RIAA Says "Wanna Fight? It'll Cost You!"

jeiler writes "Ars has the details on an RIAA strategy to double the cost of settling copyright infringement suits for students who try to quash the group's subpoenas in court. In a nutshell: settle early, pay $3,000; try to quash the subpoena and the settlement cost rises to $8,000."

Shouldn't matter...

[Slashdot Suxxors (1207082)]

If half the RIAA's claims are as bogus as some say they are, the cost to settle shouldn't matter. Because you should win if you haven't done anything wrong. Right?

Right?

Re:Shouldn't matter...

[Merls the Sneaky (1031058)]

The **AA's, Law, and regular citizens opinion of wrong all differ greatly. In fact regular citizens cannot agree where exactly the line should be drawn. Right or wrong will also differ with the law depending on individual judges interpretations of the law as well.

And remember

[Sycraft-fu (314770)]

This is a civil case. That means it isn't so easy to defend yourself. In a criminal case the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a fairly high standard because it means, just as it says there must be no reasonable doubt that you committed the crime for the jury to convict. That means that the prosecution actually has to prove their case, the defense needn't do anything at all if they don't. Also in a criminal trial, you get a lawyer, even if you can't afford one. Public defenders generally aren't as good as high paid lawyers, but they are lawyers none the less who can help you navigate the complexities of the legal system.

A civil case has a much lower standard, the preponderance of the evidence. More or less that means whoever has the more convincing argument. There can still be reasonable doubt, so long as one side seems to present better evidence, then they win. Also, you aren't given a lawyer, you have to pay for one yourself.

So even if you are innocent, paying the extortion money can be the easy out to take. It'd be real hard to mount a defense for $30,000, much less $3,000. Even if you do, they could still win.

That's the problem here. It isn't one of these "Oh you are innocent so you have nothing to worry about." No, you have a lot to worry about. Either you pay a ton of money to hire a lawyer to try to defend yourself, or you do it all by yourself and almost certainly lose just because you don't understand the legal system.

Re:And remember

[colourmyeyes (1028804)]

Mod parent up.

This thread is going to be full of people saying "When you win in court..."

Assuming no special legal knowledge, the average person with no lawyer will lose to the RIAA in court. And as for hiring a lawyer,

It'd be real hard to mount a defense for $30,000, much less $3,000. Even if you do, they could still win.

Re:And remember

[Opportunist (166417)]

So? I'll be broke after the lawsuit anyway. And before my money goes to the RIAA, I'd prefer it to be in the hands of a lawyer with the chuzpah to fight them.

Don't forget what amounts of money we're talking here, and what people. We're not talking about the average 50ish person building a nestegg. The average defendant is someone who is in or just out of college, deeply enough in debt that they have to work their way out for 20 or so years anyway and for whom it doesn't really matter if you stack 8k or 80k on top of that. He is in bankrupcy after that.

So why not fight it? Any good reasons?

Smartest Idea Ever!

[Overzeetop (214511)]

Think about it from a lawyer's standpoint. You get a constant stream of income to support a group of very good IP defense lawyers. It's the typical reverse-ambulance-chaser play. You get money in the form of premiums, and then if you can prove bad faith on the part of the RIAA/MPAA you can attempt to recover your fees from a deep pocketed organization. Sounds like a good double-dip option. Somebody contact NYCL and a couple of startup investors. In fact, if you can get a few universities to add $19/student/year to their fees (it's a drop in the bucket when tuition is topping $30-40k), you might be able get startup funds from just a proposed team of lawyers, especially if you can kick in support for the Uni against subpoenas if they cover all their students with a policy. As long is you incorporate, if for some reason you lose miserably, you just shut down the company and let the losses die with the corporation.

I want in on this at the ground floor.

Re:And remember

[by Anonymous Coward]

Or ask the EFF.

I'm not sure how it work, wether they just defend you for free (if they think your case is relevant to their fight), or if they just get paid low rate, but either way you'll probably get the most competent people for that precise matter, for far less than a top lawyer's fee.

Plus, you might get NYCL's autograph :)

Re:And remember

[mobydobius (237311)]

perhaps the EFF should start a legal insurance service.

"worried you could be the target of an RIAA lawsuit? pay $X a month and the EFF will come to your rescue if and when they come to get ya"

Re:And remember

[jandersen (462034)]

This is a civil case.

That is what I don't quite understand - making illegal copies is a crime, right? At least according to the law. So why does the court allow it to be prosecuted under civil law? A crime is a crime, and it should be treated as such - allowing criminal cases, or cases that imply crime, to run in a civil court without first running it through the criminal court means that you can be found guilty of (or at least economically responsible for, which for all intents and purposes is the same thing) a crime based on very weak proofs.

In other words, it is fully possible to bully people into admitting a crime they haven't committed. In my view, what the RIAA does is quite clearly criminal, at least in spirit, if not in letter - they know perfectly well that their demands have no merit. If criminal law doesn't already cover this, then it should be changed. It sholdn't be possible for this to happen in a civilized society that claims we all are born equal under the law.

It's complicated

[Sycraft-fu (314770)]

So yes, copyright infringement can be criminal. However, the RIAA's evidence is extremely weak, not nearly enough for a criminal case. What's more, not all infringement is criminal, some is civil. Same sort of thing with traffic tickets. Some can be criminal, but many are not. If you get a simple speeding ticket, that's not a criminal ticket, it's a civil one.

Now also many crimes can have a civil component as well. Take a hypothetical situation: Suppose you are the owner of Evil Corp, and my wife works for you. Because you are evil, you don't give two shits about your employees and knowingly put my wife in a very dangerous situation. This causes her death. You end up getting charged with reckless endangerment and plead to manslaughter. Ok, great, however I'm still now a single parent trying to raise kids. Something that might help is some of the vast amount of money Evil Corp has made. So I file a civil suit against you for wrongfully causing her death. I win this, and thus get a large portion of your money.

OJ Simpson had something similar happen. He was acquitted of first degree murder charges. However he lost a civil suit charging him with causing wrongful death.

There's good reason for the system to work like it does, and to have civil and criminal components to a given case. However the RIAA is abusing it. They are trying to use civil suits to be able to go after people on extremely shaky, and often outright incorrect, evidence.

It is certainly a loophole that needs closing, but you have to be careful. While the civil system does allow for things like this, it also gives you the ability to go after people like the hypothetical Evil Corp, and does so even if the DA refuses to bring criminal charges.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

IANAL and not even an American, but I think I have a decent tourist's grasp of your law system.

Isn't the whole problem that the damages sought in the civil suit are 'punitive', ie they are meant to punish the accused rather than to seek just compensation for the damage done by the infringement (which is minimal for any "non-career pirate")? And isn't it really strange that anything beyond just compensation is tried under civil suit rules?

I would expect that the criminal system is for punishing people, and c

Re:It's complicated

[Free_Meson (706323)]

Isn't the whole problem that the damages sought in the civil suit are 'punitive', ie they are meant to punish the accused rather than to seek just compensation for the damage done by the infringement (which is minimal for any "non-career pirate")? And isn't it really strange that anything beyond just compensation is tried under civil suit rules?

The damages in these copyright infringement cases are not punitive. They are statutory. The copyright lobby had congress incorporate into statute the damages recoverable for copyright infringement, so that plaintiffs in copyright cases need not prove damages if they seek a judgment within the range of the copyright statute. There's an economic justification for such damages (they catch 10% of the infringers and charge them 10x, or the like) because enforcement is expensive and each person they catch would likely not be worth suing for provable damages.

Of course it's gotten much easier to catch infringers and the damages haven't been revised downwards, so the damages being awarded are nonsensical.

Punitive damages are generally used to punish defendants who knowingly choose to act negligently/wrongfully. For example, punitive damages would be applied when a defendant knowingly poisons some town's water supply because the cost of dealing with the lawsuits will be less than the cost of proper disposal of the poison. Most punitive damages awards are dramatically reduced or eliminated on appeal and in many jurisdictions the nominal plaintiff only gets a small cut (the rest going to the state). They are a trivial part of our civil litigation system that gets a lot of press because the press doesn't understand their function and ignores what happens on appeal.

Re:It's complicated

[swillden (191260)]

If you get a simple speeding ticket, that's not a criminal ticket, it's a civil one.

Uhhh, this is completely wrong.

Civil cases are about injury, where one party injures another and the injured party sues for relief. Copyright law is mostly a civil issue (e.g. you created illegal copies of my recording, and damaged my ability to make money with it), though the legislature has recently added some criminal provisions in the last few decades.

Crimes are about protecting public interests. All moving violations are part of the criminal code of your state; they're laws passed to restrict certain driving behaviors in the interest of highway safety. Traffic court is generally a little different from other criminal court, in the interest of efficiency, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a criminal court.

The difference between traffic violations and most other crimes is that most traffic violations are treated as minor crimes. Crimes fall into one of three categories: infractions, misdemeanors and felonies. Most states also define various grades within those categories. Most traffic violations are infractions, which means that you cannot go to jail for them. However, there are some more serious traffic crimes which are misdemeanors, which can carry jail time, and even felonies, which can carry a lot of jail time and remove other privileges. Reckless driving is a misdemeanor, for example.

Re:And remember

[colmore (56499)]

Congrats. You've written the best summary I've yet read on how the US has two legal systems, one of which has major flaws but is basically OK, and the other of which needs to be rewritten from scratch.

The problem with just condemning civil cases outright is that without civil courts, corporations would be subject to no law whatsoever. If I neglect basic responsibility and allow someone to be killed, I'm a manslaughterer, and my freedom (and ability to do business) is halted for decades. When a corporate legal person does the same thing, all they have to fear is fine by court. Take that away or cap the fine, and they are not just inhuman market entities, but also without law.

Re:

[Weedlekin (836313)]

Two points:

1) Not all speed limits are put there because it's dangerous to exceed them, so breaking a speed limit is not in and of itself an immoral act.

2) How is recklessly endangering one's self immoral?

Re:Shouldn't matter...

[BlueStrat (756137)]

2) You don't live in a deserted island. Injuring yourself will have a cost for society. There will be minor inconveniences to a few people who are counting on you (boss, coworkers, clients...); there will be a lot of people who'll get late to work because you're body is blocking the road; depending on where you live, society will have to pay for cleaning up the mess, repair on public damage, hospital...

I understand what you're saying here, and there is a point to it.

That being said however, giving government power to control behavior and write laws based on this principal can be a very dangerous thing to do. I believe that any costs to be assessed against an individual on these grounds should only be a result of a civil action between citizens.

Once you've opened the door to government control of, and given it the ability to pass legislation concerning, ones' own personal behaviors and activities as it affects ones' own health and safety and/or costs to society, such laws, regulations, and legislation are subject to subsequent interpretation and re-interpretations later that tend to unnecessarily restrict peoples' normal activities and behaviors far beyond the intentions of the original framers of said laws/regulations/legislation.

Every human activity engenders some form of risk and cost to society. Parachuting, gun ownership, exploration (terrestrial and space), swimming, and riding a motorcycle to name but a few examples, all engender personal risk that will add costs to society if one is hurt or killed.

Giving government the ability to restrict behavior financially and/or imprison people for taking risks gives the government the power to restrict or forbid practically any activity it chooses, and veto power over any proposed action or endeavor. All government needs, once the door to control these activities and behaviors is legally opened, is to find a friendly court to interpret the legislation how they wish.

As the saying goes, any power given to the government will at some point be abused by those in power for their own ends. Our only defense as citizens is to grant the government as few powers as possible, and to keep the government weak enough to not be a danger.

One need look no further for proof of this concept than the US government (and most other 1st-world governments) in its'/their current state(s), and changing the figureheads or the legislative puppets for a 'D' or 'R' (or whatever the mainstream political parties' initial or insignia happens to be) by their names will not change this once a certain threshold of government size and power has been passed.

This characteristic of human governments, I believe, is where Thomas Jeffersons' concept of the Tree of Liberty needing to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants comes from.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Shouldn't matter...

[Dun Malg (230075)]

1) Speed limits without any "good" reason are rare. I would agree that some are probably only to raise money, but I think they are the exception.

Actually, you'd be surprised how many speed limits are too low. A group of residents wanted radar enforcement of the 35mph limits on the major roads in my city, but state law requires municipalities to have a traffic engineering study to justify any limits before they can be enforced with radar (anti speed trap law). The engineering study found that 90% of them were posted far too low. Most major streets were found safe at 45 or 50 MPH. So did they change the posted limits? No, they left them at 35 and chose not to use radar.

Personally, I think most speed limits are not low enough and they do sacrifice some innocent lives for convenience.

See, the problem with speed limits is that they are set by ignoramuses like you who think "slower is safer, always", rather than by experienced traffic engineers who understand the dynamics of traffic flow. An unreasonably low limit that results in a mix of driving speeds across a wide range, from the slow "I drive the posted limit, always" folks to the "I drive what the road can handle" ones, is more dangerous because of the wide differential than a higher limit that gets people moving closer to the same speed.

The canonical example is the federally mandated 55mph speed limit put in force in the early 70's. It was initially instituted as a fuel saving measure, but dogmatic "safety nazis" pointed to a correlated reduction in accidents and it became "common wisdom" that a lower limit is safer. When the federal 55 limit was eased in 88 and repealed in the 90's, there were all kinds of dire predictions of increased mayhem on the highways. In reality, accidents went down! The problem is that elected officials and bureaucrats don't actually understand the 85th percentile rule. The safest limit is one where 85% of drivers naturally obey the limit. The 55 limit saw compliance rates under 20%! Studies (see pg 88) [trb.org] show that nearly all posted limits are 8 to 12 mph below the 85th percentile.

So what about the reduction in accidents in 1974? Well, it's a classic case of "correlation is not necessarily causation". The late 1960's saw a dramatic improvement in the safety of automobiles. Everything from increased use of radial instead of bias ply tires to mandatory seat belts came into play in the late 60's. The biggest improvement, however, was the 1968 mandate of front wheel disc brakes. If you've never driven a car with 4 wheel drum brakes, it's easy to miss the importance of this. So starting in '68 you have all new cars being equipped with disc brakes. The "replacement point" on cars of that vintage was around 5 years, meaning that the majority of driving miles were logged in cars 5 or fewer years old. Older cars were still driven, but were largely relegated to secondary status (e.g. wife's car, kid's car, etc). So around 1973 the tide turns from drum brakes to disc brakes... and accidents went down. It was pure chance that the 55 limit coincided with that. Really, the 55 limit was more dangerous, but the increase in vehicle safety hid that. Sadly, we still have morons like you who blindly belive the mythology. Perhaps that can be changed by people like me handing out education and insults, but I'm not optimistic.

Injuring yourself will have a cost for society.

This is an utterly invalid reason for laws curtailing behavior in a free society. Free individuals do not "owe" society anything. Society is a voluntary association. Fucking safety nazi shitheads like you would do well to understand that.

Re:

[Zontar The Mindless (9002)]

Montana for many years said only that one must maintain a "reasonable and prudent speed", and only set a numeric limit in the 1970s. However, speed limits (elsewhere) in the USA are much older than that. Existing speed limits were lowered in many cases in the 1970s, but that's not the same thing.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org] for more info.

Speed Limit

[Morosoph (693565)]

I thought the speed limit thing was because breaking the speed limit is dangerous to yourself and others, and killing people is generally considered immoral.

In fact it is driving dangerously that is considered immoral; the meaning of "driving dangerously" depends upon the driver, and an advanced driver would be able to drive safely at higher speeds, all other things being equal.

This pushes the emphasis back onto social contract: because it is hard to detect a driver's skill, a single standard is set for all, which better drivers are expected to buy into since they believe in society.

Re:Shouldn't matter...

[mazarin5 (309432)]

It's simply a tactic to make resistant seem more frightening. Most people don't understand the situation they're in, and the thought of another $5000 plus lawyer fees may be enough to make them shell out $3000.

Of course, if they go to court, and win, they have no reason to settle. If they go to court and lose, then they probably have to pay an excessively larger amount.

So who is this for anyways? People who go halfway through and quit? They're (obviously) just trying to discourage people from fighting it.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

So who is this for anyways? People who go halfway through and quit?

Odd. Of the court cases that actually go to court, I've noticed it's usually the RIAA that try to quit half way through.

Re:Shouldn't matter...

[inKubus (199753)]

This is good news. Rather than "Fight and it'll cost you" in reality they are offering a discount to people who settle. See, the thing is, one man cannot fight the RIAA in court. But now they are faced with hundreds, even thousands of people challenging them. And they haven't been winning, usually due to lack of evidence that any infringement actually occured. So they aren't recouping the cost of their really expensive teams of corporate attorneys, long discovery sessions, return after return to the courtroom, etc. If we ALL fought at once, they would go out of business or be forced to change their model. They are starting to recognize it, and now they just want to capture as much as they can to pay their lawyers huge bills.

Re:Shouldn't matter...

[initialE (758110)]

Go look up the meaning of the tragedy of the commons. Specifically, although it would benefit the whole public to challenge the RIAA collectively, what you're going to end up with is a bunch of people who are intimidated into a settlement for that most selfish of purposes, self-preservation. You're not going to see everyone fight together, it's not in human nature.

Re:

[Nossie (753694)]

using that logic you'd have ran out of original ideas YEARS ago...

Society advances by copying and improvising. Maybe that's why its restricted to governments and corporations? (takes conspiracy hat off)

Disney would be fuck all if it wasn't for copying..

Look at steamboat willie as a FANTASTIC example..

The music was a concept from something else
The setting was taken from something else
The fucking mouse was taken from something else

getting the picture yet?

The very thing that made Walt Disney who he is would b

But...

[snl2587 (1177409)]

How is this different from any other type of corporate lawsuit? Raising settlement costs if the other party prolongs the case is hardly new.

Re:But...

[Lobster Quadrille (965591)]

I keep hearing that this is turning into a business model, but has anybody really figured out the economics of it? All those lawyers, plus the risks they're taking every time they go to court, plus having to pay out a chunk of the winnings to the artists, the labels, etc....

I find it much more likely that the whole thing is an expense for the record companies, but that it is worth it to save their dying business model.

But I also have no real numbers on how many cases actually settle, lose, win, etc., much less the cost of filing the suits in the first place.

Re:But...

[Ardaen (1099611)]

Wait wait wait, they pay the artists?

Re:But...

[mmeister (862972)]

The secret to their business plan is that they never pay out any chunks of winnings to the artists.

It is a business model, but not like you think

[karlandtanya (601084)]

The lawyers don't care whether the long term effect of suing their Client's Customers is good or bad.

They've convinced their Clients this legal service and the lawyers are rackin' up the billable hours.

Realize that an organization (any organization) becomes less self-aware (right hand knows what left hand is doing) as it becomes larger. Once it gets to a certain size, behaviour becomes fragmented--you'll often see one department working at cross purposes to another in the same company.

Ask anybody who's ever worked for the government (even a city government), or a Fortune 100 company.

The answer to the question "Why do they do something that is clearly self destructive?" is that there is no "they", and the folks that are doing the suing know *exactly* what they're doing.

Really... Really?

[Cyno01 (573917)]

How is this not racketeering and extortion? I mean, c'mon...

Re:Really... Really?

[ericbg05 (808406)]

How is this not racketeering and extortion? I mean, c'mon...

It's not either of those things, I'm afraid.

My girlfriend IAL; she says this particular practice of the RIAA is perfectly legal. A party to a civil litigation can alter the settlement terms basically however they want, whenever they want (subject to public policy, of course: RIAA can't alter the terms to include the forfeit of your firstborn child or whatever). A settlement is just a contract, after all.

This makes sense, so the argument goes, because a party's costs for litigating a particular case become higher and higher as the case progresses. So, the settlement costs must increase concordantly.

Re:Really... Really?

[Ramahan (1210528)]

How is this not racketeering and extortion? I mean, c'mon...

It's not either of those things, I'm afraid.

My girlfriend IAL; she says this particular practice of the RIAA is perfectly legal. A party to a civil litigation can alter the settlement terms basically however they want, whenever they want (subject to public policy, of course: RIAA can't alter the terms to include the forfeit of your firstborn child or whatever). A settlement is just a contract, after all.

This makes sense, so the argument goes, because a party's costs for litigating a particular case become higher and higher as the case progresses. So, the settlement costs must increase concordantly.

Your GF might be right if they were stating that they would ask for a higher settlement if the case was prolonged but in the case mentioned here its no different then my walking into every store on the block and threatening a lawsuit for $8000 if they didn't pay me $3000 now. Remember that when the RIAA sends out their little settlement letters they have already dropped a lawsuit against Doe, have not filed the new lawsuit, and it isn't the RIAA legal team who are asking for the money.

Re:

[flamearrows (821733)]

Well, if we make your example into something more sensible: Say you walk into stores and threaten to sue them for $8000 if they don't pay you the $3000... Then there's nothing really wrong with that. You're not really exerting any undue influence or behaving unconscionably - just exercising your right to file suit. If you genuinely believe that the suit has merit (as the RIAA does), then them signing the contract as a genuine compromise is legal and really quite commonplace. I don't really see the proble

Move your assets offshore

[by Anonymous Coward]

and prolong the fight, and if loses, declare bankruptcy.

What if...

[by Anonymous Coward]

...you ignore their notices and force *them* to bring *you* to court? You can claim you never got the notices. Not showing up at court at all is harder, because (I'm pretty sure) you can get arrested.

I'd have thought it would be more...

[NoobixCube (1133473)]

I understand that raising the cost of settling out of court is meant to deter people from fighting in the first place, but considering the ludicrous fines they expect people to pay, it's a little too low. Looks to me like they're just trying to highlight their low, low prices, to avoid people setting a precedent in court, against them.

Keeping up with the times

[cyberchuck.nz (1307417)]

Excluding the illegal downloads arena (which I know is what they're suing over), I think half the problem is the *AA not keeping up with technology.

At home I have a sizeable DVD collection (around 230 at last count), but with the release of Blu-Ray I'm starting to realize that my collection will eventually be obsolete (such as when DVD first came out, and people with a reasonable VCR collection realized that their collection would eventually be worth squat).

I think this is one of the reasons people download (the other reasons being ridiculous prices, etc). People realize that technology changes - CD collections have been superseeded by portable MP3 players (ipod and the likes), VCR's replaced with DVD's which will eventually lose out to blu-ray (once the prices down).

And people realize this - why should you pay for a CD/DVD, which will eventually become obsolete, when you can get what you want in a digital format (for a cheaper price)?

Re:

[Gnavpot (708731)]

I think this is one of the reasons people download (the other reasons being ridiculous prices, etc). People realize that technology changes - CD collections have been superseeded by portable MP3 players (ipod and the likes), VCR's replaced with DVD's which will eventually lose out to blu-ray (once the prices down).

That is not a very reasonable reason for illegal downloads.

If you know that existing media will be incompatible with new players, and there is no legal way to move purchased content to new media

Re:Keeping up with the times

[Opportunist (166417)]

You mean bluerays can still play DVDs. Now, fast forward two generations and I'm not so sure about that anymore. It's even likely that DVDs become unreadable before CDs do, due to the "decryption" necessary for DVDs, and the likelyness that you have to pay someone to use it. Give it two generations and manufacturers of readers will likely dump the "legacy" ballast, leaving you with a player that can't read DVDs anymore. And soon after that you simply won't get any readers for those "ancient" DVDs anymore, since there's no longer a market for it.

Let's not even touch the subject of copy protection mechanisms that may or may not work on future generations of players, which you will certainly get no update for. Which manufacturer will bother writing a driver for some obscure DRM crap that was used in maybe 10 discs? That it just happens to be your favorite movie doesn't matter.

In the make-it-while-you-can dept.

[T3Tech (1306739)]

The RIAA is a sinking ship and they're trying to make as much as they can as long as there are judges and courts that are still sympathetic to their rhetoric.

The four major record corporations fund the RIAA. These companies are rich and obviously well-represented. Recording artists and musicians don't really have the money to compete. The 273,000 working musicians in America make about $30,000 a year. Only 15 percent of American Federation of Musicians members work steadily in music. But the music industry is a $40 billion-a-year business. One-third of that revenue comes from the United States. The annual sales of cassettes, CDs and video are larger than the gross national product of 80 countries. Americans have more CD players, radios and VCRs than we have bathtubs. Story after story gets told about artists -- some of them in their 60s and 70s, some of them authors of huge successful songs that we all enjoy, use and sing -- living in total poverty, never having been paid anything. Not even having access to a union or to basic health care. Artists who have generated billions of dollars for an industry die broke and un-cared for. And they're not actors or participators. They're the rightful owners, originators and performers of original compositions. This is piracy." - Courtney Love [salon.com]

ARAG

[PhearoX (1187921)]

Two words: Legal Insurance.

It costs about $17 a month, and I get hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal cost coverage for most situations. Basically, as long as the case does not involve a vehicle moving violation or is a conflict of interest with my employer (a major grocery chain), I am smilin' all the way to the court house.

I've had the insurance for almost a year now, and I've actually been kind of hoping for an opportunity to sue/counter sue someone... God bless America.

Go ahead, punks, make my day...

[Max Threshold (540114)]

Eight grand is about what I make in a year. For a year's salary, I'd shoot a lawyer in the back of the head, cut them up, pour concrete over them, and toss them off a bridge. (Don't worry, I would never do that to an actual human being.)

*sigh*

[nmaster64 (867033)]

The fact this kind of thing isn't blatantly illegal is just another example of how f**ked up this country's legal system is as it gives big business free rides and doesn't give two s**ts about the average person...

There's one simple way to stop the silliness

[HangingChad (677530)]

There's one simple way to stop the RIAA, MPAA, BSA silliness...make the member companies jointly liable for the excesses of the enforcement organization. Apply the same regulations for bill collectors. As long as they're playing by the rules and obeying the law, no problem. But if you're responsible for the actions of a collection agency you hire, you might be a little more selective about who you pick. Likewise if Sony, BMG and the others found themselves exposed to liability, they might lean on RIAA to play by the rules. In fact, I'd be willing to bet RIAA membership would drop significantly overnight.

I had a dispute with Dish Network a couple years ago, they tried to blame an advertising partner for the problem.

It would change the entire outsourcing landscape. If the local hospital is responsible for the actions of outsource contractors, they might think twice before hiring medical transcription services from Abduls Discount Transcription in downtown Pakistan. As long as companies can insulate themselves from liability when trying to cut corners the silliness is going to continue.

Re:

[NoobixCube (1133473)]

But they won't. It's an organisation with a legion of Chewbacca-Defense lawyers. The one thing they're good at is smoke-screens, and if they want to hide something, or make it exceptionally difficult to find out who actually wrote that policy, they can.

Re:That's a RICO predicate.

[by Anonymous Coward]

RICO? Are you fucking kidding me? They aren't threatening anyone to keep them from defending themselves. Think about the kind of stuff that the RICO statutes were trying to criminalize and tell me if you can still say that with a straight face. If nothing else raising the settlement costs might encourage people to go the defense route instead of settling.

C'mon, people. Stop making arguments based on emotion instead of logic and facts. The RIAA and their army of lawyers are fucking scumbags, no doubt. And we have kind of a screwed up system here (yes, that was an understatement) which isn't making matters any easier. But spewing nonsense like this will get us nowhere.

Re:

[the grace of R'hllor (530051)]

Well, I'd say it depends on how standard practice this is. Right now, they offer to settle for $3000, and if you go to court they will raise that to cover the expenses they've made. So far, so sort-of reasonable.

But if the story becomes "Settle for $3000 now, or we'll force you to pay $8000 later", that's approaching extortion. Especially when they've proven they'll cheat the justice system if they can to get the judgement they want.

Re:That's a RICO predicate.

[taustin (171655)]

If you settle right away, it costs them less. If you fight it, they spend more in legal fees. It's not only legal to do this, it's appropriate.

People like you make the RIAA look like the smart, honest ones.

That is not a good thing.

Re:RIAA on a suicide path with colletaral damage

[flyingfsck (986395)]

What loyal customers? There aren't any CD shops anywhere anymore. The only remaining ones are online and they will eventually die out too.

Re:RIAA!

[Pop69 (700500)]

They already have in the UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7029892.stm [bbc.co.uk]