RSSRIAA Sues 261, Including 12-Year-Old Girl
By Nate Mook | Published September 9, 2003, 10:07 PM
The Recording Industry Association of America stepped up its battle against file swappers this week, filing lawsuits against 261 individuals for "egregious" copyright infringement.
Defendants were selected based on the number of files shared, but many were not aware their computers were distributing music in the background, including 12-year-old Brianna Lahara from New York.
Brianna, an honors student who lives with her mother Sylvia Torres in a New York City Housing Authority apartment, was identified after the RIAA collected IP addresses used by the family PC and subsequently subpoenaed her ISP.
Brianna told the New York Post she thought "it was OK to download music" because her mom had purchased Kazaa Plus for $29.95.
Kazaa is a free file-sharing network that has come under immense legal scrutiny from the RIAA and record labels. The Plus version offers ad-free searching and is available for a one-time fee.
After originally planning to fight the charges, Torres opted to protect her daughter Brianna and settle with the RIAA for $2,000. Although copyright violators can be held liable for up to $150,000 per song, the RIAA believes it will settle most of the 261 cases.
During a Senate Judiciary Hearing Tuesday, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin questioned RIAA President Cary Sherman regarding the group's recent legal tactics, according to an Associated Press report.
"Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" asked Durbin.
Durwood Pickle, a 71-year-old grandfather from Richardson, Texas, is also facing the wrath of the recording industry after his teenage sons downloaded music to his PC while visiting.
Because of the methods utilized by the RIAA to locate file swappers, those contacted were not necessarily the individuals actually downloading music, simply the persons who paid for the Internet access.
But the RIAA is content with its grenade approach. "We're trying to send a strong message that you are not anonymous when you participate in peer-to-peer file sharing," said RIAA chief executive Mitch Bainwol in a statement. "Parents need to be aware of what their children are doing on their computers."
The group warns it may file lawsuits against "thousands more" by the end of the year.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an advocacy group for digital rights, strongly criticized the recording industry's recent actions.
"More lawsuits is not the answer," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "Does anyone think that suing 60 million American file-sharers is going to motivate them to buy more CDs?"
In response to such criticisms, the RIAA has started a "Clean Slate" program offering amnesty to file sharers who admit to downloading music and sign a declaration they will not do it again. However, the EFF and other experts question the validity of such a program.
"The RIAA has offered 'sham-nesty,' not amnesty, for those sharing music online," explained EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. "The recording industry wants file-sharers to confess guilt, while leaving these music fans vulnerable to lawsuits from record companies and music publishers and bands like Metallica that control independent music rights."
The music industry is encouraging people to download! They came up with these fancy mp3 Player's. What else is someone gonna stick on one of those besides illegal music? It's encourgament. They should be suing the makers of that instead of little 12 year old girls. I'm also sure it wouldn't hurt those Super Star's to sell one or two of their mansions and give the money to those who aren't getting paid. It's not like they use them all anyway, they're always busy with tours etc.
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|I will NEVER pay nor buy any music from you greedy bas****s again. Like you dont make enough money already your going to start suing little kids and elderly parents.
Kiss my *** . Sue This.
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|same thing happened in Belgium, where a 16year old girl was sued for distribution of a single of the belgian edition of "Idol 2003". the mp3 had a digital watermark (aka fingerprint) and thus the belgian division of riaa made her pay for it. Sorry, but this is absolute madness ! if the mp3's have fingerprints in them (granted, they were sold through the net), what else can they make to spy on us? this isn't about downloading music anymore, it's about plain infringement of the law of privacy... i'm afraid of what next to come !
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|It really, thoroughly sickens me to see how insanely GREEDY these people are! If it's not basketball players complaining they're falling below the $1.2 million/year poverty level, it's recording artists flattering themselves as gods and demanding an endless supply of money to add to their already gargantuan Swiss bank accounts that will never be spent in the course of three lifetimes! What the heck do they think we're doing? The artists still own their respective songs; none of us lesser mortals are claiming them for our own! So really, when you boil it down past the red tape they've made sure to wrap copyright law up with over the years, it has nothing to do with ownership. It has to do with the hunger for power and money that these delusional tyrants have developed through years of quite possibly misfounded fandom.
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|http://www.eff.org/share/petition/
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|This may be just a beginning. Democracy is at an end everywhere in this world.
They can ruin everybody, if they like to. They have the right to do so, because the governments, which are said to be elected by the people, grant those rights by making laws that suit the BIG ones.
I am a musician myself. I've written music for three LPs back in the 80s. So I ask the RIAA:
What about the 99 per cent musical structures, that have been used uncounted times before - and which are used in every newly made piece of music, especially in the POP etc. branch? Who suits that kind of behavaviour? It is hypocrisy of the lowest kind, to talk of "intellectual property" in such a kind of music.
But this is just bulls*** talk, just rationalizing, having some kind of good conscience - that's it.
If this was true - why, then why doesn't some BIG ones take money for every word ordinary people use, because it has been spoken in one of their numerous talk-shows??????
Maybe that will come next . . .
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|first, i like your responce to the riaa issue. second, every day, hundreds of radio and tv stations broadcast music both sound bytes and video which can be and is recorded by thousands if not millions of people. is the radio/tv stations guility of distrubiting copyrighted materials? think the riaa needs to rethink just how dumb they are being. third, i feel each singer ald all involded in the making of the music were paid for what they did and do not deserve any more after the payment they got for the making of said music. if you feel they should get paid time and time again for their work, then everyone that works should get paid everytime the product they produced is used. fair is fair. funny, but i think the first day that went into effect, we would all go broke paying for that. think about that. everything you use would coust you a fee to use it.
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|www.boycott-riaa.com
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|This is NOT USA only...it's GLOBAL...we are speaking, billions of folk and not millions. I was 16 when John Lennon had a White Rolls, did I help pay for it? a plastic 45 single made STARS mega bucks....these POP STARS scream SAVE THE WORLD...but line my pockets....Q? Who holds the rights to BRAHMS? or is that copywrite? or maybe I will see him in court?
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|I never said it was a strictly US issue. But it doesnt effect a single Canadian. I follow it for curiousity but it doesnt effect my life in a legal aspect. Just the effect of seeing people who share drop.
More of a nuissance then anything.
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|This is why I fly the Canadian flag with great pride.
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|Canadian Flag?
Mix-Match of Britain - France - USA.
MY QUEEN is on your notes, and its in FRENCH, and you buy from the USA as you got nought......TRUE...
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|Stop buying cds and d/l off the net. Let's see how they like sueing the whole darm country....all I have to say
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|I think a better solution to the problem must be found. For instance, just because everyone on the interstate drives 80mph, it doesn't mean that the police try to write tickets to everyone, nor does it mean that they let everyone off the hook. It's called selective enforcement, kind of like fishing, some fish get caught and others don't. They will go after the biggest offenders first and work their way down. Not buying their CDs is a start. Many musical artists have released files from their own sites for free and several services have begun a "paid download service" where you can download only the songs you want, instead of paying for an entire CD. This is the wave of the future, in spite of what the RIAA or any of the record companies believe. It will be a great day, when you can download a paid-for song directly from the site of the artist. You get your song, the artist gets all the money and everybody is happy. Except maybe, the RIAA.
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|Personally I will never buy anything represented by the RIAA. This is nothing but a front company for the pack of predators to distance their labels from what they are doing. They must be made to pay a price for it, right along with the politicians that are allowing them to do it.
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|Hmmm... this smells like SCO...
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|So, those 2 crates of 45 records I paid for back in the 80's. That does not entitle me to download a digital copy of a song I have already paid for? That is crap. I paid for the music, even if it was over 10 years ago. Downloading a single, better sounding copy is not theft. I certainly don't think I need to go buy a 21 dollar copy of "Obscure Hits of the 80's" just to have a better sounding copy of any given *paid for* song!
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|ill keep sharing over 300gbs of music on private servers that the riaa cant touch the riaa can go to h2-l and stop being greedy i buy all my music i share if they have a prob with it 2 bad go deal with major issues like finding osama b---h laden and leave people alone there is a law called privacy act so follow it whats gonna happen they mess with the wrong person S___ is gonna hit the fan peace and keep file sharing going on
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|I have purchased the right to use the music I have on vinyl...does that give ONLY me the right to record a cd from them? If I can record a cassette, and am unable to record a decent cd, is getting a decent copy from another user illegal?
I'm sure this is all carefully laid out by RIAA, and they deemed it illegal, but I have seriously wondered about this. Over half of the CD's I've purchased have been digital copies of my vinyls sitting in a box. OH, Maybe I'm supposed to buy a NEW "record player" to listen to them! Hmmm, wonder what they are selling for.
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|I AGREE, only for me..it was the 60's 70's crates of 45's..Oh Yeh Old Bugger
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|There are two underlying problems:
Most commerical music sucks. Few albums are worth buying. Most have one or two reasonably good songs. The music industry has created a market where "artists" are little more than the flavor of the month.
CDs are too expensive. CD's are cheaper to produce than albums. The artists only get about $1 a CD. (And then the artists have to pay the recording costs and other "fees".)
The bottom line: the record companies are greedy bas****s that killed their own "golden goose" and are trying to blame everyone else.
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|Not too greedy is the riaa? (lower case use deliberate - they don't deserve CAPS) I have LP's, Cassettes, and CD's that I bought over the years for the same one or two songs. Now they want me to pay again. I don't think so!
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|All I have to say is, WOW this really makes me want to buy cd's(sarcasm). :D
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|Governers, People of the USA! A year of events of historical significance is drawing to an end. A year of the greatest decisions lies ahead. In these serious times, I speak to you, Governers, as to the representatives of the American nation. Beyond and above that, the whole American people should take note of this glance into the past, as well as of the coming decisions the present and future impose upon us.
After the renewed refusal of my peace offer in January 1999 (ed:guessing) by the then Napster and the clique which supported or else dominated it, it became clear that this war -- against all reasons of common sense and necessity -- must be fought to its end. You know me, my old Party companions; you know I have always been an enemy of half measures or weak decisions...........
(taken from a speech to the German people by Mr. Hitler, Dec 11, 1941)
So Tow the party line.. or ELSE !!!!! Bwahahahahahaha
Next will be Pr0n, then Games !!!!!! Big Brother is watching !~!!!!! Bwhahahahaha "ack!" 'RIAA Gestapo comes out of the ceiling panels' No No.. I am a party member.. take the 12 year old, the 12 year oldddddd.." 'Gestapo drags Inquisitor X away....his punishment... listening to Yhani, John Tesh for the rest of his life.....Aieeeeeeee'
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|Now I can be at peace. Because the country will never be safe until all 12-year-olds kids are behind bars!
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|If the 12-year-old drives a car - she or her legal guardian will be held accountable. Accountability is the issue here. At what age do we settle for ignorance as a reason to not press charges against illegal activity? As for her reasoning based on purchasing KazaaPlus - I wonder if that statement was hers, or hers as guided by an adult or legal advisor.
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|Well, she doesn't drive, neither do other 12 yr. olds. Frankly, the only comment I heard from her that sounded coached was this, ""I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love," said Miss LaHara. Sounds like some RIAA propaganda to me. I wonder if maybe they threw is the $10,000 discount to get her to try to throw some badly needed PR improvement their way.
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|That'd be more like a $148,000 discount. IF she'd only downloaded ONE song.... One thing that may come out of this is that current copyright law may be thrown out. I think one may construe a $150,000 fine per song as cruel, if not unusual. I mean, on a given CD, there's on average about 10 tracks, say. Given current CD prices approaching $20, that's $2/track, right? So, you've ripped off a $2 track, and they're going to fine you $150,000 for it? That's an order of magnitude of 75,000x greater than the damage done. What have the RIAA done to deserve such a great reward?
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|Sue an innocent girl who knows little about the law?
One word... Heartless...
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|"Sue an innocent girl who knows little about the law?"
She knows enough about the Law to break it !
These juvenile delinquents are rampaging on our streets.
It's time we stop coddling Kriminal Kids, and start using
the death penalty.
Today's 12 year old copyright infringer is tomorrow's
SERIAL KILLER !
We ought to be grateful to the RIAA for bringing these
little thugs to justice before they kill again.
They start their Life of Crime with copyright infringement,
progress to using using UNLICENSED CODE in Linux, and -finally- end up writing MSblaster and SoBig viruses, and
becoming Suicide Bombers !
The DataRat
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|LOL
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|"LOL"
Does this mean you have a sense of humor,
afterall ?
El Raton de los Datos
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|nope..
LOL
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|Never has an industry understood it's customer base less. And suing a 12-year old...at the very least this shows that they need a new PR firm to look over the list before they file the suits.
It's simple, bad music at high prices will never sell when the consumer can pick and choose the songs they want, in the format they want, to play when and where they want. File sharing companies have offered to work WITH the RIAA to bring customers music the way they want it, and been repeatedly turned down. Now, the RIAA is gaining a reputation with their customers that is so bad that the industry will take longer to recover from their bullying than it ever would have to recover from file sharing.
Increasingly, businesses ignore what the customer wants and tell the customer what they are going to get. This will continue to prove counter productive to the bottom line, and one day some overpaid CEO will come out and say, "We have listened to our customers and understand what they want." and he won't be lying (this will be a historical first). By then, however, it may be too late.
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|These lawsuits are without merit, and must be challenged and not settled. The settlements do not require the accused to admit any wrongdoing. These people are just scared. And getting out of this lawsuit was simply a better deal for them financially, considering the legal expenses involved in going to trial. This is wrong. The RIAA has already been found guilty of pricefixing crimes, and forced to pay millions back to the public. They are clearly bullying people with scare tactics becasue people can't afford lawyers and do not want to waste valuable years of their lives in a courtroom. I urge any lawyers reading this to take on one of these cases pro-bono.
-gary
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|I agree someone should take a stand. However, it is easy to say such a thing when one is not directly involved.
When two groups disagree, they should come to the table and discuss the issues in a civilized manner. This public, burns cars after the Super Bowl, riots in the street when whitie says something to blackie, demand the police chief resign after a shooting, and basically takes things into their own hands. A high dollar CFO cooks the books while other companies purchase influence. A disgruntled teen 'rips' music. This issue is not much different than adults throwing cases of tea into the water.
Wait a minute -'Rips Music'? Isn't that a Sony catch-phrase when they advertise their latest mp3 recorder? Isn't it Sony that is promoting and selling DVD recorders and copiers? Doesn't Sony, have a dual tray (cloning) CD recorder. Doesn’t Sony advertise (RDR-GX7) for recording from TV to DVD in one easy step? Isn't it Sony Entertainment Corp. that owns a chunk of the movie and music copyrights? Gosh, which side has the butter?
Speaking of entertainment. The movie industry charges $4.00 to $9.00 for a ticket, $4.00 to $9.00 for (crappy) coke and popcorn. They’re standing still like a deer in the headlights, watching their sister industry get torn to shreds. The movie industry is move fragile and susceptible to this same type of action. They had better board up the windows. There’s a storm coming. 'Ripped' any movies lately?
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|When will the RIAA realize they are digging their own graves? They are getting out of hand...but file sharers are getting smarter. Only a group controlled by satan would sue a 12 year old school girl.....Can you say psychotic monopoly? I know you can...
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|Soon Major Counter Law suit will be filled against RIAA, for breaching into privacy, keeping and storing sensitive informations, threatening firms, breaking dozen other laws ...
in that moment RIAA went in flames, some their representatives ends in jail and every firm they already CONFUSED with theirs visit will be filling another and another lawsuit ...
this will come ... i see it :)
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|Honestly, I think that the whole situation is a last-ditch effort for the RIAA to hold on to their little monopoly. However, as stated previously, their strategy of bullying will be their downfall... Hopefully sooner than later. But what I dont understand is how they are LEGALLY ALLOWED to retrieve personal information for the sole purpose of destroying people to "enforce" THEIR idea of whats right. Who's running this country?
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|While I don't agree with prosecuting a 12 year old, it's not THEIR interpretation of what's right. It's LAW. Not agreeing with a law doesn't change it. How anyone can rationalize to themselves or others that it's OK to download copywrited music they haven't paid for is beyond me. It's theft, plain and simple.
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|Can it really be defined as theft? If that's the case if you ever "taped" a song for anyone you could also be considered a thief. It doesn't make sense to me that it can even be considered piracy since she wasn't selling the music she shared. NOW don't get me wrong.. I don't download music, nor do I think it's ok to download music. I just feel theft and piracy are not the correct terms, it's not like the RIAA didn't make money off of the CD that was copied in the first place..
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|Theft, piracy, casual copying, sharing, where do you draw the line? If you draw it somewhere in the middle you have compromised a great deal of any case to be made. I think we've got to look at this in the same way we would look at shoplifting. A kid that gets caught stealing a candy bar is usually remanded to his/her parents with a warning or some community service. An adult is usually prosecuted for a misdemeanor. I really do think that enforcement is the only thing that will stem the tide of illegal downloading.
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|If there are over 60,000,000 people doing it, can you still seriously call it illegal? That is 10,000,000 more people using p2p than people that voted for GWB!! (50,456,169 source: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/) Who's to say the RIAA has a leg to stand on? Example:
"This tax is paid by the manufacturers of digital media devices and distributed to the copyright owners whose music is presumably being copied.38 In consideration of this tax, copyright owners agree to forever waive the right to claim copyright infringement against consumers using audio recording devices in their homes."
- Audio recording act of 1992
Source: http://www.law.duke.edu/...icles/2002dltr0023.html
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|http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1008.html
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|She doesn't have to have been selling them:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/506.html
Sec 506(a)(2)
"by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,"
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|"which have a total retail value of more than $1,000"
CD's don't retail for more than $1,000. ;-) It's all in how you read it I suppose, but the home recording act implies (at least to me) that the RIAA has no legal recourse..
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|Usually it is normal to think "Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't make it right". If you really think about the numbers of people downloading music you realize "WE" are the ones in power here, "WE" are the ones really controlling the industry. If they can't get us to buy their product then they need to be searching for other ways to make a living. I really have no remorse for industries losing money (ie. not meeting expected profits) because they shouldn't be so naive to think "Nothing can happen to change the market". When the Airline industry started up it mostly killed off Ocean and Train Travel; Should the Airlines have been sued for taking all the profits? Adaption is the key if you want to stay in business.
As for stealing music...If you don't want your car stolen then don't leave it unlocked. If your car still has a high risk of getting stolen buy an alarm. If your car still isn't safe then be more careful and don't leave it unattended for so long. In the economic world we live in people will always want things for free. It's wrong to steal but banks and many stores are still heavily protected against theft. If the Recording Industry can't protect themselves then that is their own problem. It is illegal to download music but if it's that accessable then who's to blame?
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|Individual CD's don't reatil for $1000. That's why the RIAA limited who they were suing to those who were sharing wnough copyrighted songs that the total value was over $1000.
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|I agree, but how I think we are both reading it different ways. It leaves itself open to exactly that. Honestly, I hope the courts read it the way I do, and tell the RIAA that the CD's aren't worth $1,000 each. ;-) I'm all about protecting your rights, but when it comes to "IP" companies need to listen to their customers or suffer the consequences just like any other business does. Mind do not in any way want to imply that it is ok to steal, in some cases it's ok to dump crates of tea into a certain harbor. ;-) haha
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|>>>If the Recording Industry can't protect themselves then that is their own problem. It is illegal to download music but if it's that accessible then who's to blame?
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|We're all too late to argue the RIAA's legality / grounds for these suits... unless it's as a Defendant in the US Supreme Court.
Were we all asleep while the US Senate passed the disgusting Digital Millenium Copyright Act? I know I wasn't, and I am still fighting it today, because it's bull*%*!. The inference to Adolf Hitler is PRECISELY accurate, but what are you going to do? It's OUR responsibility, this is OUR government, and OUR country.
The Preamble to the Constitution - "We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect ...", everything in the Constitution is spoken from that preamble. And another interesting note from our good friend Thomas Jefferson (author of the Declaration of Independence [which is mostly bull^(*@ too]) writes about our RESPONSIBILITY to keep the government in "check" and how we have the Right / Responsibility to OVERTHROW the government when it stops serving the people.
Well I think the time is close, both with the DMCA and the already widely abused, but potential to make America completely facist, Patriot Act... let's WAKE UP , and DO SOMETHING about it... because if you don't... and you value your freedom to use computers how you want to... eventually you'll find yourself at the end of somebody's Subpeona...
-biq
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|I quit buying CD's or downloading cd's.. If the group is supported by the RIAA industry I don't want their crap.. And until everyone starts doing the same and start HURTING them where it counts their bank books they will just continue this type of crap. So to me if the nation isn't as a whole willing to ban any music by the RIAA this will continue and just get worse.
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