Will music downloading people be sufficiently cowed by this direct threat of legal action that they will cease and desist or is the RIAA and the music industry risking a terrible backlash?
Many people want the music/media industry to embrace pay per song or album or movie downloading and have a form of legalized Kazaa, but the music executives (with some degree of justification) see this as the eventual death knell for the relatively lucrative direct album sale model they have built their business on. While this may work to some degree per Apples (so far successful) experiment providing legal music downloads for a fee, the overall cash flow model is going to change drastically which will result in a big reshuffling of the traditional centers of power in the in the industry.
This question of my OP is not about legal justification. I think there is enough precedent for them to go after file swappers (and quite possibly win) if they are so inclined, the issue is more a strategic one. Is threatening your customer base a tenable strategy? Are the big downloaders the majority of whom are mainly (though certainly not exclusively) high school and college kids and 20 somethings, really going to be able to be organized enough to “punish” the music industry for doing this.
How long until we see a rise in file-sharing programs that offer privacy features? It’s not too hard to be anonymous on the Internet, and if dissidents in China can do it, pirates can do it to.
Briefly: No, it’s not really a good idea to sue your customer base randomly and at large. Especially since the age of purchasing CDs the most… teens and college… is also the age of doing mildly illegal stuff the most.
So… Eh, they’re as dead as player piano tape makers.
My WAG: If it’s intended to make a few examples of downloaders, it won’t work. After all, we’ve all seen what happens in other venues (Prohibition, the drug war, TV license evasion in the UK) when heavy penalties are levied on a few to serve as an “example” to the rest: A few people languish in jail or pay hefty fines, while the rest of the offenders merrily continue as they always have, relatively safe in the knowledge that the chances of them being the ones to be caught will be minimal.
Another WAG: The RIAA has a lot to lose if one of their lawsuits is successfully challenged in the courts. A high-profile loss would be extremely damaging to them in the court of public opinion.
Last WAG: The RIAA will go after the small fry first. They’ll gain a couple of easy victories. Everyone will still hate them.
hearing about the file sharing lawsuits. did make me stop and think is it worth it, to not be sharing sometimes? no even when i browse i am leaving a filesharing client of some sort open to shar. the riaa is trying intimidation. i don’t respond well to that.
I was just about to start a thread on this. For the first time, it sounds like the RIAA is dead serious and not just mere sabre-rattling.
Without going into specifics (obviously), I’ve already taken steps to protect myself (basically, staying off the file-sharing programs entirely, until this thing blows over) and I recommend everyone else do the same.
As for the debate at hand…the RIAA is nuts. This thing is going to blow up in their face in such a HUGE way that it may even spell the end of the entire monolithic recording industry. At least, that’s what I’m hoping will happen.
The problem is, with the media gone completely to the Conservative side, and the public at large (Americans, anyway) being brainwashed by all these fake “Terror Alerts” and whatnot, there might not be much public resistance after all…or, if there is one, the media might not even report it.
We live in scary times, people. Al-Qaeda is the least of our problems, now.
My son told me that most likely the people sharing thousands of songs will be the ones that will get targeted first. Nothing to worry about guys, this is nothing but intimidation.
The RIAA has limited manpower. It will probably go after the users on the most pedestrian networks, like Kazaa and Gnutella. Users of less known sharing networks like Soulseek, giFT, Direct Connect, eDonkey, etc. etc. probably have nothing to fear.
This is only a temporary solution, and how do you deal with users who are using multiple computers behind a NAT? How do you know which user it was, and which one to sue?
This is merely saber rattling. Simply put, you can easily evade their lawsuit by going out and purchasing all the CD’s. Because there is no way to prove that you downloaded the music.
Plus, in the next version of filesharing programs, IPs will be masked from the services. The RIAA has a small window of opportunity, they had better use it wisely, and I’ll laugh when a 12 year old takes down these guys. I’ll laugh so hard.
The problem is, what are you going to charge them on? If you erase your hard drive, there goes any substantial evidence, besides IP logs, which are hardly hard evidence of downloading.
It’ll be interesting to see how they do this. Its pointless to sue individual users in any case, because they simply do NOT HAVE THE MONEY, to reimburse you. At max, you’ll probably receive 100-200 bucks thats it. Is it really worth all the legal procedures?
Why doesnt the RIAA help find a solution instead of causing a problem?
The analogy is exactly what itll be like. Someone will figure out what IP the RIAA is using to scan the net, and when that IP is logged on, no one will search, as soon as that IP logs off, everyone will continue to share. Just like the cop on the side of the road. Everyone slows down near the cop, but speeds up once hes out of sight.
I don’t think that’s their mission, to actually get money from broke download kiddies. On the other hand, merely defending against a lawsuit DOES cost money. It’s kind of like how the Scientologists work – when they identify a “Suppressive Person”, they file lawsuit after lawsuit against them, NOT to get any money out of them, but to “wear them down” with piles of legal bills, until they are financially ruined.
I sure hope the media swings liberal again, and soon. Yesterday, every article I read in print or saw on TV was blatantly slanted in favor of the RIAA and Big Media Corps. They even speak of the recording industry “losing $3.2 billion last year to illegal downloads” as if it were FACT, as opposed to suggesting, you know, that it might just be a bad economy right now.
Ah, the RIAA. These people are doing themselves a huge disservice. taking potshots at customers, or potential customers is not a good way to do business.
Result? Most will ignore it, new software will prevent it. The big one? The obselescence of the RIAA. they will be overtaken by newer, smaller associations of more forward thinking companies. This may mean: Artists win (most musos will back me up on this - record companies suck to deal with and will rip the artist wherever they can), and consumers win (along the Apple line I think)
Actually I would be delighted to see the suicide of this monolith. This is not to say I agree with piracy, but simply that there standard business model, not to mention their treatment of artists, needs to go
No. Even if you own the CDs, you have no right to share them. They’re suing those who share copyrighted files.
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The problem is, what are you going to charge them on? If you erase your hard drive, there goes any substantial evidence, besides IP logs, which are hardly hard evidence of downloading.
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Again, all they have to do is show a snapshot of the files you were making available, and perhaps an affadavit that they downloaded a particular file from you and it was copyrighted music. They have to prove their case against you by preponderance of the evidence. If they can show that they downloaded a file from you, the burden of proof shifts to you to somehow prove they were wrong.
It’s the deterrent factor. If they get a judgement against the first 100 guys, and garnish their wages, ruin their credit, etc… it should have a substantial chilling effect on the next hundred people who decide to share music.
Because the investigators will always be working from the same subnet?
I hardly think they’re going to approach the problem that simplistically.
Well, their tactic has backfired on me, if that counts for anything.
I’m boycotting RIAA until/unless they decide to stop using these iron fisted tactics.
I usually only buy 2 or 3 CDs a year, and get a couple as gifts for christmas. But this year they aren’t going to get even that from me. I’ll also kindly ask anyone thinking of giving me a gift not to buy me any CDs for this reason as well.
The idea is so bad that I’m glad that they came up with it. They will do their own self in and will have no one to blame for it except themselves.
Right now, there is little evidence that file sharing has made a dent in music sales. When the first down/uploader is taken to court by the RIAA, how many people are going to be in support of the defendant? I can see a lot of people feeling sympathetic for a pimply faced techno-fan going against a big bling-bling industry. There may be a public backlash due to what is seen as corporate bullying.
The younger generation(s) want to have something to boycott. They missed the boat on the civil rights movement and Vietnam. Maybe all their pent-up rage of youth will be devoted to bringing down the RIAA.
Because that tactic has worked so well against illegal drugs, alcohol during Prohibition, and TV license evasion in the UK?
Suing the pants off of 100 people, when there are millions of downloaders, is no deterrent. Most downloaders will probably look at those odds, shrug their shoulders, and continue to download. It’s not right, it’s not legal, but this won’t cause it to stop.
This is so completely out of proportion (by a ratio of 150,000 to 1 by my estimate) with any possible financial loss by the RIAA that I have little doubt it would get struck down on appeal.
