Nasty questions
p2p news / p2pnet: RIAA and MPAA mouthpersons turn up at conferences and public events all over the US as part of their carefully orchestrated, ongoing, multi-million-dollar disinformation campaigns.
The basic idea is: you’re all crooks and thieves while the cartels are honest but hard-done-by companies struggling to survive in a world of hurt.
And the RIAA and MPAA are merely the American manifestations of a huge list of ‘trade’ organizations passing wind around the world on behalf of their owners, the corporate entertainment and software outfits.
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has written a sample list of interesting questions you might want to ask the cartel reps and with a little judicious editing, they’ll serve equally well in Britain, say or France, or anywhere else. You can, of course, also add a few questions of your own.
Music
1.The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 music fans for file sharing, yet file sharing continues to rapidly increase both online and offline. When will you stop suing music fans?
2.The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing, who have on average paid a $3,750 settlement. That’s over $75,000,000. Has any money collected from your lawsuits gone to pay actual artists? Where’s all that money going?
3.The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing. Recently, an RIAA representative reportedly suggested that "students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford [P2P lawsuit] settlements." Do you stand by this advice? Is this really good advice for our children’s futures?
4.The RIAA said that it only went after individual file sharers because you couldn’t go after P2P system creators. After the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision, shouldn’t you stop going after music fans?
5.Major entertainment companies have repeatedly brought lawsuits to block new technologies, including the VCR, Digital Audio Tape recorders, the first MP3 player, the ReplayTV PVR, and now P2P software. Why is your industry so hostile to new technologies?
6.DRM has clearly failed to stop songs from getting on file sharing networks, but it does prevent me from moving lawfully purchased music onto my iPod and other portable devices. Unlike the major record labels, many popular indie labels offer mp3 downloads through sites like eMusic. Why won’t you let fans purchase mp3s as well?
7.The RIAA says that it doesn’t mind if I rip CDs to my personal computer and put them on my iPod. Do I need your permission to do this or can I legally do it even if you object?
8.Recording off the radio is clearly permitted by copyright law and something Americans have done for over 25 years, but the RIAA supports legislation restricting devices that record from digital radio. Why are you against TiVo for radio?
9.Sony BMG recently implemented a DRM technology that damaged users’ computers. But for independent researchers’ analyses, this serious flaw may have gone undiscovered. After this scandal, will record labels allow any computer scientist or security expert to examine these products and agree not to sue them under the DMCA?
Video
1.The major movie studios have been enjoying some of their most profitable years in history over the past five years. Can you cite to any specific studies that prove noncommercial file sharing among fans, as opposed to commercial DVD piracy, has hurt the studios’ bottom line in any significant way?
2.Is it legal for me to bypass CSS DVD encryption in order to skip the "unskippable" previews at the beginning of so many DVDs? Why should I have to be forced to watch these ads when I already bought the DVD?
3.Is it legal for me to skip the commercials when I play back time-shifted TV recordings on my TiVo or other PVR? How is this different than getting up and going to the bathroom?
4.Why are there region-code restrictions on DVDs? How does this prevent copyright infringement? Is it illegal for me to buy or and use a region-free DVD player, or to modify a DVD player to be region-free?
5.In several lawsuits, the MPAA has repeatedly said that it’s illegal to make a back-up of a DVD that I purchased. Why is this illegal?
6.Is it ever legal for me to use software like DVD Shrink or Handbrake to rip a digital copy of a DVD I own onto a video iPod or my laptop? What if I want clips to use for a class report? Or if a teacher wants to include a clip in a PowerPoint slide?
7.Is there anything illegal about copying TV shows I’ve recorded off the air onto my video iPod?
8.If the MPAA-backed "broadcast flag" bill passes, I won’t be able to move recorded TV content digitally to my current video iPod. Why should TV studios get to take away my ability to lawfully time- and space-shift?
9.Major entertainment companies have repeatedly brought lawsuits to block new technologies, including the VCR, Digital Audio Tape recorders, the first MP3 player, the ReplayTV PVR, and now P2P software. Why is your industry so hostile to new technologies?
10.Hollywood is pushing legislation to "plug the analog hole." These restrictions won’t keep copyrighted video off of file sharing networks, but they will would block me from excerpting a recorded TV show for a school report or using tools like the Slingbox to send recorded TV shows to myself over the Internet. Why are you trying to restrict these legitimate uses?
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July 12th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
“2.The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing, who have on average paid a $3,750 settlement. That’s over $75,000,000.”
Music publisher do this all the time. Why, a music publisher may sell their catalog of songs for millions of dollars without approval of the beneficial owners of rhe songs (the songwriters) and, for salt in the wound, not a cent is shared with the the songwriters.
And where is the songwrite’s associations or societies? They work for the publishers (some of which even have seats in the board of directors in the alleged songwriter societies).
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
July 13th, 2006 at 12:06 am
“Has any money collected from your lawsuits gone to pay actual artists?”
This raises a dilemma for artists.
If artists do not get a share of the money made by the record labels regardless of the method used by the label, then that is unfair to the artists that has an expectancy to profit from their record’s income.
But if artists get part of the money obtained through lawsuits to the artist fans, then the artiss is benefiting from the dirty business of someone suing their fans. Eventially this wull hurt the artists.
Artists should unite and demand that the money be returned to their fans and that the lawsuits end. Else the industry they depend on may go up in smoke.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
July 13th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
What is always said is that they are suing people for file sharing. That is not what they are doing. They are also suing people who shared nothing and taking there money which “is” a crime. Think about it. When they knowingly sue someone who shared nothing this means that the court documents are perjury, it is a false claim against someone, When the person pays for sharing nothing it actually becomes theft by contract.
They are making a high number of mistakes when they sue. They intend for those mistakes to pay like anyone else. Where they sue an innocent person it becomes a criminal offense.
I was sued by a satellite company and when they learned they had made a mistake they were quick to make a settlement under the threat of driving me broke through litigation costs. Settle for a confidently agreement or go broke? They committed crimes which were provable and the government refuses to enforce the crimes even when they know they targeted the wrong person. It is a crime to make up a story to the court about someone in an attempt to get the court to take there money. The person can do little against the high litigation cost but to give in to the illegal demands.
Where innocent people are targeted intentionally for profit and the justice system fails to protect, then there is little people can do but to remove the matter from the court system which assists in awarding money from innocent people.
Focus has to shift to their taking money from those where there was no evidence and mistakes were made. It is this segment which makes what they are doing illegal;.