Hardened criminals like this woman are starting to play the system and it isn’t fair. Orgs like the RIAA only have our best interests at heart and should get what they rightly deserve without fear of having to prove their allegations or worry about stupid things like fairness. They’ve lost every time they’ve gone to trial, so give’m a break and toss this unwarranted attack on their God given right to take money from ordinary people. Do it for the children.
RIAA Decries Texas Woman as ‘Vexatious’ for Demanding File Sharing Trial
The Recording Industry Association of America is labeling a Texas woman “vexatious” for her refusal to pay the record labels $7,400 for allegedly infringing 37 songs on the Kazaa file sharing network.
Instead, 22-year-old Whitney Harper is demanding a jury trial. The Texas Tech student wants a federal judge to consider the mistrial in the Jammie Thomas case, in which a jury awarded the RIAA $222,000 for infringing 24 songs. In that case, the nation’s only file sharing lawsuit to go to trial, a Minnesota federal judge declared a mistrial after concluding he wrongly instructed jurors that simply making music files available on a peer-to-peer network constituted infringement.
Whitney’s motion is believed to be the first of the thousands of pending RIAA file sharing cases to invoke the Jammie Thomas mistrial decision, which U.S. District Judge Michael Davis wrote Sept. 24. The RIAA wants to appeal that decision, but first needs Davis’ blessing.
[…]
The RIAA is urging the Texas judge to stick with his previous rulings that making music files available constituted infringement, and therefore force a settlement instead of trial.
Good. Its about time people started standing up to these assholes.
http://tinyurl.com/66qpyl
i know this is going to be unpopular but i really hope this goes to trail and that this woman loses.
I am a studio engineer and my father was a studio musician. it’s a simple matter of if people don’t pay for music then i don’t get paid.
#3 “i know this is going to be unpopular but i really hope this goes to trail and that this woman loses.”
Ho do you know she did ANYTHING wrong?
#3–comhcinc==is it arguable or not that illegal song downloading has minimal impact on CD sales?
Do you get paid on CD sales or by the original Master?
Do you get paid anything by the RIAA?
Have you ever bought a CD because of finding an artist on Kazaa?
Absent you believing you personally profit from music copyright laws, what period of time do you think a derivative party should have control of a copyright?
#3 said – “i know this is going to be unpopular but i really hope this goes to trail and that this woman loses.”
If she goes to trail I hope she takes a hiking stick.
#4 “Ho do you know she did ANYTHING wrong?”
i don’t know that she did. my comment was based off the assumption that she had. if this goes to trail and she is found not guilty of copyright violation then you won’t see me throwing a fit.
then again the artcle pointed out that:
“Whitney has admitted to downloading Kazaa and music when she was between 14 and 16 years old. She later moved out of her family’s San Antonio home, but the family computer was still running Kazaa and making available the music she downloaded years ago — all unknown to the woman and her family. The RIAA sued her last year.”
she has admitted guilt already.
#5
my wish i remember how to put things in bold so you will have to bear with me, sorry.
“Do you get paid on CD sales or by the original Master?”both. but most of the time it is true that i get paid for work of the master and don’t see any of the cd sales. the problem is when record companies don’t recoup the money that have already spent, they sign less acts and thus i have less work.that is what a lot of people don’t seem to realize. record companies front the money to bands for everything for recording albums to money for videos and touring. record companies recoup that money for the sale of the music via cds/itunes what have you. if that money is recouped then they can’t sign new acts.
“Do you get paid anything by the RIAA?” again i don’t get paid anything directly but as a member of ASCAP i have profited for the RIAA’s efforts (thought i am willing to admit that the RIAA can get out of control on seeking some of these damages, i think small fines, say $500, spread out over many people would do the job better that large fines at just a couple of people. i have brought this up at union meetings before)
“Have you ever bought a CD because of finding an artist on Kazaa?”no, and i don’t believe anyone else has either. how do you find an on Kazaa? or Limewire or via torrents. you don’t you have to search that artist by name. there is no random download (that i know of i could be wrong). no what happens is you hear about an act on the radio or tv, or a magazine or like i usually do from a friend. that is when people go and look for the act with Kazaa or Limewire. you can do the same thing with youtube of lastfm.
“Absent you believing you personally profit from music copyright laws, what period of time do you think a derivative party should have control of a copyright?”
I have profited from copyright law. My father penned a very minor country hit in the late 60s that i, now that he has pasted, receive royalties from every year (last year it was about 60 cents)
i am not quit sure what you mean by “derivative party” but i think copyright law should be scaled back to something around life of the creator plus 30 years.
#7
There very much is a way to find a random run of what is available on sites like Limewire and whatever else site you might visit.
I find that these sites are to littered with fakes to waste my time and rather get it from amazon or that other business for downloads.
On the other hand I did find many unknown to me artists from those sites. That I have gone to get their album after finding them. My problem is that CD prices aren’t going anywhere. They do not change and with the relatively inexpensive productions u find online I believe it is the engineering of an artist that is so so into the next Brittany has caused this inflated cost. And that is what I do not wish to pay for. So I mostly limit myself to local artist and the new media that some schmo does in his basement.
Further the problem the RIAA has with this woman is that they know their case is merit less, and that they will never truly prove that what they accuse is point of fact and will expend massive amounts of monies for nothing. What they truly fear is that with one single moms decision to fight their reign of terror is over and the flood gates will be opened to all.
Tell the truth you never made a mixtape for that special girl in school. BE REAL just for a little while!
Gee, our hearts have to bleed for the RIAA, their HOUSE OF CARDS IS TUMBLING DOWN !!! A Trial by a Jury of your peers is a FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT !!! But don’t expect the RIAA to know anything about the Constitution !!!
#8Tell the truth you never made a mixtape for that special girl in school. BE REAL just for a little while!
i am being very real. if you worked in the industry you might understand as well.
i have made cds and tapes for friends in the past. that is covered under fair use. no one is upset when you make a copy for one person. it’s when you are allowing the entire world to copy it that it becomes a problem.
besides there is a fee added into the price of black tapes and (some) blank cds that go to the record industry to cover people just that very thing.
How do they calculate $7,500 for 37 songs? That’s not even remotely close to the value of the songs.
Are they calculating how many times the song was downloaded by others?
#11 you are right. under copyright act the base fine is $750 which comes out to $27750.oo they are asking for much about a fourth of that and are willing to settle for $1200 which is “for each of the six songs the RIAA downloaded from the computer’s open share folder.”
so it seems to me that they have her dead to rights for at least $4500.(for which they are even willing to take less) evil bastards indeed.
Well The MPAA did something like this when video recording came out and we see how well that worked….besides the amount the assholes ask for is unfair….think about it you buy a cd for $20 or so….they want more per song than you’d pay for a good few cd’s….I refuse to find that as fair….they should charge the same amount that a single song would cost….their greedy assfucks that try to extort.