RIAA – Paul's Tech Talk

RIAA told to show cause why .edu subpoenas shouldn’t be quashed

PaulNovember 19, 2007

A federal judge in Washington, DC, has handed the RIAA another setback in its campaign against on-campus file-sharing. In Arista v. Does 1-19, a case brought against 19 George Washington University students by the Big Four record labels, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has ordered the RIAA to show cause why the ex parte subpoenas issued to GWU shouldn’t be quashed.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s order comes in response to a motion filed by Doe number three last week. In that motion, the unnamed student asked the judge to quash the subpoena, arguing that the RIAA was relying on the wrong law to obtain the subpoena, and furthermore, that there was no applicable law that authorized the issue of ex parte subpoenas to colleges and universities.

Oh brother is the RIAA really getting into trouble now. Since they seem to think they have to do it for everyone. I hope the judge does quash this right now. It would be a real victory to defeat the RIAA!

RIAA Fights to Avoid Attorney Fees in Dismissed Piracy Lawsuit

PaulOctober 19, 2007

The Recording Industry Association of America taketh away, but must it also give?

The music-industry lobbying-and-litigation arm is protesting a federal magistrate’s recommendation that it cough up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for an Oregon woman. Tanya Andersen, 42, says she racked up the expenses defending against an RIAA infringement lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed for lack of evidence.

The RIAA dropped the case this summer against Andersen, months after concluding her hard drive didn’t contain any purloined music tracks. The RIAA sued her two years ago, alleging a Kazaa shared directory that linked to her internet-protocol address was unlawfully distributing thousands of songs — a case Andersen’s lawyers decried as “frivolous.”

I guess all that money the RIAA won they don’t want to loose. It seems to me they are just in it for the MONEY and nothing else.

The RIAA Attacks Usenet

PaulOctober 17, 2007

Basking in glory after orchestrating a record punishment for a petty file-sharer in the US, the RIAA takes its legal campaign to the next level. Many may want newsgroups to stay under the radar but it’s too late – major labels have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usenet.com and it won’t be going away.

In an ideal world, people would not talk about Usenet. In an ideal world there would be no such things as copyright infringement lawsuits. Sadly, we do not live in an ideal world.

Today we simply have to talk about Usenet and we have to talk about lawsuits.

I see they are trying to stop the problem at it’s source but I seriously don’t think the RIAA will get the USENET to stop!!

Nine Inch Nails Dumps Record Labels, Going Direct to Fans

PaulOctober 9, 2007

Hear that? It’s the RIAA quaking in their diamond-coated boots as yet another A-list band gives labels the finger: Pretty hate machine Trent Reznor announced today that “as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label.” Instead of futzing through the hapless middleman of an inept label, Trent’s promising “a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate,” so we can expect more experiments in direct distribution and promotion, probably culminating in an album release not unlike Radiohead’s In Rainbows.

If two of the biggest acts in the industry can see the digital writing on the wall and totally embrace it—that the old way of doing business is broken—why can’t the labels? What Radiohead and NIN are showing is that the business model “of the future” feared by entrenched interests isn’t arriving some time in the horizon. It’s touching down now. [NIN, Flickr]

Here is another Group that is disregarding contracts and selling there records themselves. I believe because the RIAA will keep all the money and not give it to the labels. I bet before long there will be more quakes due to the RIAA. Please listen to the MikeTechShow Round table Show 148 for other discussions on record labels.

RIAA wins the battle!!

PaulOctober 4, 2007

RIAA wins first-ever file-sharing case to go to trial, awarded $222,000
The first RIAA file-sharing case to go to trial just wrapped, and sadly, the outcome isn’t a positive one. Regardless of the incredibly asinine and consumer-hostile comments made by Sony BMG’s head of litigation the other day, the jury fournd Jammie Thomas, a single mother from Minnesota, liable for willful copyright infringement and awarded the RIAA plaintiffs $222,000 — that’s $9,250 for each of the 26 songs she was alleged to have made available on Kazaa, for those of you keeping track at home, and probably something like, oh, say, $222,000 more than she should have had to pay, since the RIAA plaintiffs weren’t required to show that Thomas had a file-sharing program installed on her machine or that she was even the person using the Kazaa account in question. Of course, this is just one case and there’s always the possibility of appeal, but anything that emboldens the RIAA’s litigation team is never good for the general public.