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RIAA Backs Down In Austin, Texas
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Jan 14, 2009 08:48 AM
from the walking-away-slowly dept.
from the walking-away-slowly dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In November, 2004, several judges in the federal court in Austin, Texas, got together and ordered the RIAA to cease and desist from its practice of joining multiple 'John Does' in a single case. The RIAA blithely ignored the order, and continued the illegal practice for the next four years, but steering clear of Austin. In 2008, however, circumstances conspired to force the record companies back to that venue. In Arista v. Does 1-22, in Providence, Rhode Island, they were hoping to get the student identities from Rhode Island College. After the first round, however, they learned that the College was not the ISP; rather, the ISP was an Austin-based company, Apogee Telecom Inc., meaning the RIAA would have to serve its subpoena in Austin. The RIAA did just that, but Apogee — unlike so many other ISP's — did not turn over its subscribers' identities in response to the subpoena, instead filing objections. This meant the RIAA would have to go to court, to try to get the Court to overrule Apogee's objections. Instead, it opted to withdraw the subpoena and drop its case."
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RIAA Walks Away From Another "Discovery" Case 164 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that the RIAA walked away last week from one of their 'discovery' cases seeking the identities of 'John Does' who attended Rhode Island College. We have just learned that they walked away from another one, BMG Music v. Does 1-14, in Greensboro, North Carolina. 2 of the 14 John Does had settled, but the other 12 — who hung tough — will never be identified to the RIAA lawyers and will not have to pay any 'settlement.' This adds fuel to the debate over whether the RIAA has finally seen the light or is still sneaking around in the dark."
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Analogy (Score:5, Funny)
Kid: "Mommy, can I go to the store by myself?"
Mom: "No, son."
5 minutes later
Kid: "Daddy, can I go to the store by myself?"
Dad: "Sure, son. Here's a dollar. Get a candy bar".
1 minute later
Mom: "SO I HEARD YOU WENT BEHIND MY BACK AND ASKED YOUR FATHER TO GO TO THE STORE"
Kid: "I just mentioned it to him. I don't want to go anymore. Thanks, bye!"
Mom: *Result Pending*
Re:Analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
Pity nothing's going to happen to them over this.
It doesn't seem to matter if they drop every case that's going badly for them, it has no real effect on the other half.
Parent
Re:Analogy (Score:5, Interesting)
While the Ignore-any-law-you-don't-like thing doesn't appeal to me I'd instead sugest creating some decently effecient darknets to make this "Lets sue everyone and drop the case against anyone who looks like they have the means to actually defend themselves" utterly impotent.
Parent
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:5, Insightful)
Stealing means what was taken was against the owner's consent, and that the owner is now deprived of that good. Copyright infringement, on the other hand, means that you have made an unauthorized copy of a work and are selling it/giving it away/making more copys, which is the case here.
Parent
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:5, Interesting)
Stealing of information by copying has been punishable by law for many years - way before the Internet.
No, infringing copyright by copying is punishable by law. Stealing by copying isn't, because you can't steal something by copying it.
It is a flawed argument to think stealing information is not a bad thing.
No one said that is wasn't a bad thing. The point was that is isn't stealing. An action isn't automatically stealing just because it is bad - if I beat you up, I won't get convicted for stealing, but I will get convicted for assault.
Many companies have their entire business model setup on proprietary information - the people here a /. may not like this - but guess what - the people here at /. were not the ones investing tons of money/time into those soft-products.
There is nothing wrong with having your business model set up on proprietary information. What _is_ wrong is abusing the legal system to catch people who may or may not be breaking the law at the expense of a large number of innocent people.
Also, that nice new fancy drug that you or your family/loved ones are taking to save their lives...that formula is most likely (for new drugs) a closely held secret by a company that spent many millions in R&D. Without these copyright protections said companies would have no reason to create life-saving medicines.
You seem to be confused. You can't copyright a physical object such as a drug - you have to patent it. You can't keep patented IP a secret, since the whole point of a patent is that it is published.
The patent system has a lot of problems, but it has nothing to do with copyright, is not the matter under discussion and last I heard the drug industry didn't go around suing random people without any credible evidence that those people have done anything wrong.
Just like drug makers have to protect their recipies from international infringements so do people who want to profit from their music.
Nothing wrong with a copyright music owner protecting their property.
So what has this got to do with stealing?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Pirating is not stealing because stealing has it's own definition.
Such definitions are relevant and important and have real moral consequences.
I'm always amused how the morally pompous have no problem being LIARS in order to make their point.
Also, "before the internet" is a weak metric for ethics. Human society is far older than that.
Re:Choose your words more carefully (Score:5, Informative)
You're trying to make a point, and I understand what you mean, but you're really arguing something that's irrelevant. You are also making people focus on the wrong thing, dragging what point you were trying to make off into the weeds. When someone says "pirating is not stealing", they are not talking about what you're talking about when you say "pirating is stealing".
If you would drop the semantics and make your point without using the words "pirate" or "steal" and instead use "copyright infringement" you would start to see how your arguments actually aren't that different from the ones you're arguing against.
Also, note that US copyright law considers the financial impact of any potential infringement, among other things.
"Piracy" has generally been when someone copies something and sells it, like the Chinese DVDs or Windows for a dollar. Clearly you are reducing the market value, if people no longer have to pay full price. More recently, "piracy" is being used in the sense of simple copying for personal use, for situations like downloading music that you already own so you don't have to convert it to FLAC/MP3/AAC. This could be considered fair use because there is no financial benefit to you and no financial loss to the vendor (ignoring the uploading part, since those parts would be available regardless of whether you were uploading them because you got them from somewhere, so your actions are not materially contributing). So even talking about "piracy" is a muddy conversation if you don't clearly define what you're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Comparison_to_theft [wikipedia.org]
http://www.copyright.com/Services/copyrightoncampus/basics/fairuse_rules.html [copyright.com]
And if anyone wants to copy this the next time someone like this pops up, i release any copyright claim on this comment and it is public domain. Copy, paste, improve.
Parent
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:4, Interesting)
Stealing of information by copying has been punishable by law for many years - way before the Internet.
Yes, it has. Do you know why these laws were established? (Hint: The reason had nothing to do with compensating creators for their efforts). That's a prerequisite for understanding how they should be applied with the existence of a world-changing technology like the Internet?
It is a flawed argument to think stealing information is not a bad thing.
You're the one arguing that information, which by it's very nature is infinitely reproducible and has no inherent scarcity, unlike physical objects, should be arbitrarily restricted, at great expense to society. The burden is on you to show why it is bad to copy information.
Many companies have their entire business model setup on proprietary information
True, and in fact I make my living that way. But irrelevant. Buggy whip makers had their entire business model set up on producing implements for controlling horses. Times change, businesses must change with them.
Without these copyright protections said companies would have no reason to create life-saving medicines.
Copyrights have nothing to do with medicines. You're thinking of patents. They're different, and have a completely different purpose.
BTW, I'm a big fan of copyright law, done right. Our copyright law is screwed up, and what the record labels have been trying to do is even more screwed up than the law, but it's still a very good idea if done correctly.
Oh, and I don't infringe on copyrights per the law, even though I think the law is wrong to the point of evil.
Parent
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:4, Insightful)
You should read some of my posts, because I actually have said it. Here's the executive summary:
(Please try to consider the following from a layperson's or "common-sense" perspective, rather than a lawyer's one.)
Because of this, I have to conclude that copyright is not, in fact, a property right. Therefore, I take issue with your use of "owner" and "property" in the quotation above.
Now, if you rephrased that to say "I have not seen any one saying there is something 'wrong with a copyright music holder protecting their government-granted monopoly'" then that would be different.
Parent
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of us have no problem with WHY the RIAA is doing the things it does -- our problem is the 'how'.
Parent
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:5, Insightful)
the /. crew
So you are attempting to lump together everybody on Slashdot who is not you as "the /. crew"? Strange.
Parent
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:5, Insightful)
...this is another example of the moral bankruptcy of the self-righteous.
Not all of us are "justifying personal acts of piracy". Some of us just
realize that there is more to this issue than the plush lifestyles of
A&R men or their victims.
A lot of work is still subject to "ownership" that should no longer be.
Some works are no longer even available and may be lost permanently.
Creativity is threatened by effectively perpetual copyright and the social
costs of allowing publishers to lock away works that are older than any
participant of this forum are absurd. The consequences are rediculous
when compared to genuine acts of theft that would have been
acknowledged as such by Hammurabi himself.
Parent
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:5, Informative)
Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. I am not aware of a synonym for it.
The RIAA uses the terms "piracy" and "stealing" in referring to copyright infringement, but do so inaccurately, as part of their propaganda.
Parent
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, would you condemn copyright infringement -- for the record?
Yes I am opposed to copyright infringement.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, even though the comparison with stealing is a poor one it's good enough to draw some paralells.
Shoplifting happens. bad thing, yada yada.
Now to combat that walmart pushes through some ridiculous legislation and then hires companies to spy on shoplifters,people who might be shoplifters and people who live near possible shoplifters.
Normal customers who pay for their goods start getting patted down regularly, denied entry or exit from the store and called criminals and threatened with legal action if they tried to sell things second hand.
When they catch some 13year old stuffing a 5 dollar item into his coat they take him to court and sue him and his family for $100,000 .
In their crusade to catch the shoplifters they extort records out of local organisaitons with threats of legal action and generally abuse the legal system to find the home addresses of people who might be shoplifters.
They threaten tens of thousands of families with similar suits and offer a shoplifter settlement where you can pay a few thousand in exchange for a promise of not being sued.
Some of the people who get accused of being shoplifters are of course innocent and were simply falsely identified as shoplifters but since there's still a chance of losing absolutely everything and the weight of evidence is not the same as a criminal case those families can't take the chance of losing all their worldly goods and have to pay out of fear.
Imagine a world where walmart acted like that.
Now imagine where the public sympathy would lie, with the kids who are shoplifting or with walmart?
Sure violating copyright is wrong but violating privacy laws and generally abusing the legal system is much much worse.
Parent
Rinse and Repeat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
RIAA: Haha, just kidding, can't you take a joke?
Judge Roy Bean: BANG!... ermmm NO
I posit that if the RIAA had to hire bullet proof lawyers there would be very little litigation on their behalf.
Re:Rinse and Repeat (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point, they're going to get slapped down hard for these tactics and on that day, there will be much cheering from Slashdot.
I think it will come in the form of a rush to get ISP's headquartered in Austin. Many shools looking to avoid the legal problems would change ISP's as a risk avoidance move. Does anyone know if any Portland area ISP's are based in Austin?
Parent
Re:Rinse and Repeat (Score:5, Funny)
Portland (at least in the US) means Portland, Oregon.
That is probably true - unless you live in Portland, Arkansas or Portland, Connecticut or Portland, Indiana or Portland, Maine or Portland, Michigan or Portland, Missouri or Portland, North Dakota or Portland, New York or Portland, Ohio or Portland, Pennsylvania or Portland, Tennessee or Portland, Texas. Other than that, Portland means Portland, Oregon
Apologies to any Portlands I missed
Parent
Re:A Question for Ray (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as I'm concerned, you're asking half of the Great Imponderable Question. I'll add the other half:
1) They can't be making any money off this. The kinds of people they sue aren't among the wealthier members of society. There's a big difference between getting a judgment and actually collecting the money.
2) It's not acting as a deterrent. People are still out there doing what they do as recording sales continue to fall.
So the other half of the question is: Why do they keep doing this?
Parent
Re:A Question for Ray (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as I'm concerned, you're asking half of the Great Imponderable Question. I'll add the other half: 1) They can't be making any money off this.
Losing money hand over fist.
The kinds of people they sue aren't among the wealthier members of society.
Usually.
There's a big difference between getting a judgment and actually collecting the money.
That's right. And each default judgment cost them plenty.
2) It's not acting as a deterrent. People are still out there doing what they do as recording sales continue to fall.
So I'm told. So the other half of the question is: Why do they keep doing this?
My theory is that (1) a corporation is managed by its management, (2) the management in the case of the big 4 record companies are total failures, and (3) this campaign was based on a premise that they fabricated to deflect attention from their own failure: that the existence of p2p file sharing software is the sole reason for their failure. They had to push the campaign to try to pretend they believed in the premise.
Parent
Re:A Question for Ray (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you ever read Barbara Tuchman's book "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam"? She defines folly as an organization or government's deliberate pursuit of policies that are against their own best interests, often despite ample evidence and warnings. Aside from the semi-mythic Troy and the very real United States, she also looks at the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation, England at the time of the American Revolution, and a couple of others. It's a fascinating book, even twenty-odd years after its first publication. Every time I read one of these RIAA posts, I'm reminded of it. Their actions seem to me to meet all her criteria for folly.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No wonder they failed... (Score:5, Informative)
As a RI resident, I can pretty confidently say that there no "College of Rhode Island".
Re:No wonder they failed... (Score:4, Informative)
The colleges with the closest names to "College of Rhode Island" are:
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You think that is amazing. You should see how many Corporations are based in Rhode Island.
Granted RI is a small state, roughly 40 miles square. But if you look at your own (or closest) city there are probably 3 or 4 colleges within 10 miles square of it.
Lets use the Little City of Troy, NY
RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Hudson Vally Community College, and Russel Sage All within 5 miles of each other.
Re:No wonder they failed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm. He said 40 miles square. That would be about 1600 square miles, so he thinks it's bigger than you do. :)
Parent
Re:No wonder they failed... (Score:5, Informative)
As a RI resident, I can pretty confidently say that there no "College of Rhode Island".
Sorry about that. You are of course correct. It's "Rhode Island College". My apologies.
A person my age should no longer work from memory.
Parent
Re:No wonder they failed... (Score:5, Insightful)
No problem.
Hey, Ray, by the way, I think I speak for lots of people when I say thank you for what you're doing in this area.
Parent
Re:No wonder they failed... (Score:4, Funny)
I'd rather have NYCL speak defiantly for me. He at least has some experience doing that sort of thing against the RIAA.
Parent
Re:No wonder they failed... (Score:5, Funny)
A person my age should no longer work from memory.
Don't say that! I think I'm older than you and I assure you that...
Um, what was I talking about again?
Parent
Will it make a bit of difference? (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably not. I expect they'll continue with their bullshit in other states while lawyers who haven't done their homework will not be able to help their clients.
That's just what I expect, though, because I know that it's better to expect the worst and hope for the best.
It all blows (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry. Just had to say it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Better : Stop buying music from RIAA member but continue to buy music from the truly independents, or from the artists themselves
Re:It all blows (Score:4, Interesting)
But it drives me nuts the people that still continue to grab their music illegally which just helps prolong and reinforce the idea that the RIAA is needed (to record companies).
You buy into the myths that 1) piracy hurts copyright holders 2) the RIAA is afraid of pirates 3) The RIAA is the only (or best) place to get music.
For the first, see lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons and the introduction to Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Both are posted in full on the internet, and both are selling well; I read Doctorow's book on the internet, and then bought a hardcover copy that sits on by bookshelf like CDs ought to.
If you want to hear the latest RIAA top 40 dreck, turn on the radio. It's free and it's legal, and if you want a digital copy of that single you can sample the radio. Legal? I don't know, but back in the cassette days they specifically made recording off the air legal.
I would urge everyone to NOT download, buy, or listen to RIAA music, even though any lost sales due to the boycott that has been going on for years is attributed to piracy. You have internet radio with thousands of stations with tons of indie music. You have local bands, all of whom record these days. Buy from them and you will get higher quality and a far lower price.
I know people who can absolutely afford to purchase their music legally, but don't. Not because of any stance against record companies or compensation for artists. They just do it, 'because'. It's free after all.
Odd, I don't know a single one. I hear it from the RIAA all the time, but have never met this mythical pirate. Why would one steal bottled water when you have a filtered tap on your sink and money in your pocket? Almost every non-RIAA band WANTS you to download their music, and to do it for free. They know that nobody ever lost money from "piracy" but most suffer from obscurity, including RIAA bands; they can't get everyone on the radio.
BTW, iTunes doesn't sell music, they rent it. If you want to "buy music" you need to buy a CD, as you have resale and lending rights with it. It is a physical object. When you rent from the internet, you own nothing. P2P and digital downloads should be what the indies use it for -- promotion. The RIAA is trying to kill P2P not because "piracy" hurts sales, but because your hearing indie music hurts RIAA sales.
Stop doing business with sociopaths.
Parent
Accountants? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously...where the hell are their accountants at? Anyone who actually has gone through the required business classes would be well aware of how insane their imaginary losses are. Now, that is not the same as using those insane numbers to further a media blitz, but internally that nonsense does not stand up to any kind of sanity test. So...with a more realistic number on "lost sales" I can't imagine that there is a terribly high real return on their lawsuit happy nonsense. I imagine the costs of these constant legal battles take a pretty huge chunk of change.
Re:Accountants? (Score:4, Insightful)
as far as I'm concerned the only people they should be going after are those who sell bootleg copies, as they are actually making money off of it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's worse than that.... before legal downloads P2P file sharing of music caused their sales to go .... UP!
The only thing that seems to have made the sales go down is *legal* downloads ....
Re:Accountants? (Score:5, Insightful)
this is what kills me, and why their business is such a damned train wreck. They are letting people with no [expleteive deleted] business sense make the decisions (namely the legal teams)...
Exactly. The lawyers have been running this operation for their own benefit.
Parent
It's all about the pirates (Score:3, Funny)
It's not the lawsuits that cost the RIAA a ton of money. It's all because of pirates. Y'see, if it weren't for pirates, then they wouldn't have to spend all this money on lawyers in the first place! So there ya have it... even the legal costs are a direct result of piracy. It makes PERFECT sense!
Oh hey, and on a random note, I've got this really awesome bridge for sale out in London, if you're looking to buy.
Business is looking up (Score:3, Insightful)
I see a very bright outlook for Apogee Telecom's ISP business this year.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I see a very bright outlook for Apogee Telecom's ISP business this year.
Yes, I think their willingness to stand up for the rule of law is something to be proud of. And I think people will respect that.
Illegal? (Score:4, Interesting)
In November, 2004, several judges in the federal court in Austin, Texas, got together and ordered the RIAA to cease and desist from its practice of joining multiple 'John Does' in a single case. The RIAA blithely ignored the order, and continued the illegal practice for the next four years, but steering clear of Austin.
Am I missing something? So what made this illegal? If they didn't do the act in Austin then they didn't do anything illegal. I am no fan of RIAA but to call something illegal when it is not is wrong. They complied with the judges wishes and stopped doing what they were doing in the Judge's jurisdiction.
Re:Illegal? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Illegal? (Score:5, Informative)
Granted, but then why are they only avoiding Austin?
Why they would violate the order, and flagrantly violate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, on a daily basis, for 4 years... is a question I can't answer. You would have to ask them.
The reason they were avoiding Austin is no doubt that the judges who issued they order that's been violated would probably hold them in contempt and might even put them in jail.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Could have been comical... (Score:5, Funny)
it could have been rather comical to see RIAA go up before a judge that had told them to stop the bundling
.Yes. It would have been priceless.
Parent