-------- "Oh Noes!"

While you were gone, I created the "Don't Swim With Sharks" public service announcement above, which is about as informative and helpful as the RIAA's little production will be to fight whatever it is they're fighting. On second thought, mine is more accurate.

The first problem is, of course, the fact that there is no such thing as "illegal downloading". This is a catch-phrase invented by the RIAA. There is no law on the books that defines, much less prohibits, receiving an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work. There is one that prohibits the unauthorized distribution; it's called copyright infringement. Turn off file sharing and you're covered.

Copyright infringement is not theft; it's copyright infringement. So the whole "stealing a CD from the store" analogy is misplaced and disingenuous.

The third lie is the most outrageous and ludicrous. Mr. EarBud, the apparent narrator, says something to the effect of, "If you download music and don't have to pay for it, it's probably illegal."

If you believe that, you're too damn stupid to be in college anyway. Try DMusic, the Internet Archive or MySpace. There's plenty of free music that's not illegal. The only "illegal" music belongs to the RIAA. Don't listen to it. Problem solved.

You probably don't want to go by the list of "legal" sources for music that's provided, either. Tower Records won't be open. Napster only rents music. It's a sad damn list.

When the RIAA rolled out its very first lawsuits against individuals, they targeted college students. Considering that the people at the RIAA are not very bright and colleges are theoretically filled with our country's best minds, I was certain that someone from MIT or Princeton or any school with "Polytechnical" in its name would have already come up with something that solves the problem. Something that prevents you from sharing RIAA music.

Hasn't happened yet, so they're coming after your tuition money again. Apparently, the greatest threat to intellectual property is intellectuals.

The 65-Cent 70-Cent Secret

by George Ziemann -- January 4, 2007

As we all know, the RIAA has been suing individuals since early 2003. Their greatest legal foe so far has been Ray Beckerman, who is representing the defendants in a boatload of cases. Of these, the most interesting at the moment is UMG v Lindor, for its potential to to downgrade every other lawsuit the RIAA has going.

The RIAA sued Marie Lindor from Brooklyn, NY, filing their initial complaint on Feb. 28, 1995. Beckerman has described his client as follows: "She's never used a computer, she's never owned a computer, she's never even turned on a computer. The only connection she has had to a computer is that she has on occasion dusted near the parts which she believes are a computer."

The RIAA initially accused her of "making available" every song ever recorded a sizeable quantity of songs for sharing over the Internet by producing a bunch of screen shots of someone's Kazaa shared folder. Despite the fact that "she's never owned a computer," the RIAA took her hard drive and examined it. Then they didn't want to tell anyone what they found or, more likely, didn't find.

The judge in the case decided that it didn't matter what was in Lindor's purported shared folder or on her purported hard drive because the RIAA's complaint said she was sharing "perfect digital copies" and, unless they had actually been downloaded, there was no way to determine whether they were perfect copies. This seems to have effectively reduced the RIAA's case to exactly 11 songs.

After an interesting aside that brings into question whether the RIAA's member labels have given up sending out CDs to radio stations and turned to a "get it from Kazaa" distribution, Beckerman decided to inquire as to the constitutionality of a $750 fine for a single download of one song. This led to the question of the wholesale price of a song.

To determine the price, Beckerman asked for a list of the RIAA's top 12 digital customers, their wholesale price and sales volume (how many copies were sold), with the promise of keeping the identity of the companies confidential. There may have been a court order mandating their compliance, but I only saw a draft copy, so I'm not entirely sure it was signed by the judge. Either way, the RIAA does not want to comply with this request.

First of all, it will embarrass each and every RIAA-approved legal music site whose name is not Apple because no one else has sold anything. Apple should be hitting the 1.5 billion-song mark any day (if they have not already surpassed it). The closest competitor is EMusic, which just passed the 100 million mark -- and they don't sell RIAA songs. Everyone else is pissing in the wind.

No matter how you wrap it, the prevailing wholesale price is whatever Apple is paying, which is rumored to be 65 cents. This would make the 11-song "theft" worth $7.15 total. It would also make the $750-per song damages equal more than 1150 times the "value" of infringed-upon item.

We'll have to watch and see how this turns out, but there's one thing for sure. Even if the RIAA wins, the artists won't see a dime of it.

Update (later the same day) -- The RIAA admits that 70 cents per song is "in the range" of wholesale prices. So those 11 songs are worth $7.70 and the $750 per song damages are a mere 1170 times the value of a song.

December 2006

RIAA Prefers to Pursue Children

The recording industry is giving up its lawsuit against Patti Santangelo, a New York mother of five who became the best-known defendant in the industry's battle against online music piracy.

The five companies suing Santangelo, of Wappingers Falls, filed a motion Tuesday in U.S. federal court in White Plains asking Judge Colleen McMahon to dismiss the case. Their lead counsel, Richard Gabriel, wrote in court papers that the record companies still believe they could win damages against Santangelo but their preference was to "pursue [the] defendant's children."

November 2006

Common Sense Making a Comeback?

November 17, 2006 -- While it's certainly too early to know for sure, a few positive signs that peoples' brains may again be starting to function have appeared. Well, three anyway.

Victims~~ Defendants in RIAA lawsuits raised two excellent questions this week. This is not a surprise. Neither is the fact that the RIAA called both claims frivolous. The judges involved agreed that they were legitimate issues that could be raised. That was a surprise.

Question 1 -- Isn't it excessive to charge $750 per song in file sharing cases, when the value of each song is really closer to 70 cents?
Question 2 -- Since the RIAA settled with Kazaa in return for a huge pile of dollars, can the RIAA still sue people who used Kazaa? Or did the settlement legally resolve these lesser instances of exactly the same offense as well?

The third example of common sense came from Disney, which seems to be of the opinion that if you sell a movie online, it should be cheaper than the physical DVD product. Disney is the first studio to sell movies on iTunes, which kind of pissed off Target.

"Studios selling digital copies of films for less than the wholesale price of DVDs rankles retailers, who see Internet distribution of films as a threat to their business and have reminded studios that DVD sales provide the majority of profit for most films.

"Studios counter that digital versions of films should be less expensive because they are lower quality and typically do not contain the kinds of extra features included on DVDs."

In the end, it came down to whether or not Target wanted to get any shipments of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Lacking Evidence, RIAA Drops Another Case

The RIAA has dropped its file-sharing lawsuit against Tammie Marson of Palm Desert, California, because she uttered the two-word challenge that the RIAA attorneys fear most: "Prove it."

"It was our position that they could not ever prove that Tammie Marson downloaded this music or that Tammie Marson made it available. It was just an absolute impossibility. The best they could ever prove was somebody had used Tammie Marson's internet account to download the music or make it available. That's the best they could ever do," Marsons attorney said.

Marson argued that as a cheerleader teacher she had had hundreds of girls through her house, any one of whom could have used her computer. She also used a wireless internet network, meaning that people outside of her house could have used her internet connection.

And Your Little Dog, Too!

Remember Patti Santangelo? More than a year ago, she was sued by the RIAA.

She still says she's innocent. She still hasn't had a trial. She refuses to roll over for the RIAA.

So now the RIAA is going to sue her children. For downloading "Mmm-Bop". Allegedly. (Actual news story at Yahoo or Washington Post).

If that doesn't work, the RIAA is expected to expand the lawsuit to include the next-door neighbors, the mailman, telephone repairman, the people that check the water and gas meter, as well as delivery drivers for UPS and FedEx and the kid that goes around hanging Domino's Pizza ads on your doorknob.

October 2006

Can the RIAA Sue Your Car?

IFPI -- Music Industry Sues 8,000 Customers

Kazaa settlement "put some money back into the war chest to try to clean up the online world." Artists continue to get squat, wonder about who will try to clean up the music business.

RIAA Drops Case in Chicago -- They had no evidence.

December 3, 2003 -- Music Industry Commences New Wave of Legal Action Against Illegal File Sharers

September 29, 2003 -- 64 Individuals Agree To Settlements

Less than three weeks after the RIAA announced 261 lawsuits against individuals who illegally distribute massive amounts of copyrighted music on peer-to-peer networks, officials with the organization said that 64 settlements had been reached.

September 8, 2003 -- Recording Industry Begins Suing Individual P2P File Sharers

June 25, 2003 -- RIAA Preps for Lawsuits Against Individuals

Starting tomorrow, the RIAA will begin gathering evidence and preparing lawsuits against individual computer users who are illegally offering to "share" substantial amounts of copyrighted music over peer-to-peer networks. In making the announcement, the music industry cited its multi-year effort to educate the public about the illegality of unauthorized downloading, and underscored the fact that major music companies have made vast catalogues of music available to dozens of services to help create legitimate, high quality and inexpensive alternatives to online piracy.

The RIAA's $1.65 Trillion Wet Dream

by George Ziemann -- January 1, 2007

Last week, I briefly mentioned that the RIAA was going to sue the Russian site allofmp3.com. Didn't give it a lot of thought at the time because the RIAA sues everything. That's not news. I didn't even read the original story.

That's why I was so amused when I found ZeroPaid's recap of the lawsuit. The first sentence says, "The RIAA is seeking $150,000 for each of the 11 million songs AllofMP3 allegedly pirated."

I'll get back to that because it's the funniest part, but there's more. The RIAA didn't actually sue allofmp3.com. They sued a company named MediaService in New York, which owns allofmp3.com.

"...Mediaservices' sites sell millions of songs by their artists without paying them 'a dime' for the right to do so."

They can't sue the actual site because it's in Russia and is complying with Russian law by paying 15% of its income to ROM, the Russian agency which collects royalties from digital interactive services. Unfortunately, the RIAA doesn't officially recognize ROM, which may be due to a nametag mixup at a 1999 End of the World party. This means the artists never see any of the royalties earned.

In other words, ROM is the Russian equivalent of SoundExchange, which collects digital royalties in the U.S. and then can't find the artists. Same net result, but SoundExchange is an offshoot of the RIAA, so you can see the legal difference.

So let's get back to the funny part -- "The RIAA is seeking $150,000 for each of the 11 million songs AllofMP3 allegedly pirated."

I'm sure they're seeking $150,000 per song but U.S. copyright law says that they can't get that unless they produce the copyrights for every damn song. They can't do that. The RIAA tried it against mp3.com and the artists revolted because they didn't want to allow court records to accept those "work for hire" registrations as proof of ownership. That's a near future battle in and of itself.

So reality is a $750 per song penalty. This knocks that $1.65 trillion (which is more than the cumulative total of record industry sales since Edison made the first wax cylinder) down to $8.25 billion. Ironically, should the RIAA eventually win the case (or more likely, settle out of court) not a dime will go to the artists, who are paid according to the terms of their contract, none of which mention suing Russian websites, YouTube, Kazaa or the 20,000 individual lawsuits as a reason to cut a check.

Because it's all about the artists, you know.

Sept. 19, 2003 -- RIAA Sues iMesh

April 3, 2003 -- RIAA Moves Against Operators Of Pirate P2P Systems Housed On Internal College Networks

January 10, 2003 -- RIAA and MPAA on Sharman Networks and LEF To Be Included In Kazaa Case

"We are pleased that the court denied the efforts of Sharman Networks and LEF to avoid being subject to the suit. Sharman Networks and LEF should be held accountable by U.S. laws, which clearly indicate that what they are doing is illegal, and that they should not profit from it. Their attempts to play an intricate and shameless shell game designed to evade a U.S. court's jurisdiction and avoid liability have rightly failed."

November 21, 2002 -- RIAA Files Motion of Contempt Against Aimster

The RIAA filed a motion for a hearing to find Aimster (a.k.a. Madster) in contempt on the grounds that it has willfully disregarded an order issued on November 4, 2002. In that order, the court directed Aimster to immediately prevent its users from uploading and downloading copyrighted works or shut down its operations until it can do so.

September 4, 2002 -- Judge Rules In Favor of Record Companies In Aimster Case

August 21, 2002 -- Listen4Ever Shut Down

With www.Listen4ever.com now offline, the RIAA announced that it is withdrawing its lawsuit that had sought the assistance of four Internet Service Providers in cutting off access to the site.

May 24, 2002 -- Songwriters, Music Publishers and Recording Industry Take Audiogalaxy.com to Court

Audiogalaxy.com was taken to court today by songwriters, music publishers, and the recording industry for wholesale copyright infringement.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in New York on Friday by the RIAA, on behalf of its member labels, and the National Music Publishers Association, Inc. (NMPA), on behalf of the music publisher principals of its licensing affiliate, The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. and their thousands of songwriter partners. The complaint specifically accuses Audiogalaxy of "willfully and intentionally" encouraging and facilitating "millions of individual, anonymous users to copy and distribute infringing copyrighted works by the millions, if not billions."

April 9, 2002 -- RIAA announced that they recently reached an out-of-court settlement for $1 million with Integrated Information Systems, Inc. (IIS), a high tech company that ran a dedicated server permitting its employees to access and distribute thousands of infringing MP3 files over the corporate network.

December 20, 2001 -- RIAA Endorses Economic Sanctions on Ukraine

October 3, 2001 -- MPAA, RIAA File Suit Against MusicCity and Others

The motion picture and recording industries filed suit against MusicCity and others for copyright infringement, calling the service a "21st century piratical bazaar where the unlawful exchange of protected materials takes place across the vast expanses of the Internet."

Plaintiffs filed suit against MusicCity.com, Inc. and MusicCity Networks, Inc. (which operate the Morpheus service), Grokster, LTD, and Consumer Empowerment BV [also known as FastTrack] (which operates the KaZaA service), in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

February 25, 2000 -- FAQ About RIAA Members' Lawsuit Against MP3.com

January 21, 2000 -- RIAA Threatens mp3.com

December 7, 1999 -- RIAA Sues Napster

The RIAA announced that it has filed suit against Napster, a company the RIAA has alleged is operating as a haven for music piracy on the Internet. "We love the idea of using technology to build artist communities, but that's not what Napster is all about. Napster is about facilitating piracy, and trying to build a business on the backs of artists and copyright owners," said Cary Sherman, Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel, RIAA.

February 1, 1999 -- RIAA Chokes Lycos MP3 Search Engine

October 16, 1998 -- RIAA Wins Restraining Order Against MP3 Recording Device

A federal court today entered a temporary restraining order (TRO) to enjoin the distribution and sale of Diamond Multimedia's Rio portable MP3 recording device. The court granted a motion filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) seeking a TRO based on the judge's conclusion that the organizations are likely to prevail on their position that the Rio violates the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA). The temporary restraining order remains effective for a period of 10 days, therefore the court has scheduled a hearing on RIAA's and AARC's motion for a preliminary injunction on Monday, October 26.

May 11, 1998 -- RIAA Sues Two Internet Sites for Copyright Infringement

One Site Ignored Cease and Desist Warning; Other Posted 1,100 Unauthorized Recordings

Washington, DC - In its ongoing effort to foster a legitimate marketplace for sound recordings on the Internet, the Recording Industry Association of America obtained separate temporary restraining orders against two Internet sites violating the rights of hundreds of artists. These sites were illegally distributing the full-length songs of top artists such as Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, the Eagles, Meredith Brooks, Kenny G, and Elton John without permission. The two lawsuits, filed on May 5, 1998, seek permanent injunctions and damages. As of Friday, May 8, both sites were down and both sets of defendants appear to be cooperating with the RIAA to resolve these claims.

February 7, 1998 -- (Which would later be named "Black February" by Blex) one event seemed to trigger a chain of events that would change the face of the MP3 Community forever. Blex's Page Of Good MP3s, a site not only noted for its FTP site list, but also for the webmaster's outspoken personality, became the subject of Geffen employee Jim Griffin's attack on online piracy. Griffin used Blex's listing as a tool to find individual site operators, and would later recall that sites similar to Blex's made his job easier.

January 23, 1998 -- RIAA Sues Texas

A group of Texas firefighters, teachers and law enforcement officers, along with the RIAA, filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a "rider" attached to the Texas 1997 Appropriations Bill. Rider 174, which was appended to the budget in May 1997 without benefit of a public debate, prohibits the state and all its public retirement systems from investing in companies that produce music with "objectionable" lyrics.

May 7, 1997 -- RIAA Opposes Compulsory Licensing of Internet Retransmission of Broadcasts

Washington, DC - The Recording Industry Association of America has filed comments with the Copyright Office opposing the extension of compulsory licensing to Internet retransmissions of over-the-air broadcasts of sound recordings. The Copyright Office is considering that question as part of a broader study of the Copyright Act's compulsory licensing provisions.

BACKGROUND: Presently, there are services that use the Internet to deliver retransmissions of local radio broadcasts to listeners worldwide. Under the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995, the owner of the copyright in a sound recording enjoys the exclusive right "to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission." While that right is subject to certain limitations, the copyright owner has the right to license -- and receive compensation for -- the Internet retransmissions of radio broadcasts currently being made.

Compulsory licensing would allow anyone to make an Internet retransmission simply by paying a standard royalty.

June 9, 1997 -- RIAA Targets Music Archive Sites

The RIAA has filed separate civil actions seeking temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions against three Internet Music Archive Sites. These sites allow users to download and, in some cases, upload full-length songs without permission of the copyright holder. Speaking for its record company members, the trade group charges that these sites are violating federal copyright laws through the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyrighted sound recordings.

December 11, 1997 -- RIAA Considers Performance Right Royalty Rate For Cable and Satellite Music Services Unjustified

Washington, DC - The Recording Industry Association of America will ask the Copyright Office tomorrow to reject the royalty rate recently recommended by the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel. The panel recommended that subscription digital cable and satellite music services must pay artists and record companies only 5% of revenues for the right to perform more than 250,000 hours of sound recordings each year. The trade association is asking the Copyright Office, instead, to set a fair marketplace rate. In an analogous industry, such as the cable movie industry, HBO and other services pay on average more than 40% of their revenues for the programming they provide.

The trade group's Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Cary Sherman, called the arbitration panel's decision indefensible. "Essentially, the panel is saying that digital audio subscription services such as DMX, Music Choice and MUZAK can exploit the sound recordings of artists and record companies, who bear all the risk associated with producing the sound recording, for only 5% of their revenue. These services contribute nothing toward the millions of dollars required to produce and market sound recordings, yet get to keep 95% of their revenue."

December 17, 1997 -- In the first case to be enforced under the Audio Home Recording Act, the RIAA has settled against the manufacturer of a device that circumvents the copy protection system known as SCMS (Serial Copy Management System), embodied in consumer- model digital audio recorders, the most common of which are DAT recorders.

In addition to permanent injunctions preventing the defendants from any further manufacturing, advertising or distribution of the DigiCon 2, or any similar device, the settlement requires the defendants to give up their inventory of DigiCon 2s for destruction and pay statutory damages to the RIAA in the amount of $20,000. The defendants also stipulated to a judgement of $225,000 which, under the terms of the settlement, will become immediately payable if they ever again violate the Audio Home Recording Act.

March 4, 1996 -- The RIAA issued a cease and desist letter to AudioNet, which provides an Internet service known as AudioNet Jukebox where users can listen to over 400 full-length albums from a variety of musical genres. The RIAA contends that the service is offering digital performances of copyrighted sound recordings, via this interactive service, without the authority of various sound recording copyright owners.

"AudioNet's practice of allowing consumers to use the Internet as a 'jukebox' is not lawful and must cease immediately," said Steven D'Onofrio, RIAA executive vice president and director, anti-piracy.

With a performance right granted by the "Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995," a copyright holder has the exclusive right to control interactive digital performances of their sound recordings, regardless of whether a fee is charged to receive the transmission. Because AudioNet allows consumers to select the sound recordings they would like to hear, transmission through the service clearly falls within the exclusive right of the sound recording copyright holder.

Against Individuals	Against Everything Else
Capitol Records v Jammie Thomas Atlantic v Andersen Debbie Foster Wins $68k From RIAA by George Ziemann -- July 18, 2007 Debbie Foster has become the RIAA's first serious loss in the RIAA's legal crusade against random citizens, after a judge in Oklahoma ruled that the RIAA has to cough up $68,000 to cover Foster's attorney fees. And probably twice that for their own attorneys, which they still have to pay, too. The turning point in the case, as always, was the RIAA's complete and total lack of evidence that anything in particular had been done by anyone in particular, much less Debbie Foster, specifically. One person intelligent enough to say "Prove it!" has cost the RIAA the proceeds from 40-50 of those $3000 settlements. If only 2 percent of the 20,000 sued make the RIAA take them to court, the industry's cunning 5-year master plan ends up a financial wash. If five or even 10 percent of the accused insist on their innocence, the RIAA is going to spend the entire $100 million they got from Kazaa. Plus the $54 million from the 90 percent that pay up. And then some. But the RIAA hasn't faced a jury trial yet. A jury could give $100 million away in one punitive damages charge. That's why they always stop before it gets that far. One way or another, they're pretty much done with this nonsense. Not quite yet, but very soon. They're kinda slow on the uptake, though, so we'll watch the winner's list and try to see exactly how many millions of dollars the RIAA is going to pay out before they get wise to the fact that they've already lost. They've ruined the music business for nothing. RIAA Accepts $300 Settlement Fee July 13, 2007 ~~ Today's lucky winner is Terri Frye of North Carolina, who settled out of court with the RIAA for $300, without admitting any guilt. Granny Sues RIAA Over Unlicensed Dicks July 3, 2007 ~~ Some days the headlines just write themselves... From Slashdot: "An elderly, non-file-sharing grandmother from East Texas, who had been sued by the RIAA after being displaced by Hurricane Rita, has sought leave to file counterclaims against the RIAA record companies for using unlicensed investigators. In her counterclaims, Ms. Crain claims that the record companies 'entered into an agreement with a private investigations company to provide investigative services which led to the production of evidence to be used in court against counterclaim plaintiff, including the identification of an IP address on the basis of which counterclaim defendants filed their suit... [They] were at the time of this agreement aware that the aforementioned private investigations company was unlicensed to conduct investigations in the State of Texas specifically, and in other states as well... [T]hey agreed between themselves and understood that unlicensed and unlawful investigations would take place in order to provide evidence for this lawsuit, as well as thousands of others as part of a mass litigation campaign... [T]he private investigations company hired by plaintiffs engaged in one or more overt acts of unlawful private investigation... Such actions constitute civil conspiracy under Texas common law.'" Links to source documents and a few hundred comments at Slashdot. Lacking Evidence, RIAA Loses Another Case This makes at least four cases in which the RIAA has been forced to dismiss a case due to a total lack of evidence. To date, the RIAA has failed to have a single one of the more than 20,000 file sharing cases go to trial. RIAA's Moran Requests 'Proof of Innocence' May 12, 2007 ~~ You just can't make this stuff up. It's hard to imagine someone practicing law in the United States demanding the defendant prove their innocence. If you could imagine such a person, you'd know they must work for the RIAA. You'd be right. I guess this is why they feel to explain in depth why their cases are not frivolous, even when that's not the question they were asked. But that's not the funniest one. That would be the Debbie Foster case. In February of 2006, the judge in that case dismissed it with prejudice and awarded Foster attorney fees. Foster's attorney added up the hours and came up with a $55,000 fee. Of course, the RIAA complained that the fee was too high, but declared the amount their own attorneys charged was a national secret which could not possibly be revealed for comparison. So, instead of admitting defeat and coughing up the dough for the first winner who had the intelligence to say "Prove it," it's now 15 months later and the RIAA has filed numerous motions in the meantime in an attempt to delay cutting a check. So Foster's attorney added up her hours again. Now the bill is $114,000. Before You Pay the RIAA... By George Ziemann -- March 24, 2007 There's a reason the RIAA is offering a "discount" on this year's series of extortion demands from college students. They want to get as many chumps as possible to roll over and fork up cash and they need for you to do it right away because their window of opportunity is closing. The jig is almost up. A couple of days ago, there were two Slashdot articles which appeared, concerning two separate cases wherein the RIAA is about to be spanked -- Deborah Foster and Patti Santangelo. If you follow the links, pay particular attention to the comments by NewYorkCountryLawyer, which is Ray Beckerman. Foster already "won" her case in the sense that the RIAA gave up. Foster wasn't going to roll over and she was close to having a trial. Since the RIAA really had no evidence in the first place, they dismissed the case to avoid trying to convince a jury their flimsy version of reality. It was dismissed with prejudice, which means the RIAA failed to prove its case and they can't come back and accuse her of the same offense later. The judge also ruled that the RIAA had to pay Foster's attorney's fees. When the RIAA saw the bill, they said it was too high. The judge said something to the effect of, "Oh really? How much did you spend?" To this query, the RIAA has responded by a) ignoring it for a while, b) telling the judge he made a mistake in awarding attorney fees in the first place, and c) offered their billing records as long as the court agrees they're top secret and no one can look at them. Latest status is that the RIAA will cough up their records and the court will not agree that they're top secret, but will go for "confidential." The lawyers will know how much it was. A price will be set for victory. Which brings us to Patti Santangelo's case. The RIAA has lost this one, too. Again, it's time to put up or shut up and the RIAA can't take the case to court because they have no case. They would like to dismiss Santangelo's case without prejudice, meaning that they could put her through all of this again after they're finished suing her kids. It would also mean that she can't collect attorney fees for the fruitless two-year legal inquisition the RIAA put her through. The judge in this case wisely concluded that, after two years, the RIAA either has a case that this woman committed copyright infringement or they don't. He left the RIAA two options -- go to trial and let a jury decide the fate of Soccer Mom vs Evil Record Industry or dismiss with prejudice (and attorney fees). 20,000 cases so far. I wonder how many settled? 5000? 6000? The average settlement is what? $3500? That seems to be floating around as the price you get a $1000 discount from this year. Without knowing the exact figures, it's still easy to see that the RIAA cashed in about $15-20 million in the "first wave" without ever proving anything at all. The significance of the Foster and Santangelo cases is that soon the lawyers will know what the prize is if you win. And you will win. The RIAA doesn't want any of these cases to go to court, because they simply can't prove a damn thing, as much as they would like you to believe otherwise. If the "reasonable" attorney fees for successfully defending a client against the RIAA are established, and the more obvious it becomes how tenuous the link between the alleged act and the alleged doer of bad deeds is, Beckerman is predicting that lawyers will be lining up to take these cases. Some of them might even split the award with you. The RIAA is relying on the dumbasses that go, "Damn it. You got me. How much?" and write out a check. Don't be a dumbass. Make them try and prove it. They can't. RIAA Predators Sue 405 More College Kids March 22, 2007 -- In the second wave of their new initiative, yesterday the RIAA sent letters in the following quantities to 23 schools, including: Boston University (50 pre-litigation settlement letters), Columbia University (20), Dartmouth College (11), DePaul University (18), Drexel University (20), Ferris State University (17), Ithaca College (20), Purdue University (38), University of California - Berkeley (19), University of California - Los Angeles (21), University of California - Santa Cruz (17), University of Maine system (27), University of Nebraska - Lincoln (25), University of Wisconsin system (66, including the following individual campuses: Eau Claire, Madison, Milwaukee, Parkside, Platteville, Stevens Point, Stout, and Whitewater), Vanderbilt University (20), and Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (16). The University of Wisconsin told the RIAA it wasn't going to distribute the letters. I hope they laughed heartily while they did it. The University of Nebraska went one better and told the RIAA they were going to send them a bill for wasting their time. Colleges Force-Feed RIAA Propaganda by George Ziemann -- February 22, 2007 The basic story -- Randall Hall, who polices computers at Michigan State University, has the RIAA crawling up his ass because of MSU students "illegally downloading" music from the Internet. "Hall meets personally with students caught twice and forces them to watch an eight-minute anti-piracy DVD produced by the RIAA. A third-time offender can be suspended for a semester." This has been discussed various places, but BoingBoing is the only one to provide a link where you can view the video that goes with the story. (Extra bonus: They'll send you a DVD copy for free if you're in a position to force kids at other colleges to watch it.) So, by all means, go watch the video. I'll wait. -----/\--------------\O/-------- "Oh Noes!" While you were gone, I created the "Don't Swim With Sharks" public service announcement above, which is about as informative and helpful as the RIAA's little production will be to fight whatever it is they're fighting. On second thought, mine is more accurate. The first problem is, of course, the fact that there is no such thing as "illegal downloading". This is a catch-phrase invented by the RIAA. There is no law on the books that defines, much less prohibits, receiving an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work. There is one that prohibits the unauthorized distribution; it's called copyright infringement. Turn off file sharing and you're covered. Copyright infringement is not theft; it's copyright infringement. So the whole "stealing a CD from the store" analogy is misplaced and disingenuous. The third lie is the most outrageous and ludicrous. Mr. EarBud, the apparent narrator, says something to the effect of, "If you download music and don't have to pay for it, it's probably illegal." If you believe that, you're too damn stupid to be in college anyway. Try DMusic, the Internet Archive or MySpace. There's plenty of free music that's not illegal. The only "illegal" music belongs to the RIAA. Don't listen to it. Problem solved. You probably don't want to go by the list of "legal" sources for music that's provided, either. Tower Records won't be open. Napster only rents music. It's a sad damn list. When the RIAA rolled out its very first lawsuits against individuals, they targeted college students. Considering that the people at the RIAA are not very bright and colleges are theoretically filled with our country's best minds, I was certain that someone from MIT or Princeton or any school with "Polytechnical" in its name would have already come up with something that solves the problem. Something that prevents you from sharing RIAA music. Hasn't happened yet, so they're coming after your tuition money again. Apparently, the greatest threat to intellectual property is intellectuals. The ~~65-Cent~~ 70-Cent Secret by George Ziemann -- January 4, 2007 As we all know, the RIAA has been suing individuals since early 2003. Their greatest legal foe so far has been Ray Beckerman, who is representing the defendants in a boatload of cases. Of these, the most interesting at the moment is UMG v Lindor, for its potential to to downgrade every other lawsuit the RIAA has going. The RIAA sued Marie Lindor from Brooklyn, NY, filing their initial complaint on Feb. 28, 1995. Beckerman has described his client as follows: "She's never used a computer, she's never owned a computer, she's never even turned on a computer. The only connection she has had to a computer is that she has on occasion dusted near the parts which she believes are a computer." The RIAA initially accused her of "making available" ~~every song ever recorded~~ a sizeable quantity of songs for sharing over the Internet by producing a bunch of screen shots of someone's Kazaa shared folder. Despite the fact that "she's never owned a computer," the RIAA took her hard drive and examined it. Then they didn't want to tell anyone what they found or, more likely, didn't find. The judge in the case decided that it didn't matter what was in Lindor's purported shared folder or on her purported hard drive because the RIAA's complaint said she was sharing "perfect digital copies" and, unless they had actually been downloaded, there was no way to determine whether they were perfect copies. This seems to have effectively reduced the RIAA's case to exactly 11 songs. After an interesting aside that brings into question whether the RIAA's member labels have given up sending out CDs to radio stations and turned to a "get it from Kazaa" distribution, Beckerman decided to inquire as to the constitutionality of a $750 fine for a single download of one song. This led to the question of the wholesale price of a song. To determine the price, Beckerman asked for a list of the RIAA's top 12 digital customers, their wholesale price and sales volume (how many copies were sold), with the promise of keeping the identity of the companies confidential. There may have been a court order mandating their compliance, but I only saw a draft copy, so I'm not entirely sure it was signed by the judge. Either way, the RIAA does not want to comply with this request. First of all, it will embarrass each and every RIAA-approved legal music site whose name is not Apple because no one else has sold anything. Apple should be hitting the 1.5 billion-song mark any day (if they have not already surpassed it). The closest competitor is EMusic, which just passed the 100 million mark -- and they don't sell RIAA songs. Everyone else is pissing in the wind. No matter how you wrap it, the prevailing wholesale price is whatever Apple is paying, which is rumored to be 65 cents. This would make the 11-song "theft" worth $7.15 total. It would also make the $750-per song damages equal more than 1150 times the "value" of infringed-upon item. We'll have to watch and see how this turns out, but there's one thing for sure. Even if the RIAA wins, the artists won't see a dime of it. Update (later the same day) -- The RIAA admits that 70 cents per song is "in the range" of wholesale prices. So those 11 songs are worth $7.70 and the $750 per song damages are a mere 1170 times the value of a song. December 2006 RIAA Prefers to Pursue Children The recording industry is giving up its lawsuit against Patti Santangelo, a New York mother of five who became the best-known defendant in the industry's battle against online music piracy. The five companies suing Santangelo, of Wappingers Falls, filed a motion Tuesday in U.S. federal court in White Plains asking Judge Colleen McMahon to dismiss the case. Their lead counsel, Richard Gabriel, wrote in court papers that the record companies still believe they could win damages against Santangelo but their preference was to "pursue [the] defendant's children." November 2006 Common Sense Making a Comeback? November 17, 2006 -- While it's certainly too early to know for sure, a few positive signs that peoples' brains may again be starting to function have appeared. Well, three anyway. ~~Victims~~ Defendants in RIAA lawsuits raised two excellent questions this week. This is not a surprise. Neither is the fact that the RIAA called both claims frivolous. The judges involved agreed that they were legitimate issues that could be raised. That was a surprise. Question 1 -- Isn't it excessive to charge $750 per song in file sharing cases, when the value of each song is really closer to 70 cents? Question 2 -- Since the RIAA settled with Kazaa in return for a huge pile of dollars, can the RIAA still sue people who used Kazaa? Or did the settlement legally resolve these lesser instances of exactly the same offense as well? The third example of common sense came from Disney, which seems to be of the opinion that if you sell a movie online, it should be cheaper than the physical DVD product. Disney is the first studio to sell movies on iTunes, which kind of pissed off Target. "Studios selling digital copies of films for less than the wholesale price of DVDs rankles retailers, who see Internet distribution of films as a threat to their business and have reminded studios that DVD sales provide the majority of profit for most films. "Studios counter that digital versions of films should be less expensive because they are lower quality and typically do not contain the kinds of extra features included on DVDs." In the end, it came down to whether or not Target wanted to get any shipments of Pirates of the Caribbean. Lacking Evidence, RIAA Drops Another Case The RIAA has dropped its file-sharing lawsuit against Tammie Marson of Palm Desert, California, because she uttered the two-word challenge that the RIAA attorneys fear most: "Prove it." "It was our position that they could not ever prove that Tammie Marson downloaded this music or that Tammie Marson made it available. It was just an absolute impossibility. The best they could ever prove was somebody had used Tammie Marson's internet account to download the music or make it available. That's the best they could ever do," Marsons attorney said. Marson argued that as a cheerleader teacher she had had hundreds of girls through her house, any one of whom could have used her computer. She also used a wireless internet network, meaning that people outside of her house could have used her internet connection. And Your Little Dog, Too! Remember Patti Santangelo? More than a year ago, she was sued by the RIAA. She still says she's innocent. She still hasn't had a trial. She refuses to roll over for the RIAA. So now the RIAA is going to sue her children. For downloading "Mmm-Bop". Allegedly. (Actual news story at Yahoo or Washington Post). If that doesn't work, the RIAA is expected to expand the lawsuit to include the next-door neighbors, the mailman, telephone repairman, the people that check the water and gas meter, as well as delivery drivers for UPS and FedEx and the kid that goes around hanging Domino's Pizza ads on your doorknob. October 2006 Can the RIAA Sue Your Car? IFPI -- Music Industry Sues 8,000 Customers Kazaa settlement "put some money back into the war chest to try to clean up the online world." Artists continue to get squat, wonder about who will try to clean up the music business. RIAA Drops Case in Chicago -- They had no evidence. December 3, 2003 -- Music Industry Commences New Wave of Legal Action Against Illegal File Sharers September 29, 2003 -- 64 Individuals Agree To Settlements Less than three weeks after the RIAA announced 261 lawsuits against individuals who illegally distribute massive amounts of copyrighted music on peer-to-peer networks, officials with the organization said that 64 settlements had been reached. September 8, 2003 -- Recording Industry Begins Suing Individual P2P File Sharers June 25, 2003 -- RIAA Preps for Lawsuits Against Individuals Starting tomorrow, the RIAA will begin gathering evidence and preparing lawsuits against individual computer users who are illegally offering to "share" substantial amounts of copyrighted music over peer-to-peer networks. In making the announcement, the music industry cited its multi-year effort to educate the public about the illegality of unauthorized downloading, and underscored the fact that major music companies have made vast catalogues of music available to dozens of services to help create legitimate, high quality and inexpensive alternatives to online piracy.	The RIAA's $1.65 Trillion Wet Dream by George Ziemann -- January 1, 2007 Last week, I briefly mentioned that the RIAA was going to sue the Russian site allofmp3.com. Didn't give it a lot of thought at the time because the RIAA sues everything. That's not news. I didn't even read the original story. That's why I was so amused when I found ZeroPaid's recap of the lawsuit. The first sentence says, "The RIAA is seeking $150,000 for each of the 11 million songs AllofMP3 allegedly pirated." I'll get back to that because it's the funniest part, but there's more. The RIAA didn't actually sue allofmp3.com. They sued a company named MediaService in New York, which owns allofmp3.com. "...Mediaservices' sites sell millions of songs by their artists without paying them 'a dime' for the right to do so." They can't sue the actual site because it's in Russia and is complying with Russian law by paying 15% of its income to ROM, the Russian agency which collects royalties from digital interactive services. Unfortunately, the RIAA doesn't officially recognize ROM, which may be due to a nametag mixup at a 1999 End of the World party. This means the artists never see any of the royalties earned. In other words, ROM is the Russian equivalent of SoundExchange, which collects digital royalties in the U.S. and then can't find the artists. Same net result, but SoundExchange is an offshoot of the RIAA, so you can see the legal difference. So let's get back to the funny part -- "The RIAA is seeking $150,000 for each of the 11 million songs AllofMP3 allegedly pirated." I'm sure they're seeking $150,000 per song but U.S. copyright law says that they can't get that unless they produce the copyrights for every damn song. They can't do that. The RIAA tried it against mp3.com and the artists revolted because they didn't want to allow court records to accept those "work for hire" registrations as proof of ownership. That's a near future battle in and of itself. So reality is a $750 per song penalty. This knocks that $1.65 trillion (which is more than the cumulative total of record industry sales since Edison made the first wax cylinder) down to $8.25 billion. Ironically, should the RIAA eventually win the case (or more likely, settle out of court) not a dime will go to the artists, who are paid according to the terms of their contract, none of which mention suing Russian websites, YouTube, Kazaa or the 20,000 individual lawsuits as a reason to cut a check. Because it's all about the artists, you know. Sept. 19, 2003 -- RIAA Sues iMesh April 3, 2003 -- RIAA Moves Against Operators Of Pirate P2P Systems Housed On Internal College Networks January 10, 2003 -- RIAA and MPAA on Sharman Networks and LEF To Be Included In Kazaa Case "We are pleased that the court denied the efforts of Sharman Networks and LEF to avoid being subject to the suit. Sharman Networks and LEF should be held accountable by U.S. laws, which clearly indicate that what they are doing is illegal, and that they should not profit from it. Their attempts to play an intricate and shameless shell game designed to evade a U.S. court's jurisdiction and avoid liability have rightly failed." November 21, 2002 -- RIAA Files Motion of Contempt Against Aimster The RIAA filed a motion for a hearing to find Aimster (a.k.a. Madster) in contempt on the grounds that it has willfully disregarded an order issued on November 4, 2002. In that order, the court directed Aimster to immediately prevent its users from uploading and downloading copyrighted works or shut down its operations until it can do so. September 4, 2002 -- Judge Rules In Favor of Record Companies In Aimster Case August 21, 2002 -- Listen4Ever Shut Down With www.Listen4ever.com now offline, the RIAA announced that it is withdrawing its lawsuit that had sought the assistance of four Internet Service Providers in cutting off access to the site. May 24, 2002 -- Songwriters, Music Publishers and Recording Industry Take Audiogalaxy.com to Court Audiogalaxy.com was taken to court today by songwriters, music publishers, and the recording industry for wholesale copyright infringement. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in New York on Friday by the RIAA, on behalf of its member labels, and the National Music Publishers Association, Inc. (NMPA), on behalf of the music publisher principals of its licensing affiliate, The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. and their thousands of songwriter partners. The complaint specifically accuses Audiogalaxy of "willfully and intentionally" encouraging and facilitating "millions of individual, anonymous users to copy and distribute infringing copyrighted works by the millions, if not billions." April 9, 2002 -- RIAA announced that they recently reached an out-of-court settlement for $1 million with Integrated Information Systems, Inc. (IIS), a high tech company that ran a dedicated server permitting its employees to access and distribute thousands of infringing MP3 files over the corporate network. December 20, 2001 -- RIAA Endorses Economic Sanctions on Ukraine October 3, 2001 -- MPAA, RIAA File Suit Against MusicCity and Others The motion picture and recording industries filed suit against MusicCity and others for copyright infringement, calling the service a "21st century piratical bazaar where the unlawful exchange of protected materials takes place across the vast expanses of the Internet." Plaintiffs filed suit against MusicCity.com, Inc. and MusicCity Networks, Inc. (which operate the Morpheus service), Grokster, LTD, and Consumer Empowerment BV [also known as FastTrack] (which operates the KaZaA service), in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. February 25, 2000 -- FAQ About RIAA Members' Lawsuit Against MP3.com January 21, 2000 -- RIAA Threatens mp3.com December 7, 1999 -- RIAA Sues Napster The RIAA announced that it has filed suit against Napster, a company the RIAA has alleged is operating as a haven for music piracy on the Internet. "We love the idea of using technology to build artist communities, but that's not what Napster is all about. Napster is about facilitating piracy, and trying to build a business on the backs of artists and copyright owners," said Cary Sherman, Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel, RIAA. February 1, 1999 -- RIAA Chokes Lycos MP3 Search Engine October 16, 1998 -- RIAA Wins Restraining Order Against MP3 Recording Device A federal court today entered a temporary restraining order (TRO) to enjoin the distribution and sale of Diamond Multimedia's Rio portable MP3 recording device. The court granted a motion filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) seeking a TRO based on the judge's conclusion that the organizations are likely to prevail on their position that the Rio violates the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA). The temporary restraining order remains effective for a period of 10 days, therefore the court has scheduled a hearing on RIAA's and AARC's motion for a preliminary injunction on Monday, October 26. May 11, 1998 -- RIAA Sues Two Internet Sites for Copyright Infringement One Site Ignored Cease and Desist Warning; Other Posted 1,100 Unauthorized Recordings Washington, DC - In its ongoing effort to foster a legitimate marketplace for sound recordings on the Internet, the Recording Industry Association of America obtained separate temporary restraining orders against two Internet sites violating the rights of hundreds of artists. These sites were illegally distributing the full-length songs of top artists such as Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, the Eagles, Meredith Brooks, Kenny G, and Elton John without permission. The two lawsuits, filed on May 5, 1998, seek permanent injunctions and damages. As of Friday, May 8, both sites were down and both sets of defendants appear to be cooperating with the RIAA to resolve these claims. February 7, 1998 -- (Which would later be named "Black February" by Blex) one event seemed to trigger a chain of events that would change the face of the MP3 Community forever. Blex's Page Of Good MP3s, a site not only noted for its FTP site list, but also for the webmaster's outspoken personality, became the subject of Geffen employee Jim Griffin's attack on online piracy. Griffin used Blex's listing as a tool to find individual site operators, and would later recall that sites similar to Blex's made his job easier. January 23, 1998 -- RIAA Sues Texas A group of Texas firefighters, teachers and law enforcement officers, along with the RIAA, filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a "rider" attached to the Texas 1997 Appropriations Bill. Rider 174, which was appended to the budget in May 1997 without benefit of a public debate, prohibits the state and all its public retirement systems from investing in companies that produce music with "objectionable" lyrics. May 7, 1997 -- RIAA Opposes Compulsory Licensing of Internet Retransmission of Broadcasts Washington, DC - The Recording Industry Association of America has filed comments with the Copyright Office opposing the extension of compulsory licensing to Internet retransmissions of over-the-air broadcasts of sound recordings. The Copyright Office is considering that question as part of a broader study of the Copyright Act's compulsory licensing provisions. BACKGROUND: Presently, there are services that use the Internet to deliver retransmissions of local radio broadcasts to listeners worldwide. Under the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995, the owner of the copyright in a sound recording enjoys the exclusive right "to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission." While that right is subject to certain limitations, the copyright owner has the right to license -- and receive compensation for -- the Internet retransmissions of radio broadcasts currently being made. Compulsory licensing would allow anyone to make an Internet retransmission simply by paying a standard royalty. June 9, 1997 -- RIAA Targets Music Archive Sites The RIAA has filed separate civil actions seeking temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions against three Internet Music Archive Sites. These sites allow users to download and, in some cases, upload full-length songs without permission of the copyright holder. Speaking for its record company members, the trade group charges that these sites are violating federal copyright laws through the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyrighted sound recordings. December 11, 1997 -- RIAA Considers Performance Right Royalty Rate For Cable and Satellite Music Services Unjustified Washington, DC - The Recording Industry Association of America will ask the Copyright Office tomorrow to reject the royalty rate recently recommended by the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel. The panel recommended that subscription digital cable and satellite music services must pay artists and record companies only 5% of revenues for the right to perform more than 250,000 hours of sound recordings each year. The trade association is asking the Copyright Office, instead, to set a fair marketplace rate. In an analogous industry, such as the cable movie industry, HBO and other services pay on average more than 40% of their revenues for the programming they provide. The trade group's Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Cary Sherman, called the arbitration panel's decision indefensible. "Essentially, the panel is saying that digital audio subscription services such as DMX, Music Choice and MUZAK can exploit the sound recordings of artists and record companies, who bear all the risk associated with producing the sound recording, for only 5% of their revenue. These services contribute nothing toward the millions of dollars required to produce and market sound recordings, yet get to keep 95% of their revenue." December 17, 1997 -- In the first case to be enforced under the Audio Home Recording Act, the RIAA has settled against the manufacturer of a device that circumvents the copy protection system known as SCMS (Serial Copy Management System), embodied in consumer- model digital audio recorders, the most common of which are DAT recorders. In addition to permanent injunctions preventing the defendants from any further manufacturing, advertising or distribution of the DigiCon 2, or any similar device, the settlement requires the defendants to give up their inventory of DigiCon 2s for destruction and pay statutory damages to the RIAA in the amount of $20,000. The defendants also stipulated to a judgement of $225,000 which, under the terms of the settlement, will become immediately payable if they ever again violate the Audio Home Recording Act. March 4, 1996 -- The RIAA issued a cease and desist letter to AudioNet, which provides an Internet service known as AudioNet Jukebox where users can listen to over 400 full-length albums from a variety of musical genres. The RIAA contends that the service is offering digital performances of copyrighted sound recordings, via this interactive service, without the authority of various sound recording copyright owners. "AudioNet's practice of allowing consumers to use the Internet as a 'jukebox' is not lawful and must cease immediately," said Steven D'Onofrio, RIAA executive vice president and director, anti-piracy. With a performance right granted by the "Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995," a copyright holder has the exclusive right to control interactive digital performances of their sound recordings, regardless of whether a fee is charged to receive the transmission. Because AudioNet allows consumers to select the sound recordings they would like to hear, transmission through the service clearly falls within the exclusive right of the sound recording copyright holder.