Is RIAA using the mail for their acusations of infringement and lawsuit threats”? If the answer is yes, under the described scheme, if they cannot prove that the sued or intimidated party actually ifringed copyrights, and the mail was used, a federal crime (extortion) may have been comitted.

MR. MASCHIO:
I’ll give her my card, but our instructions are for these people to deal with the conference settlement center. They had discussions.
THE COURT: I’m sorry. Your instructions from me, the Judge –
MR. MASCHIO: Okay.
THE COURT: — are that, if she appears with a lawyer, her lawyer will deal with you.
MR. MASCHIO: Oh, absolutely, your Honor.
THE COURT: Otherwise, you take your action and you file it in front of an arbitrator.
MR. MASCHIO: No, all I was suggesting, your Honor, is that, if she doesn’t come with an attorney, that the more direct way of doing this — and this is just to facilitate things — is to deal directly with the conference center.
THE COURT: Not once you’ve filed an action in my court.
MR. MASCHIO: Okay.
THE COURT: You file an action in my court, your conference center is out of it. They have nothing to do with anything.
MR. MASCHIO: Okay. I’ll give her my card.
THE COURT: If you are here, you are here as an officer of the court. You’re taking up my time and cluttering up my calendar, so you will do it in the context of the Court. Maybe it will be with a magistrate judge, but you will be representing your client, not some conference center. And if your people want things to be done through the conference center, tell them not to bring lawsuits.

Someone stands up to them and all of a sudden it’s “Oh no, we’d like them to just cough up the money”.

Nice work from the judge!

but they’re not going to forget about the other pending lawsuits.

what might happen is that King George will have more legislation pushed through to help the cartels. he recently created the position of “coordinator for international intellectual property enforcement” (”Piracy Czar” Chris Israel) as part of the Dept. of Commerce, a cabinet-level position “which will focus entirely on coordinating and leveraging the resources within the federal government to protect U.S. intellectual property at home and abroad.”

what that means is more and more illegal search and seizures, blackmailing and using foreign and domestic police forces to arrest innocent people.

Among Israel’s duties will be coordinating work previously done by different federal agencies, such as the Justice Dept.’s IP crime section and the international focus of the National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination Council, which is part of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

and when Israel starts arresting people overseas, hopefully the “S” will hit the fan and people and courts and govts of the world will wake up to the terrorizing tactics of thge PSA. but not before King George enacts more ridiculous laws and the Governator becomes the next puppet head of state.

The reason you see, is that people were ‘understanding’ in the past. Sure, the music may suck, the movies may be lame, and the ‘originality’ totally missing — But, people said to themselves:

“Hey, it’s alright. It’s difficult to produce XXXX, and do XXXX with only limited XXXX.”

But, then people’s attitudes started to change. You see, people saw in the artists, musicians, performers something in them. People identified with other people working hard to make something worthwhile.

But, it is no longer the case. With all of these frivalous lawsuites, the PEOPLE have become the object of persecution. They, the people who supported the industry all these decades — who put up with crap because they understand it is not easy to make crap, these people are being attacked.

So it is only natural that they no longer make excuses for the RIAA / MPAA.

It is now: “If you are going to sue us at every turn of the corner — we’ll going to be EXPECTING you to produce QUALITY material.”

And this is something the RIAA / MPAA have ALWAYS been unable to do (bar a few good quality work)….

…. And this is what is scaring the RIAA / MPAA. They should have learned that it is a two-way street. Treat others how you yourself want to be treated…