Posted on 07/04/2006 7:00:49 AM PDT by Fawn
Louise: "No these are not my songs." They are however downloaded right onto her computer.
Louise:"I was embarrassed when they gave me a print out of these songs."
She got this printout because of lawyers. She also got this letter telling her she was being sued for copyright infringement.
Parents, there are other popular file sharing programs you need to know about:
Morpheus: morpheus.com
Kazaa: www.kazaa.com
Bearshare: www.bearshare.com
Limewire: www.limewire.com
Louise: "I was in shock..I was stunned."
The letter is part of a music industry crackdown.Singers, songwriters and music companies tired of people downloading and burning copies of music without paying.
The letter to Louise says: "Copyright theft is not a victimless crime. Not just recording artists and songwriters but session players, sound engineers, cd plant workers, wharehouse personnel, record store clerks...that depend on sale of recordings to earn a living."
Louise: "I didn't intentionally try to take money from these people...I didn't know what was going on!"
Louise says it was her 16 year old doing the downloading. But that doesn't matter--these lawyers are offering to settle for a price.
Louise: "3700....I dont have 3700."
But Louise has to pay even though she had no idea, this music has been hanging around on her harddrive. Louise says her son didn't know that downloading the songs was illegal either but because she didn't take the music industry's first settlement offer the price has now gone up: 4500 or they will take her to court.
Interestingly enough, during our investigating today, we found the country of Austrailia has banned the use of Kazaa. And guess where Kazaa's parent company is located?
You guessed it! Sydney, Australia.
I heard they are sending alot of these out lately.
apparently the music industry does not know how to spell.
I have lots of songs also. But I turned off "sharing" so nobody can get them from me.
It seems they go after the ones who have lots of songs that are available to others.
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
One word: BitTorrent.
Interesting story. But the reporting and misspelled words leave a lot to be desired.
I used Limewire to get about 20 songs this year. I just blocked it on Norton and Zonealarm and after reading a previous post, I'll turn off sharing.... if I can find it.
This is Palm Beach County....what did you expect? Seriously on the news story last night, they mentioned that other people are getting the same letters...if you don't pay up in a few days, they keep raising the extortion...
This is a legitimate candidate for stupidest BS in the American business world. In business math 102 or simple calculus they teach that there is a price for anything which maximizes profits and that price is NOT the highest price you could ever get for one copy. The whole world seems to know that EXCEPT for the RIAA which went in a single day from selling LPs for $7 to selling CDs which were cheaper to produce for $16 - $18 and they've never dropped the price a dime since then and they wonder why people share files over the internet.
Somebody needs to sue the RIAA into tommorrow-morrow land, this thing they're doing is harassment pure and simple and it amounts to the same thing as cops pulling an individual car here and there out of a line of traffic for speeding, which also will not hold up in court on a permanent basis.
I find it interesting that they mention the cd plant worker and the and the record store clerks. It looks like to me like the record compaines would have no problem making all they sell digital downloads. Also, if somboady ordered an actual prerecorded cd on-line aren't they putting some record store clerk out of work?
I am willing to bet that more people are working at plants making CDs now than before downloading became common.
If you're going to do this stuff, best do it on a linux system and use gtk-gnutella.
Yeah.... It's spelled "whorehouse."
These folks will also randomly select businesses...restaurants, gyms, retail stores - and see if they are playing the radio throughout the business.
If they are, then the extortion of the business owner begins.
"Somebody needs to sue the RIAA into tommorrow-morrow land..."
Absolutely. You also mentioned their illegal price fixing. How the corporate mother can get away with this defies the imagination. CD's literally cost pennies to make, yet the prices remain fixed......probably forever.
Bogus morality works both ways......let the downloads continue until the RIAA and the record industry in general gets called to task for their own sins.
Kazaa: www.kazaa.com
Bearshare: www.bearshare.com
Limewire: www.limewire.com
Brilliant! I wonder what Pepsi's website is? Or Free Republic?
I had a business destroyed by Napster. While the music business was foolish to drag its feet regarding digital distribution, that has been corrected over the last 6 years.
Yes these people know they are stealing.
A business which could be "destroyed by Napster" wasn't much of a business.
I never did turn on the sharing command. Hope you are right. I only downloaded about 50 old song before all the flap started and haven't done it since.
Like someone pointed out...you can record off the radio. It's not like my CD's are free....I buy them...plus I pay for internet usage and electric.....not to mention my time...it's worth money to.
The other thing you can do which must frost these idiots is download classical music. Copyrights expire after about fifty years, and guys like Richard Wagner and Wolfgang Mozart don't really care.
Good point. I've wondered about that, too.
Also, I am sure they are REAL concerned about the "session players, sound engineers, cd plant workers, wharehouse personnel, record store clerks". I am sure they are VERY concerned that these people get a GREAT pay check. Yeah, those jet-set high-roller Hollywood-type warehouse workers. Just a guilt trip they use on the suckers they catch.
OK, but don't others have to upload them somewhere?
I havent heard anything worth copying in the last 5 years.
I like country music and this new crap isnt country.
I will stick to my George Jones and Patsy Cline CD's
This is the same industry that got legislation passed that includes money to them for every recordable CD sold, because they will supposedly be used to record copyrighted works. But if you download the works, they sue you. Bastages shouldn't be able to have it both ways.
You know it seems to me that there must be price collusion in the music industry. It is rediculous that I can buy movies cheaper than a music album.
The only music I've bought in years, was second hand CD's.
Jeez, about half the songs I have are probably on CD or tape around here somewhere, or at least used to. I see no sense in re-buying every album I ever bought because I want to hear a song or 10 that I have owned in the past.
Regardless, my share folder has squat in it. MP3s get moved as soon as they are downloaded.
I'd be willing to bet they aren't nailing adults like me who download old one-hit-wonders, classic rock and bluegrass. The music industry is in the sorriest state it has ever been in and it is NOT file-sharing's fault. It is the industry's fault. As long as it's all "ganta's and ho's", American Idol-type manufactured "talent" singing dopey crap, and the slut-singer-du-jour I will keep on downloading.
Downloading or reproducing recorded music without paying is petty thievery. It's not a right you possess any more than going into a store and lifting something off the shelf. When one engages in that activity, many persons in the vertical market, are deprived of the profit they deserve for their effort in producing the recording. So, as you well know, the RIAA is not trying to prevent peopple from listening to music at home, just trying to prevent them from "stealing" it.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry. Its mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes members creative and financial vitality. Its members are the record companies that comprise the most vibrant national music industry in the world. RIAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States.
They are not 'thugs' as you describe them.
http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/default.asp
Get real. The RIAA is going after people who obtain or copy music illegally. They aren't going after people "just listening to music at home."
Nobody has an automatic right to own copies of copyrighted music for which they haven't paid.
Artists have a right to control the licensing of their copyrighted material.
Copyrighted music is property. Conservatives have huge measures of respect for others' property. Respect it or be prepared to suffer the consequences.
If I want to listen to something, I download it online. Usenet, BitTorrent, there are plenty of options. If I can't find it online I will go down to the local I.T. mall and for a few dollars buy a DVD filled with the latest albums... all without a penny going to the RIAA's lawyers.
P.S. RIAA you can send your threat letter to me here in Thailand and I will be more than happy to laugh at your stupidity... while my newest MP3 is playing in the background.
What about when the intent of copyright law is destroyed by ensuring those copyrights never expire? What about the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act which basically guarantees nothing will ever be placed in the public domain again?
Now without that distribution instrument, we become more hesitant about listening to new music since CD's cost 15-19 dollars. That reduces the exposure of new bands we would listen to.
Yes, MP3 technology is illegal, but also remember so was the radio broadcast of music. The music industry shoots itself in the foot constantly.
It isn't on my hard drive anymore, I don't know where it went. It may have found it's way onto a compilation of DVD data disks.
There's a new model of music sharing that these guys cannot monitor (unless they insert spyware on everybody's PC, which I wouldn't put past them). With very large hard drives and WiFi, teens just get together and merge their music collections on each others laptops whenever they get together. Or copy music to 1 GB keychain flash drives. Nothing on the internet, no way to monitor,
They are "thugs" when they, without cause, without warrant or due process invade my home (scan my computer) to see if I have violated the law.
Wow. This is one of the most poorly-written aritcles I've ever read.
Some FReepers like to make things up as they go along...it's akin to lying one's ass off.
I'm not interested in addressing points without basis in reality. I'll just tell you that the act you mention extends copyright protections by 20 years. It doesn't "basically guarantee nothing will ever be placed in the public domain again."
Please don't waste my time with false arguments.
Since they make the product they are free to charge whatever they think they can get people to pay for it. Simple economics. If you don't like that price, don't buy the CD. Anyway, the same argument you would use to justify illegal file downloads can be used to justify shoplifting. However I don't think you would have too much sympathy for the person who tries to sneak a CD out of the store while claiming that he was just "trying to stick it to the man."
FWIW I have more than a passinig interest in this issue. I make my bread off of royalties (I'm a writer of college textbooks on mathematics and computer science.) If anyone had an illegal copy of one my works, I sure would take legal action against them.
The only way they can see what you have on your hard drive is to copy the list of songs and other files that you have stored in your "share" file that you offer to others.
Either that or they installed and/or used a hacker's program on your 'puter, which is illegal.
Explain to me how they do that?
Oh and by the way, you'll find that the people most vociferously opposed to The RIAA and any rational discussion regarding it's primary support functions, are the worst offenders, if you will, of music file swapping, often going to great lengths to change the subject in order to make them into villains for trying to uphold copyrights and maintain profitability.
"I fail to see any real difference between loading files from the internet and copying them off the air from your radio. I mean, a hundred dollar radio. a patch cable and a copy of cooledit or something and you can make your own mp3 files off the fricking air. They gonna start charging us for owning radios?"
-- --
It's OK to copy a song off the radio via air. What the RIAA is bitching about is that private citizens don't have the rights to distribute the music.
It is not the copying that they are going after, it's the people involved in the distribution.
I am wholeheartedly against the US copyright laws that allow an effectively infinite timespan to own a work. Patents only allow 17 or 20 years, which should also be enough time for a song to sell a bundle for their creator. This would drive the really talented people to work harder instead of sitting on a song's royalties forever.
If the recording industry would embrace legally selling music online at 99 cents a song there would be little incentive to pirate music. Using programs file sharing programs like Kazaa fill your computer with spyware, browser hijackers and worse and the audio quality of some of these downloads is questionable. Instead of going to a record store and spending nearly $20 for a CD that is mostly shlock if people could go to a music store step up to a computer Kiosk and pick the songs they want from 100,000 titles for under a buck and load them directly to their I-pod or MP3 player, more outlets would sell music and sales would increase. The recording industry, particularly Sony, is shooting themselves in the foot.
"The only reason kids download music is because the $h!+ just isn't worth buying."
-Bruce Dickinson, Iron Maiden
Thanks
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