RIAA settles with 12-year old girl [$2,000 payment to music cartel]

ZDNet ^ | September 9, 2003 | John Borland

[HAL9000]

Barely 24 hours after suing alleged file swappers around the United States, the recording industry has settled its first, agreeing to drop its case against a 12-year-old New York girl in exchange for US$2,000.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed 261 lawsuits Monday against computer users it said were exclusively "egregious" file swappers. One of the targets wound up being Brianna Lahara, who was identified by the New York Post as a 12-year-old honours student who lives in a New York City Housing Authority apartment.

The trade group said Tuesday that it had agreed to settle with the preteen's mother for a sum considerably lower than previous settlement arrangements.

"We understand now that file sharing the music was illegal," Sylvia Torres, Brianna's mother, said in a statement. "You can be sure Brianna won't be doing it anymore."

The quick settlement points both to the public relations dangers of the RIAA's shotgun lawsuit approach and to its simultaneous effectiveness. Other sympathetic defendants are likely to emerge, but the group is setting a fast precedent of pushing people toward settlement.

"We're trying to send a strong message that you are not anonymous when you participate in peer-to-peer file sharing and that the illegal distribution of copyrighted music has consequences," RIAA chief executive Mitch Bainwol said in a statement. "And as this case illustrates, parents need to be aware of what their children are doing on their computers."

The RIAA had previously settled with four college students sued in April for between US$12,000 and US$17,000. The group said Monday that it had already reached agreements with some of the latest round of defendants to settle for about US$3,000, but that future agreements would likely carry a higher price tag.

[I still care]

Well, that will do wonders for their image, won't it.

Suing 12 year old girls living in projects for thousands of dollars.

[Jack Wilson]

Looter, caught with television:

I already have a tv, this is a backup

It costs $20 to make a tv and they charge $500 for them

There's nothing good on tv, they should give them away

If I like what I see on this tv, I may buy my own

The door on this store was wide open, no one said you couldn't take one

If they would give away tv's, sales would go up

If you arrest me, I will get mad and I will never buy a tv from this store

I didn't know there was a specific law against stealing tv's

[Marie Antoinette]

Smoker, complaining about high taxes on cigarettes, buys from a black market dealer for a quarter of the price. Tax cartel comes after the smoker for $150,000 per cigarette.

Tax cartel fails to understand why there is a black market.

Marie's Husband

[teech]

best take I've ever seen on this subject, thanx. Never understood why so many alleged conservatives -- who are supposed to believe in property rights -- think it's okay to steal music.

[jocon307]

They can't put this genie back in the bottle. They didn't catch the wave and now it is going to drown them. Live by technology, die by technology. And the RIAA deserves the ultimate technological death that awaits them.

The kid should have settled for $1.00 and other good faith considerations, but I suppose the lawyers wouldn't stand for that.

[PackerBoy]

I think this "honors" student needed to learn about honor. There is no honor in theft. Seems like an important lesson was just learned, albeit at a hefty price.

This "everybody does it" mentality must end.

[Uncle Hal]

The RIAA is really going to make a lot of friends doing this. I understand where they are coming from but from a PR point this a disaster.

[Rome2000]

My 6 year old has $80.00 bucks in his account, maybe HILLARY! Rosen or whatever cheap SOB is running the RIAA these days will come after him next.

I will NEVER buy another CD in my life.

[El Conservador]

I've said it many times, and I'll say it again:

F*** RIAA!!! F*** them!!!

They're the most despicable people on the Earth.

[razorback-bert]

I don't understand the RIAA's standing to bring suit, they don't own the copyrights, Sony, WB et al do.

Looks better in headlines, RIAA sues than Sony sues.

[El Conservador]

It's good to see you are willing to pay $25 for a CD, which costs $0.02 to make, and the artist will see only $0.10 from that $25.

[FreedomCalls]

So you are OK with copying ZDNet copyrighted news articles without permission, but it is wrong to copy MP3s. Explain.

From the article above this was left out:

Copyright © 2003 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
All materials published on our sites, including, but not limited to, written content, photographs, graphics, images, illustrations, marks, logos, sound or video clips and flash animation, are protected by our copyrights or trademarks or those of our partners. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display or in any way exploit any of the materials or content or our sites in whole or in part. If you would like to request permission to use any of the content on our sites, please review our Copyright notice and visit our Permissions & reprints page.

[danneskjold]

I think someone else posted this article...

[JennysCool]

Damn! That little 12-year-old should have hired a slick attorney, put her hair up in pigtails, used "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am" with members of the press during copious interviews, and dragged the RIAA through a public relations nightmare, all the way to the Supreme Court.

[Rome2000]

Are you trying to make some kind of point?

By your "logic", it should be illegal to own a VCR, or buy blank tapes.

How about the RIAA gets to charge a $5.00 a piece fee for every blank CD-RW or casette tape?

These same leftist companies that the RIAA represents screw artists out of money, sign horrible acts, contribute to Democrats and are generally a legalized mafia trading in music.

They are entitled to the price of a product they place in a record store, and nothing more.

Sales are down 30% and will continue to plummet as more and more people realize what they are subsidizing.

[pointsal]

RIAA.........just anyother bunch of blood sucking lawyers from LA...... need I say more?

[JackOfVA]

Title 17, Sect. 107 (the Copyright law) provides an explicit "fair use" exception for copying material otherwise protected by the copyright law "...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research..."

This is exactly the purpose of the original poster, isn't it?

Copying MP3s for the purpose of exchange is not fair use.

Jack

[Capt. Canuck]

Well, if she downloads about 8000 MP3's it would kind of balance out.

[Dallas59]

RIAA complains about porn but contracts groups with X-rated lyrics and then cares less when 12 year olds buy it and act out what they hear....