Riaa V's Kazzaa

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<what is the world coming too.....?
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Just browsing a site when i came across this
Thought someone might wanna know
What the RIAA is doing,
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Music firms target 12-year-old
Brianna LaHara did not realise she was committing a crime
A 12-year-old has been targeted by the music industry in its assault on song-swappers, after she downloaded children's rhymes and pop records.

Brianna LaHara, of New York, was one of 261 people served with a lawsuit by the Recording Industry of America (RIAA).

She has admitted swapping music online, and her mother has agreed to pay $2,000 (£1,257) to settle the case.

The RIAA is suing hundreds of internet users in the US who it accuses of illegally swapping music online.

It insists it is only going after those that download "substantial amounts" of copyrighted songs.

Grandfather Durwood Pickle, 71, was shocked on Tuesday to discover a lawsuit had been filed against him, saying his grandchildren used his computer during visits to his Texas home.

Subscription fee

Miss LaHara said she was amazed to learn she was being pursued after using the song-swap service Kazaa.

She believed that because her mother had paid a $29.95 (£18.80) subscription to the web service she was not committing a crime.

The 12-year-old was discovered to have more than 1,000 copyrighted songs on her hard drive, including Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey and children's song If You're Happy and You Know It.

Each copyrighted song carries a maximum penalty of $150,000 (£94,260)

"If this was something we were profiting from, that's one thing. But we were just listening and sometimes dancing to the music," her mother Sylvia Torres told the New York Daily News.

Ms Torres had originally planned to fight the lawsuit but eventually settled the matter, while her daughter apologised.

"I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love," said Miss LaHara.

'Usual suspects'

The RIAA has filed lawsuits in federal courts across the US on behalf of major record companies Universal, BMG, EMI, Sony and Warner Brothers.

Critics and music fans have accused the RIAA of being heavy-handed.

"They're probably going to get the results they want, but I think it's kind of silly to go after individuals," said Jason Rich, a music fan from Watervliet, New York.

"There are so many web sites out there, people don't know necessarily they're doing anything wrong."

During a Senate judiciary hearing, Senator Dick Durbin questioned RIAA president Cary Sherman on the tactics being used.

"Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" Mr Durbin asked.

Mr Sherman defended the stance, saying the RIAA was trying to spread the message that file-sharing is illegal.

"Yes, there are going to be some kids caught in this, but you'd be surprised at how many adults are engaged in this activity," he said.

the world is turning into a bunch of bullshit

Corporate America is our new government it seems.

Riaa = Lame pop singer's last resort to get money.

nice equation Fatphantom!

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update A day after the Recording Industry Association of America filed a slew of lawsuits against alleged illegal song swappers, it became the target of legal action over its own "amnesty" program.
California resident Eric Parke, on behalf of the general public of the state, filed a suit Tuesday against the trade association because of its amnesty, or "Clean Slate," program, a provisional shield it introduced Monday that allows people to avoid legal action by stepping forward and forfeiting any illegally traded songs. The suit, filed in the Marin Superior Court of California, charges that the RIAA's program is a deceptive and fraudulent business practice.

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Well, at least the consumers aren't the only people being sued over this sh17.

Read on here.

Let's face it. When artists make good music, people want to hear it. They will go to great lenghts and will not stop at anything to hear a good song, hell at least I know I won't. The RIAA is taking down random individuals for listening to the music that they hear every day on the radio, on MTV, VH1, etc. etc. Artists endorse you going out and listening to them. They like having their songs on the radio. The RIAA acknowledges this, yet they expect consumers to pay for many CDs when a readily available program that costs absolutely nothing on the internet is available for nothing on the internet to take the place of these CDs? The odds are in favor of the user, the opinion is in favor of the user, and the disbelief is definitely massed up on the RIAA side. Does the case of a person listening to an overplayed, broadcasted song on his or her personal computer need to end in a possibly million dollar lawsuit? I for one, think not.

Regards,
Joe

I don't quite get it; the RIAA says sales are down because of profit lost to filesharing of mp3s, so to bolster sales they sue people for insane ammounts of money that they have to pay back. That being said, those people are going to be pissed and poor. How can suing a person into poverty stimulate sales, if you have no money, you can't buy cds! Seems like a viscous cycle to me that will only drive sales down further.

The argument that song swapping hurts sales in the amounts they say is BS. Sure it does hurt sales a little. But think about it, people are not buying CDs cos they are expensive and there are other forms of entertainment out there (would be too long to list here). also there are no alternatives when you look at mp3s. since it already out there people want to use mp3 to listen to music cos its much more portable than carrying Cds around i ur discman. an mp3 player takes up less space and does not skip. also it consumes less batt. with all this why dont they just come up with a better distribution of mp3s. that way their sales wont drop so much and also they need to face reality in that people are not gona pay ridiculous amounts of $ for CDs when there are other forms of entertainment they can do for much less.

Bullshit mixed with more bullshit = a ****load of problems between internet users vrs RIAA vrs The Government.. I have music on my computer, so sue me.. literally. :rolleyes:

But honestly, how the hell could you sue someone for this kind of thing, when international copywrite law's protect the warranty of it as well as the property distribution. They wouldn't enforce the law's as much as they have for something "against the law". What a total load of bullshit, from a group of desperate people.

Quote:

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You may stop me, but you can not stop us all

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Your Damn Right. :D

I have 200 hous of music on my computer,some downloaded some that I copied to my computer my self because I treat my cd's wrong..........so I can have a back up..........How can these M*****F*****S tell what is what.........not to mention the fact that media player reformats all my music to windows format.....there's no way these lawsuits could possibly get anywhere.

Hehe..

Would you believe that more than 50% of the singers that the RIAA supports always give some sort of sweet little compliment to there "fans"... If they fking care about us so much, they should fking so something about this.

Edit-
Some of our tax money is probably going to the RIAA for there little campaign. So in the end, we lose more money then were being sued for. The government is so fair isnt it :rolleyes:

"Its not about the money, I do it because I love music and I love my fans"

God I hear that or somethign to that nature in every interview with a musician ever. If they love their fans so much and its not about the money then why the **** are they crying so much.

While this isn't something I partake in, (too old for most of this stuff.... ;) ), I am firmly against the RIAA/MPAA's campaign.

When I see Celene Deon driving her one and only Pinto then my heart might stop bleeding for them.... Until then I believe it is the responsibility of the companys that make up the RIAA/MPAA to manage their business in a profitable manner without reliance upon bs legislation that will never work because they don't grasp the problem, (or they wouldn't be in this situation), like most of the other businesses in this world have to.

All artists signed under a major label are usually in it for the money. The artists aren't gonna speak out about it because they're afraid of losing their precious contract that makes them all of their money. Independent labels are usually better than the major ones anyway.

A trade group representing six of the biggest file-sharing websites have promised to pay a $US2000 ($A3035) fine on behalf of a 12-year-old girl who illegally downloaded music from the internet.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...268513231.html

Hey All,

Talking about RIAA & Kazaa, here's a link to an article that talks about the process of becoming a lawsuit target.

Click here

It talks, step by step, how the RIAA compiles its lists of possible "enemies" and what to possibly do to avoid it.

Things it mentions is:

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The RIAA's software recordsthe Internet address associated with a computer that is sharing one of the copyrighted songs the organization is investigating. Some file-swapping programs try to hide this by using mechanisms such as proxy servers, but most downloads still expose this information.

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Quote:

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The group checks the artist's name, title, and any "metadata" information attached to the files, looking for information that may indicate what piece of software has been used to create the file or any other. Some files swapped widely on the Net include messages from the original person who created the MP3 file, such as "Created by Grip" or "Finally the Real Full CD delivered fresh for everyone on Grokster and Kazaa to Enjoy!"

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It goes on to say that once the RIAA have sufficient information about a user, it gets a subpoena to obtain information from that user from the ISP, which usually cave against the RIAA. Then people are brought to court with lawsuits ranging from 12k to 17k, and settling for 3k payments.

What a bunch of *****s, eh?

It really is not fair. they are sueing people here in the usa but what about all over the world? there are hundreds of millions of people swaping music with thousands of different programs. too many to stop and they can't go all over the world after everyone. just who they find here in the usa. maybe an anonamouse proxy would help the rest of us?



just a thought

It's probably easier for them to get the people in teh USA. That way they don't have to deal with foreign courts rejecting the RIAA's suit.