The RIAA sees the face of evil, and it's a 12-year-old girl

The Register ^ | 09/09/2003 at 13:54 GMT | Ashlee Vance in Chicago

[jgrubbs]

The RIAA has nailed one of the most prolific file-traders in the U.S., filing a lawsuit against 12-year-old Brianna LaHara.

When not at the playground with her friends, "Biggie Brianna" is trading music files from her home in New York. The little girl received one of the 261 lawsuits filed by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) on Monday, according to the New York Post. She may look like a sweet and innocent child, but the RIAA says it's only going after major copyright violators at the moment. So you make the call.

"I got really scared. My stomach is all turning," Brianna told the Post. "I thought it was OK to download music because my mom paid a service fee for it. Out of all people, why did they pick me?"

It turns out that Brianna's mum paid a $29.99 service charge to KaZaA for the company's music service. Brianna, however, thought this meant she could download songs at will. How naive!

When reporters charged into Brianna's home, she was helping her brother with some homework. She is an honors student at St. Gregory the Great school.

Brianna could face charges of up to $150,000 per infringed song. but we have a feeling this might be a tad unrealistic. We suggest the RIAA take all of her toys instead.

"Nobody likes playing the heavy and having to resort to litigation," RIAA president Cary Sherman said in a statement. "But when your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action."

Go get her, Cary.

[D Rider]

...she probably now has a better understanding of the concept of taking something without paying for it.

I only wish that our government could learn that lesson, (think wetlands...etc.) The real lesson is: If you are going to be a thief, make sure you have enough firepower behind you.

[VRWCmember]

Do you subscribe to all the newspapers that have stories reposted here on Free Republic? Are you a thief for not subscribing?

No, but most of these newspapers post their articles on the internet for viewing without a subscription. Others have sued over posting of their articles and FR has a requirement that its posters honor the terms of the settlement stipulating that only excerpts may be posted along with a link to the newspaper's website for the original article. But thank you for giving an example of the fair use doctrine in action.

[FreedomCalls]

I do not understand why so many FReepers buy into the democrat style argument that it's OK to steal from the rich recording industry corporate fat-cats.

I don't understand why so many FReepers think copying music is a crime, but copying news articles is perfectly OK.

[VRWCmember]

So what about the "theives" here at Free Republic who "steal" news stories. That differs how?

It's pretty obvious that the posting of news articles for discussion is very different from copying and distributing music files, but perhaps Mr. Robinson has more specific insights into the differences and the legal intricacies since it has been put through the wringer of the courts and FR is still here.

[TomServo]

It's pretty obvious that the posting of news articles for discussion is very different from copying and distributing music files

It really doesn't matter. It still has to do with ownership. The news folks can decide when/where/how it's distributed. Same goes for the music folks. Just MHO...

[Protagoras]

Give it up. Try telling your story to anyone who believes that lending one's property is the same as COPYING it, keeping it, and then trading the illegal and immoral copy with someone else who has committed the same crime.

[battousai]

"So, if you go into a grocery store and decide the price of ice cream is too high (it's unfair), you can just cart as much of it as you can carry out the door without paying for it, and then give it away on the street as long as you don't do it for profit. (This is your concept of fair use?) "

Oh here we go again with these analogies, comparing a real object that has a verifyable value to a virtual object that has no verifiable value. If that carton of ice cream was gone there was a verifiable loss. But if someone downloads a mp3 what is to say that person would have ever bought the CD album that contained that song in the first place?

Its only the RIAA's word that these files are causing them a loss, where is their proof? its their own lack of talented artists and their ridiculous price gouging that are causing their losses, but they just need an excuse, and one that they know will never go away, well if they had any common sense they would realize its a lost battle.

[VRWCmember]

But if someone downloads a mp3 what is to say that person would have ever bought the CD album that contained that song in the first place?

What difference does it make? If you steal something that you never would have bought in the first place, it is still stolen.

[js1138]

...comparing a real object that has a verifyable value to a virtual object that has no verifiable value.

I would think that on a conservative forum, we could agree that value is set by the marketplace. How do you set the value of a service. How about the value of your work?

[Snuffington]

Well stated.

[babygene]

" No, but most of these newspapers post their articles on the internet for viewing without a subscription"

Wrong! If a newspaper puts articls on the web for viewing, that does not necessarly give you a right to copy and past or print them... Almost everything on the internet that's worth reading is also copyrighted. And most of it is not posted by the copyright owner...

[babygene]

Sorry,

past = paste

[battousai]

"I would think that on a conservative forum, we could agree that value is set by the marketplace. How do you set the value of a service. How about the value of your work? "

and

"What difference does it make? If you steal something that you never would have bought in the first place, it is still stolen."

so the marketplace has decided that mp3s have a value of 0c, since no one charges to share their collection of mp3s, the market has also decided that CDs are overpriced, why isn't the RIAA responding to that? so market forces are only good when it goes their way?

Work and services have a measurable value, as in the lack of whatever was to be done not being completed or delivered, etc.. how do you measure the value of an mp3?




who owns the mp3?

[FreedomCalls]

It's pretty obvious that the posting of news articles for discussion is very different from copying and distributing music files,

It's not obvious to me. Here's the copyright statement from Tampa Bay Online (the AP news feed):

Except for material in the public domain under United States copyright law, all material contained on the Web site (including all software, HTML code, Java applets, Active X controls and other code) is protected by United States and foreign copyright laws. Except as otherwise expressly provided in these terms and conditions, you may not copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, modify, rewrite, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any material contained on the Web site without the prior consent of the copyright owner.

I just can't see how you can defend one sort of copying and not the other. I think we all support FR and Jim in his effort's here. But I can't see how that differs from some teenager copying music. Maybe he/she wants to use the music as a basis for discussion, or maybe they want to learn some new chord progressions.

Too many times we forget just how the digital age changes things. The old methods of news dissemination have gone out along with hot lead and linotype machines. RIAA needs to pull its head out and understand that this is the 21st century. Just as Gutenberg's moveable type put an end to the scribe industry of handwriting books out in longhand for each copy that was produced, the Internet has changed music distribution. Before recorded music most artists made their money off of performances and writers made their money off of sheet music sales. I'll bet there were handcopied notes cribbed off of sheet music passed around in 1890 even though the sheets were copywrited. In 1920 musicians feared recorded music would take profits away from their performances and they would not make as much since people no longer had to hire live musicians. We saw that was wrong -- it simply drove up demand and people stopped making their own music. In the 1940s musicians who made money off of recorded music feared that radio would take away profit from their sales of recordings. We saw that that was wrong. People started to demand more recorded music after they heard a song on the radio. They made more money. The MPAA fought home VCRs because they thought people would simply record movies off of television. They were wrong. The movie studios started making more money off of home rentals and sales of VCR tapes and DVDs than they made at the box office. The world has changed. What hasn't changed is the RIAA and the MPAA. They are luddites fighting to save the buggy whip industry in the face of the automobile. I recently bought a CD based on a song I got off of the artist's official web site. Even though I had the song, I wanted the CD. You can't stop progress and innovation.

[Dark Knight]

Jeesh, would everyone stop with the ice cream? Okay, here is it is the closest ice cream analogy.

I buy an ice cream maker. When I buy the ice cream maker, I paid a fee to the guy that created ice cream maker (CD writer tax). Now every time I buy cream and rock salt, I pay a tax to the guy that created the ice cream maker (media tax). I am unhappy because I have to pay him a tax, even if I am using the rock salt on the snow on my driveway, and the cream in my coffee. Now the ice cream maker guy says he wants to prevent anyone from sharing ice cream made on their own machines. (even though he is getting paid by taxes for the sharing)

If the ice cream guy was rational, he would ask for an increase in the media tax. It is easy to comply with and doesn't have the downside of the public outcry or the legal machinations. The public is very disatisfied with the ice cream guy, because after years of believing he invented the ice cream machine, and they wanted to thank him for all the pleasures ice cream has given them, the public found he only bought the rights to the machine from the real inventor who is in poverty and anonymity for which he gets a crust of bread once a week.

Okay, everyone had enough ice cream?

DK

[js1138]

how do you measure the value of an mp3?

The value of anything is what people are willing to pay -- apparently 99 cents for a downloaded song. The fact that a given thing is easy to steal does not lower its market value. Markets assume that theft is unusual.

Who owns a book? You are certainly free to transfer books and magazines, but you are not free to republish the contents. Again, the ease of copying and publishing digital content does not change the concept of honesty.

Having said that I have to admit to having a dozen songs downloaded from Napster. I quit downloading when Napster died. I might resume downloading when CD quality downloads are available at reasonable prices, with rights comparable to ownership of a CD. I don't mind paying, but I want quality better than typical MP3, and I don't want to worry about rights.

[Dark Knight]

Morality aside, given that technology is marching on, if a copyrighted work isn't trending to the price of the media, then there is a nonmarket force at work. If the record companies charge a monopolistic price for junk, people won't buy it. It is their business model that is failing them.

Compare any music CD content to the DVD Lord of the Rings.

A CD made by a top artist at their peak will have a few million invested into it. Lord of the Rings has hundreds of millions invested into it. People are gobblin' up LOTR. DVD sales are up. People can pirate DVD's, or put then into VCDs but they don't. Increase the price of a DVD to $90 or $100 dollars, it would. Contrast that with a major complaing of the Music Industry: one or two good tracks, and the rest is trash.

Back to the healthy DVD industry vs. dying Music model. Five to ten minutes of material a customer wants, and forty five of junk. 10% to 20% of a CD has value to the customer, the rest is a waste of plastic and pits. Lord of the Rings, people want more than what was in the theatre, they will pay more, heck they'll pay for it twice. Once for the theatrical edition and once for the extended version. CD buyers are forced to buy stuff they don't want in order to get the stuff they do.

We have the technology to change that and the music industry is not stepping in the the new world. With a patent, if you don't advance your innovation, you can lose it. The Music Industry is doing that by default.

Put a piece of poop on a popsicle stick and offer it to people for a penny, but don't bet your farm on that business model. The music moguls did.

And now they want a government bailout through the courts.

DK

[ImphClinton]

No but if you record it on your computer then maybe yes.

That is what is so ridiculous. Congress needs to make clear MP3's are legal. Downloading perhaps not but putting that genie back in the bottle it going to most likely be impossible.

As long as RIAA wants 99 cents per song downloaded people will borrow from others. That is where most MP3s come from. You can now copy your friends entire library in short time.

Thing is downloading has little if anything to do with lost sales by RIAA.

They started producing 30% fewer new songs each year and their proffits dropped. No DAH. You produce less and you sell less. In addition they still charge more for a CD than a casette even though the CD cost less to produce. Forget about singles they don't sell them anymore. This has far more to do with their smaller sales than anything else.

Many people I know buy the music they like and they are exposed to move thanks to downloading and thus buy more.

[BenLurkin]

I don't claim to understand all the ins and outs of copyright law. Your detailed and thoughtful response is very much appreciated.

I will say this though: If these fines stand up in court, then RIAA will have shown that its interpretation of the law is corrct. If they are thrown out of court, then RIAA will have been legally in the wrong.

[AndyJackson]

the flaw in your thinking is the lack of accounting for the zero expense in reproduction. In other words, you expect middlemen to have the right to collect fees for a process that is basically cost-free. That is not economics. That is special pleading for a special interest group with deep pockets and political clout.

Excellent argument. It is worth remembering the exact quote from the Constitution, "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"