The most expensive 24 tracks ever

[Martin]

In case you've been living in a cave and didn't know, the RIAA recently sued a single mother and won $220,000. Here is a list of the 24 songs that she downloaded, I encourage you to never buy an album from any of these people again.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/trial-of-the-ce.html

[Dan]

What is the point is sueing a singal mother for that much? Whould it not be instant bankroupcy and they get nothing?


P.S. This seems like it should be in off topic.....

[Skynet]

Dan @ Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:28 am wrote:

What is the point is sueing a singal mother for that much? Whould it not be instant bankroupcy and they get nothing?

It sets precedent.

[Mazer]

Dan @ Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:28 am wrote:

P.S. This seems like it should be in off topic.....

It seems like alot of things tend to go into Offtopic, but I'd say this is at least a little computer related.

I don't think buying music from those artists is the problem though, it's buying music released by a member of the RIAA. Which I've found through http://www.riaaradar.com/ is quite a bit, particularly for the "well known" artists.

[Tony]

Dan @ Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:28 am wrote:

What is the point is sueing a singal mother for that much?

In case you haven't noticed, RIAA is suing _everybody_ including 12 year old girls and 82 year old grandmothers. If there's any hint of a defence ("I have a wireless router" seems to work well), they just drop the suite and move on to the next target.

In this particular case though, she was using her personal email for the P2P alias. (P2P network with possibly personal identifiers? That seems so flawed..)

Some good news: The Pirate Bay is developing a new tracker that, among other things, will offer better protection against anti-piracy outfits from RIAA and co.

[wtd]

I like the idea of voting with one's wallet. Boycott any artist whose music is involved in a successful lawsuit.

[Tony]

Well it's not the artists themselves that are the problem. It's the shady recording labels that represent them. So.. don't buy RIAA made CDs, but support your favourite artists through concerts or tshirts or whatever.

[wtd]

I understand this. My thought is to have said artists pressure the recording labels.

[Martin]

It's not directly them, of course, but they are part of that system and (apparently) doing nothing. I really hope that one of those bands comes forward and says, "No, this isn't what we stand for." and pays the legal fees off.

[rdrake]

Martin @ Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:31 pm wrote:

I really hope that one of those bands comes forward and says, "No, this isn't what we stand for." and pays the legal fees off.

That sounds like a job for Trent Reznor!

[Dan]

Tony @ 7th October 2007, 1:43 pm wrote:

Dan @ Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:28 am wrote:

What is the point is sueing a singal mother for that much?

In case you haven't noticed, RIAA is suing _everybody_ including 12 year old girls and 82 year old grandmothers. If there's any hint of a defence ("I have a wireless router" seems to work well), they just drop the suite and move on to the next target.

Yes but you think they whould be smart enought to see that sueing some one for that much is just going to cost them moeny in the end. If she declearis bankroupcy that means the RIAA has to pay for it's own legeal bills, so they aucataly lost moeny....

Even if the high ups in the RIAA don't see/get that you think the laywer whould be smart enought to see how bad an idea that was....tho i guss they might just take the money and shut up...

[Tony]

I doubt RIAA is loosing any money on the average.

Besides, what they could do now is drop the fine down to a fraction - lets say "just" $20,000 and strongly encourage her to take it. That would cover their lawyer costs, but more importantly prevent any appeal that could strike down their shiny

Skynet wrote:

precedent

And I second Martin's view there. I'd like to see some artists stop screwing over their own fans.

[Martin]

I think that the settlement is more complicated than just "Give us $220,000." I believe that she has to give a specified percentage of her income to the MAFIAA for the next 30 years or something along those lines.

[Tony]

200K seems to be the going rate for any music related lawsuite, even outside of RIAA. *sigh* Scotland's PRS (which I assume is their equivalent of RIAA) has filed a 200,000 damages claim, which is not being dismissed, yet.

Quote:

The PRS claimed that Kwik-Fit mechanics routinely use personal radios while working at service centres across the UK and that music, protected by copyright, could be heard by colleagues and customers.

It is maintained that amounts to the "playing" or "performance" of the music in public and renders the firm guilty of infringing copyright.

So between radio stations broadcasting the music, person A getting it on his radio, and person B also hearing it. It's the company that gets the lawsuite. Ehh.. disregarding the absurd "law" itself, this is clearly a case of simply suing the one with most money.

Which I suppose is better than RIAA who claims same damages from single moms, as others claim from $1billion corporations.

[Dan]

I realy whould like to know how the RIAA proves damages that high. Even if she had her p2p client on constaly could she realy have cost them that much?

24 tracks is about 1 cd (or 2 crapy ones). So if we say a cd is about $20 for 1 good cd or 2 bad ones she whould have had to upload all 24 tracks to 11,000 peoleop.