RIAA Goes for the Max Against AllofMP3 777
Spad writes "Zeropaid is reporting that as part of its ongoing lawsuit, the RIAA will be seeking the maximum of $150,000 per song for each of the 11 million MP3s downloaded from the Russian AllofMP3.com between June and October last year. This amounts to roughly $1.65 trillion, probably a tad more than AllofMP3 has made in its lifetime. A representative of AllofMP3 stated: 'AllofMP3 understands that several U.S. record label companies filed a lawsuit against Media Services in New York. This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3 does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3 operates legally in Russia. In the mean time, AllofMP3 plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws.'"
Russia is still independent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:trillion (Score:4, Insightful)
They pull them out of their ass. $150k/song is complete BS. I just don't understand how a judge would look at that and be like, "Hmmm yeah that seems perfectly logical. Go with it!" AllOfMP3 should just send them 1500 Russian dog poos with a note that says something like, "We arbitrarily value each of these pieces of crap at US$1000000. We're square."
For the good of the planet ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Humanity just doesn't deserve the shit that those lawyers have in their heads.
And to any lawyers who may be reading this
If you continue to do nothing, then don't complain when lawyers are regarded as parasitic scum by the rest of society.
Re:Hmm? (Score:4, Insightful)
Screw them both. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not a big fan of the RIAA, but I'm also not a big fan of AllofMP3. Yes, it's legal in Russia (through a loophole in radio licensing they're trying to close), but not here in the US.
A ton of Slashdotters use it because they think it's a good business model and they feel like they're doing something legal because they're paying for music. Sure it's a nice business model- the way they calculate the price you pay by measuring the amount you're downloading in MBs, but they money that goes to AllofMP3 doesn't end up in the artist's hands any more than it does when you pay money to a record label by buying music on a CD here in the USA (in fact less: none to be exact). Sure, you can complain all you want about the evil RIAA and how they don't give enough money to artists, and boycott them all you like. But the truth is artists get NO money from AllofMP3 (instead of an unfair tiny amount from the RIAA). They're just profiting off of other people's work. Like the RIAA but worse. Instead of a tiny amount of money going to the artists, the moeny goes instead entirely to the proprietors of AllofMP3 (who are rumored to be connected to the Russian mafia, by the way).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA stands for *what*? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Racketeering Industry Association of America. Thats more like it.
suing the wrong people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:quadrouple dipped (Score:5, Insightful)
Theft implies that you took something from someone else resulting in their loss of the use of the item.
For example, if you steal my car, you have deprived me of the use of that car.
Re:Screw them both. (Score:5, Insightful)
From the information on their website, it appears that they pay a fixed percentage of sales to royalties. Registered artists, I presume, get royaties - I haven't looked into their financials, so I can't verify that. I don't read Russian either, so I probably couldn't figure it out even if I had the paperwork. The RIAA doesn't like the terms, so they don't want to play. Artists don't enter into it - they don't own their work. IF they did, they could hire a lawyer to do the paperwork, and get their money.
On a personal, philosophical level...
I'm all for compulsory licensing of any published creative work. Don't want it available? Don't publish it.
This would "fix" the Disney vault problem, and allow works to be re-published for a fixed fee. Presumably, original content owners could still create premium content by republishing with value added features. Most of the movie houses already re-release a title several times to get people to re-buy.
As for starving artists, I say get off you lazy asses, out of the studio, and go entertain in person. If your contract forbids such work...well, you signed the contract, yo ulive with the consequences. If you don't like it, go work 9-5 like everyone else. You're not required to make music to live.
Jurisdiction? (Score:3, Insightful)
What happens when someone, prone to mischief and with re$ources, sues these monkeys for say $2T at the 3rd Circuit Court in Mogadishu.
Fantasy, yes, but imagine a court seizing Disneyland in Japan and France to pay for some judgment, as funky as the one that we will see here.
Re:Wouldnt it be cheaper and faster to (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless of the RIAA's opinon, they can't do diddlysquat about it short of paying off Congress to change the law.
Artists should be reimbursed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
Because artists make SO MUCH on sales in this country...
(Don't particularly like using this as a reference, it's not exactly CNN or BBC, but it's the first reference I saw that looked decent...)
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1
Rather than paying artists approximately 30 cents of the 70 cents it receives for digital downloads (after deducting payments to music publishers), the suit alleges that Sony Music treats each download as a sale of a physical CD or cassette tape, only paying on 85 per cent of such "sales" (due to a fiction that there is breakage of product), deducting a further 20 per cent fee for container/packaging charges associated with the digital downloads (although there are none), and reducing its payments by a further 50 per cent "audiofile" deduction, yielding a payment to the Sony Music recording artists of approximately 4 1/2 cents per digital download
I'd rather pirate the track and give the artist the buck directly. If only there were a way to do that...
Re:"Laws" in russia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Screw them both. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me get this straight. When a company moves its manufacturing division from the U.S. to Malaysia to take advantage of the industry-friendly labour laws in that country, they're applauded for their ingenuity. On the other hand, when U.S. consumers take advantage of consumer-friendly copyright laws overseas, they're criminals.
Re:quadrouple dipped (Score:3, Insightful)
Showtime said, "spin it how you want- you are BREAKING THE LAW"
I've made this point here before. Feel free to break laws you feel are immoral- but do not fool yourself. Fooling yourself is the EASIEST way to getting caught. You start to believe your own bullshit and then you try to use it in court and they nail your ass to the wall.
Argue the semantics however you want but any kind of sharing outside of a fair use copy of your own music or that captured from a source like a radio is breaking the law. You ARE eligible for huge fines so BE CAREFUL- keep a low profile.
Allofmp3 is technically legal- I'm not sure how RIAA is going to try to enforce non-treaty law on a foreign company.
Follow the bouncing ball... (Score:5, Insightful)
American corporations also like to do business in countries where organized dissent to their activities is suppressed by "friendly" governments (friendly to their interests, that is). They do so because organized dissent is legal in the United States and has on more than one occasion 1) aired the corp's dirty laundry, 2) stopped them from performing harmful (but profitable) acts, and 3) called for the corp's to strike a balance between shareholder value and respect for the laws of the country in which they live.
What does all of this have to do with AllOfMP3? Well, American corporations have a long record of doing business (and making bundles of money) by going to places where they aren't restrained by such trite formalities as "laws". American corporations love to extol the virtues of the "global economy", just as long as they're the ones who benefit from it; after all, transnational capital alone should benefit from international business.
But for some reason, the average Joe using the internet to do THE EXACT SAME THING that American corporations have been doing for years is deemed wrong, illegal, unethical, and Lord knows how many other bad things. The average Joe who buys a song from AllOfMP3 is engaging in exactly the same type of transaction that corp's have done for years: gain financial advantage by offshoring their transactions.
Am I oversimplifying? Maybe. But chew on this: Either we have a global market (as we are told that we have as our jobs are outsourced), or we don't. And if we do have a global market, the rules were written long ago by the same people that are trying to stop us from following them.
Re:Hmm? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to pick nits, but if in fact current trends do continue, exactly one thing can happen, that which current trends point to. Anything can happen if current trends don't continue, which if you look at enough trends, is always the case.
Re:quadrouple dipped (Score:3, Insightful)
"OK, RIAA astroturfer, what Russian law is allofmp3.com breaking?"
When allofmp3 made that "we are operating in accordance with Russian law" they were using a little clever wordplay of their own. They probably are operating within Russian law, but that's not the issue. They're trying to change the goalposts on you. The issue is that they are selling their product to US citizens. How far they're going to encourage business from the USA is something that I'm sure will be a key factor if this goes to trial.
You remember how Amazon and ebay have gotten nailed for selling Nazi-related stuff in Germany? Amazon and ebay are US-based companies; yet they didn't try the "we are operating under US law" trick. The point is that they were doing business in Germany and (at least according to Germany) broke German law.
There are also more mundane examples: Ford is a US-based companies; yet if they solicit business in another country (even if they're simply importing rather than building the product there), they have to produce cars that meet those countries' various regulatory requirements; if Country X has stricter requirements than our own, they can't sell US-spec cars in that country and use the "we are operating in accordance with US law" excuse.
Re:suing the wrong people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, from the RIAA's perspective this would be bad -- since then they wouldn't have a case against Allofmp3.com. They stand to (at least they think they stand to) make more money by suing.
Like all gambling though -- they might end up with nothing instead of just less than they wanted...
Re:quadrouple dipped (Score:3, Insightful)
RIAA wants 150,000 * retail_cost for the songs. That means that if you bought a $10,000 Neon, and I made a copy of it, that I would owe Dodge... 1.5 billion.
The moral of the story is don't buy a Neon.
My Book (Score:3, Insightful)
While you are correct that the courts determine the outcome, the parent poster was attempting to justify behavior which is clearly in conflict with the laws of the US.
Also, I'd suggest that opinions about moral behavior are quite relevant. Legal systems are a societal attempt to codify moral behavior.
Re:"Laws" in russia? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Russia is still independent (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:suing the wrong people? (Score:3, Insightful)
They'll just ignore it.
Re:Russia is still independent (Score:3, Insightful)
When you pay for RIAA represented talent, you're paying for a bunch of entitled drug addicted leeches with degrees from party schools, lawsuits against grandmothers for downloading music they couldn't possibly want to listen to, and an entire industry built around the artist paying for everything and receiving a glorified loan in return, while being paid a pittiance for anything any sales outside the top fraction of a percent.
I stopped downloading illegal music altogether many many years ago. I replaced it by downloading to people who actually want me listening to their music. Is it harder to find good music? Sure. Can I sleep at night knowing I'm paying an artist directly for their work? Like a baby.
Re:It's a gambit (Score:2, Insightful)
In this case, it's pretty tough to bust a web site complying with the laws in the nation they operate; it's like the US going after a pot dealer in Amsterdam for breaking US laws.
Thing is, you can go to Amsterdam, you can buy the pot, but you can't bring it to the US because it's illegal.
Same with those who bought mp3's from allofmp3.com - sure they can legally purchase an illegal product, but that doesn't create legality of that product.
Possion of stolen goods is just as bad as theft.
Usual IANAL disclaimer of course applies
Re:quadrouple dipped (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the big problems with Katrina losses is that so frequently all evidence of
ownership and purchase was also washed away.
Proving copyright damage amounts are illegitimate (Score:4, Insightful)
The law is completely absurd, and this case proves it. Who in their right mind could support this?
This is absurd on the level of sentencing someone to death for stealing a candy bar from a convenience store.
Just societies are founded on the principle of proportionality of punishment: the punishment must fit the crime.
The RIAA doesn't dare sue for the full amount against U.S. citizens, because they know that the day a college student is fined a billion dollars for sharing mp3s, is the day that this law is overturned.
No sane person would tolerate this, one hopes.
Re:Russia is still independent (Score:3, Insightful)
I prefer the term "Compatible music".
My daughter has a Nano. My son has an RCA Lyra and a Creative Zen. I have a Panasonic and a Coby. The only format that works in a mixed environment and works on all my PC's including the Linux box is MP3, the format they won't sell.
What ever happened to meeting consumer demand?
The consumer is always right and votes with his wallet. I am not an I-tunes customer. I can't play their product anywhere except on my wife's PC.
In other words, "Show me the MP3".
Re:Russia is still independent (Score:2, Insightful)
That should get you started on interesting modern music. My favorites of the 90s-00s are in bold. I suggest you use resources like allmusic.com and pitchforkmedia.com to look for recommendations. The bands I gave cover a lot of ground.
Now knock off your musical elitism. High school is over, and your ignorant musical tastes aren't much to be proud of anyway.
Re:It's a gambit (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's a gambit (Score:5, Insightful)
so iTunes is illegal then?
I think the argument here is that customers of allofmp3 believe they are purchasing from a legitimate store. This store does pay royalties to the russian version of the RIAA, however this Russian RIAA does not pass them on. Downloading songs that you've paid for from a legitimate store is not illegal - there are many on-line stores where you can legally purchase music. THe issues is: 'is Allofmp3 a legal store?'. The RIAA believe it is not, the Ruskies believe it is. One is a government with oil and some legacy nukes, the other is a bunch of lawyers with deep ties into a government with shiney well maintained nukes.
Re:It's a gambit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Follow the bouncing ball... (Score:1, Insightful)
Now, change "American corporations" to "Corporations looking to make a few extra units of local currency" and "the United States" with "most industrialized nations", and you'd be right on target. Here, I'll fill in the blanks:
Corporations looking to make a few extra units of local currency love doing business in countries where labor laws are lax. They do business where labor laws are lax because they can work people there in ways that would be illegal to do so in most industrialized nations. The corporations would call this "globalization" and point the great benefits of the "global economy" at work.Etc.
-M
Re:Hmm? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe that was one of those Seinfeld "funny cause it true" things? *smirk*
Re:Hmm? (Score:3, Insightful)