Fighting the RIAA

If I walk into Wal-Mart and put a CD into my coat pocket *and walk out isn't this theft? Same as above but no one *would think of suing Walmart for being prosecuted for *shop-lifting would they?

No it's not the same! What would be the same is walking into Walmart and taking a picture of a Poster and then going home and making a copy of that Poster. Walmart looses no inventory or ability to sell that item. All they loose is an imaginary sale of that item and have an excuse to post an imaginary loss. The walking into a store and taking something analogy is completely different than copying and reproducing it. One theft is absolute while the other is speculative. One theft you can link to real cost in damages, while the other you can only speculate if there were any damages. How do you prove anyone, other than the RIAA, ever even downloaded anything from this mothers computer? There's a big difference in the two scenarios.

Call it anything you want. You are using something you haven't paid for. That makes you a thief and calling it infringement doesn't change that.

If I ever end up on a jury of RIAA vs. someone case, RIAA will NEVER sway me their way no matter what evidence they show, how much of it they have or how credible it is.

Remember, these are *civil suits* not criminal suits, therefore this isn't a case of "guilty" or "innocent" and it's not a case of paying "fines". It's a case of "liquidated damages" ... i.e. what has it cost the RIAA because a song was downloaded instead of purchased, plus reasonable costs to identify and recover. "Punitive damages" should have no place in a civil case. Punishment belongs in criminal cases.

Just because someone took a song without paying for it, you let the police and prosecutors decide whether to bring punitive justice to bear. As the organisation who lost the revenue of a song, they should only be entitled to the cost of the song and the cost it took to demonstrate it was acquired without payment.

If you tried to take your neighbour to court for stealing a $5 flower out of your flower bed, you'd be laughed out of court for wasting their time.

Face it, she is guilty. And blaming her kids for the stealing doesn't get her off the hook. Claiming ignorance has never been a good defense in court. Her case is a bad one to prove that the RIAA is targeting innocent people. I am sure the RIAA is truly targeting people who never did any downloading and they went after them based on bad methods of collecting evidence. It is they who should be fighting and winning this in court.

Typical Taylor Troll lies...

Never has anything useful to add to the discussion.

Move along now, nothing to see here.

No, we don't. They do in Canada though.

But to the law copyright infringement is worse then stealing. The penalty for being caught stealing a CD is much lower then the penalty for copyright infringement.

"You are using something you haven't paid for. That makes you a thief and calling it infringement doesn't change that."

That's a terrible definition of stealing.
I listen to the radio all the time. I must be stealing.
I watch over-the-air TV. I must be stealing.

You breathe. Stop that. Thief.

Maybe she will get lucky and her jury will be lots of younger people who download music too.

The law is inherently flawed in many ways. Each person interprets the law differently.

In those cases are you paying for the content by also watching and/or listening to commercials.

I'm with you on this one. My family went through something similar with DirecTV. Just hope that you aren't mistakenly added to the list the RIAA keeps.

You can't win this battle and if you have anything at all to lose, you can't afford to risk it. It's mighty brave of the high school or college student to rant about what they would do if faced with such charges, but those with a family and a house would stand to lose everything they own in a court battle that would likely last a decade.

What the RIAA will do is send a 50-page legal document that only a team of lawyers can interpret. Once that is perused and complied to, the RIAA will then send a 100-page document with more legal gobbledygook. This paperwork can tie up an entire medium-sized law firm. No lawyer is going to dedicate his time and resources to such a challenge without proper compensation, usually in the form of money.

The only reasonable course of action to take is to settle. Most lawyers simply can't afford to fight such a huge corporation with deep pockets and an abundant amount of legal resources. The best thing any lawyer can do for most people is to try and work out the best possible settlement for the least amount of money.

It's frustrating and wrong, but it's the reality of things for the moment.

Please change your avatar. I really don't want people who think it is OK to steal (yes it's stealing) representing themselves as asscoiated with the Air Force. They are depriving someone of personal property. Money is personal property and when you steal instead of buying the product you are taking away money from that artist.

I'm afraid we do pay a tribute to the RIAA for that stuff. It is called the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. It was an amendment to the Copyright act of 1976 here is the link for it if you don't believe me.

»Re: Legal alternatives could be virtually free...

But you have to prove she is the one trading the files. They came after her, probebly because she is the adult in the house.

"Face it, she is guilty."

Of what?
Downloading a song? Do you know she did herself, or did her underage kids?
There's different penalties for shoplifting for adults and kids, but not for copyright infringement?

If she did download any, how many? What kind?
One or thousands? Was it a popular song everyone hears on the radio constantly or one that no one sells anymore?
There's a difference between stealing a tangible priceless work of art and eating a grape in the grocery store without paying for it.

Yet when it comes to the life-and-death crime of copyright infringement, it's black and white to you. $7,500? For something people used to tape off the radio and copy off vinyl all the time without repercussion?
Do you think that's fair for them to bully people into paying for this? For a crime that there's not even any proof as to who did it, if anyone in that household even did?

It's not going to change until people stand up to them and take them into court.

Ok retired Gov't Official how many times have you used a copying machine to duplicate copyrighted material, please don't say you haven't, we have all done this. If everyone where jailed for infringing on copyrighted material we would all be off the streets. So don't feed us your holier-then-thou attitude. If we copy a magazine, duplicate a cassette, a CD, download P2P it is all copyright infringement.

As for the tax of recordable media, CD-R,RW DVD-R, RW the tax, as I understand it, in the US is placed on "MUSIC" CD's, and DVD's. So look at the packaging if it is marked for Music the tax is imposed, if, however, it has "for Data" on it there is no such tax. What is a roller about this is there is no difference between the disks except for the marking on the packaging.

Since this is a civil case, they only have to prove she is responsible. Not that she did the actual copying. The internet account is in her name. The PC is legally hers. Legally, it won't matter who did the copying.

A similar example of civil liability would be if your underage child took your car and drove it into a neighbors parked car. The child did the deed. The parent didn't give them permission. But the parent(up to deductible) and their insurance company is still on the hook.

I change the stations when the commercials come on.
Am I breaking the law?

See this post for an explanation of why civil responsibility is different than the proofs required for criminal offenses. »Re: She's stupid to fight this

It is true, we do pay and have for a long time. Not that I'm trying to jump in on a "told you so" wagon, but KingP is right about this one.

Not if one [self included, along with a zillion others] changes the radio station at the onset of commercials, and mute the TV at the onset of commercials. In your sceario, this constitutes not paying.

DV

I own a replaytv and a mythtv. It automatically skips commercials.. So I'm stealing by not watching the commercials?
Amazing logic you have there.

If that were the case, then why am I paying the cable company?

It is just bad business to start taking legal actions against (potential) customers.

I have bought many, many CD's since the switch from vinyl. I have also downloaded music from newsgroups from time to time. As a matter of fact, hearing lossy MP3 files has inspired me to get the real thing on numerous occasions. I would love to have a music service where I could download and pay for songs, without any strings or DRM attached.

I am not going to pay for music which requires me to to use a third party player (even if it is from Apple) or restricts what I, personally, can do with what I just purchased. I believe that falls under FAIR USE.

So, she may be foolish to fight it, but, if an underage kid did the uploading and downloading, whay should she be legally responsible?

You don't even follow your own government, you just assume the laws they make are reasonable.

It's a FELONY charge she is being charged with, under the NET act.

"The most recent amendment to criminal copyright infringement was the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 (NetAct) which made it a felony to reproduce or distribute copies of copyrighted works electronically regardless of whether the defendant had a profit motive."

Read up on what exactly what laws the **AA's have purchased before you assume anything. If they could get away with it, changing the channel during a commercial break would be a felony.

Explain to me how it is theft? If I were to download and install E-mule again and then proceeded to download the latest hit by some manufactured plastic artist vs recording it directly from the Radio, XM, or Sirus? Or here were I live I could check the CD out of the library and rip it.

Technically I legally allowed to record television and radio broadcasts for my personal use.

Personally I no longer download music, I stopped some time ago. I also stopped buying the latest and greatest from any major label. Now if any band belongs to a label appearing here »www.riaa.com/about/membe ··· ault.asp they don't get my business. It isn't easy, but when I bought that last New Order album and found I couldn't play it on my machine at work I realized another reason why I hadn't bought any label music in so long. My girlfriend just bought a CD on the Sony label and I've never seen so much crap crammed into one disc. She asked why it wouldn't play at work so I put it in my machine at home and the thing went nuts. It wanted to install plug ins so that it could be played, tried to call home to acquire a license, and told me that it could not be ripped or burned more than X number of times and it could only be ripped into WMA format.
Well that is never going into another one of my computers.

There is a lot of music out there that is really good, and some of these smaller labels care about the artists and consumers. When you buy the CD, that is your license to play it in the format you want and on the equipment of your choice.

One of my personal favorites www.adifferentdrum.com

It's only on blank media labeled "for music", not on all blank media. That's why "for music" CDRs cost more then normal CDRs.

In Canada it's on all blank media.

Actually if you read all of the briefs they have no evidence that she actually shared anything. Just because you have a certain software on your PC doesn't mean you are guilty. Just because there was a folder on her PC they can't prove that anyone downloaded from her. If they say they downloaded it from her the documents show other cases that this is not admissible since they can't infringe on their own copyrights.

Also this is good for a laugh, her first court appearance without a lawyer. (I am assuming this is legit)

»riaalawsuits.us/elektra_ ··· 0506.txt

Geek

The RIAA is suing her in civil court. If anyone is going after her criminally, I haven't read it. And it would be a district attorney and not the RIAA that would file charges.
»www.thejournalnews.com/a ··· 0/NEWS04