P2p and concrete shoes
p2p news / p2pnet: A while back we featured an item from John Mitchell with the North Adams Transcript n North Adams, Massachusetts when he and lawyer Paul Rapp wrote a piece on file sharing.
We had an email from him this morning. This time, he wonders if we shouldn’t go back to trading cassettes ; ) >>>>>>
The RIAA enforcers
By John Mitchell – North Adams Transcript
In my high school and college days, I was an avid mix-tape enthusiast, as were others that I knew. I was fairly prolific in the activity, and I knew that the tapes I sent around were not only being passed onto others, but also copied. Sometimes whole tapes were copied, other times specific songs were placed onto other tapes. At no time did it ever occur to me that the Recording Industry Association of America might slap me with a lawsuit for these tapes, or that they might threaten the tape deck manufacturer whose name was on my stereo as creating a vehicle for piracy. If there’s two things I didn’t understand back then, it was girls and the self-serving corruption of the music industry.
I eventually grew up.
The popular face of music piracy circles around the MP3s and file-sharing networks, but the music industry hopes to be just as vigilant in other areas. Already, they have been stalking Apple Computers, complaining that the iTunes pricing isn’t high enough and whining that they deserve a chunk of the iPod’s profit, but now they are moving onto satellite radio. Specifically, they are after new portable players that allow users to save songs they hear broadcast. Poor music industry, it just doesn’t make enough money and hasn’t yet come to the point where it can look in the mirror and figure out why that is.
Perhaps it’s all payback for being big bullies, throwing their weight and lawyers around onto people who are in no position to fight. The industry says that the settlements over downloading prove that those settling are guilty, but lawyers and legal analysts counter that all it proves is that the industry’s threats behind the scenes scare the people they are targeting.
Case in point: Brittany Chan, 14-year-old downloader. A lawsuit against her mother was already dismissed, the court deciding that her mom, Cindy Chan, could not be held responsible for her daughter’s use of the computer. Following this move, music industry heavyweights Sony BMG, EMI, Warner, and Universal are petitioning the courts to appoint a new guardian for the girl so they can just sue Brittany directly.
Yes, you read that correctly — the music industry is trying to manipulate a young girl’s legal guardianship in order to bully her into court for downloading a whopping total of 829 music files onto her computer.
According to the judge in the case, "Chan opposed the motion and asserted that the plaintiffs used a ’shotgun’ approach to pursue this action, threatening to sue all of Chan’s children and engaging in abusive behavior to attempt to utilize the court as a collection agency."
Not merely content to step outside the boundaries of acceptable behavior once, music industry giants move along in their attempt to crucify some 14-year-old girl just to prove a point.
At least you can’t argue with the evidence, right?
Wired News reported that one woman in Oregon, a single mother who survives on Social Security, is being sued for $1 million in regard to 1,400 songs she allegedly shared. One problem is that she didn’t. Another is that lawyers are finding that the music industry is point-blank wrong in hundreds of cases, but these people are being forced to shell out thousands of dollars in settlements thanks to the nastiest sort of harassment. And still another is that they are taking these false victories as proof of the righteousness of their own mission.
Just to twist the knife, the industry has apparently employed collection agencies to masquerade as "settlement centers."
This is behavior more fitting of Mafia or the Spanish Inquisition. Amazingly, however, an entertainment industry that has found itself losing business has been allowed to twist the legal process and the truths of the market in order to extort money from innocent people and make examples of them for publicity purposes.
There are 14,000 people currently being sued — paltry when measured against the millions of downloaders worldwide, but the music industry apparently plans to nickel and dime consumers into submission. A good portion of those people are innocent and the RIAA has not checked its facts, but they will probably end up paying anyhow out of fear — and no one seems willing to do anything to stop this abuse.
And don’t think for a second that other big businesses won’t take the tactics being pioneered by the RIAA to coerce and victimize more consumers.
The lesson here? Maybe we should all go back to trading cassettes. It takes more time, certainly, but you’re less likely to wake up underwater with a pair of concrete shoes for having them in your house.
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See:-
file sharing – File sharing is NOT a crime !, August17, 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 representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. 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 21st, 2005 at 6:13 pm
quote:
One problem is that she didn’t.
This sueing business has gotten totally out of hand. Once you are flagged and on the list, it doesn’t matter how you got there. Doesn’t matter if the claims are false.
The settlement center is just like the media echoings in that it is misrepresentation of what it really is. The settlement center isn’t for determining if there is enough evidence to push for money. No their purpose is simple. Collect. They don’t care if you are guilty or not, only that you pay. If you are innocent, then your only hope is to spend big bucks to fight it in court. The settlement center’s sole purpose is to encourage you pay and discourage any other thought, like not being guilty and not owing diddly squat. In fact, by admission in the write up of the Chan case, even discussing the possibility of innocence and not owning is against their policies as it might encourage others to fight the cases and not pay.
Once on the list you have two choices; pay through the nose in extorsion fees or seek a not guilty plea in court with fees likely to exceed those of the settlement center. No where here is there any consideration for not owing because of not doing. No where here is there any consideration that the RIAA and crew may have gotten bad data through overworked and underpaid employees of the telecom industry. No where does there seem to be any check and balance on the system. Once accused you are guarrenteed you are going to spend money, either to make it go away and admit guilt (whether you are guilty or not) or to fight for your innocence.
Since a judge has already ruled that the accusation is enough to get you into court, you will either pay or go to court. The amazing thing here is that there is no requirement to prove the accusation and no penality for false accusation other than another long term court case to recover damages when falsely accused. Yeap, it all leans in favor of the corporation. No wonder they are so eager to sue. No penalties not to and the idea that legal threats and cheaper fees than court could lead them to buckets full of money from each and every scared consumer out there in the public areas.
Truely, corporations have all the benefits of a person without the benefit of a conscience.