RIAA Hearing Next Week Will Be Televised 291
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "One commentator labels it 'another fly in the RIAA's ointment.' In SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, the Boston, Massachusetts, RIAA case in which the defendant is represented by Harvard law professor Charles Nesson and a group of his students, the Judge has ruled that the hearing scheduled for January 22nd will be televised over the Internet. The hearing will relate to Mr. Tenenbaum's counterclaims against the record companies and against the RIAA. In her 11-page opinion (PDF), District Judge Nancy Gertner labeled as 'curious' the record companies' opposition to televising the proceedings, since their professed reason for bringing the cases is deterrence, 'a strategy [which] effectively relies on the publicity arising from this litigation'."
One problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is, if the RIAA wins by some convoluted twist of the law (of which they've gotten quite good at twisting by this point), no amount of losses will be able to wipe the smug look from their faces after winning the case on live TV. At which point, the industry is doomed.
Never think that the RIAA is doomed. They always come back.
Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs (Score:5, Interesting)
CD purchases, the listening public will bestow on ungrateful addicts, oops record execs...
Fixed. The real problems are/were record companies who were addicted to printing their own money and a market that thinks/thought that making 200%+ profit is/was piss poor performance. Fortunately, the recording industry is finally coming around to the notion that lawyers are only good for collecting sort-term, high-gain revenue, not suing grandma for her Dale Jr. poster.
Justice (Score:5, Interesting)
Having read the order, I get the sense that the Judge really really understands what is going on and is not going to let them weasel out of their own lies.
The Judge is going to take their claims perfectly literally with no prejudice. They say that they want public knowledge of the suits, thus, she finds it "curious" that they don't want it televised. So, she takes them at their word (wanting public knowledge of the law suits) and "helps" them do what they say they claim to want to do.
Unlike judges before her, she knows they are lying. They know they are lying. Nesson knows they are lying. The case is a blackmail scam and everyone involved knows it, this time, even the judge.
They are stuck because these are counter claims, and while I'm not a lawyer, even if BMG/Sony drop the suit, I believe the counter claims live on. So, they can't drop it. They have to fight a Harvard Law Professor and his students, and it will all be public for display.
I'm going to buy some popcorn and watch.
Re:One problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, should they win, the "jury" box failed. Time for the next one.
Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs (Score:3, Interesting)
Strictly playing the devil's advocate here, but I propose a thought experiment:
Imagine if you went to the Ford/GM Manufacturing plant, threw 55% the cost of a new car through the window and then stole one of the new cars on the lot. About 40% of the cost of a new vehicle is materials and labor, with another 10% paying for pensions and whatnot for employees, and about 2.5% profit (so they double their profit). The other 50% is engineering, transportation to the dealer, paying the dealer, etc, etc. So the car company doesn't lose out on anything, except the part that I pay for; in fact, they actually just doubled their profit. I suspect that they'd still be pretty pissed off.
A lot of people on slashdot argue that downloading copyrighted material isn't theft, because you aren't denying the record companies the use of what you are accused of stealing. I understand the difference, the car company is selling a physical product, whereas music is much more intangible. But what happens if, in 100 years, we all have nono-assemblers in our garages? Should it be acceptible for me to download the plans to any car I want without paying for the engineering, advertising, and saftey testing?
Again, I'm not saying that I'm on the record companies side, just posing a little thought experiment. I'm not trying to troll of flamebait, just looking for honest insight. If you feel the need to down-mod me, so be it.
Re:One problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
If they win, they will lose. If they lose, they will lose.
Most people just think that big media is a bunch of greedy assholes. Putting them out in the public serves to prove that big media is a bunch of greedy assholes.
And as to what I mean by "if they win, they will lose" I mean to say that seeing the RIAA win in a big case like that, people will know to steer clear of anything associated with the RIAA. An effective majority tapes, records or shares music once in a while. The practice is quite literally a part of our daily lives. If the public sees someone lose their lives through a lawsuit, you can bet it will not cause people to rush out and legitimize their collection by buying more stuff. No, they will look to alternatives. They lose.
And if they lose, they will lose. The results may not be as dramatic as if they were to win, but at least it gives further data for study and reference when building a defence for the next case they bring.
Re:Terminology (Score:5, Interesting)
Well first, even if you take the RIAA's side fully, a reasonable person would admit that it's copyright infringement, and not "theft". You can argue that copyright infringement is as bad as theft, but it's not theft.
Second, the complaint isn't that they're trying to fight copyright infringement, but rather their methods of fighting copyright infringement. Surely methods and means can matter. I can fight against injustice using methods that are themselves unjust.
Can we agree to that much, at least? At least as a starting point to discuss exactly how immoral copyright infringement is, and whether the RIAA's methods are just or unjust?
Last.FM - Stay Away (Score:3, Interesting)
One way or another, I won't let Last.FM anywhere near my computer.
Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs (Score:3, Interesting)
They never controlled reproduction, and to this day it's still WAY cheaper for the Big 5 to print CDs (massive bulk discounts) than the home musician. That's not to say that it's expensive, though. I printed 1,000 copies of my album in '06 and I'm far from rich.
What the big 5 provided was distribution and promotion. THAT's where they're being hit today thanks to the Internet. I did my album as a fun project. A way to get songs that I had written over the last 5 years "out there", just for fun. Not expecting huge gains or anything. I spend absolutely ZERO time and money promoting it and yet I'm still selling copies from people who find me on last.fm or cdbaby etc. Not anywhere near enough to support myself on, but it's awesome that I'm slowly recouping my investment and not having to work at it.
That's the real issue that I take with the RIAA. As someone who has a passive interest in economics, the RIAA's business model is the same fallacy that you see all over the place where people think that they can get something for nothing. Money is credit, credit is debt and debt is the promise of labour. If you don't produce something of value (labour when you come down to it) then people simply aren't willing to give you their labour in exchange for it. It's extremely simple but people are so caught up in our monetary system that they forget this. And thus they buy into the pipe dream that you can collect more labour for something than you put into it. There may be the odd case where people succeed at those schemes but in the long run the exchange of labour has to balance out or you have slavery.
Re:Terminology (Score:4, Interesting)
It might be just my crack-pot theory, so take it with a grain of salt...
I would thing the main reason to want the hearings televised goes to how there scare tactics work. Sinister motives or not, reading articles and watching video have very different impacts on how people perceive the information. I can write a ton of articles saying pirates are thieves, copying music makes baby Jesus cry, you'll get a life sentence for not paying every time you listen to a song, etc; but the actual court preceding will be very different. Even if they make those exact claims, it will not be in the same tone as attack media will be.
Real court proceedings are very dry, and will not support the fear image that they want. Plus it will be clear that they are suing for copyright violation and not theft. I'm sure there are various other concerns too.
Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Terminology (Score:5, Interesting)
No. Stealing the product of their labour would involve nicking the master copy they made, or possibly shoplifting a CD (although then you're stealing from the shop rather than the artist). An infringing copy removes nothing from their possession except the money that you might or might not have spent on a legal copy.
Both are illegal, but they aren't the same thing, and really the only reason to persist in not splitting that hair is if you have some motive for "copyright infringement" to be considered exactly equal to "theft". The most obvious motive being that theft sounds more serious and so people are less likely to choose to do it if they think of it in those terms.
Thankfully we are not undergoing a transition to Newspeak, so there is no need to eliminate terms from our vocabulary. There is a distinction between the 2 things and no reason to lump them together under one word, so please stop trying to do so.
Re:Terminology (Score:3, Interesting)
televised over the internet??
Either it's televised on the television, or streamed on the internet. Just saying.
Well if you go to the roots of the word television and televised, if the goal is to allow you to view it from a distance, televised seems more appropriate than streamed (which could refer to audio, water, video, tickertape)
Re:RIAA seeks $1 million for seven songs (Score:4, Interesting)
It ignores investment because the only way that investment can pay off is through labour. The risk taker fronts his labour (since money is the promise of labour) with the expectation that he will be payed back with interest (interest being one of two ways that investment can ever enrich anyone - the other being the collection of collateral). The reality is that thanks to the addition of interest all debt can never be repayed because there isn't enough money in circulation (which is why we view investment as being risk). It's also why we have perpetual inflation.
When you consider that there simply is not enough money in circulation to repay all debt it becomes clear that investment is a scheme to exploit labour. It pays off for some people but it is not viable long term. The only reason that investment banks create the illusion of viability is thanks to the fractional reserve system and the safety net of the central bank (which both lead to perpetual inflation). The reality is that investment banks don't actually risk anything. They create money out of thin air (inflation) when they lend and they seize property when the loans are defaulted on. When the economy goes sour and banks stop lending the central banks cut interest rates, increasing their lending to commercial banks and more people end up in debt. Those people then seek employment/labour to repay it.
This isn't to say that banks never collapse due to poor investment practices. It happened as recently as 2008. It just means that in order for investment to pay off someone, somewhere has to loose.