RIAA attacks Carnegie Mellon
p2p news / p2pnet:- Carnegie Mellon students are facing their second wave of Organized Music subpoenas this year.
Last April, up to 40 students were issued letters of intent to subpoena from the RIAA, says the Tartan Online. Although many people felt the letters were merely a warning, the RIAA has followed up on its subpoenas.
The seriously misnomered RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is in fact owned by Britain’s EMI Group, France’s Vivendi Universal, Sony BMG from Japan and Germany and Warner Music, supposedly American but which has a Canadian at its head.
A Carnegie Mellon student received a letter of intent to subpoena last spring and in August, received a second missive, this time requesting a settlement that could cost him thousands of dollars, says the story.
Demands for settlements are SOP for the members of the Big Four cartel. They know their victims can`t hope to take on the giant music industry.
New York`s Beldock Levine & Hoffman recently set up Recording Industry vs The People for RIAA victims and others interested in the labels’ sue ‘em all marketing campaign.
“In my entire copyright career, I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Ray Beckerman, one of the company lawyers who`s representing New York mother Patricia Santangelo, the first person to stand up to the multi-billion-dollar corporate music cartel.
They’re taking people, many of whom have no money, and extorting like $3,700, the National Law Journal has him saying.
And when they negotiate a settlement, they refuse to negotiate. They give you a number. It’s hard and fast-take it or leave it.”
The Tartan quotes the anonymous student as saying settlement, consists of paying $750 per violation. Settlement amounts are determined in proportion to how many songs a student is claimed to have been sharing. If the student doesn`t wish to settle, he can be sued for $750 for each song. Depending on the students` `brackets,` students can be sued for multiple thousands of dollars.
It adds, Computing Services has not yet figured out all of the students that will receive letters of intent to subpoena this fall. They have until next week to submit names to the RIAA.
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See:-
Tartan Online – RIAA returns to campus, October 10, 2005
Patricia Santangelo – The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club, September 17, 2005
National Law Journal – Music piracy defendants fighting back, October 10, 2005
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representative. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
October 11th, 2005 at 11:46 pm
Sadly this is getting so routine. Congress needs to wake up. during proibition so many ordinary individuals were breaking the law congress decided to repeal it realizing it was worthless to try and enforce an unfair and unpopular law.
But in all Fairness the brewery industry didn’t have multi billion dollar lobbiests lining the pockets of those fatcats in DC or we might still be under proibition.