‘Sanction RIAA’ call
p2pnet.net News:- New York lawyer Ray Beckerman, who’s acting for several RIAA sue ‘em all victims, wants the Big Four Organanized Music cartel’s RIAA officially sanctioned for, “wilful failure to comply with a discovery order and for having given a misleading response to those discovery requests”.
Back in July, Beckerman said certain radio DJs had, “record company people who used to drop by with CDs would instead now tell them to get Kazaa, or gnutella or something, and download the song files that way”.
Kazaa, the p2p application owned by Australia’s Sharman Networks, facilitated file sharing, said RIAA owners Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, Sony BMG and EMI.
But that was in the days before Sharman had ’settled’ with the Big Four, in the process effectively joining the ranks of the entertainment cartels so it could peddle Kazaa, and associated technologies, to them, thus fulfilling an ambition it had long cherished.
Thus, mention of Kazaa in the context of it being used as a DJ promo delivery vehicle was News, but given Sharman’s cynical association with the same labels that were suing it, presumably, Kazaa can now be employed openly, and in many new creative ways, by the Big Four.
Mention of it as a delivery tool first came up in the case involving Marie Lindoor, represented by Beckerman.
Lindoor, a health aid, has never even turned a computer on, let alone used one to illicitly distribute, online, music files bearing Big Four copyrights.
But that’s what the Big Four’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) says she’s been doing and, “We have numerous affirmative defenses which would be supported by the fact that the RIAA has encouraged the very conduct it’s suing Marie Lindor for,” stated Beckerman in July.
But in UMG v Lindor, the RIAA, “has refused to testify on … its radio promotion employees’ use of peer to peer file sharing to send song files to radio stations, this despite the Magistrate Judge’s having ordered them to provide such testimony at a July 25, 2006, discovery conference,” he states, adding:
“The RIAA plaintiffs have taken the position that they only need to testify about whether the companies used p2p file sharing, arguing that the Magistrate limited Ms. Lindor’s interrogatories by removing the term ‘employees’.”
Now, “Record labels using Kazaa and other P2P networks in the course of their business?” – says Ars Technica. “That wouldn’t look good in a court, especially with the labels arguing that the mere use of a P2P network indicates guilt. Beckerman believes that ‘encouraging misconduct’ – using P2P networks to get songs out to radio stations – while simultaneously litigating against others doing the same thing undermines their legal arguments.
“In a statement, an RIAA spokesperson informed Ars that they have delivered a written statement to the defendant ’saying that our member companies do not use peer-to-peer to distribute to radio stations’.”
Also See:
download the song files – New RIAA promo tool: Kazaa, July 26, 2006
cynical association – Kazaa owner’s DRM plan, August 4, 2006
Ars Technica – Record labels evasive about in-house use of file sharing apps, September 11, 2006
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September 13th, 2006 at 7:22 am
Truth always seems stranger than fiction, but in this case what we are witnessing is a determined move to separate the propents of freedom of speech and the so called ” big wigs of media” who to date have collected countless millions of dollars from file sharing sites that are now shut down. No one can actually say what has been done with the money, but you can be sure the Artists have not benefitted from it. So back to square one. A better argument would have been the money being awarded to the copyright houses for proper distribution to the revelant Artists. Once again through shame and government we are forced to look at alternative forms of free speech without governmental interference (F.C.C.) or bumbling (R.I.A.A.). Underground radio has been around for decades and there are lessons to be learned from them. Seems like fiction might just become reality after all.