Posted on 01/30/2008 7:55:43 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
A judge has accused Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA of using “gamesmanship” tactics in joinder cases where defendants are linked together.
One such is Arista v Does 1-27 in which two of the victims are being officially represented by two University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic students.
These kinds of cases allow the corporate enforcer to efficiently terrorise a number of people simultaneously, in effect.
It also means they’re spared the time and expense of going after their victims one by one and, “it is difficult to ignore the kind of gamesmanship that is going on here” writes magistrate judge Margaret J. Kravchuk.
“A cadre of owners and licensees of certain copyrighted sound recordings, including Arista Records, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, Capitol Records, Elektra Entertainment, Motown Record Company, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Virgin Records America and Warner Bros. Records, brought this copyright infringement action against a collection of University of Maine students, identified to date only as Does 1-271 having certain IP addresses provided by the University, for their alleged use of an online media distribution system to unlawfully download and/or distribute various copyrighted works,” she says .
(Excerpt) Read more at p2pnet.net ...
This is what the “music” industry has become—an army of lawyers instead of musicians.
I like this last line from the article:
““If Rule 11 sanctions do wind up being imposed against the RIAA lawyers, I don’t think you’ll see any more mass John Doe cases.”
This may be the key to stopping this nonsense. The RIAA may not care, but I don’t think that their lawyers will want to risk damage to their careers by continuing these cases.
I don’t understand the following quote:
“officially represented by two University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic students.”
Since when can students (who probably have not passed the bar exam)practice law?
Just so you know how greedy these bastards are ...
At the peak of the commercial singles market in the US, 1994, they sold 99.2 million singles.
Last year, they sold 844 million digital singles. PAID downloads.
They make more money off digital than they ever did off commercial singles, there’s no product to manufacture, transport and ensure. No returns of unsold product to issue credit notes for, Etc.
The CD is dying because it is a 20th century format. No one under 35 wants them except for their 2 or 3 favorite acts. CD’s as an impulse purchase is dead, and music sales are driven almost exclusively by impulse purchase after the 1st few weeks of a discs release. That’s why the discs are all dying after the 1st month.
They’re going after their future (post-digital era kids) to scare there past (the pre-digital 35 and overs that are the only people still buying discs) out of not doing something THEY ARENT DOING NOW, which is illegal downloading.
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