RIAA Wins Appeal, Music Downloader Owes $675,000

[WarpZone]

The RIAA does serve a purpose and does do some good, but doing crap like this isn't winning them any favors. That amount of money is a bit ridiculous, and I wonder to which company that money is going to since the RIAA represents several of them.

I'm just curious, what good do they do? I was under the impression that a couple of rich recording label executives just invented the RIAA whole-cloth in the early Napster days so they could start suing people and lobbying congress. Do they do something else besides that?

Back in the day of vinyl records, we're talking the 50's here, they were created to basically make sure that the vinyl records were up to technical standards, in terms of equalization, or EQ, and they still do that with every changing platform, cassettes and later CDs. They also certify gold and platinum status for albums and singles, yes they do that too.

Where it does get tricky is that they also protect IPs for artists, that's where sampling gets into play where you have to have a certain amount of time for a specific sample before you have to pay royalties to the artist, and then there's copyrights. What Napster was doing was, in the simplest terms, illegal in that the artists got screwed and were not paid for the songs that were downloaded. The companies themselves don't really have much of a say after they get recording costs back, depending on the contract between the company and the artist, yeah they do get a cut, but so do the artists. Basically the music industry got caught with their pants down and didn't know what to do, they did the right thing eventually but they did it the wrong way. Yeah Lars Ulrich looked like a dick about the whole thing, but he was right. All RIAA did was look out for the artists since it was their material being downloaded illegally, and if the companies or artists, depending on how the contract is written between the two, didn't 'ok' the use of a song, then the person that downloaded the song is in trouble.

Wow that's a lot, I hope that answers your question.

Thing is, you don't need the music industry these days to be a successful artist, in fact only a slim minority of artists currently creating music are even able to get in. That and the studio always takes such a huge percentage of the profits. It's ridiculous to say the RIAA is doing all this to protect artists. The RIAA is doing this to protect their cash cows. (And even that isn't really helpful because, as we all know by now from the discussions about game piracy, very few pirates can actually afford what they're pirating, and the ones who can usually end up buying anyway.)

Thanks for the history lesson. I have no trouble believing that the RIAA was something beneficial back in the 50's. But what have they done lately that's actually good? For anyone? I mean, is this lawsuit bullshit actually helping consumers, artists, or even the industry? Seems like they're just lashing out randomly at anyone within reach because they don't understand how the internet works.

Here's a hint, RIAA: On the internet, people give you money if they LIKE you.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

It would be cool to actually raise 675 000 dollars through donations or something & then burn it in front of RIAA building. Impractical yes... but it be cool.

Illegally download £670 000 worth of music onto a hard drive and burn it at their offices. Just to show how ridiculous this whole scenario is.

 

[Von Strimmer]

Heres hoping he didn't distribute "I fought the law and the law won". Even though RIAA are pricks for what they did, everyone knows what can happen. Dont want to feel the wrath? Dont do it. It's as simple as that folks!

Seriously though he should be told what he did was wrong. Not have his head slammed into a 50 ft deep concrete sign that says WRONG! screw you RIAA

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

SNIPERS!

This is where they are still catching up. They missed the boat to fix anything and now all they can do now is to go after people that are doing things illegally, don't forget artists are included in that. Right now, they only good things they are doing is awarding gold and platinum status, everything else they're doing right now? Not so much. They are doing thing more than making examples out of people in attempts to scare everyone else off in doing that, is it effective? Time will tell.

They did serve a purpose years ago, like 10 years or so ago, now? I don't know. Artists can make music on their own, but it's not the RIAA's fault, it's record and publishing companies fault if blame needs to go somewhere.

All the RIAA is doing is to make sure that artists are protected by copyrights and that they get paid for their material, for new artists this is big, nothing more, and they also make sure that they have protected speech, which that issue does come around every so often. As of now they are nothing more than the legal side of the industry, I understand where they are coming from, but it's getting a bit ridiculous.

Like I said, the industry was caught sleeping and are trying, and failing, to get back to where they were before Napster came around and rustled up everything.

 

[AstylahAthrys]

This seems... overzealous. Yes, we know we shouldn't pirate, but what irks me is that I bet none of this money will go to the artists he downloaded. It will just go to the bosses who run the place to pad their wallets even more. It's way too much money for something I've bet nearly everyone here has done before. Punishment should fit the crime, and this doesn't. Also, it won't stop broke kids from downloading music. This isn't justice, it's greedy corporation BS.

 

[samsonguy920]

This stinks, but it also looks like the case could be appealed yet again. Hopefully finding a judge this time that knows their jurisprudence.

As for the idea to revisit copyright law, I don't see that happening anytime soon. By the looks of things groups and companies like the RIAA funnel the most money into congress to protect their "property." As long as we keep on electing dipshit politicians regardless of party, copyright law will remain broken for years to come.
The sooner we can smack this shit down, the sooner we can have the rights to the internet we deserve.

 

[WarpZone]

Like I said, the industry was caught sleeping and are trying, and failing, to get back to where they were before Napster came around and rustled up everything.

They're never going to get back to that, though. What they had before was a monopoly and gatekeeper status on the industry of producing and delivering sound to people.

The music industry has changed. Nowadays people buy songs, not albums. They buy because they liked that song, not because it was on the radio. They want that song in a format that's portable and easily moved from one device to another. They want it on demand, searchable, tagged and indexed, without any restrictive DRM, and they want a social pipeline to interact directly with the artist.

You can't "catch up" to change like that. You can't launch your own website or competing service or whatever and go "Okay, everyone pay $20 for 10 songs again that you only have one copy of! And no breakaway hits, it has to be all our boys!" All you can do is either adapt to the new reality, or die as slowly and loudly as possible.

Everything the RIAA is doing right now is like a literal dinosaur's loud, violent death throes. They should be cultivating goodwill right now, offering songs for free to get people hooked, partnering with digital streaming services, and yes, reconsidering their price point. Instead, they're attacking consumers, attacking digital service providers, screwing over their artists, adding pointless and painful DRM to all their products, and trying to get congress to force apple to put an FM radio in your fucking ipod.

They could get on top of this. They could do what JoCo and other artists have been doing successfully for years now. They choose not to, because they're stubborn and greedy and out of touch. They want to force everything to go back to the way it was in the good old days. But the market will not turn back. It will not cater to them. History is passing them by. And the hell of it is, they're doing it to themselves.

 

[Khada]

I'm amazed at all the "I don't see the point, they'll never get the money" comments.

It's not about the money. It's about scaring the shit out of everyone else. Trust me, it's working.

Trust me, it's not.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Like I said, the industry was caught sleeping and are trying, and failing, to get back to where they were before Napster came around and rustled up everything.

They're never going to get back to that, though. What they had before was a monopoly and gatekeeper status on the industry of producing and delivering sound to people.

The music industry has changed. Nowadays people buy songs, not albums. They buy because they liked that song, not because it was on the radio. They want that song in a format that's portable and easily moved from one device to another. They want it on demand, searchable, tagged and indexed, without any restrictive DRM, and they want a social pipeline to interact directly with the artist.

You can't "catch up" to change like that. You can't launch your own website or competing service or whatever and go "Okay, everyone pay $20 for 10 songs again that you only have one copy of! And no breakaway hits, it has to be all our boys!" All you can do is either adapt to the new reality, or die as slowly and loudly as possible.

Everything the RIAA is doing right now is like a literal dinosaur's loud, violent death throes. They should be cultivating goodwill right now, offering songs for free to get people hooked, partnering with digital streaming services, and yes, reconsidering their price point. Instead, they're attacking consumers, attacking digital service providers, screwing over their artists, adding pointless and painful DRM to all their products, and trying to get congress to force apple to put an FM radio in your fucking ipod.

They could get on top of this. They could do what JoCo and other artists have been doing successfully for years now. They choose not to, because they're stubborn and greedy and out of touch. They want to force everything to go back to the way it was in the good old days. But the market will not turn back. It will not cater to them. History is passing them by. And the hell of it is, they're doing it to themselves.

Well a good portion of that is the companies and publishers fault for doing that. The RIAA is really caught in the middle because the have to make the companies happy AND the artists happy. I'm not saying that what they are doing is right, it's just what we have now is what happens when companies don't pay attention and they (the labels really, I should stop using the word 'company') have to have someone try to clean up their mess, which the RIAA is not doing a good job of doing.

Companies and publishers have dug themselves into a whole and they are just now understanding how digital downloads work and to make a profit out it, it's a necessary evil otherwise how else are artists going to get backed for tours and studio time without using their own money, it's not easy to do those things by yourself.

Here's the deal about free songs, some artists do that on their own website with the understanding of the label that they will do this. It's mostly done by well established artists, and some newer ones but the quality isn't really there to be honest, since they can find or make their own studios, record it that way, and hand it out. So all they have to do is find a label to push it out, advertise and create a tour schedule, done. Giving out free songs has a catch though, it may or may not work in the artist's favor since labels need that money to back an artist, and if the song doesn't catch people's attentions, then both sides lose.

It's the way the industry works, are they greedy? Yes, but they need that money since backing a tour isn't cheap, especially if they have to cover the cost if the band wrecks something, it still does happen. The music industry needs lawyers and they are not cheap either, and studio time? That's expensive, trust me on that. Is there really anything they can do now? Not a whole lot, but keep in mind the RIAA is going after the people that download music illegally, is what they are asking for a bit much? Probably, I don't know what determines how much a song costs, so I can't say for sure. All they are doing is making sure they have their investment secure, and the labels send the RIAA to make sure it is.

 

[WarpZone]

It's the way the industry works, are they greedy? Yes, but they need that money since backing a tour isn't cheap, especially if they have to cover the cost if the band wrecks something, it still does happen. The music industry needs lawyers and they are not cheap either, and studio time? That's expensive, trust me on that. Is there really anything they can do now? Not a whole lot, but keep in mind the RIAA is going after the people that download music illegally, is what they are asking for a bit much? Probably, I don't know what determines how much a song costs, so I can't say for sure. All they are doing is making sure they have their investment secure, and the labels send the RIAA to make sure it is.

What I'm saying is, none of the steps the RIAA has taken, including forcing congress to pass laws making file-sharing illegal and aggressively enforcing those laws, has helped the labels. It is not helping them. They are not more profitable as a result of these lawsuits, and they never will be. Just like it wasn't profitable for them to sue everyone for making mix tapes, try to ban the sale of VCRs, or tax light bulbs to protect the interest of candlestick-makers.

This is a very obvious pattern that has been repeated time and time again throughout the 20th century. A child could recognize it. You keep saying "I can't say for sure, I can't say." Yes you can. It's obvious. Instead of asking yourself "will this action by the RIAA be effective in accomplishing what the goals of the record labels," instead ask yourself instead "What would it take for end-users to change their music-consumption and music-discovery habits so that the old business model of the recording industry becomes viable again?"

You'll immediately realize that it's like asking what it would take to get us to go back to horse-and-buggy transportation, or physical media-based daily news. The correct answer is NOTHING. It just can't be done. The whole question makes no sense. This is pretty obvious if you think about it even for a second in terms of end-user habits.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

So, two CDs worth of music somehow equals almost three-quarters of a million dollars? Our country's legal system at its finest...

Way to destroy one man's life over two CDs worth of music. That certainly is justifiable.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

It's the way the industry works, are they greedy? Yes, but they need that money since backing a tour isn't cheap, especially if they have to cover the cost if the band wrecks something, it still does happen. The music industry needs lawyers and they are not cheap either, and studio time? That's expensive, trust me on that. Is there really anything they can do now? Not a whole lot, but keep in mind the RIAA is going after the people that download music illegally, is what they are asking for a bit much? Probably, I don't know what determines how much a song costs, so I can't say for sure. All they are doing is making sure they have their investment secure, and the labels send the RIAA to make sure it is.

What I'm saying is, none of the steps the RIAA has taken, including forcing congress to pass laws making file-sharing illegal and aggressively enforcing those laws, has helped the labels. It is not helping them. They are not more profitable as a result of these lawsuits, and they never will be. Just like it wasn't profitable for them to sue everyone for making mix tapes, try to ban the sale of VCRs, or tax light bulbs to protect the interest of candlestick-makers.

This is a very obvious pattern that has been repeated time and time again throughout the 20th century. A child could recognize it. You keep saying "I can't say for sure, I can't say." Yes you can. It's obvious. Instead of asking yourself "will this action by the RIAA be effective in accomplishing what the goals of the record labels," instead ask yourself instead "What would it take for end-users to change their music-consumption and music-discovery habits so that the old business model of the recording industry becomes viable again?"

You'll immediately realize that it's like asking what it would take to get us to go back to horse-and-buggy transportation, or physical media-based daily news. The correct answer is NOTHING. It just can't be done. The whole question makes no sense. This is pretty obvious if you think about it even for a second in terms of end-user habits.

By force, do you mean the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? If so, then no because it encompasses everything that gets put on the internet, including music. If not, then what do you mean?

I will answer that question though, because of that act, it's illegal, so users should stop doing it. There are legal sites that users can go to, like itunes, or converting a youtube video to mp3 for free, and the like, to get their music. There are legal ways to do this, if not, then whoever does get their music from means that are not kosher should be punished.

 

[Altorin]

And in other news, $675,000 dollars worth of music has just been downloaded worldwide in the past ten minutes...

according to them, I'd wager more money then is in the entire world worth of music is downloaded every second

every single song that's downloaded is worth 22,500 to them.. I'd wager there's probably about... I don't know, 10 million songs being traded at any one moment in the world, so... 22,500 times 10million is.. 225,000,000,000.. so at any one moment the RIAA could sue EVERYONE (including probably many of their own employees) for a grand total of that amount... then the next moment they could do it again.

and that's what we call fair punishment

kindly fuck off RIAA. Noone even likes you, you don't get invited to any of the parties

 

[Altorin]

It's the way the industry works, are they greedy? Yes, but they need that money since backing a tour isn't cheap, especially if they have to cover the cost if the band wrecks something, it still does happen. The music industry needs lawyers and they are not cheap either, and studio time? That's expensive, trust me on that. Is there really anything they can do now? Not a whole lot, but keep in mind the RIAA is going after the people that download music illegally, is what they are asking for a bit much? Probably, I don't know what determines how much a song costs, so I can't say for sure. All they are doing is making sure they have their investment secure, and the labels send the RIAA to make sure it is.

What I'm saying is, none of the steps the RIAA has taken, including forcing congress to pass laws making file-sharing illegal and aggressively enforcing those laws, has helped the labels. It is not helping them. They are not more profitable as a result of these lawsuits, and they never will be. Just like it wasn't profitable for them to sue everyone for making mix tapes, try to ban the sale of VCRs, or tax light bulbs to protect the interest of candlestick-makers.

This is a very obvious pattern that has been repeated time and time again throughout the 20th century. A child could recognize it. You keep saying "I can't say for sure, I can't say." Yes you can. It's obvious. Instead of asking yourself "will this action by the RIAA be effective in accomplishing what the goals of the record labels," instead ask yourself instead "What would it take for end-users to change their music-consumption and music-discovery habits so that the old business model of the recording industry becomes viable again?"

You'll immediately realize that it's like asking what it would take to get us to go back to horse-and-buggy transportation, or physical media-based daily news. The correct answer is NOTHING. It just can't be done. The whole question makes no sense. This is pretty obvious if you think about it even for a second in terms of end-user habits.

By force, do you mean the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? If so, then no because it encompasses everything that gets put on the internet, including music. If not, then what do you mean?

I will answer that question though, because of that act, it's illegal, so users should stop doing it. There are legal sites that users can go to, like itunes, or converting a youtube video to mp3 for free, and the like, to get their music. There are legal ways to do this, if not, then whoever does get their music from means that are not kosher should be punished.

they'll get to your youtube eventually. I say we nip it in the butt here and just nuke them.

 

[WarpZone]

By force, do you mean the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? If so, then no because it encompasses everything that gets put on the internet, including music. If not, then what do you mean?

I will answer that question though, because of that act, it's illegal, so users should stop doing it. There are legal sites that users can go to, like itunes, or converting a youtube video to mp3 for free, and the like, to get their music. There are legal ways to do this, if not, then whoever does get their music from means that are not kosher should be punished.

I agree that it's illegal. I agree that people should obey the law. What I'm saying that people *tend not to* obey laws they don't feel are justified, and that increasing the penalty for breaking that law only has a very mild effect, particularly when enforcement is spotty and the people advocating for the law have no popular support. The RIAA is incapable of removing all the incentives people use to justify breaking the law. It is also incapable of providing an effective disincentive.

For this reason, it is in the record labels' best interests to instruct the RIAA to abandon their current heavy-handed approach and instead start courting pirates to pay for whatever they've downloaded. It works for JoCo. It works for Rifftrax. It works for apple. It would work for record labels. But it requires goodwill, which is one thing the RIAA has been steadily destroying for the past several years.

 

[supermanNBC]

this guy would of server less time (if any) and pay less had he walked into a store and stole a CD

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

By force, do you mean the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? If so, then no because it encompasses everything that gets put on the internet, including music. If not, then what do you mean?

I will answer that question though, because of that act, it's illegal, so users should stop doing it. There are legal sites that users can go to, like itunes, or converting a youtube video to mp3 for free, and the like, to get their music. There are legal ways to do this, if not, then whoever does get their music from means that are not kosher should be punished.

I agree that it's illegal. I agree that people should obey the law. What I'm saying that people *tend not to* obey laws they don't feel are justified, and that increasing the penalty for breaking that law only has a very mild effect, particularly when enforcement is spotty and the people advocating for the law have no popular support. The RIAA is incapable of removing all the incentives people use to justify breaking the law. It is also incapable of providing an effective disincentive.

For this reason, it is in the record labels' best interests to instruct the RIAA to abandon their current heavy-handed approach and instead start courting pirates to pay for whatever they've downloaded. It works for JoCo. It works for Rifftrax. It works for apple. It would work for record labels. But it requires goodwill, which is one thing the RIAA has been steadily destroying for the past several years.

Then those people are making things worse for the rest of us, to be honest, and they are being rather selfish. Perhaps this case will make those people think twice before they do anything, if not, then this is not going anywhere productive.

The RIAA represents those labels, so they are doing exactly that. It would be kinda ridiculous for each label to go after some person for a song or if several is the case and they belong to different labels, then that would be overkill and tedious. So really, the RIAA is doing just that. I would imagine that at some point down the line they would find an easier way to do this, like what Apple and the rest are doing. So at that point, I do agree with you.

SNIP!

they'll get to your youtube eventually. I say we nip it in the butt here and just nuke them.

True, and that would be messy. I wouldn't want to clean up that mess, with all the dust and all.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I doubt he will be able to pay one tenth of the amount demanded of him. Putting a person in to perma-debt won't get you the theoretical millions lost on file sharing. It just makes you look like a bully who likes making people cry.

How I stop the RIAA from kicking my ass: I buy songs legally through iTunes and for those I can't afford; SaveVid works wonders! I am not UPLOADING illigal content so they can't sue me for passing it on... And AFAIK SaveVid hasn't been touched by the RIAA yet...

Yeah, don't let them know if you have taken one of those songs and put it on multiple devices, or else you too may find yourself the recipient of what those in legal circles would call a Napalm Enema.

 

[GeorgW]

That's absolutely ridiculous, RIAA can go *censored*. They've always been a bunch of *censored*.
The court decision itself seems a little weird as well, but hopefully there's a way around it.

 

[ionveau]

Canadian law stats a person can only pay a maximum amount in damages for copy write infringement, far below this below even 50k, Yet this only applies to people doing this in there homes and not people selling music/games this being said Canadian is still behind most other European country's in human rights to data