Any Lawsuits Yet To Speak Of?

[ConservativeMan55]

I honestly believe that the threat of lawsuits against individual downloaders was and is bogus. I have not seen one shred of evidence to the contrary. I've downloaded tons of songs beginning back with Napster. It never hurt the recording industry one ounce. What hurts them is when there is no interest. Luckily for them, Napster and Kazza kept the interest alive.

When Napster first came out everyone loved it and there was no talk of lawsuits. The recording industry was booming. Sales were up and I remember news pundits and other talking heads say that the reason sales of CD's were up was because of Napster. Napster had spawned a new interest in music and was keeping it alive.

How many of you downloaded every song off a CD, and then burned it onto another CD? Like many others I would download one song, listen to it, and if it was good enough, I would go out and buy the CD. I never found each song on a new CD, and downloaded each one. Now I have no way of listening or knowing anything about a new CD so my interest has waned considerably, and I won't be at the Music Store anytime soon.

Now the RIAA has successfully destroyed Napster and I might add about half of their profits. They are now going after Kazza. This won't be easy to do because Kazza is worldwide. Instead of going after Kazza, they are attempting to scare the downloaders into dropping Kazza in a scheme Jethro and the Beast would be proud of. If only those downloaders were elderly then the liberals could take away the ability to download and blame it on the Conservatives.

The RIAA should wake up and not do what Martha Stewart did. Martha attempted to make 200 thousand dollars illegally and ended up losing millions. This is what happens to the CEO's that are crooked. They work hard much like Martha did, and end up with more money than they know what to do with. Then once they get to the top, some decide they don't want to work for it anymore and become deceitful.

That brings them down as soon as they make that first choice. Now the RIAA is talking about how terrible their sales are, and they are blaming it on Kazza and other file sharing programs. Maybe they should take a look at when their sales started to tank. Its right when they started threatining their consumers with lawsuits!

Back to my question. Has anyone been sued yet? Any Senators sons or daughters been thrown in jail over this? Anybody been dragged into court? I didn't think so.

[candeee]

I fail to see how your post has anything to do with this thread.

[weegee]

For a third party to take your party, and distribute it for profit is theft.

If the fileservers had advertising or fees I could see a "profit" but where is the profit being made "trading" files?

I'm an outside observer in all of this (I don't download tracks).

The guy selling mixtapes at the corner store is making a profit but for 20 years, the industry has generally turned a blind eye to that practice too.

Certainly the industry accepted the practice of making a mix tape and GIVING it to a friend. Taping off the radio wasn't a crime either.

The industry eventually got a tax levied on blank cassettes (even though there is no justification of which artists to share that revenue with).

[ConservativeMan55]

Take a stand against the Recording Industry Association of America!

[Nick Danger]

[Naspino]

Why doesn't the RIAA just stop whining and come up with a new distribution model. They will never stop people from ripping a CD onto disk and distributing it; lawsuits or no lawsuits. They will never stop people from seeking 15 songs (normally of which only 2 are any good) for free that they would otherwise pay 16 bucks for. If however they make it convenient, affordable and legal to take part in the industry people will. People have been copying music enmasse since tape recorders became available; to somehow think it can be stopped is naive and just turns people off. If they can seriously take on the digital distribution market then they'd slash their distributions costs to nearly nothing all of which can be used to benefit the consumers.

[ConservativeMan55]

How not to get sued by the RIAA.

[ConservativeMan55]

LOL!

[weegee]

With the aging babyboom buying public not supporting new acts and young people dissatisfied with the mainstream promotion man's bands advent of CD copying, it's more feasible that sales have dropped and RIAA's share of record revenue has also dropped a copy of a copy of a copy is just as good as the original. So they care more.

The recording industry has several "collection agencies" (musclemen) who have tried to pursue all avenues for more revenue (including getting bars that have a tv on to cough up money because there could be a tv ad with a song in it). The name of their game is collecting money. Not paying it out to labels or artists. The more money they bring in, the more of it they can skim off for themselves.

Everyone wants to exist in a growth industry. Consider the home tapers a "new market" to tap.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

For a third party to take your party(sic), and distribute it for profit is theft.

There is no profit involved in file-SHARING.

Besides which, file-sharing is a violation of a malum prohibitum law, meaning it is wrong only because there is law against it, in contrast to a malum in se law, meaning the act (such as murder) is wrong in and of itself.

The current music distribution system developed when the technology for mass reproduction of music was limited to pressing grooves into vinyl disks. The music industry was providing a valuable service to the artists and the listeners because of the large capital investment required to create recordings.

Times have changed. Modern computer technology allows anybody with a PC to record and distribute music, be it music they recorded themselves or music they copied from a commercial source.

People like you want to enforce obsolete business models on modern technology. You want technology to adapt to the law, rather than force businesses to adapt to technology.

If people like you have their way, in ten years it will be illegal to own a general-purpose computer. You will only be able to purchase digital-rights management appliances that, first and foremost, protect obsolete industries, like the recording industry, from modern technology.

Gutting technology available to ordinary people seems like a mighty high price to pay to protect sleazebags like music promoters, but I guess your prefer protecting the obsolete business model of sleazebags to allowing ordinary people to have full access to the most advanced technology possible.

[ConservativeMan55]

When you think of the word cartel, the visions of Tony Montana, reaching into his closet to introduce you to his little friend comes to mind.

A cartel, my friends, is a group of independant companies coming together, to control production of product in order to fix prices. This joining of forces often times sqeezes potential competitors before they can truely give the marketplace a choice.

The latest cartel is one that effects each and every one of you.

The cartel I speak of is the RIAA or the Recording Industry Association of America.

The membership to this exclusive club is quite impressive. A complete who's who of the industry.

The RIAA's main function was to make sure that artist's copyrights were not stomped on by illegal forces trying to make a prophet from artists without paying up.

Sounds nice.

But in the past decade or so, the cartel has been moving into a darkened place where the rights of the music fan(consumer) have been stomped on.

The first salvo was fired at MP3.com. With MP3.com's Instant Listening Service and Beam-it programs, Net users can get digital copies of CDs they already own or of music they've purchased from the company's CD retail partners. In other words, MP3.com gave the users digital online access to songs the user already paid for. This way, the user can download and listen to music while waiting for the CD that was purchased to arrive via mail. MP3.com says it uses security technology to verify that the computer user owns a physical copy of the CD.

In other words, the RIAA, wants you to pay for the CD and then pay for every download of that CD you already own! Double dipping. Perhaps we even should pay royalties for every time we mention an artists name to a friend.

This should surpise no one. The RIAA tried to get the supreme court in the early 1990's to declare the sale of used CDs as illegal and to ban the resale of them. They of course lost.

The recording industry wants to make it harder for consumers to directly copy CDs .Efforts are already in place to install digital "watermarks" on CD tracks that would enable copyright holders to trace illegal copies and to create devices that would refuse to play clones. In its first phase, SDMI selected a watermark system created by Verance Technologies as the global standard. Big brother is watching.....be afraid!

Now the cartel has focused its big cannons on Napster.

This one is bit more complicated than the MP3.com situation. This time, the music is for free and unlimited. But what are the limits on music sharing? If I make a copy for a couple of my friends, is that illigal? How about a million friends? Where is the line? And since Napster isn't making any money right now, then how can they be accused of piracy without showing profit?

I can understand the arguement that the artists might be screwed out of royalties if the Napster user downloads, yet never purchases. But to have the RIAA, whos members have been screwing the artists since Little Richard, use the bands as a pollitical pawn in this big corperate chess game is the hight of hypocrisy.

The fact that the very few in the music biz make money off of royalties and most make the little scratch they can from concerts and shirt sales.

The RIAA should at least be intellectually honest with us and tell us that they are in this suit for the control. The control of product is the heart and sole of the cartel. And once the heart and soul is beating in sync(no not the crappy band) , then the prices can be fixed.

And now for a little lube before the next segment......

The RIAA, who are great at giving sermons of fairness from the financial pulpit, have been busted for illegal price fixing with some major music chains.

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who led the charge against the evil empire, said that the price fixing represented a few dollars per CD and the total damage to consumers is estimated to be over $470 million dollars.

Well, where the hell is my check?!

It seems that record companies have been paying for the advertising of stores that agreed to sell the CDs at a price fixed by the record company. They even have a name for it, it's called Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP).

I have another word for it........THE RAPING OF THE MUSIC FAN!

The companies named in the suit are:

Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Brothers Music Group
Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment
Seagram Co.'s Universal Music Group
BMG, the music unit of Bertelsmann AG
EMI Group Plc.

Somehow, while Janet Reno and the justice dept. were busy trying to break up Microsoft, the RIAA have coasted by with a free ride. Maybe it's because the likes of Barbra Streisand and Don Henley have free range amongst politicians. Who knows.

What I do know however, that I find it impossible to see the RIAA's side in the Napster suit. After all the recording industry has done to the music fan as well as the artists, how can you support them? Napster is fan and artist friendly. The cartel is not.

To steal a line from the great M.L.K.,....
I have a dream. A dream where artists can bypass the recording industry altogether and sell their music directly online to the fan through programs such as Napster. Each download would be about 20 cents, thus costing the fan about two dollars or so per CD with no cost for physical product to the artists. Then the artists can go out on the road and make even more scratch with concerts and merchandising.

I have seen the promiseland......and so has the recording industry. That's why they will stop at nothing to destroy freedom and continue their economic bondage on you, me and Little Richard.

[weegee]

Lobbyists in radio don't like the concept of webradio either. Viacom and Clear Channel spent millions (billions?) acquiring the lion's share of stations. If the business model changes, their monopoly is challenged.

[weegee]

The mob found a happy home in the music industry in the 1950s and 1960s. I wouldn't think that the business model has changed any even if the connections to "organized crime" no longer exist.

Certainly some genuine gangsters still operate in the music business.

[ConservativeMan55]

I guess thats what the Rap Gangsters fit right in with them.

[ConservativeMan55]

Or is it Gangsta Rappers? I get the two confused.

[ConservativeMan55]

The RIAA SUCKS!!!

[weegee]

"I have a dream"

The modern enterainer's "dream" seems to stay at home and be a studio band with occassional "star" appearances on eMpTy-V or cameos in movies.

Performance and touring (live performance) seems to take a back seat position to being famous.

Record sales get the name out there but much of the money goes to the label (to pay off padded out studio charges, promotion fees, distribution, etc.). The "publisher" gets money from the song airplays on the radio.

The act gets money from live performance and tshirt sales. No one can take away your live performance money (the only way to get that live show is to be there, even a videotape of the show is not the same).

Too many artists would like to be able to sit at home (disecting hooks from previous generations hit songs and looping them) and live a life of luxury and relaxation.

Being a musician is a job, that's why I say that these characters "dream" of being stars. Famous for being famous.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I honestly believe that the threat of lawsuits against individual downloaders was and is bogus.

Believing it doesn't mean it isn't going to happen.

Expect it.

[ConservativeMan55]

Excellent Analysis! RIAA PLANS TO HACK YOUR COMPUTER!

[ConservativeMan55]

The reason I say this is because I have heard many stories about how they were planning on threatening lawsuits. I've heard them say they would threaten. I am sure they will attempt to set a few examples, but how in the world will they ever sue EVERYONE????? Just wait until a Senators son or daughter of wife, or Sentaor himself is sued.

[ConservativeMan55]

Napster which was once a brilliant example of American ingenuity..is now reduced to this?