Thursday, February 05, 2009

Mitch Bainwol letter to Congressional Committees falsely represented that RIAA "discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August"

We have located the text of the December 23, 2008, letter which the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol sent to the Senate and House Judiciary and Commerce Committees.

It falsely represents to those committees: "we discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August".

As all of my readers know, this is a demonstrable lie. See, e.g. these cases, which represent just some of the cases that were brought in December.

The letter contains other misleading nonsense.

I would urge my readers to study Mr. Bainwol's letter, to write to the appropriate Congresspeople to tell them the truth, to ask questions in the letter such as what the NYS Attorney General was investigating when they had their little discussions, and -- most importantly -- to also pass this along to your friends.

December 23, 2008, Letter to Congressional Committees

Commentary & discussion:

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Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What business does the New York attorney general have making suggestions which effect people in states other than New York?

Anonymous #5

raybeckerman said...

None whatsoever.

I am skeptical that it ever happened the way Mr. Bainwol presents it.

My guess is the record companies were being investigated for some violation of NY law, and made some kind of deal which involved stopping the litigation campaign.

Apropos of that, I wonder if Mr. Cuomo knows that they kept on bringing new lawsuits.

derivative said...

Have they filed suit against anyone in New York since August?

raybeckerman said...

Look it up.

Jadeic said...

A quick check on PACER under UMG RECORDINGS INC. alone pulls up a list of seven cases filed in New York courts since August 2008 (including three new Doe cases) albeit five are already closed.

Dave

eZee.se said...

More lies from the RIAA, dont know to be disgusted or just yawn.

Honestly Ray, as a person who takes them on everyday does any of their lies and 'half truths' etc surprise you anymore?

The good thing I guess is you dont have to subscribe to comedy central, these people are the biggest jokes!

Cheers!
Ryan
www.eZee.se

Anonymous said...

Interesting ... they've graduated from lying to judges to lying to Congress. At some point, this has to start causing them some grief. Congress lies to us just for practice, but those boys hate it when anyone does the same to them.

raybeckerman said...

Several comments were rejected in this discussion. One because the author hadn't taken the time to read the letter carefully before opining on what it might have meant. The other because it was an off-topic and unsubstantiated attack on someone; even a substantiated attack would have been rejected, though, since it was off-topic.