RIAA Going After Individuals Now
from the put-your-customers-in-jail! dept
Cory writes "The RIAA is beginning to make a move to file copywright lawsuits against individuals on P2P networks that serve up a lot of files." It will surprise no one (I assume) when I say that this is, possibly, the stupidest move they could make. Taking on individuals (especially if they're kids) is going to be a PR nightmare. It sounds like they're still in the early stages of planning this, and some of the record labels aren't yet convinced it's a smart idea. Hopefully, they'll come to their senses before Hilary Rosen just starts suing everyone. They're going to be suing people who aren't doing this commercially, who aren't making any money off of this, but are just trying to listen to music the way they want... and the companies that make the music (instead of providing them with what the customer wants) are going to try to throw them in jail. By the way, they say that if they find out the music sharer is a kid under the age of 18, they may sue the parents too.
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Scare tactic
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Re: Scare tactic
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Good. This *IS* what they should do.
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The Smartest Move by The Recording Industry
This is just as dumb as you local highway patrol cracking down on speeders. They don't get them all to slow them down, but once they get a few, people will significantly curtail their illegal behavior.
Using the existing law to solve internet piracy problems is such a better solution than the Hollings bill and other dumb proposals. The way the current law works is that folks are innocent until porven guilty of copyright infringement. Publishing without permission - be it a P2P network for free, or a street corner in Brekely for free - is a violation of the exlusive right of publication for the copyright owner. "Sharers" pigheadedness is going to cost a few people very dearly. Don't let it be you?
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Re: The Smartest Move by The Recording Industry
Here is a great opportunity for the industry to embrace file sharers and to build off of the major nodes of file sharing. Instead, they're going to throw some kids in jail who haven't taken any money out of the record companies' pockets.
Trying to throw kids in jail is going to look bad. It's not (even remotely) going to stop most people from file sharing. It's just going to make the industry look worse, make people more resolved to create systems that won't let them be tracked down at all, and to eventually push the current folks in the record industry out of business.
The record industry needs to realize that purposely going against what the majority of their customers wants is going to kill the industry. Someone else will come along and provide them with what they want, and if you don't think they'll remember the companies throwing some kid who only wanted to listen to new music in jail, you're wrong.
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