Comments on: Four reasons why the RIAA won a jury verdict of $220,000

The recording industry just won a huge legal victory against illicit file-sharing. How? Two key decisions the judge made helped a lot.

[sinis60]

Want to change it?

If you really want the music industry to change go about it the right way. Stop buying music, stop downloading music, stop listening to the radio stations, and just live life without music. Once the music industry realizes people are making a stand they will be forced to change. If your downloading and distributing music (illegally) you are helping the music industry to some extent. You give your friend a song that you really like, your friend may go out and buy the cd.

I personally think that music is overpriced and it's rediculous that people who are downloading music legally are stuck with barriers about what they can play their music on and what media they are allowed to play the music on.

Feeling wronged however isn't legal basis for doing something illegal.

[imacpwr]

The RIAA didn't win, they lost..!!

They lost the ability to sell people music, sure they'll pocket
$220,000 in the short run but in the long run they'll loose
millions..!!
So now after decades of beating the artists into submission in
exchange for ONE PENNEY PER SONG sold (15 cents per CD) now
the RIAA has turned its greedy attention to the hands that feed
it and they're not stopping till they hit bone..!!
I for one am proud to declare myself CD FREE and have NOT
bought a single CD during 2007 and will continue to do the
same into 2008 if the RIAA refuses to abandon these vicious
attacks on us, their customers...!!!

THEY WANT WAR..? WELL THEY'VE GOT IT NOW..!!

BOYCOTT THE RIAA AND THE LABELS THEY REPRESENT..!!!!

[oxtail01]

Boycott idiots like you!

Where you been? The entertainment industry has been in a war for a long time now. Why do you think they're resorting to suing individuals? It's idiotic individuals like you who's been attacking their business and making things harder for the rest of law-abiding consumers. I don't know of many lawful citizens who feel they've been attacked by the RIAA. So what do you propose that RIAA do?

[Travis Ernst]

PER ACT

Under the criteria "per act of infringement" i.e. download of
song, they would need to prove as a matter of fact that
downloads had occured, meaning distribution of songs, to me if
I was on the jury, for me to place a fine on ANY of the alleged
infractions.

If the RIAA or recording companies could not produce a record
of downloads from the accused then sorry, no fine may be
leaned against them.

On this same measure, our public libraries are in violation for
making CD's avaliable to persons to take home (and copy). Are
we going to take them to the floor?

[bluemarko1234]

Evil corporations

It always amuses me how people can be so down on the evil corporations. The vast majority of you work for corporations. Corporations are the backbone of a free market economy. Without them, there would be no internet, no computers, no cars, no FOOD for most of us who live far from farm country.

Corporations are owned by US! A corporation is, in it's simplest, a group of like minded people who 'incorporate' in order to produce something (cable systems, computers, cars, or music distribution) in order to make a profit.

They are not some magical evil presence that sucks the livelihood from the people. They represent thousands of real people working hard for their paychecks. They represent the savings of millions of us investing in our pensions plans or investment portfolios.

So when you complain about the evils of groups like the RIAA, or the 'record labels', you might want to check your pension funds and see how much of YOUR money is invested in those same evil corporations.

[bwvla]

Evil Corporations

You make a point. Not all corporations are evil.

One makes a toy. You buy it at a store. They make money, your kid gets a birthday present. Thats fair.

Another makes a similar toy which costs less, but uses a shoddy factory in the 3rd world which employs child labor working insane hours, and uses materials such as lead paint. They get your money, kids get sick, you get a birthday present.

I think its easy to see who the evil corporation is!

In the recording business I think its fair to say some labels are fair to their artists and charge fair rates for songs or albums. I think its also fair to say some are completely corrupt, profiting on contracts that starve artists and collect royalties that are questionably deserved. All of this artificially inflating the cost of music for all consumers.

I'm not sure downloads are the proper response, but when evil corporations are greasing palms in government its hard to remove corruption and regain fairness. I'm not sure rebellion is the best cure for a bad government either. But rebellion is often the cure for an incurably corrupt government.

[jcrow62]

Yes, Evil corporations

Really? Is that how it works?

Have you ever checked the disparity between mean salaries in
the US and mean salaries of CEO's who run corporations?
Explain to me again how that isn't greed.

There needs to be a balance for a market economy to work. An
equilibrium. The demand has shifted because people realize
they don't have to give hard earned money to Oligopoly Record
Companies that have their hands in each others pockets. They
don't have to pay "market price" now because there is an inferior
good that people have decided to utilize. There is no way that
the RIAA can stop this by singling out individual consumers.
There are billions of people who listen to music.

The end of major record companies is immenent. If they were
smart they would try to figure out what people really want,
rather than what they have wanted in the past.

[cecilbehan]

R I IA. jury verdict.

it is rare for small fry to gain the upper hand against the big business especially in the U.S.A.Corporate lawyers don't have a problem with cash flow in a case such as the R I I A jury verdict. This week in the U.K. common sense has overcome record label greed, with 2 groups allowing free downloading of their latest CD releases, thus cutting out the record labels and will increase the groups profit,who after all create the music. From this scenario the groups will profit from larger audiences at their venues.

[bluemarko1234]

That's their choice

If a group wants to choose to offer their songs free on the internet (or by dropping CD's off the top of a building), in the belief that this will increase their concert take, making up for the loss of album sales, that's their choice.

Who knows, it may be a valid business model. But that's irrelevent to the industry at large as it stands now.

There are different business models to work towards. Some will work, some will not. People ***** about paying $200 for concert tickets OR $20 for a CD, and don't seem to realize that one counteracts the other. Artists want all they can get. So do I, so do you. That's what makes a free market WORK. So if artist A wants to get all his money from CDs, never tour, he'll have to sell them at a higher price. If artist B wants to make all his bucks on tour, he can offer his CDs as a way to promote himself. With the variety out there, BOTH of those models might work, depending on the style of music and the artist(s).

None of that negates the right or the ability of others, like the RIAA and through them their labels, and through THEM their artists, from trying to keep 100% of their due income from being stolen.

[M.Hat]

Thank God for the RIAA and Justice for Artists.!

Without practical and judicially enforced copyright protection to counter the deleterious effects of today's advanced technology on the marketing of music, the free enterprise version of the music industry would die and one of America's greatest industries would go down the tubes-- like so many others. Personal greed killed the golden goose countless times before, and it's trying to do it again in America. Fair copyright legislation is at the heart of America's creativeness and its huge success. Commentators who are, in effect, trying to prevent the RIAA from protecting the property of the best artists, managers and capitalists in America are doing the country especially great harm. If you think the music industry is exploiting its clients and is making excessive profits, then invest in it. This is called Capitalism. The other thing is called Something For Nothing and it does not work in the long run.

Cheers, M.Hat

[skullaria]

Do you work for them?

Why didn't you sign your name
a.hat ?

[DougDbug]

Good story, Declan

Good story and good analysis, Declan.

Before the trial, the defense claimed that the RIAA couldn't prove their case. So, it was good to see a summary of the evidence and the jury instructions.

Thank you!

[americanblue]

You Forgot the Most Important Reason

You forgot to mention the most important reason the RIAA won: Copyright infringement is a FEDERAL LAW and this person willfully and blatantly broke that law. For all you naysayers who think the RIAA are Nazi's, read and study the Federal Copyright Law and you will see that the RIAA is entirely justified within reason of the law. If you don't like it, you have the right to advocate a change in the laws. But quit knockin' the RIAA and its members for recovering damages from lawbreakers. And quit supporting intellectual property theft. It's a crime.

[Eludium-Q36]

Narc

This was a CIVIL case not a CRIMINAL case over a FEDERAL law. This is about sharing music with friends not about piracy or profiting from their resale. It's about sharing music so get over your holier-than-thou self already.

[gdongarra]

Do the math!

I like downloading "free" music as much of the rest of us but
there is one thing I dont do, let anyone who wants "my" music
download it from me. So she shared 24 songs with how many
people? Its kinda like the difference between buying dope and
selling dope, one is a little more serious than the other. So Im
going to assume based on the numbers above that she allowed
those 24 songs at 99 cents each to be uploaded over 9250 times
each. So if the numbers above are correct she uploaded 222000
"stolen" songs to users on the internet. Thats kinda like the
difference between smoking 24 joints and selling 222,000
joints. Or if you spread it over a 6 month period, thats like
smoking a tenth of a joint a day and selling 123.3 joints a day.
Do the math people. Everyone thinks they are not responsible
for what the choose to do.

[eyespark]

public folders? itunes streaming? coffee shop WiFi?

"... regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown."

So... wait... if I go to a coffee and join their open WiFi network... and allow iTunes to publicly stream the 5,000+ songs that I keep on my laptop (100% purchased by me) or if I simply leave my music collection in my public folder (user/Public/Drop Box) I am potentially liable for $46,250,000 in damages?

Sure. Right. $46-million. Let me write the RIAA a check.

And wait... if I leave my front door open and someone walks in and takes my book collection... am I also guilty of THEFT? Or is it only if they bring a xerox machine instead of cleaning me out?

Forget snaqgging albums over P2P... this seems to be a lot larger.

[Eliakim2]

Good idea!

Yeah..., you were saying -

So... wait... if I go to a coffee and join their open WiFi network...
and allow iTunes to publicly stream the 5,000+ songs that I
keep on my laptop (100% purchased by me) or if I simply leave
my music collection in my public folder (user/Public/Drop Box) I
am potentially liable for $46,250,000 in damages?

Yeah, there are a lot of open WiFi Hotspots around. I go to them
all the time. I also have some paid ones, too. I'm not talking
about those. Heck! There's a Kentucky Fried Chicken just a few
blocks down the street that just put in public and free WiFi...
LOL!

So, go there and download and upload away. Have the time of
your life. You should get a collection in no time flat... :-)

[Jesse Chan]

Failure of the RIAA

I don't know if this case is a win for the RIAA. It might be lose-lose. In fact this article shows that this is failure: http://fishtrain.com/2007/10/02/the-failure-of-the-riaa/

[Eliakim2]

Reason 1 - Something to do to avoid it!

You were saying:

----------

So why did this verdict happen?

1. The RIAA was able to match a username and IP address with
Thomas. There's not always a 1:1 mapping between IP address
and a specific computer, of course, as people who are behind a
corporate firewall probably know. But home users tend to be
more easily identified, and it's trivial nowadays for a lawyer
armed with a subpoena to find out who they are. Large Internet
service providers have entire departments to respond to these
requests.

The fact that Thomas publicly used the nickname "tereastarr"
including as a [e-mail] e-mail address -- and
then chose it as a Kazaa username as well -- may have helped
the RIAA immeasurably. If she had used a Kazaa username of
"anonymous" instead, I wonder if the jury would have been more
likely to take her side. The jurors seem to have flatly rejected
(and reasonably so) her lawyer's claim of possible IP address
spoofing.

----------

Pertaining to this Reason 1 (for conviction), it would seem that if
one had a wireless router on their Internet set-up at home, and
the computers accessed the Internet behind the built-in firewall
that the router had -- and -- at the same time, one left their
wireless router "wide-open" for anyone to access (while
protecting their individual computers through software firewalls)
... that this would be a defense against this kind of conviction.

One would not have any reasonable assurance (in a jury) that
one's computers (at home) were the ones who accessed the
Internet through that wireless router's Internet connection,
because it's wide-open and anyone can gain access.

On my wireless router, I leave it wide open and protect each
computer with its own software firewall. I leave it open for the
"community" and anyone who may be passing by. The logs on
the wireless router rolls off in about two days and nothing is
every kept, so it's impossible to see who is accessing the
Internet (in the past). On mine, there three computers and an
iPhone accessing the one wireless router, and several other
computers from the outside, accessing it from time to time.

I also access many other wireless router (at other people's
places) from time to time as I travel. I can do so at various
business locations who give it away for free. They've even got
them at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken (a couple of blocks
away from me... LOL). Or, I can go down any street in any
neighborhood and get a lot of "hits" for all sorts of open wireless
routers. I use them all (from time to time) as I travel.

AND THEN, of course, the other answer to not being convicted of
this sort of thing, is to use different user names with various
different things that you do. That should be pretty obvious, I
would think.

But, with this lady, it probably wasn't obvious, because she
probably didn't do it. Of course, it's never "obvious" to those
who didn't do it -- or else -- they wouldn't have done it, would
they? Really, though..., it sounds like she didn't do it and she
should have actually gotten a better lawyer.

[Eliakim2]

Reasons 2 & 3 - Instructions and Jury Nullification

With Reasons 2 & 3 given...

----------

2. The RIAA's jury instructions. Both the RIAA and the defense
submitted proposed jury instructions (see my link above). Both
are pretty similar because of the constraints of 8th Circuit
precedent.

The key difference is that the RIAA offered two suggestions,
which would eventually become Jury Instructions 14 and 15,
which the defense left out. Once U.S. District Judge Michael
Davis sided with the RIAA on that crucial point, which he did,
and adopted its suggestions, the recording industry had a much
easier time of it. Those two crucial instructions are:

JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 14: The act of downloading copyrighted
sound recordings on a peer-to-peer network, without license
from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners'
exclusive reproduction right.

JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 15: The act of making copyrighted
sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-
to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners,
violates the copyright owners' exclusive right of distribution,
regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown.

3. "Making available." Jury Instruction 15 is more important. It
says that the RIAA doesn't need to offer any evidence that
rapacious Kazaa users actually downloaded songs from Thomas'
computer. All they need to do is claim that Thomas left the
songs in a publicly accessible directory where they could have
been downloaded. Big difference.

----------

This is where everyone in America, all the potential future
jurors, need to become familiar with Jury Nullification -- that
basic right of American Jurors, in this country, to become the
"last line of defense" in being that "jury of one's peers" in trials
like these.

Where the RIAA is pursuing such ridiculous cases and coming up
with such stupid and ridiculous amounts that people owe
(simply because they cannot make a viable "business model" out
of their corrupt system any longer), people in this country need
to know, that as a potential juror, one does not have to heed any
such instructions which would make or force you to give a
verdict which goes against your sense of common justice. You
never need to feel that you are forced to go against what you
consider to be a "better judgement" (and of "not guilty") just
because of certain "instructions" which are told to you (and said
that you "must follow them" regardless of what you think).
That's absolutely ridiculous and you are not bound to follow
them regardless of what you think.

As a juror, you are the last line of defense for stupid, archaic
and/or corrupt laws, regardless of what judges or lawyers say to
you that you must follow. That's the power that the Constitution
gives you in America. That's the value of being judged by a
group of your peers in that they are "final" in their judgement
and are not bound by immoral or corrupt laws that they are told
that they must follow (in their "judgements").

Please, everyone be aware that jurors are not "bound" to follow
any such instructions from judges. Of course they hate that you
might know this and they will try to tell you different. However,
the fact that you *know* that you don't have to follow those
instructions gives you immense power in our judicial system.

[bluemarko1234]

One problem

Your problem with this argument (and why did you feel it necessary to bring it up again, didn't you beat it to death earlier?) is that this implies that all jurors agree with your specious argument that somehow the fact you don't like the RIAA gives you the right to ignore law.

I for one wouldn't vote with you, I like there to be laws, not just ones you get to pick and choose to obey.

[bluemarko1234]

Honor

I've never actually served on a jury, so I'm only going by hearsay, so to speak, but correct me if I'm wrong, don't jurors swear an oath to uphold the law and make judgement on that law to the best of their abilities?

How honorable is it to swear that oath KNOWING that you intend to intentionally hang the jury?

nullification (if it exists, I haven't done the research to discover if this is a real right or just an urban myth), it seems to me, would only be intended for use in cases where a judge's instructions were clearly in violation of some legal or moral principal. Seems to me your moral compass is pretty skewed if you interpret your personal dislike for someone's business practices as violating those principals.

But that's just me I guess.

[tacobates]

How far will we go?

I think I'll keep all of my CDs in a bookshelf on my front porch, and wait for the RIAA to sue me for making all of those CDs available for distribution... I mean after all, anyone could bring a laptop, rip my CDs, and all because I made it available for them.

And then I'll move my bookshelf inside... but I don't lock my doors... so I'm still making it "available" and I'll get sued again.

If you're pissed at Sally: sue her.
If you're pissed at Kazaa, don't pass the buck to Sally just because she's an easier target.

RIAA = the beginning of Big Brother:
http://www.rit.edu/~rfaite/big%20brother.jpg

[TruSpeak]

Really? Go ahead I dare you to do it.

While you are at it, put a big sign up on your front yard that you are "SHARING" your CDs and see how many CDs you still have left on your bookshelf at the end of the day. Anyone who is so fond of file sharing on this forum willing to do this?

It's easy to "share" something when it's not going to cost you anything but another story when there is a chance you might lose those CDs that you paid for with your hard earn money isn't it?

Those music file you are sharing to the world may not be worth anything to you because you still have your original CDs but it's definitely worth something to it's creator. Each time you share that file with someone, the owner will have lost a "potential sale". You may argue that the person downloading the file you are sharing is not going to buy that song any way but the decision to share is not yours to make.

[jrzshor]

libraries

So given the new fact that "availablity" of copy-righted materials
are against the law, How are the copy-righted materials at libraries
affected? There are many videos and music CD's "available"!

[phyrun]

keyloggers

In addition to all the spyware and malware, her computer could have a keylogger on it to record her password keystrokes, therefore her computer would have been compromised and she may have not downloaded or shared those songs. It could have been a hacker.

[skullaria]

keyloggers and harddrives

absolutely.

[Timeotech]

The laws need to protect BOTH sides...

Artists DO deserve to get paid for their work, BUT they do NOT deserve to get paid an UNLIMITED amount of money for their work. The rules of capitalism as they currently stand, do NOT make sense for intellectual property (IP) that can be reproduced an unlimited number of times for (almost) FREE! Never in the history of the world (before the IT age) was there a product that was 99.999% research/development cost, and only 0.0001% production cost, and our rules need to be CHANGED to deal with this new concept. Abusing this concept is how a few men recently aquired obscene amounts of money (Bill Gates, Oracle CEO, Disney CEO, etc). Simply put, after society has paid a certain amount of money for a some IP (say 100 times the development cost), that property should THEN BELONG TO SOCIETY. They idea that some piece of IP is worth an UNLIMITED amount of money is simply a travesty of justice. Sadly, instead of fixing these rules, the corruption of our congress has resulted in the rules becoming MORE abusive (when Disney recently bribed enough congressmen to get the copyright laws extended to a ridiculously long period of coverage).

On top of that, the rules are pathetically ONE-SIDED, in that the record/software companies don't even follow THEIR OWN RULES! According to copyright laws, when you buy a CD you are paying 25 cents for a piece of plastic, and $16 dollars for a LICENCE to own a copy of the music. And YET, if your CD gets accidentally broken, will the record companies sell you a replacement for 25 cents LIKE THE LAW SAYS THEY SHOULD? NO!!!! They make you pay $16.25 for a licence YOU ALREADY OWN!! Is this not stealing on their part? How many times have they been fined for their illegal double charging?!?! NEVER!! Before you people call a single mother a thief, consider all the ways these record companies have violated the spirit of FAIR capitalism.

[bluemarko1234]

Misunderstanding

You apparently have a misunderstanding of the term capitalism.

capitalism:

An economic and political system characterized by a free market for goods and services and private control of production and consumption. (Compare socialism and communism.)

The key words here are 'free market'. What that means is that producers set prices based on what they can get for their product. We have laws to prevent monopolies fro abusing the system, but if a record company chooses to charge X for their product, and makes money doing so, then that is permitted and even encouraged. As a consumer, your part in the equation is to keep prices down as low as you can, by using your control based on buying or not buying. This is not a vital product or service, it's a freeking song, for god's sake. If you want, buy it. If you think you're being cheated, DON'T buy. No buyer=no seller, and you win.

[MakeSense!]

Combatting lunacy

Much has been said here that makes little sense, and most of it sounds like justifications by kids behaving badly.
To the anarchist: get a life! To the multitude of selfish down-loaders: stop your whining, get off your high horse and pay for what you claim to enjoy.

[MakeSense!]

Unlocking the door

The obvious difference between: a) downloading for 99ç and b) posting it for everyone to download, is very much like the difference between: 1) going to an ATM and pulling from your own account, and 2) unlocking the bank's doors plus safe for everyone to take a stroll and grab what they can and want.
As said: it's obvious!

[siiix]

re:Unlocking the door = BS !

not exactly it would be= a:to get your bills from the bank, or 2: go to the bank make a photocopy of a bill and show that for every one to make copies of the copied bill

you cant compare 1:1 real goods with intellectual stuff, the difference is that no mater how many you take out of the "bucket" it never gets less

its like: stealing the monalisa then selling it, is not the same then: making a photocopys of the monalisa and giving them away

in fact overwhelming majority of people who take the photocopy would not buy the original anyway, i'm near 40 now and i have buyed a grand total of ONE cd in my file and ONE dvd, and i would never even consider buying such stuff, if i cant download i will copy 100's of other ways, i had my ways since long before i had(there was) internet or mp3's

[Eliakim2]

No, do it another way...

You were saying...

I'm going to influence others NEVER to buy another BULLY-RIAA
product.

--

Well, you can probably do it another way. Instead of telling
people not to buy a single copy of anything that the RIAA (and
it's member companies put out), do something different.

Do have a *very few* people buy the CDs and just spread those
few CDs to a hundred friends. You all get high quality recordings
from a full rip from the CDs and the CDs just get passed around
and around and around.

So, forget about "not buying anything"... rather, buy some and
then pass it around to hundreds of people and have those
hundreds of people pass theirs around to you. You'll get a huge
collection in no time flat and make a lot of friends in the
process.

I doubt the RIAA is going to be following (with "gumshoes")
millions of people handing off CDs to one another... LOL! What
are they going to say when you say you were lending the CD to
someone else to listen to it... hahahaha! You didn't know that
they were going to rip the entire CD instead of listening to it!
LOL!

Yep, that's the way to break the RIAA! And it's more fun in the
process...