We're not technically innocent if we're stealing music, but harrassing children is a bit extreme on their part.

Copying is not stealing! That's Recording Industry rhetoric! At the worst, copying and distributing music MAY put them out a few dollars. At the very worst, this is a small claims matter! In NO WAY does it justify randomly suing people for hundreds of thousands of dollars!!

... Sorry ... I'm shaking with rage right now ...

They're losing nothing, actually. Music copying and distribution has been around since the beginning of time. I remember copying my friend's albums onto blank cassettes - both CD albums and cassettes. If anything I'm copying LESS music than I did back in the day when it was it was less available. RIAA is a bunch of baseless fools. You know they lose about 70% of their cases? And another 10-20% of them are thrown out "with prejudice", which means that THEY pay the court costs, and their case is thrown out altogether. DOWN WITH THE FASCIST RIAA!

its a big world out there and in some places, the people are fully twisted.
Its like they dont have human thought, they just do what they are told to do or what they want to do until it is done.
I wouldn't get mad over such a thing but yet extremely dissappointed but i would be in your shoes if something like that happened to someone i love or care about alot.

What's going on here? Some big ass company is doing its best to ruin a little girl's life...? For what? I'm not good enough in English jargon to even comprehend some of the words in that piece of news. o_O

They're harassing a little girl over music.

From what I understand, they're accusing either the girl or her mother of downloading songs. I don't think they can legally sue the girl, and it would be pointless anyway, so they're trying to force the girl to make a personal court appearance to testify under oath.

I'd expect that to happen if a congressman was accused of extortion or something, but for god sake, no kid should ever have to go through that.

I agree! For pity's sake, they should leave the kids alone. Someone needs to kick some sense into those capitalistic swines. =/

I don't thing they're capitalistic swines. That's an insult to pigs. ^_^ Anyway, the key in capitalism is competition. These guys don't believe in competition, just to further their huge monopoly. I think monopolistic swines fits better (sorry to all the piggies out there).

Ah, good distinction. Capitalism works fairly well, as long as it's kept in check.

You're not the only one Charha... someone please translate and tell us what the girl did... please?

From what I understand, they're accusing either the girl or her mother of downloading songs. I don't think they can legally sue the girl, and it would be pointless anyway, so they're trying to force the girl to make a personal court appearance to testify under oath.

I'd expect that to happen if a congressman was accused of extortion or something, but for god sake, no kid should ever have to go through that.

You know what's sad? You can download complete music videos off YouTube.

At least, for now.

Yeah, until ... WHOOPS, enough record labels bribe congress to pass a law saying that it's retroactively illegal, and that everyone who's ever used YouTube for any reason is now up for grabs.

Not gonna happen.


There are shitholes even the most corporate-minded congressmen don't want to step in. Altering a part of the constitution that has been there since the constitution was ratified is one of them.

You must have easily shattered hopes.

The government hassn't operated within the constitution for DECADES.

Operated within? Perhaps not.


Brazenly altered? No. And something like what he is suggesting WOULD REQUIRE such an alteration.

They already did it to internet radio!

Internet radio had been operating LEGALLY for years. A law was passed that makes them pay EXTENSIVE fines that retroactive for all of 2006. This will put almost all internet radiostations out of business.

The radio was LEGALL and they did that, you tube is BARELY legal, and you think they'd have any trouble doing it?

Viacom just sued google/youtube for a billion flat because they were hosting Viacom's precious shows. boo hoo hoo.

I know...Google/YouTube isn't responsible for user content, the user's are. YouTube simply has to do it's best to uphold the rules.

If I were the judge I'd throw the case. However huge companies get to sue over the dumbest things.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!

Who the fuck cares if Music is downloaded the artist gets like only a few cents of album sells, all their real money comes from Concerts, Merchandising, and Tours

That's the point! It DOESN'T MATTER. Even if the RIAA gets some money out of their extortion techniques, they're going to pocket it all anyway.

The ONLY Reason the RIAA is getting pissed off is because the people who loose money from music downloading is their staff and CEOs, Recording Industry's get the bulk of all album sales money. Thats not Right I think the bulk should go to the artist ITS THEIR ART THAT MAKES THE MONEY, NOT THE RIAA CEOs ART!

Oog, yeah. Copyright law is their bitch. Throughout the years it went from being a way to foster creativity to making sure corporations can make as much money with as little effort as possible. I just hope someday enough artists jump ship and go solo to make the entire system collapse in on itself.

or I could become dictator of the world :)

Also keep in mind that record companies take 90% royalties, so the destruction of record companies and advent of direct distribution (even in the case of copying increasing nine times over)leaves artists at an advantage. :/

I wish the furries of the earth could combine to prop up a figurehead, puppet dictator whose decisions are the combined impulse of everyone's thoughts. United by the internet, it would be by far the most creative, open-minded, and progressive, yet horribly drama-crammed and whiney oligarchy in history.

Good gods, that'd be hilarious.

Exactly. Last I heard, for every $15 record that someone bought, the artists were getting FIVE CENTS. $7 for the retailer, another $2 or $3 for the distribution and that leaves $4.95 for....... who? Not the artist.

thats why people should stop buying CDs all together. Not cause we can pirate it for free though this marvelous invention called the internet but because the artists who make the music we love are getting the short end of the stick here

Well, tyhey have to sue some children in order to compensate for the lawsuits on dead 80 year old grandmothers. Lower the average age of the people they sue.

Y'know ... I've read some theories that the entire purpose of the RIAA lately is to be as hated and despised as possible. the RIAA is just a faceless, non-profit organization that the actual recording labels hide behind so that their names aren't in the news.

That's it. That's the RIAA's sole purpose, to extort people.

"HAY THAR U GUYS!! LETS MAKE SOME EXAMPLES LOL11!"

That's all it is.

Oooooooh guesswhat! My old roommates got hit with an RIAA takedown notice just before they kicked me out ^_^ HEE. Dodged a bullet! Damn I'm such a bastard! :D

That's why the record companies suck and we continue to download music on the 'net. I'm sorry, but these guys can't expect to have an iron grip on everybody that so much as even -thinks- about downloading illegally.

Is it even illegal at all? Hell, I see piracy as a form of competition. Record labels hardly pay their artists anyway, and the music costs almost nothing to distribute. Hell, even the cost of hosting files is practically negated by P2P networks. The record labels are suddenly obsolete, and they can't handle it, so they get into the pockets of politicians to pass laws making competition illegal!

That's what I gather, anyway.

You're not far from the truth, man. Some companies and industries are very scared by a powerful thing called 'change'. They will do anything to try and stay alive...

Except change, of course.

No, they want things THEIR WAY, the way they've controlled it for YEARS. If they don't change, though, they Will die. They'll have to literally kill every human being in the entire generation of everyone beneath the age of thirty to eliminate this, and quite frankly, I'd like to see them TRY. My second amendment rights are gettin'... itchy again.

*shudders* I think their next lawsuit is going to be against God himself. There is honestly nobody left for them to sue.

They could always sue THEMSELVES ... hey, maybe if you hold up a mirror to them during a lawsuit, they'll turn to stone.

Stupid stupid stupid...

I think the RIAA is using this patehtic excuse because THEY CANT SUE THE REAL HACKERS, because their tracking tools and companies used to tracking are STUPID...
and no way they will catch real hackers ( who know to hide and spoof address )...
but I find preety lamme that the RIIA actually has to toss the blame to people who cant even use windows correctly......

What's worse, not only are their tracking tools USELESS, they're also EXTREMELY ILLEGAL.

I know this isn't related to music, and it's kinda long, but listen to this...

I used to use a computer called the Amiga. It was a great system with a lot of games, and in particular, it had a very, very flexible floppy drive that could do things other computer drives couldn't. Basicly, most computers had the floppy drive do error correction, but the Amiga did it in software, and that allowed the drive to read many disc formats from several other computers, including PCs and Macs.

However, something bad happened. Game programmers realized they could use the flexibility of the drive to do wacky "custom" disc formats that made copying them practically impossible. So, the Amiga was also very famous for its aggressive copy protection schemes. This was particularly bad since floppies are horrificly unreliable and tend to fail often, not to mention the fact that floppy drives are mechanical devices, and don't always read data correctly.

The result? In an effort to crack down on piracy, lots of "legal" copies didn't work most of the time, and when they died, you could no longer use the software. To make matters worse, some publishers felt this wasn't enough, and also made you type in codes from manuals printed on blood-red paper that couldn't be photocopied. Trying to use legally-purchased software was sheer madness.

Thus, the "scene" appeared. Crackers everywhere had a field day reverse-engineering the copy protection schemes and distributed the "fixed" games through well-organized channels and early BBSes. A whole cult following followed. EVERYONE who used the Amiga had pirate contacts, because, chances are, if you have a legal copy of a game, you'd need the pirate version JUST TO GET IT TO WORK.

Piracy swamped the Amiga. May people say it killed the platform. Why? Because it was too hard to make copies of software.

Meanwhile, computers that couldn't offer copy protection still made money. Game consoles that are easily cracked with mod chips proliferate and boost sales.

The lesson? Twist the arms of your customers, and they will turn on you. That's why the RIAA is full of lawyers that want to pass laws. DRM doesn't work, so making everything illegal is the only thing they can do, and even that will backfire eventually.

Things are going to be very interesting over the next ten years.

Unfortunately, I don't see this changing anytime soon. These corporations just have too many resources. They don't follow the rules of normal free markets. They can destroy any competitor, break any law, and do it with impunity. The MPAA and RIAA don't even make any products. Their only customers and other, smaller corporations. Boycotting would have to be done on an epic scale to make them do so much as blink.

In ten years, though? Yeah ... maybe by then the young consumers of today will be the lawmakers of tomorrow who know better than to bend to the will of companies with deep pockets.

this comment had me think of something.

Remember all those awesome hippies in the 60s who were so enlightened with their pot-smoking peace-loving ways? they're all 50, 60 years old now. They made the current laws and they're still making them. I'm scared, ZC... because I think the same thing will happen to OUR generation.

I dunno ... I have a hard time imagining any true peace-loving activist giving up their views so violently. Hippies were a group of individuals separate from society, a society unto themselves. I personally think it's more likely that they realized that power corrupts, and made an effort to stay OUT of any position of power, leaving other facets of society to fill the gap; facets of society that weren't as concerned with the plight of the average person.

That's how I feel, anyway. I would never want to occupy a position of power. I'm afraid I'd lose focus and become a sociopath.

It sounds to me as though the minority is shrieking as loud as it possibly can, and that's why it seems like the world is full of conservative, hate-mongering ass backwards fucktard griefers. The majority of human beings cannot possibly be this stupid. If they are... Where's that fucking meteor, God!! IT'S TIME TO CLEAN THE HOUSE!

The thing is, all those pot smoking, free-thinking hippies didn't go into politics, which is a notoriously rigid, cutthroat, and generally unpleasent field.

Though quite frankly with the libral creep that's been going through the culture in the past century, I think some time in the not to distant future that there are going to be laws passed that shake up the way corporates opperate and will have thier ability to step on the little guy crippled several..

they were way into it when they were kids... kind of disappoints me to hear that they've put down their picket signs. They need to provide this new generation of activists the guidance they need to make the difference they must.

Did you know it's TECHNICALLY illegal to own a dog, cat or goldfish in California?

...and we have lawyers to thank for that.

I'm not surprised. Just about everything is TECHNICALLY illegal.

Under British common law (which we have here in canada and it may still apply in some states too) you are able to speak directly to whoever is issuing a grievance and you are never required to communicate with an arbitrator (lawyer).

Seems nobody knows about this; though it doesn't help if common law doesn't exist in that particular area.

I think you can defend yourself in court if you want. But y'know ... I don't think any of these lawsuits ever actually went to court. It's just extortion. If someone fights back, the RIAA back off, and try to convince the judge that the defendant should pay the court fees, not them.

Did I say court fees? I meant lawyer fees. Not that it makes any difference. If you're targeted by them, you're pretty much screwed unless you can afford to hire a professional lawyer.

The RIAA is a bunch of Lawyers posing as a labor union. They used the association to gain certain rights which allow them to file suit and keep the 'winnings'.

Most associations are not what they are portrayed as. For example, the numerous health and medical associations are not there to help the sick, they exist to protect the doctors and pharmaceutical companies.

Yeah, I figured as much. There's no money to be made in CURING patients. Just sell them expensive drugs that combat the symptoms and not the underlying problem, and let them linger for as long as possible.

Please read this http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/94681/

I noticed a lot of drug commercials mentions "a pill a day". That is until you no longer can afford it.

As a musician and composer, I make music because I have a drive to do so. If somebody can enjoy it or get something out of it, that makes me happy. If I can make money off of it, great, but that's icing on the cake. The ones who seem to bitch the loudest can handle having a few dollars less income each month (or even a few thousand). The record labels bitch because they take most of the money anyway...the average band/musician sees maybe 20 cents for every dollar, if I remember correctly.

On a side note, I recently had a nightmare where someone was trying to make me look insane, and not only was it starting to work, I was starting to wonder if maybe I was going nuts. The other one I had recently had something to do with people being killed. That one was not pleasant either.

The RIAA represents the Recording Industry. The RAC represents the Artists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record.....s%27_Coalition

http://recordingindustryvspeople.bl.....back-sues.html
It IS criminal. Literally. Practically everything they're doing is illegal.

Some URLs for youuuu~
http://www.riaaradar.com/ - check the label before you buy, make sure you're not supporting an RIAA label.
http://www.magnatune.com/ - evil-free music that can be listened to at 128k mp3 quality online, and bought at CD quality download (and you set the price).
http://www.creativecommons.org/ - if you know anyone making music. I particularly like the "founders copyright" on there, automatic 26 year expiry.

Because actions speak louder than complaining. ^_^

I really don't listen to music that much ... I haven't bought a CD in years, and that was before I'd ever heard of the RIAA. I mostly just listen to shoutcasts. Magnatune looks interesting, though ... I'll check that out.

Ohohoho ... OHOHO! That's NICE. I bookmarked their daily free song RSS feed. I'm being exposed to new sounds, and I LIKE IT. Thanks for pointing this out!

This is amazingly stupid...they decided to make an example of a 10 year old girl! You know what its stupid that music guys get so bent out of shape about file sharing I mean oh poor baby you cant buy the 50 billion dollar mansion so you'll have to go with the 40 billion dollar mansion that you'll rarely see because your touring most of the year! You know why they can get away with this crap don't you? Not because of the law or lawyers but because we let them! You know what? Screw them stop buying their CDs stop going to concerts and then lets see them whine and bitch!

I heart my wifi router. It makes you completely immune because there's no proof someone didn't just hop on and do everything the RIAA could hope to claim I did.

That might be a viable defense in the REAL world, but if they can sue a dead guy who never owned a computer, I doubt they'd let a wireless router stop them.

You can bring a lawsuit against anyone.



Winning it is another matter entirely. Lawsuits where there was no way for the defendant to have committed the act in the first place tend to get tossed, though not before they damage the reputation of the plaintiff.

Someone already has won a case by using the wifi defense.

Oh really? COOL! I stand corrected.

Wanna do something about it, write every artists fan page you can think of and tell them you refuse to buy any cd under a RIAA label member and send a copy of that link. Get all your friends to do so. When their people tell them that they are loosing fans and money because of RIAA then RIAA will vanish over night.

They're already losing money from lower CD sales. They just assume it's because of piracy, and not because everyone hates their guts/music. But hey, maybe that way they'll just shrivel up and disappear eventually.

Start sending them a message. Stand outside concert halls with a sign DON'T SUPPORT RIAA! The more it's in their faces that RIAA is hurting them instead of helping the faster it goes away.

what the fuck?! She's SEVEN for God's Sake!!! What is wrong with our government T_T

This is why I champion independent labels over the conglomerates. Since filesharing emerged many of the smaller labels that might once have never seen distribution outside of their local area have been reaching people all over the world. So they know there's nothing wrong with filesharing

How do they think we even hear about new music these days? Dunno about you, but I don't listen to the the radio. EVERY time I buy a CD is only because I had the MP3s and I liked them. So this so-called 'piracy' is the best thing fuelling their CD market... way to shoot yourselves in the foot RIAA.

"The dream is dead."

Meh. The RIAA is a bunch of idiots. They had a wonderful thing going with the idea of singles albums. Buy the songs you want without having to put up with some of the filler that gets stuck on an album sometimes. (There are great albums, then there are albums with great songs and a lot of filler)


But noooo. You have to buy the entire frickin thing. That's what started the whole mess, people getting fed up with having to buy crap just to get the good. It took off from there.






The entire irony of the RIAA is that the major crime is in the DISTRIBUTION of the property. Downloading would constitute petty theft, chump change. The suits the RIAA is bringing up are completely out of line when compared to what the people in question have actually done.

And hell, one of the more lawful people on another site I go to ( a COP, no less) agrees with that.

(Thus why I leech. When I used filesharers, I didn't share anything. I know how the laws work in this case, distribution is the big nasty they can hit you for, not downloading.)

I buy the albums of artists I like. I'm just that kind of FUCKER! I DO download a LOT of stuff though. I had 4,000 songs before my comp crash.

The way the RIAA works is just gets you cought up in legal matters soo deep that you need EXPENSIVE legal help to get out, and if you tried to take them to court over it you pay our your ass. The altenrative is their very high settlement contracts which are INSANE and self incriminating.

Musicians desserve to get payed more for their album sales...the RIAA does not.

The Really Idiotic Assholes of America. Discuss. *downloads a song, just to say "up yours" to those nazis*

RIAA is ruining their own agenda. This abuse of the DMCA can only go on for so long. Even the author of said act admits it was a mistake. DMCA Creator Admits Failure, Blames RIAA

Soon, it will be no more. Until then. this is not worth worrying about because the RIAA sues people at random. Do whatever it is you do normally, and if you get sued, do your best to minimize the damage to your life. You can only control what you can control, things out of your control aren't worth worrying about unless you intend to do something about it.

That's what makes me angry, that they're suing random people! They're ruining lives in their campaign of fear!

They arn't the only ones doing that. People in power love to terrorize.

Mmm, power corrupts. And it also show the true side of some people... :/

Thats way too extreme to target such a young girl like that. Didn't think it was possible for people to be that low.

Oh, ZC... you don't know how much I firmly believe this world would be a better place if just the right ten individuals got a gods damned bullet between the eyes. There is slime out there who practice evil, but legally so, protected in layers of red tape. In this day and age, Tape is the closer of any deal... whoever has the thickest wins by default. Tape is the only weapon in the digital era, just as the atomic bomb was the weapon of the cold war era.

I think you'll like this movie: The Boondock Saints. Two irish lads go apeshit and systematically massacre the mafia cores of boston and any other undisputable slimeball they run across on their way. If only someone could bring this kind of justice to the rest of the world's obvious problems. I mean, surely you know as well as I that there is a specific point where a homo sapien stops being a person and starts being MEAT. You can practically see their soul leaving them. They toss it out like garbage to make room for MONEY and POWERl, because they HAVE TO have more... MORE...! More than they can ever spend in twelve lifetimes!

Vengeance on the greedy and cruel is a favorite passtime of my idle thoughts, some days.

Several of my friends have been trying to get me to watch Boondock Saints for months. So far, you're the only one who's made it sound interesting.

We can't all be wrong. Look for it at www.tv-links.co.uk

But... everyone know that 10 year old girls are really evil deep inside.

Well, on a more serious side... you probably already know my stance on copyrights and privacy. I voted for the Swedish pirate party in the last election after all...

...btw, I never bought a CD album in my whole life. xDDD

OH GNOES! I'M IN UR iPPOD STEALIN UR MUZIK

While they're at it why not sue radio stations for playing music? ZOMG the listeners didnt pay to hear the latest shitty jibba jabba bullshit emoshit from some doe-eyed sap band noone cares about except gothtards and people from LA.

I should make a meme about the RIAA prez and call him "MUSIC MONGLER".

Before I found Napster (back when it actually WAS Napster, not the bastardized financial freakenstein monstrosity it is now) I started learning the names of all those cool bands I remember and was DL'ing songs and STARTED BUYING CD's TO SUPPORT THEM.

....then they killed it. I did some research and learned how totally F#@%'ed up the whole system is and put a personal moratorium on paying into that kind of greed. I can't legally DL songs; that means I can't find stuff I like and the stuff I hear that I like, I dunno the names of it, so can't buy the music. Do I have money to waste on damned expensive labels that may or may not contain something I probably won't like? HELL NO! I'm not going to pay for crap I hate. Would you pay a restaraunt that served food that made you sick? Of course not. Would you go back for seconds and thirds and tenths and thirty-iths and hundred-and-eighty-seconds? No way!!
.......but they expect people to buy into their virtual monopoly and feed their lawyer-happy money grubbing asses and they'll sue your ass if you don't! Why? Because you're poor and they're wealthy enough to keep their full time "legal" department plentifully staffed. You want a political statement? Here's your political startement: How many CD's have I bought since they started all this bull$#!+? Huh? Wanna know?

........and I've bought ONE single, solitary CD since. I had a friend who forwarded me a few of the songs from teh recod and I liked them so I bought it. Just that one.
Well... I've bought others, but all directly from the artists themselves, so that dopesn't really count, does it?

I support art. I support artists. I refuse to support corperate greed.

No downloads? No buying CD's!

End of line.

http://www.magnatune.com/

Snapai showed me this awhile ago. The music is cheap, artists get 50% of whatever you pay, and you can listen to full, high-quality previews of any song before you decide to buy it. They release a song free for download every day, and everything you buy is available either in mailed CD form, or downloadable in a variety of open file formats. It's gotten me interested in music again.

Sweet deal. Leave this post online, will ya? I'll check it out once I get somethign more solid than a buggy 14K connection.

Thanks! ^-^

Holy shit, 14k? I know a lot of people are still on 56k lines, and a few unfortunate souls even have to suffer through 28k, but 14? I'm sorry, man! I didn't know!!

Well, I HAVE a better modem than that, but even the Public Utility Commission can't convice SBC to spring for equipment that was made in the last quarter century. I'm startign to get the feeling the only thing that will convince them is a strategically placed pipe bomb.

Heart of Silicon Valley.... tech capitol of the planet and think I could get a decent connection?

Psh...... lately, that's the least of my concerns. I suck at reality.