Sunday, June 17, 2007

A story about a story: RIAA coward threatens author for linking to story about UMG v. Del Cid

A fascinating 'story within a story', or more appropriately 'story about a story', is unfolding. (Hats off to regular reader and commenter "Alter_Fritz" who originally tipped us off to this madness.)

On June 4th we reported about the counterclaims filed by the defendant in a Florida case, UMG v. DelCid, for

1. Trespass

2. Computer Fraud and Abuse (18 USC 1030)

3. Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices (Fla. Stat. 501.201)

4. Civil Extortion (CA Penal Code 519 & 523)

5. Civil Conspiracy involving (a) use of private investigators without license in violation of Fla. Stat. Chapter 493; (b) unauthorized access to a protected computer system, in interstate commerce, for the purpose of obtaining information in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (a)(2)(C); (c) extortion in violation of Ca. Penal Code §§ 519 and 523; and (d) knowingly collecting an unlawful consumer debt, and using abus[ive] means to do so, in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692a et seq. and Fla. Stat. § 559.72 et seq.

Thereafter, Download Squad published an article about the filing, which was referred to by a blog, New Music Strategies.

What followed next was pretty amazing. A record company executive who sits on the board of the UK version of the RIAA got into an email exchange with the author of New Music Strategies, threatening to report him to the university by which he is employed if he did not delete the link to the Download Squad article. The author, in turn, published the entire email exchange on his blog, generating a lot of comments.

Here's the original Download Squad article and some of the interesting reading material that has ensued:

Download Squad
New Music Strategies (Email exchange concerning threats by RIAA official concerning a report on Download Squad's coverage of this story)
p2pnet.net (Article about RIAA threats against New Music Strategies author for publishing link to Download Squad's coverage)
Download Squad Response to Birch
Digg.com story on Download Squad response
Punto Informatico (Italian)



Commentary & discussion:

Slashdot



Keywords: digital copyright online download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

5 comments:

AMD FanBoi said...

Memo to the RIAA: In addition to not controlling what's distributed between consenting users across the Internet despite your lawsuits, you don't control the news about your actions any longer either.

Sincerely,
The Rest of the World

Unknown said...

I'm greatly concered by: "Update: Andrew Dubber's blog has gone off-line for reasons which are still unclear." mentioned in the response article. Anything further?

raybeckerman said...

hsm said...

I'm greatly concer[n]ed by: "Update: Andrew Dubber's blog has gone off-line for reasons which are still unclear." mentioned in the response article. Anything further?


I have a hunch it's just that he's got tons of new fans, and his server has been working overtime.

raybeckerman said...

Markbnj, I had to reject your comment because it contained a profanity. Sorry.

Mark Brown said...

Update (again...) this time without a profanity... sorry... I actually rarely curse in writing....

Andrew Dubber's site is back up.
THe number of hits he got over last weekend was so excessive that the local ISP hosting his site suspended his account for 12 hours.