Comments on: For RIAA, a black eye comes with the job

Despite negative public image, record industry group has little choice but to continue lawsuits, insiders say.

[savagesteve13]

STOP BUYING MUSIC

The RIAA has declared war on us all, so its time to declare war ourselves.

[sharkattacksteve]

Stop Buying This Goverment !

Stop buying corporate crap,stop buying the excuses this government makes because this government is a corporation.10,000 plus illegals entering the country every freakin day,why? They say they can't stop it,********,they want it because the corpo-
rations want it.This "country" is a business and has been for over a hundred years.The media is controlled by zionist's,global warming can be laid directly at the feet of corporate capitalism and monotheism.

National Socialism is the Truth!

[sjsobol]

Objective observation

The recording industry has a legal right to prevent piracy. No one in their right minds should argue that they don't.

However, look at what they're doing. The RIAA lobbying for the power to search consumer PCs without a warrant or probable cause, not to mention that they aren't a law enforcement agency. Sony BMG and the rootkit debacle. Acts like thes, in addition to their inability to properly compensate artists, are the problem.

[Flash Elk]

Guilty, but fine is too high.

I agree that she is guilty of file sharing copyrighted intellectual property, which is illegal for good reasons, and should be punished. However, the fine is far too high. It further portrays RIAA negative image, which not entirely fair in my opinion.

Don't steal music!

[rkkirch]

Who r they kidding?

And these are the people who, for years, engaged in payola designed to keep deserving talent off of the air.

[Wickedashtray]

Yeah, Right

Amazing of all the cases that the media and the RIAA chose to highlight is one where they had almost an airtight case against her. When the "chosen people" get together the truth of whats really happening tends to get buried in order to protect the monopoly they've had over screwing both the public and musicians for years. No mention of the countless innocents that were forced to respond to accusations from the RIAA/MPAA who are using our tax money and court systems as an assembly line of extortion. I hope the recording industry DOES get put out of business by piracy and then maybe the little cash coming in will actually go to the artists. At that point the whole system wil be forced to start from scratch and hopefully artists will make more effort to stand together instead of looking for an advance to sign their lives over to.

[JeffW42]

Copyright Protection:

Where possession is zero tenths of the law!

[Sentinel]

Tough love??

"'Yes, this is a form of tough love but it is a necessary one to protect the rights of artists,' said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman."

Tough love is an interesting way to call it. So RIAA loves this woman? Why? Because she supposedly stole something of theirs? Oh yeah, it's love all right, love for money. What ever way they put it, this woman has become a martyr, driven to bankruptcy by the power hungry corporations. While I'm not saying she's innocent, how well is justice served when the weak and the poor are oppressed? Wasn't that the same principle that drove this country to seek independence in the first place? George Washington and the other Founding Fathers must be revolving in their graves, that what they fought for has become what they sought to get rid of.

[chuck_whealton]

Re: Tough Love??

"'Yes, this is a form of tough love but it is a necessary one to protect the rights of artists,' said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman."

Yea, they're lying. It's all about the money.

I agree with you that she's anything but innocent, but I disagree with you that she's weak and poor. I also don't agree that she's being oppressed.

In my own mind, this has more to do with the fact that the punishment does NOT fit the crime. $220,000? I don't think so.

I continue to NOT purchase anymore new music. I'll make due with my collection from when I was younger and before we heard much of anything about the RIAA. I won't patronize the music industry while these people are doing this.

Did you read the story about the European equivelant of the RIAA? They're filing a lawsuit against a company because their employees blast their radios while they work and customers might hear it - that's copyright infringement in their minds.

It's definately not tough love. They're greedy as the day is long.

Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com

[epastrana]

Radiohead and NIN are setting their end

Radiohead and NIN are now setting the end of all this crap from the music Industry.

No intermediaries!

Just the artists and us.

Period!

(so long RIAA)

[Leria]

That would be the best system

Where the artists own their own servers, perhaps collectively, and set their own prices for songs.

[Wickedashtray]

wake up

regardless of the moral side of it the fact remains is that music is simply NOT worth what it once was no matter how hard the music industry tries to control it. They assume the loss is all from piracy but it isn't, people that buy songs individually via iTunes arent going to drop $20 for every song on a new album....thats why the service is popular. Muscicians need to start profiting from peripheral streams of revenue like concerts, T-shirts, TV etc and simply give the music away. With that there is no more room for middlemen. You are watching an industry that can't come to terms with itself being obsolete. Honestly, my thinking was exactly like yours about 6 months but I read up on what these scumbags (the industry, not the pirates) are pulling. It shocked the hell out of me as it should anyone with any lick of sense. Don't be a lemming.

[psychrodraconic]

Asinine

Next they will be suing stores for not having cd's under lock and key. After all, the files are out in a publicly accessible place where someone can take it without paying for it. That's right. Sue the person who got "stolen" from...

Lets' not even talk about what is going to happen when they close down every library in America for lawsuits following their continued allowing people to borrow music and media.

Next time you borrow an audio-tape or lend a friend a cd for a band they are interested in, you might have to pay $9,500 per song. Absolutely ridiculous. Someone should sue the RIAA for not actively protecting their content. I mean, after all if they secured their media properly it wouldn't matter where the person left it. Just please RIAA, the next time I roll down the window of my car while listening to a cd, I really don't feel like being sued.

The worst part of this whole thing though, is that a judge in the United States didn't have the common sense to see that the RIAA is making a mockery of the US Judicial system. Appalling...

[anonymous1977]

Definition of Irony?

Quote "We know someone was using a computer and IP address to distribute songs. We know information like the time they used it but we don't know anything about that person."

Isn't this the same thing her attorney tried to argue in court and lost? Now the RIAA is trying to use this same justification for bringing these extortionist lawsuits. That to me, is the epitomy of irony.

[jtjt145]

Removal of RIAA/MPAA inevitable

Should any organization like the RIAA/MPAA be allowed to harrow citizens for minor delinquencies, the way they do?

They drag kids, 86 year old grand mums, and everybody else they consider sample material in front of courts, and what for? Nothing more than a couple of downloaded songs.

Ofcourse they are loosing money, their business has failed. So what to to do for the 'poor' guys owning and running RIAA/MPAA?

Answer: THE SAME AS EVERYBODY ELSE WHO LOSES A JOB OR A BUSINESS!

Get on with your life! Find a different field of opportunity! (You are not running out of ideas, are you?) and stop being a nuisance to the folks in America and elsewhere.
And one more thing: DO ******* stop, in the interest of mankind, standing in the way of progress in technology.

Ian Fielders

[blindlemonjim]

My Take On the Evil RIAA

The principle never was free music vs. paid music. The issue is the price. CDs were ranging in the $20 per album range when file sharing began to become popular. It became popular because there were a significant number of people who simply didn't HAVE the kind of cash being charged to fork over for an album.

When you watch music artists driving around in limos and generally spending money like it's water, it's hard to be sympathetic when you look at the price tag on their product. I've never even touched a limo. Some of these artists drive in them every day.

What's really happening here is that the media have produced a new aristocracy in American culture. It is this new aristocracy of rich, spoiled and pampered celebrities who are charging exorbitant prices for music and other forms of entertainment. The public has no sympathy for these people. Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. The RIAA might want to look into the sociological aspects of the matter if they really want to come up with an effective solution. While they declare "justice," the millions on the other side of the fence are calling it something entirely different. When you take a consumer and make him into a victim, it's not long before you start to see lynch mobs. I see the music industry as hanging precariously by a taut thread. One wrong move and the whole thing is going to crumble into oblivion.

[ncbill]

What if she files for bankruptcy?

Even if her appeal fails, she'll just file for bankruptcy and discharge all judgments.

As a single mother, with that low of an income, she's eligible for chapter 7 liquidation.

Seems an expensive way for RIAA to get a moral victory.

[zanzzz]

NOT Stealing!

The spokes weasel for the RIAA Jonathan Lamy used the word "stealing" to describe what the jury's conclusion was. That is what these corporate thieves would like you to believe. It was copyright infringement, not stealing. No music files are missing! Copyright law is a bloated pile of corrupt pestilence that Congress has expanded to the point of unconstitutionality. The RIAA and fellow racketeers MPAA have bought these outrageous laws and clearly intend to line their undeserving pockets for as long as this discredited business policy can sustain.
Boycott the purchase of all major label music and movies, write your Congress critter to change copyright and patent abuse, and vote against anyone that has a hand in perpetrating these anti consumer laws.

[NoVista]

Unexpected consequences

When I was active on IRC a fw years ago, we swapped MP3s and if I heard a track I liked, I'd buy the album. So: file sharing actually generated a profit for the scumbags.

OTOH, if I didn't like what I heard, it cost them nothing.

And the Big Lie is RIAA protecting their artists. You believe that, don't you?

[iheartmonday]

Right....

And I'm sure others swapping MP3s went out and bought the tracks too, didn't they? You have got to be insane to think that people would actually believe that. If you want to listen to music to decide what you like, then listen to the radio!

[hawkeyeaz1]

"Protecting the artists!"

""Yes, this is a form of tough love but it is a necessary one to protect the rights of artists," said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman."

"While it remains highly unpopular, the RIAA has a fiduciary duty to track down file sharers, whoever they might be, said Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, a company that monitors traffic to entertainment sites. He said that he's talked to many people in the industry that believe the RIAA could potentially face lawsuits from artists if they failed to protect their rights."

"The RIAA acts as agents for hundreds of thousands of artists and for millions of songs. They have to demonstrate to the artists and also to Wall Street that they are doing everything that they can to fight piracy."

Never mind the record companies made the artists in question sign *all* of their rights away for pennies. Yeah, protecting the artist's rights huh?

"But if the RIAA isn't going to stand up for its rights, who will, asks Chris Castle, a copyright lawyer and former executive with A&M Records and Sony Entertainment."

Now the truth is there--it is standing up for *it's* (alleged) rights. Not the artist's!

[mikalg]

Ignorance of law

Your ignorance of the "new" laws are staggering.

[Vudu Guru]

Crushed by a dinosaur

I have no sympathy for yesterday's media giants and their strong-arm tactics to keep the money flowing at the expense of our culture and to the detriment of the majority of artists who cross their paths. Lawsuits like this one are a fear tactic and a smear campaign--this woman is neither a "thief" nor a "pirate," just someone who didn't pay her protection money. The aim of this case is not due compensation or any form of justice, but to scare the rest of us into paying up.

No, btw, I don't fileshare. I prefer reasonably priced services like emusic populated by artists and labels who know what millenium we're living.

[iheartmonday]

Totally agree.

I totally agree. This is basically the same thing I said on my blog- iheartmonday.blogspot.com

People should just pay the fee to legally download music and quit trying to get something for free.

[RangerMatt]

Umm. Did he really say that?

Sorry if I'm redundant here, but there's a line in here that's bothered me for a while since I first read it. Second page, next to last paragraph:

"We know someone was using a computer and IP address to distribute songs. We know information like the time they used it but we don't know anything about that person."

Did it strike anyone else as though Lamay just made an almost tacit admission that they can't tell you who the person that is committing the crime is? Since they seem to imply they can't positively identify the the offender, I'd advise people to never admit anything, then just argue, it wasn't me. Make sure to put a WiFi router on your network first. Then make sure to learn about IP spoofing and MAC spoofing. That or tell them to sue the IP Address, not the person.