MetaFilter posts tagged with riaa and copyright

Illegal Download =/= Lost Sale

Marisa Stole the Precious Thing — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:01:25 -0800

"[A]lthough it is true that someone who copies a digital version of a sound recording has little incentive to purchase the recording through legitimate means, it does not necessarily follow that the downloader would have made a legitimate purchase if the recording had not been available for free," said US District court Judge James P. Jones, in response to the RIAA's request for restitution against the former admin of Elite Torrents, Daniel Dove, who has already been found guilty of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement. The RIAA's request for restitution claimed that each download was equal to a lost sale. Judge Jones disagreed, and in part of his ruling stated:

"It is a basic principle of economics that as price increases, demand decreases. Customers who download music and movies for free would not necessarily spend money to acquire the same product. I am skeptical that customers would pay $7.22 or $19 for something they got for free. Certainly 100% of the illegal downloads through Elite Torrents did not result in the loss of a sale, but both Lionsgate and RIAA estimate their losses based on this faulty assumption."

File sharers should nonetheless be wary of opening the champagne just yet.

Why doesn’t the IFPI dare to stand up for its own history?

mr.marx — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:47:04 -0800

What the IFPI tries to conceal about its origins in fascist Italy IFPI is the global version of the RIAA

Cash rules everything around me

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:29:49 -0800

CASH is the Coalition of Artists & Stake Holders, a project conceived and initiated by musician Kristin Hersh. CASH is "read-write" — more than consumption; a collaborative online effort — helping make music ownership more of an interactive affair facilitated through Creative Commons licensing.

Sorry again about not buying a CD or whatever.

bowline — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:32:21 -0800

Dear Rockers. Guilt ridden music lovers get to feel better about themselves.

Down the memory hole

blacklite — Tue, 15 May 2007 23:24:45 -0800

Gonzales pushes plan to criminalize copyright infringement, making it punishable by life imprisonment; to increase wiretaps; and to require Homeland Security to notify the RIAA in certain circumstances. "To meet the global challenges of IP crime." I'd comment on this, but I'm afraid that someone might think I was copying someone else. The Intellectual Property Protection Act (official press release) appeared previously in a speech (2005) and as a draft (2006) - now the Justice department is pushing Congress to bring it forward. [newsfilter]

Anti-RIAA clearinghouse

Dr. Wu — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:21:08 -0800

An impressive array of anti-RIAA articles, mostly from people within the music industry.

DJ Drama - artists' friend, RIAA foe

caddis — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:25:01 -0800

Make a mixtape highlighting a young artist, have that artist proclaim his delight about the project on the CD, reignite that artist's career, repeat, then, the RIAA has you arrested for counterfieting. The RIAA continues its vain struggle to understand the new music economy. In the meantime, at least one company gets it, offering DRM-free CD downloads of obscure titles.

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button (So We Can Put Them in Jail)?

jonp72 — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:28:16 -0800

Permission to Innovate? How the Record Industry Is Like 17th-Century French Buttonmakers A corporate consultant blog makes a weird but compelling argument that the RIAA and MPAA are forcibly imposing a draconian 17th-century business model on the 21st century.

Still crazy after all these years

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:12:29 -0800

The RIAA would like to remind you that copying purchased music to your iPod is illegal without first gaining permission from the copyright holder. Thank you.

Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2005

ND¢ — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 08:47:29 -0800

Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2005. In a speech given on November 10th, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales introduced proposed legislation [pdf] that would go one step further in criminalizing copyright infringement. The RIAA thinks its a good idea.

“The Revolution Is on CBS Records!”

xowie — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:10:34 -0800

A small new future. 1999 was the year the RIAA began writing checks the record industry couldn’t cash.

LAMP

liam — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 13:47:46 -0800

LAMP is an on-demand music service offered to the MIT campus through its cable TV network. The NYTimes mulls the copyright implications.

The RIAA Strikes Back

tgrundke — Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:48:29 -0800

The RIAA Strikes Back. (c/o arstechnica.com) What do you do when nothing else seems to be working and you're the RIAA? Do it Soviet style! Take your message to the classroom! Indoctrinate the kiddies! Get them to rat on their friends! I don't know about everyone else, but I think that this latest RIAA tactic is particularly insidious. But what is worse is that schools apparently are welcoming the RIAA. And you thought that Coke machines in the cafeteria were bad...

RIAA Phone Prank

Inkslinger — Mon, 15 Sep 2003 20:37:09 -0800

A prankster turns himself into the RIAA:
JH: Hello. I just downloaded some illegal MP3s and my friend told me that the RAII is going to sue everyone who downloads music. What should I do?
RIAA: Hold on just a sec.

Blame Canada!

XQUZYPHYR — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 21:02:09 -0800

Why the RIAA's lawsuits aren't worth moose droppings. Tech Central Station columnist Jay Currie explains how Canada's copyright law, which instills the right to copy music in exchange for levies on blank media, renders the RIAA's legal precedent against file-sharers useless up north.

Access Denied: RIAA, MPAA Blocked From Techfocus

metameme — Sun, 20 Jul 2003 17:27:34 -0800

MPAA Blocked From Techfocus
:Effective immediately, the RIAA and MPAA will need to find another way to get to Techfocus. In response to their legal targeting of individual file-swappers, access from their known networks to this site has now been blocked. While it may still be possible for them to access Techfocus via address ranges which we're not aware of, they'll otherwise have to use non-RIAA and non-MPAA networks to view the site."

Orrin Hatch, your Big Brother

mr_crash_davis — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 16:43:56 -0800

Senator Orrin Hatch [R-Utah] , chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, favors legislation allowing copyright holders to remotely destroy the computers of illegal file traders. Hatch, an accompished songwriter in his own right, is quoted as saying that damaging someone's computer "...may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights." Apparently the good Senator is forgetting that our legal system is based on the presumption of innocence.

Copyright a-go-go

dirtylittlemonkey — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 07:29:10 -0800

Lessig and the RIAA's Matt Oppenheim This great Q&A between two very well spoken opponents in the copyright wars answers (very clearly) many of the questions that have stemmed from the ongoing erosion of the public domain by copyright law and the degradation of the music industry by file swappers. I was struck by how straight many of the answers were... a fascinating read

We know who you are. We know what you're doing.

Blue Stone — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 16:44:06 -0800

Hi! You have the right to remain silent! (wanna cyber?)

The RIAA, bastions of goodness and justice, are sending IMs to nasty file-sharers, telling them that what they're doing is naughty. And that they might just end up in court.
A private company they're hiring plans to send a million messages per week, telling the thieving pirates that the RIAA knows where they live.

Looks like "Hilary Rosen" is one person I'll be putting on my ignore list.

P2P Legal, Rules Judge

Blue Stone — Fri, 25 Apr 2003 13:20:53 -0800

In a reversal of fortunes for the RIAA et al, a judge rules against them saying that p2p technology is "not significantly different from"..."home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."
Of course this isn't the end of it, and appeals are being made, but for once things are going the way of the P2P software makers, it seems.

Hating Hilary.

11235813 — Thu, 23 Jan 2003 10:25:36 -0800

Hating Hilary. We've certainly heard a bit from Hilary Rosen, CEO of the RIAA. Love her, hate her or hate her more, this particular interview reveals (to me at least) a very different Hilary, a woman who is perhaps not the beast that her bosses expect her to be and the immovable technophobic distribution system and business model she represents forces her to be.

In fact, Rosen tried to steer the labels toward the online future long before they saw it coming. In the mid-'90s, Rosen brought [Esther] Dyson to a conference of music executives to brief them on how technology would transform their business. Dyson described for them the inevitability of digital delivery, an eventuality Rosen says she had begun to understand but wanted her bosses to hear from an outsider. But as Dyson spoke, the label executives became defensive, then furious. By all accounts, the meeting devolved into a shouting match.

the picture of her with an iPod says it all

"I finally convince the idiot record companies that they have to offer a product to compete with pirates, and now the publishers won't make a deal," she said, throwing up her hands. priceless.

Told Ya!

BGM — Tue, 21 Jan 2003 17:18:42 -0800

Verizon Must Reveal Internet Song Swapper In a recent discussion of the Supreme Court's decision to protect the rights of the individual from the greed and sloth of the many I warned that the RIAA and MPAA, comically inept though the media paints them, would soon have things their way. This link is to a news report about an important step in their fight for individual rights.

European Copyrights

PeteyStock — Thu, 02 Jan 2003 12:14:20 -0800

European music copyrights from the '50s due to expire this year, and to grossly oversimplify things, RIAA is on the warpath, saying that imports from there would be acts of piracy. Considering that there's a gold mine's worth of material begging to be shown the light again (the Maria Callas material mentioned in the article, for example), no doubt there will be some great releases...but will EMI's actions be more the exception than the rule? (NYT link, yadayada)

BarneyFifesBullet — Wed, 25 Sep 2002 22:21:11 -0800

Britney Spears, Madonna, Other Stars in TV Ads on Piracy "Too many people don't realize that when you download a song you like from a peer-to-peer network or some other unauthorized Internet source, what you're doing is stealing music," says Britney. Somebody ask Brit if she knows what peer-to-peer means. This is the latest Big Idea from the RIAA.

fpatrick — Thu, 12 Sep 2002 08:17:25 -0800

Finally, a Fair Fight with Big Music From a Business Week Online column..."Telecom giant Verizon is battling the industry's bid to make it name a file-sharing subscriber. It's also defending your right to privacy. On July 24, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) made an unprecedented request of Verizon Communications (VZ). The music industry's trade association served the telecom with a subpoena, seeking the identity of a Verizon subscriber who had allegedly illegally traded digital songs by artists including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and "boy band" N'Sync. The RIAA didn't specify why it wanted to know who the user was or what it would do with the information."