Posted on 06/04/2007 4:07:34 PM PDT by abt87
One of the most notorious file-sharing cases is drawing to a close. Both parties in Atlantic v. Andersen have agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice, which means that Tanya Andersen is the prevailing party and can attempt to recover attorneys fees.
Tanya Andersen was originally sued by the RIAA in 2005. She's a disabled single mother with a nine-year-old daughter living in Oregon; she was targeted by the music industry for downloading gangster rap over Kazaa under the handle "gotenkito." She denied engaging in piracy and in October 2005, she filed a countersuit accusing the record industry of racketeering, fraud, and deceptive business practices, among other things.
What's unusual is that the RIAA has stipulated to a dismissal with prejudice, completely exonerating Andersen. Next to a negative verdict, an exonerated defendant is the last thing the RIAA wants. When faced with an undesirable outcome, the RIAA's tactic has been to move to dismiss without prejudice, a "no harm, no foul" strategy that puts an end to a lawsuit without declaring a winner and a loser. Dismissing a case with prejudice opens the RIAA up to an attorneys' fee award, which happened in the case of another woman caught in the music industry's driftnet, Debbie Foster.
Given the facts of the case and the precedent set by Capitol v. Foster, an attorneys' fee award is not out of the question. Getting the RIAA to actually cut a check may prove to be a bit more difficult, as Foster's attorneys have discovered. You can track the progress of Foster's attempts to recover fees—and many other file-sharing cases—at Recording Industry vs. The People.
(Excerpt) Read more at arstechnica.com ...
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/06/bot_law
I have nothing but utter contempt for the RIAA.
Excellent, Mrs. Anderson,
The software industry used to do that, with all kinds of copy-protection schemes. They finally gave up because software purchasers rebelled. The music industry needs to learn the same lesson.
The RIAA is a criminal organization.
Ah, but Microsoft still treats people like that. They want you to essentially RENT your software in all but name. When you buy a car, Ford doesn’t give you a license for terms of use of that car, and they don’t sue you if you tinker with the engine. The RIAA and MPAA want to follow the Microsoft model of quasi-rental. If they had their way you would have to purchase a new copy of your music or movies each time you want to play it on a different electronic device (and in the MPAA’s case, force you to pay them if you invite friends over to watch already-purchased movies on a big-screen TV). They were able to do this for years with upgrades to new formats (eg. replacing vinyl with CD’s) and now people can just rip the content from the plastic, they can copy it and transfer it over to any device they want, eroding the once mighty level of control that Hollywood had over consumers.
They don't do jack for the artists and composers unless there is something in it for themselves.
Unless they have really changed since the 60's, they remain a mob-dominated organization.
I remember my first encounter with the RIAA ,, I used to buy vinyl albums and put them on cassette for my car ,,, then the RIAA got a tax placed on blank cassettes where even the cheesiest brands were prohibitively expensive ,, especially as here in the south they rarely lasted long in the heat..
And if the RIAA had its way back in 1998 in its suit against Diamond Multimedia, the mp3 player (including the iPod) would be illegal.
So I put some callers on the air live, asking if it was legal to do that. The answer is an emphatic YES.
Turns out that the RIAA didn't want that to be widely known and they reported me to my boss. But he didn't cave and they didn't push it because they know they need radio more than radio needs them.
The radio station pays licensing fees for every song broadcast, on behalf of the listeners, and each listener has the right to make a copy of it, for himself only.
Unless I am mistaken, a similar rule applies to recording TV shows on your TIVO or VCR for your own personal use.
I’ve heard that it’s illegal to copy streams from internet radio, which wouldn’t surprise me, but is bullshit, as it is no different than what you describe. The RIAA and MPAA get antsy and suit-happy whenever a new technology comes out.
Recorded internet streams seem to always come out crappy. Most depends on the bandwidth of the broadcast. But even the best stream isn’t as good as ripping a CD.
At least with ripping a CD you have the option to choose the format that you rip to. I’m not an audiophile, so I’m not as obsessed with lossless digital files, but I’d like to see lossless downloading become an option for people that want to download (either on a service like iTunes or eMusic, or on a p2p site). The mp3 format is only popular because it can compress songs and make them small enough to download, even if you have dial up (although even with a crappy 56k connection, downloading a 3-5 MB file is still at least a 30-45 minute wait). Even with broadband now a mainstream phenomenon, you don’t see much of a clamor for WAV, FLAC or Apple Lossless downloads.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.