p2pnet - rss feed: Silenced by Big Music
p2pnet.net News:- Dead grandmothers, 12-year-old kids, single mothers. It’s all the same to Big Music cartel US enforcer, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America)..
Here’s a Daily Texan story that’ll interest students of the cartel’s desperate attempts to sue people into buying their product.
As we’ve pointed out repeatedly, none of the almost 8,500 cases lodged by the RIAA against people who share music with each other has reached a court, meaning no one has ever been found guilty of file sharing and that it’s never been proven that file sharing is against any kind of law.
And that’s because Big Music always make its victims an offer they can’t refuse.
Settle. Or else.
Read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Woman Silenced by Music Mafia
By Andrew Tran - Daily Texan
Evelyn won’t return my phone calls.
So that means she’s ignoring me. Or she wants to talk to me, but can’t, because the Recording Industry Association of America won’t let her.
In December, Evelyn found out she had been targeted by the RIAA in its ever increasing crusade against children, mothers and senior citizens who don’t uncheck the “share” option in their peer-to-peer downloading software.
The Daily Texan office received Evelyn’s call on the last press day before winter break. She had received a notice from Time Warner stating that they were subpoenaed into releasing her personal information in a New York federal court.
Included in the document was a number to a settlement center where they told her they had counted 956 shared files. If she had 457 less files, then she might have been overlooked by the RIAA, she was told. The company was sending her a packet of settlement documents, and she had 90 days to respond, lest her “Jane Doe” case be upgraded to her real name in court.
Just as freely as she gave information, she was pumping me for information so she could get a better grasp on the situation before her. Other than former student Jason Gonzales, there were no other UT students who had revealed they were being sued by the RIAA, I told her. He opted to settle out-of-court, as countless others have, rather than face down the seemingly invincible army of Armani at the RIAA’s disposal.
The only person to return my call that day was the person I assumed would be the hardest to contact. “We are always open to settlement discussions with anyone,” said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy. “If someone prefers not to settle, they of course have the opportunity to raise their objections in court. We stand by our claims.”
I promised Evelyn I would follow up on her story after the break. Once the semester began, I started digging.
Caught in the Web
The RIAA most likely sought her name under a provision in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows copyright holders to issue subpoenas to Internet Service Providers for the names of alleged offenders before filing a lawsuit. The DMCA subpoenas do not need the approval of a judge; instead, the law directs court clerks to issue the subpoenas.
It was an ingenious plan: Lawyers would pay around $200 in court fees to subpoena an ISP into revealing the owners of a list of IP addresses the RIAA had accumulated. Before November, the RIAA was able to gather around 50 identities per subpoena. Assuming each person received a letter with a phone number to a similar settlement center, and each person decided to pay a little now instead of a lot later by settling, and each person settled for the then-average $3,000, then for $200 the RIAA could make an easy $150,000.
In some federal courts, that is still the case. However, the federal courts in Austin decided that the RIAA may no longer file blanket-style subpoenas and must file separate paperwork for each IP address. This changed little except the RIAA’s strategy and jacked up the average price of settlements from $3,000 to $4,000. After all, the RIAA had to now invest $10,000 instead of $200 to get their $150,000.
In January, the Big Music Mafia boasted it had launched another 717 lawsuits against people who share music online, bringing the total number of those victimized to a shocking 8,423. If each one of these victims settled at the pre-inflated average of $3,000, then the RIAA is set to make an easy $25,269,000.
Strange bedfellows
A few ISPs in Washington, D.C., such as Verizon and Pacific Bell, have stood up to the RIAA cartel and have so far, successfully argued that these subpoenas were too easy to obtain and could destroy Internet privacy.
Unfortunately, in Austin there exist only cable companies with conflicts of interest.
Time Warner Cable is part of a media conglomerate that also owns a music label. Grande Communications makes $150 for every identity they release.
“I don’t know why their policy is that way,” said Mark Harrad, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable, referring to the ISPs opposing the RIAA, “But I suspect that a large publicly traded company would not want to have a public policy position contrary to the law.”
Besides, while they’re obligated legally to obey the subpoena, they aren’t obligated to send out notices to the customers about to be reamed by the RIAA, Harrad said in less vulgar terms. Apparently, people should be grateful that, while Time Warner sends its customers up a creek, they’re told two weeks ahead of time to start packing.
Andy Sarwal, vice president of corporate affairs at Grande, said his company was merely seeking compensation for Grande employees doing paralegal work for the RIAA.
“We’ve come to an agreement with the industries to set up standards in order to protect the privacy of customers who aren’t at fault,” he said.
In many instances, they have mistaken identities, particularly with college students in Austin, he said. When students receive Internet services there will be three-to-four people using it, and only one person will be tied to the IP address, Sarwal said.
I tried to call Evelyn. I left her multiple messages to no avail. It was too late. She must have settled. But not all was lost; I still had the phone number to the Settlement Center.
Selling settlements
I found myself talking to a representative for The Settlement Service Center in Seattle, a business that conducts settlement negotiations with individuals who have been sued. I pretended to be a distressed student who just received a letter from Time Warner. I asked the man what the documents meant.
“There has been a John Doe lawsuit filed against your IP address. The letter you have received from Time Warner is an indication to you that the law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg, and Knupp in Los Angeles, attorneys for the record company, is seeking the personal information associated with that IP address.”
I asked him what that meant.
“Time Warner will turn that info over to the law firm in a matter of days, and the letter is your opportunity to appear in court, if you wish to argue why or why not that information should be leaked. Nobody has won that argument, yet,” he added.
Recalling what Sarwal said, I told him that it couldn’t possibly have been me, that it was probably my roommates.
“If this is a roommate situation, you are still the one singled out, because you are the account holder for the Internet connection. You are responsible for activity on that account.”
I told him that wasn’t very fair.
“You should settle with us and dispose of the situation, sir. If your roommates were the ones who actually did the downloading, and you never partook in downloading or listening to music or what not, you might be able to approach them and say, ‘we have a problem, help me out here.’ But at this point in time you will be the one who will remain on the subpoena.”
He didn’t mention that this was a fact I could bring up in court. He was trying to sell me on settling.
“And the roommates. We don’t have any information pertaining to them, and they will not be pursued at this time,” he said ominously.
I asked him if my credit would be affected. Would I be reported to any agencies?
“Not at this time; you are a John Doe. If the situation moves forward where I am not able to negotiate a settlement with you, it will go into a named situation, where you will be named in a federal lawsuit.”
My shoulders felt heavier, and I felt my heart beat, panicked, even though I was just pretending to be sued.
This would really, really suck in real life.
“You will be served with a complaint and a summons to appear in court, and by that time your name will be public knowledge to all those people interested in who’s being sued by whom.”
Was he implicating the media, or was I just feeling guilty?
“It won’t affect your credit at this point,” he continued. “But if you are named in a federal lawsuit, it could also affect your job opportunities, because on employment applications, many times they will ask, ‘have you ever been party to a lawsuit?’
“And you would have to check ‘yes’ at that time, because that would be public knowledge,” he said.
I thanked him for his time and said farewell, but not before he again assured me that I should settle.
If you’re reading this, Evelyn, I can see why you didn’t call me back. Having to put up with the RIAA’s scare tactics to extort money from you, dealing with filed lawsuits intended to extract financial settlements, I can see why you’d want to put this whole ordeal behind you.
Or maybe it was my breath.
Tran is a philosophy senior. We’re carrying his story by permission of the University of Texas at Austin’s Daily Texan. Thanks guys.
“Evelyn’s” name has been changed to protect her identity.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
February 6th, 2005 at 9:24 am
It seems like we really need to get at least one peson to give everything up to fight this. Sign everything away (to their SO perhaps), declare bankruptcy and then get legal aid+EFF to fight the lawsuit all the way. This is not an easy road.
But it’s truly disgusting that the US legal system favours the mega-corporate against the private individual to such an extent. And without getting at least one of these suits into open court, I don’t see how this is going to change.
February 6th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
Critical mass, Julian. It’s building up and when it reaches the explosion point - which it will as more and more people log on - you’ll suddenly be reading about how the entertainment industry has been supporting p2p and file sharers all along.
Cheers!
February 7th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
It is really shameful that the U.S. legal system can be used to harrass people, abusing the fact that court (and judges too) are frequently rigged and resuts are unpredictable, people are scared of them and it attractive for the acused to waive his or her rights.
It is also shameful that the acusations is a threat of a lawsuit where the defendant has no option to choose a jury and when the issue is the people vs. business the courts are biased towards business (money may be a better word).
The way out, other than through legislation, is for someone to defend a lawsuit. There RIIA or the record companies will become entangled on copyright ownership, payment to artist and composer and fair use issues. Also there are the pecadillos of the record companies. I have a lawsuit againt Sony. They have produced about 16 records with songs that belong to my family. Millions of these records have been sold have without any licenses or payment of royalties. We have found, additionally over 50 more records without any license or payment of royalties. We have found no record that has paid a single cent to us in over 10 years. Robbery is the name of the game in the record producing industry.
All that is needed is a good, smat, tough copyright industry savvy lawyer to trounce the record companies. Any voluntees?
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
February 7th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
I want the phone number that these extortion packets contain. I think that would be a nice way to harrass the goons. Maybe everyone should give these thugs a call and tie up their lines. We can fight these cartels if we stick together! I would also like to see the information that the RIAA goons send out. Maybe there is something in the packet that can be used against the RIAA.
February 8th, 2005 at 5:54 pm
This is unbelievable. That fact alone should clearly tell the court system that these so called lawsuits are pure harassment and intimidation tactics. Are the plaintiffs being advised that they have no case? Why has no one out of 8500 stepped up to the plate? When that one person does, you can bet they will receive all the support they need, both monetary and legal. There are legions out there who will happily pony up the monies needed to fight this. I guess I just don’t get it.
February 8th, 2005 at 9:33 pm
That should be “defendants”, not “plaintiffs”. Guess you can tell I’m not a lawyer…
February 10th, 2005 at 11:51 am
it just takes them to screw with the wrong person . their time will come .
it will be interesting to watch eh
February 10th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Collectively, 8500 seems like a huge number. It’s just a drop in the bucket, however, compared to the caseloads handled by the courts. Spread that 8500 over the entire US and it hasn’t even made itself an annoyance.
As long as they’re getting kids (i’m closer to 50 than 20) it isn’t going to change. The fact is that the people that they are catching aren’t those that are likely to give a fight either because they are in college and have a future that they don’t want to screw with.
Anyone who is likely going to fight the RIAA, is probably also fairly savvy about P2P and not likely to get caught.
February 10th, 2005 at 10:04 pm
I’m no lawyer, but it seems that Big Music has opened it’s doors to the Anti-Trust Acts (Sherman/Clayton/Robinson-Patman) with their practices. M$ all over again.
FOIA’D Anti-Trust Division Manual, courtesy of the DOJ
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/foia/divisionmanual/ch2.htm
February 10th, 2005 at 10:52 pm
and don’t forget how they will say they have been actively pursuing partnerships with P2P apps over the last year or so, but were met with derision…
TT
March 12th, 2005 at 3:50 am
I am 1 of the the John Does. My daughter was away at school and Kaaza was on the home computer. I had no idea how this worked and now they want over $4000 to settle and I am furious but also afraid!
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:40 pm
Mmm yes. Post up that #!!!
Remember, though….It’s illegal to call to harass. I recommend calling in order to offer them a chance to hear some public domain music. Make sure you’ve got a good 3 or 4 hours of music for their listening pleasure.
Also remember, it’s illegal to call an 800 number multiple times, in some places.
October 29th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
Perhaps the thing to do would be to organize a class action lawsuit by all who have been victimized by the RIAA’s extortion campaign. Yes, that’s what it is, extortion. And they should find the meanest junkyard dog of an IP attorney they can find (who would hopefully take the case pro bono), and sue the RIAA for extortion, harassment, false litigation, abuse of process and every other legal issue they can find to match the situation, including the RICO act. I have read of one brave woman who has already done this. Perhaps others should join her lawsuit. I have a feeling if this were done, the RIAA would tuck its tail between its legs and run off howling and yelping like the cur dog bully it is.
October 29th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
That might give some perverse satisfaction of “getting even”, but I doubt it would do much good to stop the lawsuits. Much more likely to succeed I think would be a well organized class action countersuit by all the RIAA have victimized, headed up by an attorney skilled in IP matters, and also knowledgeable about networking technology. If I were leading the suit, I would try to bring against the RIAA every applicable legal doctrine and every charge I could think of to fit their tactics, including but not limited to, extortion, abuse of process, harassment, bringing frivoulous lawsuits without any real evidence of wrongdoing, hacking, RICO act violations and more. Throw the book at them. They are bullies, and bullies always pick on people weaker than themselves. Let them be confronted by someone with a real case, and the legal prowess to prosecute it, and I believe these bullies would flee yelping with their tails between their legs, like the cur dogs they are.
October 29th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
Fight back! Try to find a good lawyer knowledgable in IP matters who will take your case pro bono, and countersue. Better yet work with him to organize a class action coutersuit with others who have been so victimized. The RIAA people running this racket are bullies who pick on people weaker than themselves, and if confronted will frequently back down. They are using guilt by association, presuming anyone who has any kind of p2p software on their computer is automatically guilty of copyright infringement, even if they have never downloaded a single file. MAKE THEM SHOW REAL EVIDENCE. Never forget, under US law you are presumed INNOCENT until proven guilty.
Something to keep in mind: The RIAA uses IP addresses to identify alleged violators. But many ISPs use DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) to assign IP addresses. DHCP takes a new address from a pool of addresses and assigns it to each user as he logs on, so each user online has a unique address. When that person logs off the address is released and goes back into the pool to be assigned to another user. So the same address could be assigned to a dozen or more different users in the course of a day. Unless the RIAA has a record of the exact time they accessed your computer (which they had no business doing in the first place) and the ISP has an accurate record of who was logged on when, the RIAA is just shooting in the dark, hoping they will hit something.
Whatever you do, don’t give in. Don’t give up. FIGHT BACK! Some times the best defense is a good offense.
October 29th, 2005 at 6:09 pm
DirecTV was running a similar racket not too long ago, searching records for anyone who had bought any kind of Smart Card technology and suing them for stealing their signal. Even when they had no satellite receiver of any kind. Guilt by association. Because smart cards could be used to gain unauthorized access to their signal (never mind they had to be programmed in order to do so) if you had any kind of smart card technology you were automatically guilty of stealing their signal. No matter what. You could be using it to run a milling machine, and you were still guilty. But finally somebody got smart and called their bluff, and their big exortion racket came to an end.
I believe the same could be done to RIAA’s extortion racket. And maybe make them repay everyone that they have robbed, plus their legal expenses.