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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 07/16/2003 6:15:12 PM PDT by Pern
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday said it sent out subpoenas to Internet service providers as it prepares to sue hundreds of individuals who illegally distribute songs over the Web.
"This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Filing information subpoenas is exactly what we said we'd do a couple of weeks ago when we announced that we were gathering evidence to file lawsuits," said a spokeswoman for the RIAA, the music recording industry's leading trade body.
Sharply escalating the industry's battle against online piracy, which had so far focused on shutting down peer-to-peer services themselves, the trade group in late June said it would track down the heaviest users of these services and sue them.
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ISPs are required to provide copyright holders with such information when there is a good-faith reason to believe their copyrights are being infringed, according to lawyers for the RIAA.
The trade group said it will probably file several hundred lawsuits this summer.
ISP EarthLink said it has received three subpoenas from the RIAA since the group pledged to track sites like Kazaa for heavy users.
RIAA last month said the time was right to go after individual users because a recent U.S. court ruling made it easier to track down copyright violators.
A federal court ordered Verizon Communications to reveal names of suspected song-swappers in April, prompting the Internet service provider to ask a higher court to stay the order while it appeals the case.
On June 4, the U.S Court of Appeals in Washington declined to suspend the order, allowing RIAA investigators to easily obtain the names of other Internet users it suspects of trading music illegally.
David Blumenthal, a spokesman for Earthlink, said the company had received three subpoenas in recent weeks asking the company to identify individuals.
"It is our intention to do so, based on the ruling on June 4," said Blumenthal. But, he added, "we disagree with the method that is being used here and while we support the right of them to enforce copyrights, we think this is the wrong method for doing so."
"We're urging the RIAA and other copyright holders to find a less intrusive method for protecting their intellectual property," he said.
The RIAA is the trade group for the world's major record labels include AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music, Bertelsmann AG's BMG Entertainment, EMI Group Plc EMI Recorded Music, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music and Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group.
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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It is in the breaking news sidebar! |
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Down to the last little bit.
If they keep this crap up, it won't be long. This is just another case of lawyers trying to ensure job security.
No,it's time to push the technology of file transfer encryption and anonymization over networks. You're a geek, out of work with time on your hands, after all. What you do could form the basis for the Next Big Thing.
Bite me.
I don't download anything, 'cause 99.9% of the music they're worried about SUCKS anyways.
Bite me.
FMCDH
Yes, stealing songs is wrong and stealing songs is illegal, but now we are seeing the RIAA starting to impose serious costs on other people in order to solve what is really their problem. At what point does it become unreasonable for the RIAA to force ISPs to answer subpoenas (these cost employee time == money to execute), for the court system to hold trials, etc., on behalf of an organization that does not seem to be willing to take reasonable steps that it could take to minimize this problem? The technology is available for RIAA members to sell their wares at much lower prices, by removing the substantial costs of their archaic music distribution system. By their behavior in using KaZaa and/or iTunes, consumers are saying that the little plastic disks are not important to them. The activities that the RIAA insists on engaging in — burning CD's, printing liners, putting them in little boxes, shipping, warehousing, and inventorying these things all over the United States, and then making them available through expensive brick-and-mortar retail establishments — adds no value for apparently tens of million of customers. The RIAA takes this ridiculous position that it's "their way or the highway," that the $17 physical CD is the only way they will make music available. This creates a $17 disparity between their price and stealing, in an environment where stealing is really easy. That's kind of like leaving your doors unlocked and then demanding that the police come every damned day to take another burglary report, hunt down some burglar, try the guy, and put him in jail at taxpayer expense... just so you can continue to not lock your door. When RIAA has run a substantial pilot program to make their wares available on the Internet, at prices that reflect the cost reduction associated with eliminating the physical disk and all the costs asssociated with moving is around and selling it, and then they can show that stealing is cutting into a substantial portion of their business, I will be a lot more sympathetic to their cause. The iTunes success tells me that people will indeed pay money for something they could steal just as easily, because they basically want to do the right thing. The RIAA has not demonstrated that this effect would not substantially reduce their "piracy" problem if they were to simply take the reasonable step of moving their damned industry into the 21st century. Every company in every other industry has to adopt newer, lower-cost methods as they become available — or die. These guys just want to use the courts to make the calendar stop moving. They are spraying all the costs of their doing that onto the rest of us. This is not right. |
It's fun to watch this train wreck.To be a middleman, you've got to add value **somewhere** if you want to survive.
But the recording industry has lost its distribution, manufacturing, and promotion monopoly. Everyone can make their own CD's. Everyone can download their own music. Any band can go online and reach millions.
So where does the music industry fit in?
The industry itself has never been the creative source. It's always contracted that job out to new and old "talent", the very people that we see as our favorite "bands" and "singers".
In the past, only the music industry could manufacture records. That gave them a place to add value.
In the past, only the music industry could distribute new music. That gave them another place to add value.
In the past, only the music industry could promote a band or artist. That gave them their final place to add value.
But while the music industry can still make records, and while it can still distribute music, and even though it can still promote talent, it no longer has a monopoly on any of those areas.
Can it really survive the competition now that its monopoly is gone?!
So how will the recording industry survive?
I see only one way, save that of competing in the Zero Gravity world of the internet head on with Titans like Apple Computer.
Think about Venture Capitalists.
If I want to become a VC, can I prohibit other people from becoming VC's, too? No. So there's no monopoly there.
If I'm a VC and I invest in a firm, can I prohibit other VC's from investing in other firms that want to do the same thing as my firm does? Again, no, so there is no monopoly there, either.
If I'm a VC and I promote a company, can I prohibit other VC's from promoting their companies? No, so again there is no monopoly.
Wow, so Venture Capitalism nmust be dead, right?!
Well, no.
But Southack, VC's are Middlemen. They don't provide the initial talent or make the final product. They don't even transport the final product. So if they are middlemen without monopolies, how do they add value into the system?!
Well, as we know, VC's add value into the system by funding young talent that has no other access to capital.
Hmmm...
Now what other industry do we know that no longer has monopolies, that also has young talent that needs capital to survive, be promoted, grow popular, get distributed, and succeed??
What is it that startup garage bands need, perhaps a decent van or Winnebago to tour in, money to rent the appropriate arenas for their tours, money for hotel stays and air travel, money for instruments, money for professional help in mixing and recording, money for manufacturing and promoting their CD's, etc.?!
In short, startup bands need capital.
Forget the music industry of today. The music industry of tomorrow will be MC's: Musical Capitalists. They'll find and vet the best talent. They'll bankroll bands so that good talent is no longer being wasted in some podunk two-stool bar (and I'm not talking about the bar chairs) while traveling around in some old beater mini-van getting wahoo gas and crashing overnight at friends' and relatives houses.
Instead, for a piece of the action if they hit the bigtime, new talent will be chauferred around in style, sleep in great hotels, get advertised to Egypt and back, have the best roadies, mixers, and other professional backup, and actually be able to eat in decent restraunts every night.
You heard it here, first.
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The appearance of Apple's iTunes site, along with its apparent commercial success (they have sold -- for money -- several million songs now), raises the question of whether RIAA members are taking reasonable steps to minimize their own damages from all this piracy.