RIAA rampage continues
p2pnet.net News:- Pay thousands of dollars for a lawyer to fight alleged file sharing charges? Or pay thousands of dollars to the multi-billion-dollar Big Four record labels to make them go away?
That`s the black-and-white choice facing a US father. But the 56-year-old self-employed engraver, who said he earned $13,410 from his business last year, can’t afford either option, says the Louiseville Courier-Journal.
Late last month, Michael Brown received notice that the recording industry was suing him in federal court for allegedly trading copyrighted music illegally on the Internet, says the story. Later, Brown’s 17-year-old daughter told him she`d been sharing music online.
And the same story has Iola Scruse, 65, accused of sharing 872 copyrighted files. But she said her grandchildren, 12, 14 and 16, were logging onto the p2p networks, not her.
They`re among the people being sued by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) which, far from being purely American, is owned by UMG (France), EMI (Britain), Sony BMG (Japan, Germany), the only US company being WMG (USA).
Their goal is to intimidate consumers around the world into buying music product, and to achieve this, they’re using the mainstream medai, many components of which they own and/or control, to paint themselves members of as an honest, but struggling, industry doing its best to survive against the wicked men, women and children who share music files with each online.
In England, 14-year-old Emily Price also downloaded songs from the Net without her mother, who`s 53, knowing. Mrs Price has now been ordered to pay the cartel £4,000 ($7,290) by July 1 or be jailed. And wielding the whip is another Big Four cartel-owned pseudo-police enforcement organization, the BPI (British Phonographic Industry).
“I don’t know where I’m going to get the money from, Mrs Price said.
Every one of Big Music`s US victims is caught between the same rock and the same hard place.
They`re all ordinary people with ordinary jobs and they all have very ordinary pay-packets. Not one victim has ever been able to mount a legal defense against RIAA claims before a judge and you can be sure Brown, Scruse and Price will join these ranks, ultimately being forced to accept Big Music’s `offer` to `settle`.
No one of them has ever been found guilty of anything, but this won`t stop the music industry from claiming it’s `successfully` prosecuted thousands of people for the terrible crime of sharing music with each other.
The recording industry says that peer-to-peer file-trading services have cost the recording industry more than 20 percent of its business over the past five years and that the lawsuits are necessary to help stamp out online music piracy, says the Courier-Journal.
The music label cartel has not, however, been able to demonstrate this in any meaningful way. Its figures are based on guess-work and supposition and it’s never been able to show that file sharing has caused the loss of even one sale.
In fact, According to an internal study done by one of the majors, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the drop in sales in America had nothing to do with internet piracy,” said The Economist.
And, “No-one knows how much weight to assign to each of the other explanations: rising physical CD piracy, shrinking retail space, competition from other media, and the quality of the music itself.”
Sharing isn`t theft, not by any wild stretch of imagination. And no money changes hands. But, “This behavior is stealing,” the Courier-Journal has RIAA spokeswoman Jenni Engebretsen claiming.
Since September 2003, the RIAA has filed 12,500 lawsuits nationwide against individual file sharers, says Engebretsen. Among eight cases already decided in Louisville, settlements with the recording industry have ranged from $2,750 to $6,800 and Default damages of $7,500 and $8,250 were awarded in two cases where defendants didn’t respond to the lawsuits.
Iola Scruse, the 65-year-old grandmother, says she’s legally blind and has been getting by on Social Security disability payments since 2003.
In the weeks before recording industry lawyers sued her, they called and asked her if she wanted to settle out of court for $4,000, the story says, adding:
“Before she received the official court papers, she said, she thought she was being scammed.”
Mrs Scruse, you are being scammed.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
Louiseville Courier-Journal – Music file-sharing suits stun Kentuckians, July 24, 2005
be jailed – Big Music: pay or go to jail!, p2pnet, June 20, 2005
`successfully` prosecuted – File sharing, p2p criminals, p2pnet, March 12, 2005
The Economist – Music’s brighter future, October 28, 2004
July 25th, 2005 at 12:05 am
good lord… for one, they can’t put you in jail for not paying them… All they can do is take you to court… second… how they FUCK can they sue a 65 yo blind woman!!!!!???? good god these guys aren’t human…
You hear me RIAA?… EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU ARE NOT HUMAN!!! Your just soulless shells that only care about making more money… you dont even care about people sharing files anymore, you just care about scamming/scaring people out of their money!
If someone reading this works for the RIAA, in anyway, and your not completely taken by their evilness… for god sakes QUIT THAT JOB!
I think somewhere in about 11k people have been scared out of their money by those assholes… and the numbers keep rising…
I can’t believe no one has stepped in yet, and just banned the RIAA from continueing their frivolous lawsuits…
Why isn’t something being done??? WHY? this is my question…. WHY HAS NO ONE CHALLENGED THEM…. or at least fought back!!!??
WHY CAN”T WE GET THE REAL INFORMATION TO THE MEDIA??? WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL BUYING CRAP FROM THESE INHUMAN ASSHOLES!??!
WHY IS ANY COURT HELPING THE RIAA!!?? If the real facts are out there… why does anyone still trust the RIAA??
And if the RIAA is bribing people… HOW COME NO ONE HAS COUGHT THEM YET??? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD… ITS MORE ILLEGAL TO BRIBE PEOPLE… THAN IT IS TO SHARE SONGS ONLINE!!!!
I know its hard to argue that filesharring isn’t bad… its damn hard, but we can’t give up!!!! This is a fight against over powerful copywrite laws… and Freedom!!
Filesharring HELPS the RIAA, whether they like it or not… Because (before all this legal crap) People would find songs, and find other stuff by the same artists… and when they liked what they found enough, they went out and bought the CDs! I always did this… so did most people I knew… but these days… Most of us dont wanna support them… LOL
The RIAA DESERVER to be squashed off the face of the planet! Its an evil organization that can’t be let continue!!
They steal from their customers, they steal from their artists!!!!! There are MUCH better equivalents out there!!!!
Another thing the RIAA has completely wrong… is that they think they can stop filesharring??!! XD WTF are they smoking… do they not understand how the internet works? As long as the internet is around, there will always be filesharring!!!! and it will only become more popular!!!
Its not a bad thing!!! its not bad at all!! its a great new cultural phonomina!!
Just like gay marriage and polygamy (which are only considered wrong by one group of people, and aren’t wrong in ANY other way, if it makes you happy do it XD), p2p will one day become an excepted activity! Just like acceptance of blacks was… we will look back on these days, and think how rediculious everyone was…
But for change to happen, the people involved need to STAND UP!! as long as there is a large amount of us, things must change!!
for the love of god… Almost EVERY young person in America File sharres!!! and even a lot of parents… Thats NOT a minority…XD Imagine what would happen if we all stopped supporting the RIAA and MPAA… Imagine what would happen if we all protests at the same time… or when to DC together!!!?? there are enough of us out there to make a change!!! get up off your arses… Something is WRONG, lets get up and FIX it!!!!!
July 25th, 2005 at 1:11 am
Situation 1… old woman gets sued by the RIAA for her granchild, that lived with her, due to dead parents… but the granchild also died recently… old woman is still sued… cause RIAA doens’t give a crap…
Situation 2… its been 3 month since a teenage girl was orphaned… and before that she shared a lot of files… RIAA sues her in her new familly, and ruens their lives for adopting a misfortuned girl…
I can go on with cases that are VERY likely to happen… because the RIAA hasn’t and wont stop this bullshit…
July 25th, 2005 at 2:01 am
Don’t download stuff. That’s the focus right now, so get it out of the picture.
Don’t buy CDs. Don’t buy tracks online. Buy used.
Write your local CD stores. Be polite. Tell them you refuse to buy anymore CDs until the RIAA’s policies change. Tell them you plan on buying used only, from a store whose main business is *not* selling new CDs.
The only way these people are going to hear you is with hard dollars.
July 25th, 2005 at 2:43 am
Why can’t the EFF or a coalition of like minded groups who have some legal resources get one of these cases into court and see what happens? If they could win a judgement that would be the end of this crap. Could someone answer me why this isn’t happenning?
July 25th, 2005 at 2:45 am
It is a wonder to me that they are still making money from fools out there. I quit buying a long time ago. The idea that there were no new artists and music I liked was one of the reasons, another was I just quit hearing of new stuff being played on the air. You really don’t find anything on commercial radio anymore, without that new exposure, I guess I lost the taste of what MIGHT have been of interest.
Well they say there is an a**hole born every minute. Apparently it is a job requirement for working for the likes of the RIAA. So be it, they can demand all they want to, what they can’t do is come pull it out of my wallet and make me spend it on some new purchase. I for one refuse to support people who think that financial terrorism against everyday people is ok. Their own business practices and greed got them here, I hope to see the day it also gets the music business as it is now configured dead. I mean, I would like to see the present systems barn door, locked, shuttered, and burned to the ground. Don’t believe that music will just stop being made because big money isn’t involved in it. People have been making music since the dawn of history, I think they can manage very well without the likes of the RIAA and the cartels. The cartels see the internet as a huge threat and they believe either total control over it or all is lost.
All is already lost, certainly with moral preachings from those who have no idea of what morality is. I don’t spend my money on that anymore, HOW ABOUT YOU???
July 25th, 2005 at 3:18 am
This is pissing the shit out of me. RIAA, MPAA, BPI, MPA, they’re all controlled by the SAME GROUP OF PEOPLE. It’s not too difficult to find out WHO these folks are. They can’t hide. The people must rise up, they will rise up to these unethical and illegal (price-fixing, racketeering, etc) practices.
Do your part. Kick their asses by spreading the work of what they’re doing.
If ANY, even a single friend has been scamed by the RIAA/MPAA, you, YOU SHOULD NOT, with a good conscience, support them EVER again.
If someone hurts my family or friends, it’s SHIT creek for them!
July 25th, 2005 at 4:39 am
I remember the day my son came home with a panflit about Filesharring and how it is supposedly so bad…XD
Actually I was quite pissed about it, and I’ve already sent several letters to my school, shamming them for cooperating with the RIAA…
The propaganda alone makes me puke… and their feeding it to our children…
I’ve downloaded a song or two, when I wanted to hear something, I’d only heard once or twice on a commercial… but now, I think I’m gonna use p2p to more often… just to smite them… (although I’m gonna see if I can find some supposedly legal music to download lol)
My son is only 7… yet their feeding this bullshit to him at that age… At least their not telling him stuff like gays are wrong… that would really piss me off…
But I’m mad enough about my kid being exposed to these lies… I actually showed him how to download a song! haha
If they ever come after me (doubt it cause I’ve only downloaded a few single mp3s, and my upload isn’t on all the time) I would definantly fight them! I’ve got good loyars in my familly, so I dont have to worry about high priced loyars! XD Just let them try me! Given a choice between paying them several thousand… and a legal fair fight in court, I’d easilly chose the court.
Its not hard to prove these lawsuits have no merit… And I of course dont download that much…
I wonder if I could download mass quantities of legal free music, by indeviduals, and see if I still get tagged as an illegal downloader?
July 25th, 2005 at 11:46 am
heya! do you still have the pamphlet? can you scan it and post a link to it? or – i think jon at p2pnet would probably host it for you if you send it to him. the cartels have been recruiting teachers and school districts and universities to do their immoral dirty work for them, and it’s great that you spoke out about it.
did you go to a PTA or school board meeting? perhaps those are good places to make some more noise. and your local newspaper as well.
July 25th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
I will laugh at these assholes when they sue some poor old slob and that slob spends the last few hundred of his dollars to buy an AK-47 and blow a bunch of these assholes away. I will smirk when they talk on TV about some crazy (as they will call him) going into a studio and blowing people away because “he refuse to accept the consequences of his behaviour.” Of course this slob will be labeled by the governments and their media cohorts as a “terrorist” or “Nutcase”. Mark my words, some day these **AA people will sue the wrong person.
Look at the C.A.F.T.A. the so called “free trade agreement” that the Bush regime is trying to get passed. Not only will this agreement destroy many American jobs and enslave foreign workers, it will also take away vitamines and herbal remedies from people. This is just one small example of the cartels bullying people all over the world. It may look hopeless, but people all over the world are getting fed up with corporate misconduct. Chinese farmers recently used force to shut down a pharmaceutical manufacturer because the factory polluted their irrigation canals and government officials were stealing land from these farmers so that it could be used by the drug company.
These multinational cartels are the same ones that are stirring up Islamic fundamentalists to go after the countries where they are based. I dislike the fact that most of the people hurt or killed in these types of attacks are innocent people who are just trying to make a living, but what choice do many of these people have? A chance to choose between the “least corrupt” official at the polls? A chance for a fair hearing in a courtroom (fat chance in that happening)? The judge or “jury” almost always rules in favor of the most powerful. Violence is the only representation most people in the world have. I hate to say it, but it is the truth.
I for one encourage people to not listen to the media cartel’s product. I encourage people to enjoy independent media. If people must use cartel produced crap, then they should download it rather than buy it, rent it, or go to the movies. Since this nonsense started, I have not been to the movies or bought a CD . I do admit that I rented a couple of movies, but I ripped these DVD’s and posted an ISO of them on the local FreeWan. I want to see these cartels utterly destroyed.
These cartels have done more to destroy American culture than most anything else. I am glad to see their sales decline (if in fact they are).
July 25th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
I haven’t bought a thing from the music store of movie stand. You are right in the fact that those that should kno better are supporting the **AA’s The Christian Coalition is the ultimate in hypocrisy (yes, I am a Bible believer). The Chrisitian Coalition is actually supporting the RIAA and MPAA against filesharers. Keep in mind that it is the MPAA and the RIAA that is spreading the filth that is destroying American culture. http://p2pnet.net/story/4053
If the Christian Coalition had an actual sense of decency or moral compass, they would grow a backbone and get behind the filesharers. If everyone shared instead of buying, this media cartel would go bankrupt, and quit producing much of the filth that is put in the minds of the people today.
July 25th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
I would like to say that i will not have any kids of mine going to the cartel controlled brainwashing centers. A public “school” is one of the worst places one can put an innocent young boy or girl. There are many here who would disagree, but it is very hard to impress your values onto a child when they are undermined everyday for eight hours by a professional teacher. Whenever a child tries to resist this type of brainwashing, he or she is sent to a professional humanist which is usually called a guidance counselor. Further instuction, parental “consultation,” and the likes are usually used to persuade the child to accept the party line.
Am I saying teachers and counselors are bad people? NO WAY, I’m not saying any such thing!!! Most of these people are themselves deceived into actually believing this cartel crap. The ones who are not are forced to teach this propaganda in order to keep their jobs. The wise teachers will in many cases try to insert a differing opinion or two into the propaganda that is being preached in the hopes that some kids will think for themselves.
The P.S.A. is rapidly becoming like the D.D.R. or even further in the past, Nazi Germany. It is coming to the day (and it has already happened many times) where kids will be expected to inform on their parents when they observe their parents doing something that is against the party line. Kids may not be able to read and write, but they can sure tell you, “Downloading Music is bad.” They can also tell you how to install a condom and that you cannot spank them or they will call abuse. Yep, public shcools are a bad idea given the direction the government is headed.
July 25th, 2005 at 5:51 pm
We’ve been home schooling our daughter, Emma, from the beginning as a form of Child Rights Protection.
And it works.
Educationally, she’s way ahead of where she’d be if she was in a classroom. But equally important, she’s acquiring the ability to see through corporate bullshit, a skill they don’t teach at school.
Cheers!
July 25th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
Oh, FFS! What next? RIAA sues everyone because not enough people are buying CDs, so everyone must be pirating? Evidence not required thanks to laws bought by big music and the senators they have paid for.
July 25th, 2005 at 10:55 pm
“Theyâre all ordinary people with ordinary jobs and they all have very ordinary pay-packets.”
This says a lot right there. I find it hard to believe that those with money and high influence haven’t been targeted. very interesting.
July 25th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
I couldn’t have said it better…….Stop buying the music
July 26th, 2005 at 12:40 am
Of course not – anyone with money to spare will fight it in court, and would pull apart both the proof of “piracy” and the massively inflated loss figures. Once that precident is set, all future cases for the RIAA are screwed. Heck, those that settled would probably get pulled into a class action suit from one or two people who want to backtrack and a have found a lawyer that want to get a slice of punitive damages from these big, rich companies.
July 26th, 2005 at 2:36 am
Why isn’t this “Campaign of Terror against Citizens of The West” being investigated and dealt with by the appropriate authorities?
Because the instigators of this campaign are carefully ensuring their bribes to those authorities are up to date?
What gives? I mean their mouthpieces have admitted that it’s a campaign of terror aimed at US and recently UK citizens! Why isn’t something being done?
July 26th, 2005 at 9:16 am
please show exactly where they admit that they are running a “campaign of terror”. please provide links with appropriate quotes.
thanks.
July 26th, 2005 at 10:57 am
So will I!
July 26th, 2005 at 11:01 am
Its only a matter of time before the RIAA(/or MPAA) screw up and sue someone with plenty of money to use tword fighting it.
And its only a matter of time before the RIAA will become no more… hehe, as long as people keep boycotting them…
Trust me, the world will be a MUCH better place without the RIAA!
July 26th, 2005 at 11:02 am
I dono why… but I’m gonna email the EFF and see what they think… lol
July 26th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
The thieves are complaining about getting ripped off….
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163537,00.html
July 26th, 2005 at 7:23 pm
If you have it handy, scan it, or get someone to scan it for you, email it to me [jon-at-p2pnet.net] and I’ll post it, no worries : )
And if you anyone else something similar, I’d love to see a copy and I’d also really like to know how, when and where it turned up.
Cheers!
July 27th, 2005 at 2:41 am
Well said. Public schools are horrible and they’re there solely to brainwash the children.
The federal government fears them, which is why they play out mock terror attacks with home schoolers being the “terrorists”. It’s sick and it too is brainwashing.
People need to wake up! Get your kids out of public school!
July 27th, 2005 at 6:28 am
Ok. Here you are.
http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/021704.asp
Quote from page – “That’s why we are sending a clear message that downloading or ’sharing’ music from a peer-to-peer network without authorization is illegal, it can have consequences and it undermines the creative future of music itself.”
There’s a lot more i could get from there, but just go to riaa.com and look at anything they’ve got written up. It’s all about “educating about consequences” “vigorously pursuing” etc etc etc. Ok the word terror isn’t used, but the intention is obvious.
From this website itself there’s this one.
http://p2pnet.net/story/4850
Quote from page – entire last paragraph. “Without the benefit of a script in hand, it seems that Cary Sherman let slip an important detail that his organization would normally rather not reveal: the RIAA’s mass-lawsuit campaign is largely an overblown intimidation tactic designed to scare p2p users with their press-grabbing announcements of huge numbers of lawsuits, but in reality, the majority of these lawsuits might likely never result in any kind of expensive payout.”
“designed to scare…” Well what else is a campaign designed to scare, than a campaign of terror? What’s the difference? Noone’s being blown up by suicide bombers? Yes but the end result is the same.
They want to frighten everyone into doing what they want.
In fact i pity anyone living in the US. Why? Because i’m sure a lot of other organisations and industries would be watching the RIAA/MPAA campaigns with interest. After all, if it works, they’ll start doing exactly the same kind of thing.
“We’ve obtained your credit card records and noticed that you’ve been shopping at our competitors, thus depriving us of income. We’re suing you for what we’ve estimated is the money you’ve cost us over the relevant time period. Or you could settle for only…”
Sound ridiculous and far fetched? The riaa and mpaa are industry lobby groups. They have no legal authority. They’re suing because in the US you can apparently sue anyone for doing or not doing anything you like. So a large chain store could easily threaten to sue you for shopping at their competitors for example.
July 27th, 2005 at 11:25 am
Lets’s see. RIIA has sued about 10,000 download kids and the related victims. At $5,000 a hit, that is $5million.
Radio PAYOLA costs RIAA a lot of money. Just in one State, New York, one RIAA member will have to pay $10 million. Calculate that for all RIAA memebers in all places where PAYOLA is paid and the amount would be staggering. I personally guess that radio PAYOLA costs for the music record industry are greater than billion dollars per year.
Then there are other types of PAYOLA. Political PAYOLA: With this money RIAA friendly politicians are financed. Legal PAYOLA: With this money, well connected (to judges) lawyers are fianced. These lawyers also sue the download kids and the related victims.
What is the point? RIAA needs all the money they can get for PAYOLA.
July 27th, 2005 at 10:26 pm
My major problem is everyone is calling filesharring illegal…
ITS NOT…
There are plenty of good things about it, and even if people use it to get stuff free, its not as bad as they say it is, and a lot of people still buy stuff in the end…
That being said… its still not illegal… there is no law… (let me refrase that)
There is no good law, that I will follow, against filesharring… cause I dont believe in laws made for big music or other big business!
July 14th, 2009 at 8:21 am
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