037 innocent men, women and children gone?
Certainly not to the contracted artists and workers Big Music claims are being “devastated” by file sharing.
Online pirates, the RIAA calls the people whom, it states disingenuously, use the p2p networks and apps to steal music instead of buying it from offline retail outlets, or in mp3 format from online music ‘services’ backed and supplied by the major labels.
EMI (Britain), UMG ( France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and, Warner (US) comprise Big Music, the cartel which owns the RIAA and directly and through subsidiaries around the world, controls the commercial music industry.
It wants to be able to do the same online. But it’s being thwarted by former ‘consumers’ who are showing the commercial music-makers what they think of the ‘product’ by refusing to pay the extortionate dollar-a-download.
So the RIAA has been ordered to sue them into submission and in the process, the principle ‘Innocent until proved guilty’ goes out the window.
Not one of the 10,037 victims has been before a court and, therefore, not one of them has been found guilty of anything, let alone of file sharing, which isn’t an offence of any kind to begin with.
But this doesn’t stop the RIAA from issuing carefully worded, deliberately misleading press statements which imply it’s successfully sued thousands of people.
File sharing is here to stay. P2p is here to stay.
When will the entertainment industries finally stop suing their customers and use the savings to instead concentrate on the true criminals – the hard-core crooks who use the physical DVDs and CDs to make copies which are sold on the blackmarkets of the world?
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
broken 10,000 – RIAA victimizes 925 people, p2pnet, April 30, 2005
RIAA Watch – 725 more file sharers sued; 10,037 total (!), April 29, 2005
virtually extorted – File sharing, p2p criminals, March 12, 2005
hard-core crooks – MPAA, RIAA, NYPD ‘raid’, p2pnet. May 1, 2005
May 1st, 2005 at 7:56 pm
“10,037 innocent men, women and children gone? ”
Persecuted? Victims? Innocent? You people are just fooling yourselves. I engage in file-sharing and I am guilty as Hell. If the RIAA caught me, its my own damn fault. I am no victim, and who the hell knows, the RIAA probably has a right to nail my ass for stealing their shit.
May 1st, 2005 at 8:58 pm
Pretty factual above and is how I would feel if I downloaded music and got caught
May 1st, 2005 at 9:20 pm
the shills the shills are coming….his point flew right over your head, not one person has been found guilty as of yet….
May 1st, 2005 at 10:55 pm
Persecuted? Victims? Innocent? You people are just fooling yourselves. I engage in file-sharing and I am guilty as Hell. If the RIAA caught me, its my own damn fault. I am no victim, and who the hell knows, the RIAA probably has a right to nail my ass for stealing their shit.
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HELLO ANONYMOUS RIGHT-WING NUTCASE COWARD.
what are you going to do with your MPAA/RIAA commission paycheck? buy yourself a “get out of jail free” card?
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:09 am
Whats your fucking problem asshole? >:(
No one has been found guilty of filesharring, they’re just having their lifes ruined for sharring 1s and 0s…
The RIAA doesn’t have the right to sue people for as much money as they want… they certainly don’t have the right to sue 10,000 people for 1s and 0s! The reason they have is cause NO ONE has fought them in court over it!
The courts wouldn’t let them battle 10,000 cases in court… they’d be told to stop the flagrant lawsuits.
The 10,000 people arn’t guilty of anything, cause in a fair trial, the RIAA wouldn’t win. Its never been proven to be illegal, and it shouldn’t be!
The RIAA is making money off of these out of court settlements… a lot of money.
And they claim that they’re rappidly loosing money because of filesharrers without providing any accurate proof, because THEY AREN’T LOOSING MONEY! If anything, they are making more, cause of the lawsuits, and because when someone likes a file they share, they often buy it! I know I do!
Granted, some people share 500 files and they’re the ones being sued, but the RIAA would sue everyone if they had the power.
I only share 80 files, about half are music, and 90% of those are american, the rest are Japanese.
We share 1s and 0s and almost all of those files made up of 1s and 0s are MUCH more lower quality than you would find on a CD, most of them are only 100kbps or less! which is no where near CD quality!
We aren’t stealing anything from anyone, we aren’t profiting from it at all! So therefore we have done NOTHING wrong!
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:09 am
It seems odd, if you notice there is always missing the key word “alleged” whenever someone is charged with piracy, or more correctly infringement. As if the media in conjunction with the alphabet soup of organizations that are pushing it are trying to convict them prior to any trial or such. It would sound to me as if there may well be grounds to have such cases thrown out. There is no where in the world that has public media infulanced by the majors that are free of this.
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:19 am
“The 10,000 people arn’t guilty of anything, cause in a fair trial, the RIAA wouldn’t win. Its never been proven to be illegal, and it shouldn’t be!
The RIAA is making money off of these out of court settlements… a lot of money.”
Problem with that is, they’d never get a fair trial… The RIAA has almost infanite money. And armys of loyars…
Plus the RIAA is always bribing people to get their way! And they would offer a judge a huge, undeniable amount of money to win a case like that…
If fact, the RIAA could kill people and get away with it, if they wanted too… @_@
May 2nd, 2005 at 2:14 am
How is it really all that different than lending your CD’s to a friend, who then makes mixed tapes?
It’s NOT an identical copy, it’s NOT making anyone any $$$ and it’s NOT a lost sale and it’s NOT really a crime.
Infringement? Maybe. Probably in the US (not in all countries, like they’d have us think).
But for god sake, do you really think your guilty of 250,000$ worth of fines for sharing one exteremly crappy top 40, lossy compression mp3? Especially when it’s a band/artist you would NEVER buy anyway?
Face it: The internet is the new RADIO. They need to figure out a way to sell us a “all you can eat” download pie. Unless they do, they will continue to disenfranchise the very people that would purchase their ‘product’, instead of bringing them services that they desire.
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:10 am
Look, I am sympathetic to file sharing and think it should be legal. But let’s not fool ourselves. I am a law student who has studied copyright, and sharing copyrighted songs is illegal. I think it shouldn’t be, but it is.
The other point I have is that these are civil lawsuits, as opposed to criminal lawsuits. So nobody will be found “innocent” or “guilty.” The words to describe it are “liable” and “not liable” — only money is at sake, not a conviction of anything.
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:35 am
If these ppl are criminals, why aren’t they being reported to the police? I wouldn’t be suing someone who stole something from me.
At least not til after they were charged, tried, and convicted. Then i’d sue if i could, just to put the boot in.
May 2nd, 2005 at 4:33 am
Laws that shouldn’t be… shouldn’t be!!
If a law says something is wrong, when it isn’t, and was only made to benifit a company… it should and will be eventually removed.
May 2nd, 2005 at 2:39 pm
If you are in the USA, you are breaking the law. Sharing a file isn’t illegal, but distributing a copyrighted work is.
Period.
Doesn’t matter if you’re not making any money from it. Check copyright law. It’s pretty simple. P2P is the most visible way of distributing things at the moment, so it gets the most attention.
This message is not meant as an endorsement of the tacticts of the RIAA or MPAA because they suck things I can’t write about here. I wish I was not making as much money as these groups are not making right now.
May 2nd, 2005 at 2:43 pm
That’s because the RIAA isn’t trying to prove the person guilty. They are trying to recover damages from the individuals, similar to what you are entitled to do if say, your neighbor decides your car would be a good place to spraypaint the f-word.
May 2nd, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Copyright infringement is illegal, but “sharing” copyrighted material can be legal under various circumstance. The range of those circumstances is currently being tested in the courts, and may be for many years to come. Aren’t successful lawyers supposed to be picky about details?
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:00 pm
The years roll by and the list of people sued grows. The RIAA tells us about lots of people settling for a few $ thousand each. What about the people who decided to fight? Why don’t we ever hear anything further about them? Are their cases still waiting for a court date? Did the RIAA back off? Was there a settlement with a gag order?
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:16 pm
Why don’t we ever hear anything further about them? Are their cases still waiting for a court date?
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you might be new to p2pnet, so i’ll be gentle with you.
i’ve written several recent articles and interviews about/with bds-palace and dvdr-core.
they’ve been picked up by other p2p/tech news sites, as well as postined to at least 20 other message boards each.
search here for bds-palace, dvdr-core, alexander hanff, kevin reid.
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:03 pm
Regardless if it is illegal, it shouldn’t be!!
Copywrite laws where not made for this reason. For the same reason that copywrite laws were NOT made to allow someone to copywrite a saying or phrase.
A copywrite law that says I can’t copy something and give it to my friends for free is bogus! The copywrite laws SHOULD protect its holders from more dangerous infringements! like those actual pirates out there that resell what they copy…
The 10,000+ people that are being sued… is just rediculious… this is the abomination that happens when the stupid US government makes mistakes in their laws.
These poor famillies have been destroyed! Completely destroyed… all in the name of the RIAA. Thats not even a fair punishment, if filesharring was(not saying it is) an imoral act! I’d rather spend a year in Jail than have my life ruined for downloading and sharring 1s and 0s.
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:19 pm
… search for RIAA + file sharing + Cary Sherman + Mitch Bainwol + p2p and so on, in general
Cheers!
May 2nd, 2005 at 11:28 pm
I think the RIAA is right to protect artists property, even though these suits will make half of the U.S. population not buy music for a long time, leading to more artists in poverty. A $3,000 settlement is a little draconian for a college student with no job or single working families, though unless the person actually distributed songs. It is not clear whether they are suing downloaders now or just uploaders, the media constantly make errors on these terms.
I don’t feel bad for the $10 million artist losing $1 million him/herself due to illegal downloading, but there are a number of people supporting these acts that aren’t very well paid and don’t deserve to be stolen from. So, people are stealing from the small fish too, and it hurts them more.
I think the recording labels (if they want my business, anyway) should have some kind of secure website or kiosks in stores where music fans can listen to only once (but not download) ANY track in the labels’ catalogs before buying, without any monthly subscription like napster. It is not fair to charge $17.99 for a CD or $1 for a track I don’t get to fully review before I buy it, and only a few places or websites offer previews for only the most popular CDs and tracks. Otherwise, what point is there for a small artist to work for a label, other than the marketing efforts they provide, which aren’t effective to me? He/She could probably do better selling CDs at their own show.
May 2nd, 2005 at 11:54 pm
I think there is only one person who reportedly did not settle with RIAA and is taking it to trial. I’ll just be praying for them to win, if indeed they didn’t do what is claimed. Otherwise, I’ll feel really sorry for this person, who will probably have to declare bankruptcy. Oh, wait a minute. Republicans are trying to make it more difficult to do this, so this person might have to leave the U.S.
May 3rd, 2005 at 12:00 am
Problem is, the RIAA isn’t protecting the artists property. They are protecting their own property. The artist, the market, and the customer are all shortchanged when dealing with major music. The “it’s about the artist” is just as much a smokescreen as it’s about the support people. How many of those support people you reckon are getting paid for purchases of on-line music? The cd makers? Prehaps the guy that drives the truck that delivers the music to the store? No? How about mom and pop record store? lols. Guess what? All of those folks were elimanated with the digital sales. Lets get straight just WHO is putting folks out of a job first…
As far as artists making more money by selling their own cds, they can. If they have a contract with the majors, to sell those cds they have to buy the permission to do so from the majors. Do check sometime. There is a charge for each and every cd that is a major music offering if the artists is selling their own work because of their contract with the majors. Indies face no such penalties for producing and selling their own works.
May 3rd, 2005 at 12:28 am
bds-palace and dvdr-core are the only ones i know that aren’t settling and will take it to court.
the aren’t in the US, they’re in the UK and are UK citizens. the MPAA has no jurisdiction over them.
**we won’t mention the LokiTorrent sellout scam-artist thief Edward Webber here. http://www.2mediarelations.com/px/loki/
May 3rd, 2005 at 12:35 am
“It is not clear whether they are suing downloaders now or just uploaders, the media constantly make errors on these terms.”
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the mainstream media only reports what they’re told to report – and how to report it. they don’t care what they read off teleprompters as long as their AOL Time Warner Murdoch paycheck clears the bank.
it was made clear some time ago – and recently repeated in a report i can’t now exactly remember where. a lead RIAA rep or some lawyer or someone said they are presently only going after uploaders, not downloaders. and they’re focusing on people who upload/share thousands of files at a time.
also they are suing BT tracker owners, and websites which have quicklinks.
if someone knows who said that and where it was reported – maybe jon knows – please post it here?
May 3rd, 2005 at 12:54 am
Linkin Park, a Big Band signed up under WMG, one of the Big Four labels that owns the RIAA, isn’t too impressed.
http://p2pnet.net/story/4713
Cheers!
May 3rd, 2005 at 5:10 pm
Actually there was one woman in New York who counter sued using the USA’s mafia laws, don’t know what became of that case though.
May 6th, 2005 at 4:04 pm
About a year back, this P2P forum sent out my link to the web page of the California District Attorneys Association.
A sub page on their site gave news of their annual convention, and it was clear they were getting paid off by the RIAA to go after file sharers.
I pointed out this might mean all DAs whose offices were given money, and all DAs who were given money individually, (door prizes given away at the convention, but very nice door prizes) could have a conflict of interest in prosecuting any file sharers, and defense attornies should contact me for more information.
I have never heard from anyone about it. I guess the trade groups, MPAA and RIAA, have decided to go after people on their own, rather than get the prosecutors to do it. I hope I helped that effort out some.
I just posted this to remind anyone who is being criminally prosecuted in California to bring this up.
And a little word about cirminal defense lawyers, in case you have one and this suggestion is rejected.
I am not a lawyer, so I can not tell you the best defense, but I can say, your own lawyer, who might fight very hard to get a psycopathic child rapist/murdered a not guilty verdict, may not be willing, because of courthouse politics, to bring up the fact the DA may have a conflict of interest in a case. Your own lawyer may be wa former DA, and not want to directly challenge his former colleagues, or, failing that, he may just not want to be “black-balled”, and have the DA office refuse to deal with him in the future.
In theory, we have an adversary system, where your lawyer is your champion, and does everything he can to protect you, but the fact is, your lawyer, especially if he practices in only one county, say LA, where the RIAA was really spreading some cash, (mostly for toys the DA wanted but did not have budget for) your lawyer needs to be able to deal with those same people long after you are no longer his client.
If the DA says, “no more plea bargains for any clients of that lawyer who said I had a conflict of interest” then your laywer is finished in the criminal defense field.
Sorry to be so long winded. Anyone being prosecuted, please contact me.
May 6th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
I forgot my email address. By the way, I am glad this forum is running, but I think labeling everyone not signing in, “Anonymous Coward” is too extreme. Sometimes maybe they are too cowardly, but often, the anonymity is a great tool, and is used effectively by very well meaning and brave people, who just recognize good strategy.
My email addess: boatbrain@aol.com
My NAME is STEVE WHITE, I sent the link about RIAA and the prosecutors because the former President of the prosecutor’s lobby did some wrongs to me, and I wanted revenge. Never cared about music downloads, though I do think the industry is run by excessively powerful cartels, and the resistance to that is good.
I like psychedelic music. I was going to buy a CD of some old stuff, but it was expensive, though the artist is dead almost 35 years. Crazy laws, not to protect the artist, but the corporations which have control of everything. Great with me if you folks can knock them down a bit.
May 14th, 2005 at 3:03 pm
OK folks
Please correct me if I am wrong but lets start with why we download music. IMHO CDs are grossly overpriced, the money that we have to pay for them goes mainly to middle men that are not working for the interests of recording artists or music fans. If we buy a pre made CD then we are paying for it’s physical media, It’s production at a factory, the transport and distribution and then the shop that retails it. If we download the music instead then we do not use this supply chain. I download music for free. I would rather pay for it in truth, but I will not pay a download fee that amounts to the same or more as buying the CD because I have used my internet connection, my hard drive, my CD if I choose to burn a backup, my paper and ink if I choose to print attached artwork etc. What percentage of the cost of a CD goes to the recording artist? Please inform me someone! I don’t know what it is but I do know it is very little. We use a supply chain that could (should) be recoding artist-recording studio-server. After that all the costs are the users to meet. What is the value per track (per track is silly, tracks can be from seconds to an hour in length!) if we pay for what we have actually used? (this could be established).
I’m writing from the UK, I’m not familiar with this organisation the RIAA, but I understand that they are some Dinosaur organisation, that we probably support by buying CDs anyway , who are out to whack the little copy write violator while ignoring (often due to vested interests no doubt) the huge breach right under their noses. They are also the property of the guys that will loose out when the business of music distribution becomes electronic rather than physical because they will have nothing to do. except become server companies in this respect.
The woman in New York who did this has just the right idea
“Actually there was one woman in New York who counter sued using the USA’s mafia laws, don’t know what became of that case though.”
I would like to know how she got on.
The way to beat these guys into the future is to follow her example! Don’t settle out of court, if you do demand receipts from your favourite artists!
Fight these people in every way possible, even if you don’t win you will get positive publicity. Make sure that it costs them far more to do you than they will ever get out of it.
How about a voluntary system to pay the true royalty directly to the artist with an explanation of why they are sent the money and a petition to make their material available legally at the right price, heck! we could give them 10% more than they get at the moment… or how about 20% more for the underpaid, struggling artist.
In the end you can’t hold back history, and the trouble makers here are historic already, they don’t like it, they have a lot of weight to throw about and they think that intimidation will win the day for them. Prove them wrong. Some direct dialog with artists would be interesting.
What do you think?