You may recall the case of Priority Records v. Chan, a case against the mother of a 13-year old girl, who may have accessed a peer to peer file sharing account. When the mother moved to have the case dismissed on summary judgment, the RIAA withdrew its case against the mother. The court held that if the RIAA wanted to sue the child, it would have to have a guardian ad litem appointed.
Incredibly, the RIAA has now brought a lawsuit against the child -- now 14 years old -- and has moved for appointment of a guardian ad litem
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8 comments:
I now buy only MP3s from open labels. No CDs, nthing that offers a revenue stream for those dinosaurs.
Just a little reminder to the RIAA: these kids will grow up and remember what you did to them. Taken their life savings or the money required to take them through college to keep you in drugs and starlets a couple of years longer is unlikely to be forgotten.
But I guess most of the senior guys aim to be retired then - away from the wreckage. Maybe shareholders ought to pay attention here as you're destroying future value.
So, explain to me again.
What's the point of suing someone
that you know is judgement-proof?
Won't any "victory" in this case
be Pyrrhic at best?
I will never, ever allow my kids to purchase pre-packaged CD music. They are allowed to buy only open format or i-tunes type products. I hope the artists in the industry realize that this is doing thousands of times the damage that any amount of file sharing itself could do.
In around 1997 I ripped my first song to MP3. It took about 8 hours overnight for the process to complete and had to be done in a terminal window.
This was cutting edge at the time and I thought to myself, this is a real opportunity for artists and the recording institution to bolster their enterprise and distribute at any time, at any place.
Rather than look at this as an amazing opportunity, they chose to hide in their ignorance.
I'm disappointed at their numbing lack of ingenuity and closed mindedness.
Perhaps they should hire someone who has the imagination and desire to kick start their business in a direction that will excite consumers and music lovers.
idiots
Please stop claiming MP3 is an "open format", it is not.Thomson Consumer Electronics controls licensing of the MPEG-1/2 Layer 3 patents(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3#Licensing_and_patent_issues). Ogg Vorbis and Flac are open formats, one is lossy but sounds better then mp3 the other is lossless like wav but can handle metadata and other things.
Also an mp3 is never as good as a properly mastered cd....don't give up on buying cd's, purchase from indie-record labels.
Just a little reminder that RIAA and their bretheren don't do stuff like this to protect CD sales. That's just what they say to stave off the criminal charges they would otherwise be wide open to. They do things like suing children because it scares everyone watching. "If these people are rabid enough to sue a kid with no possible benefit, of course they'd come after me without a second thought." Every suit like this that ruins somebody's life, scares another hundred people into paying whatever it takes to keep their own lives from being ruined. And the people at the top of a dying CD cartel are well aware that that's where their future is. Quiet under-the-table settlements in amounts that far excede what a normal person would pay for CDs.
This lawsuit is a GOOD thing. It will raise awareness of the fact that the members of the RIAA are nothing but lawsuit-loving lawyer scum who lie for a living. This will result in the promotion of real artists who produce real music (i.e. without depending on the RIAA).
key point two industries
1 -entertainres people who make stuff
2 - distributors - who are drowning in new tech - they went to cds because cheaper than tape - but digital copies are just as good as original - they must have thought CD burners would always be $3000.00 - oops
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