Re: Catch 22? in http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19166867 en Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:19:49 EDT Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:19:49 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19204015 anon : You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves picking on "The Industry"! They say they lose $18B to piracy annually, and you people are all expressing doubt about the validity of that amount. They are obviously using the same calculator that the judge used who sentenced Jammie Thomas to a $220,000.00 fine for 24 songs! Now, that'll knock ya drawz off!

Ai Yai YAI! MAN! Talk about your creative accounting practices! Whatcha wanna bet they don't use that same calculator when they pay their grunt level employees their weekly wages or when they calculate royalties for the actual owners of those songs!

I would honestly like to know what the deal is with all of this...I expect that many of you know, though. I wonder about these things, among others:

I fully understand that the RIAA is supplying the legal and admin fees here, so I do realize that a significant part of any settlements or judgments should go to their coffers to cover that. However, 100% of their financing comes from the artists, anyway. The RIAA definitely performs a needed service to their membership, considering how hard it would be for any individual artist to quantify and collect his royalties. But, can an artist sue on his own? If so, must he "opt out" of being represented by the RIAA for damages due to copyright infringement? Basically, I am wondering what would happen here if, oh, say, maybe Celine Dion (for purposes of example) decided to sue end-user "pirates" on these same grounds. It's quite obviously not at all practical for her to sue all these John Does, and it would produce far more cost than dividend, far more legal bills than award checks, of that I feel sure. Now, if the US District Court Judge hearing the matter would allow unlimited consolidation of defendants in a suit, then that may be something for a plaintiff to work with in the way of (the "plaintiff" here could be the actual aggrieved artist or owner of the work, or the RIAA, I imagine). In other words, if the Courts would allow listing infinite defendants together, then the legal work would be GREATLY reduced. I would think that ISP records would be sufficient evidence to hold any defendant to the suit, at least for a while, and that would furnish the plaintiff both the carrot AND the stick ("Dear Mr. Doe, Attached please find a Petition for Damages with your name on it, as well as a settlement offer in that matter. Either pay us a couple grand now or hire counsel and we'll see you in court" kinda thing.)

A significantly higher percentage of defendants would surely settle, especially after word gets out as to the damages awarded in the Thomas, and maybe future, cases. Even more word would spread when a half dozen people on up from every county in the US were served. THAT'S what I would think they would be wanting to do, but there are evidently problems inherent in this, maybe like leaving themselves open to counter suits for mistakes made in accusing these defendants, and they want to lose neither money nor fear...the plaintiff being successfully counter-sued would REALLY nail them good!! Like I said, there are surely reasons that this isn't being done, least of all of which may not be the simple fact that the Court will not allow this type of "blanket" consolidation of cases. The facts are surely very similar, but I think that many DO and MAY have enough basic differences to preclude this sort of consolidation.

I think I answered my own question here, because if they are NOT doing this it's simply because there are inherent problems that could be exploited to turn this right back around on the plaintiff, and if this sorta thing took place, it would be all that several lawyers could do to very ROUGHLY gather up defendants!

I would like to know just how much the 24 artists will DIRECTLY receive from any award collected by the RIAA from this Jammie Thomas. I would also like to know what the RIAA takes in for "operating, admin, and other costs", an also where it all goes...how much do the bigwigs in the RIAA make? You can bet that high upper management is making an ungodly, indefensible sum of money...and that shows a little clearer just who it is that is REALLY profiteering from all the work of these artists!!

In summary, I would like to extend to the RIAA the center-most digit of both of my hands!!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19204015 Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:09:56 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19201529 tapeloop : And think of all the countless internet forum posters who would have nothing to talk about! The horror! :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19201529 Fri, 05 Oct 2007 11:51:15 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19172566 dvd536 :
said by rcdailey See Profile :

said by Joe12345678 See Profile :

the corn is going to fuel now days and not to $5 small popcorn
That's also a reason for the increased price of corn tortillas.
Everything directly or indirectly using corn is UP in price. corn is why that overpriced swill you get at starbucks went up a few pennies a few months ago(milk(cows are cornfed))
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You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much Bandwidth]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19172566 Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:18:28 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19169985 wispalord : I was wondering where Demionoid went!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19169985 Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:56:57 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19168252 redxii : They might call it "conspiracy to commit copyright infringement" if you just visit the website.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19168252 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:29:08 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19167212 Thaler :
said by jsouth See Profile :

So what? Just visiting a site is not illegal, unless it is a child porn site.
It just depends on how much of records the MPAA might get from their servers. If it's just IP addresses, then no biggy. However, if they're able to track down files accessed, IPs, etc. (ie. the full kabang), they'd know who downloaded what and when.

...course, having records indicating that you downloaded X bootleg files isn't 100% proof of anything - but seeing as how you'd be in a civil court, they just need to prove a case to 50%+ of the jury.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19167212 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:33:07 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19167062 firewire9999 : Hmmm maybe we should look at this a different way?

Will all the BullSh*t that MPAA is putting out. Is that not helping Global Warming with all the green house gases that get emitted from BullSh*t!!!!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19167062 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 14:56:21 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166867 jsouth : So what? Just visiting a site is not illegal, unless it is a child porn site.
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Bush bashing is old. How about more solutions instead?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166867 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 14:22:13 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166730 Transmaster : Yes and think of all of the cut-purses, pick-pockets, hookers,
muggers, and other miscreants of the evening that prey on movie goers what are they going to do.
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Eat a BLT for Iran]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166730 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:53:06 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166705 Thaler : The only problem is, if the lawsuit is indeed sucessful, the site may be required to hand over it's server logs as to who's visiting the place. Granted it's nothing super-specific, but I'd imagine they'd pick up folks' IP addresses.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166705 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:46:42 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166519 steve1515 : Don't forget hospitals, doctors and insurance companies that miss out when people don't catch a cold in a movie theatre. :D]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166519 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:04:40 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166417 rcdailey :
said by Joe12345678 See Profile :

the corn is going to fuel now days and not to $5 small popcorn
That's also a reason for the increased price of corn tortillas.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166417 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:43:43 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166341 Joe12345678 : the corn is going to fuel now days and not to $5 small popcorn]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166341 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:26:24 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166187 MrMoody : Don't forget the poor oil companies who lose out when you don't drive to the theater.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166187 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:49:21 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166102 DownTheShore : ...and chain restaurants located in or near movie theater parking lots! No people in the theater means less people in the restaurant means possible loss of the franchise!

;)
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Life is simply one damned thing after another.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166102 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:32:44 EDT Re: Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166084 snipper_cr : I too did not know about these sites...

And dont forget, pirating movies hurts farmers! PEople are less likely to buy popcorn.

Indeed, down here in middle Illinois the corn harvesting has been going on in ernest!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166084 Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:28:46 EDT Catch 22? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,19166066 nightdesigns : The MPAA releases a press release saying they're targeting websites. I wonder how many people will now check out these sites? I might.
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