Make Mix Tapes And The RIAA May Send A SWAT Team To Bust Down Your Door?
from the gone-too-far dept
Three years ago, we were a bit surprised that the RIAA had hired a former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and jokingly (we thought!) suggested that perhaps the RIAA was getting ready to bust down some doors. Not long after that, we were dismayed to hear that the RIAA had taken to dressing up foot soldiers in uniforms that made them look like they were a part of the FBI or some other law enforcement agency in order to intimidate street vendors. When that wasn't enough, Hollywood lobbyists pushed to have the FBI play the role of enforcer, even having them raid a school at one point. Now, it looks like the RIAA has a SWAT team at its disposal as well. Apparently a federal SWAT team "assisted" the RIAA in raiding the studio of a DJ in Atlanta. If you're familiar with DJ culture, you know that making mixes is a big part of what they do -- and while it may represent a gray area in legal terms, it hardly seems like the type of thing that requires a SWAT team to bust in (the SWAT team's argument that they often find drugs at such places is meaningless here, since they didn't find any drugs). DJ mixes are designed to help promote the DJ -- and, if anything, probably do an excellent job building up much more interest in the music being played as well. If the RIAA was really upset by it (despite the free publicity), there's no reason they couldn't file a civil suit, rather than bringing in a SWAT team. Maybe next time they'll bring Shaquille O'Neal along as well.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Econemy of Force
This shows a blatant abuse of "contacts" on someone's part. It's obvious the RIAA was trying to scare people off with an image of gun toting storm troopers raiding the home of anyone who downloads music. Sadly, someone in the RIAA was clearly able to use their influence to "pirate" the SWAT team for a few hours and have them do their PR stunt.
I wouldn't expect any better of the RIAA.
Sadly, I did expect better from the Atlanta officials...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Credibility of Article?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wow.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
What I don't understand
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Where their power is from...
At one point the American government used its power to let the Secret Police from Sweden raid a company that stored bit-torrent servers in its basement. The problem was that there was no law suite, and that torrent networks was not evel illegal in Sweden at the time (I'm not sure if it is now). Apart from the 20 or so torrent servers, the police also confiscated over 120 other servers the company hosted for clients. They still haven't gotten them back after 2 years, and many of the client companies had to close down.
To this day there is no charge, and the day after the raid the movie inudstry magnate that had pushed for the raid declared "mission accomplished". In effect, the movie industry used a foreing nations police force to commit illegal sabotage in their name. How's that for power.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Doesn't surprise me
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Econemy of Force
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Wow.
"But your honor, lots of DJs do drugs!" ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lobbyists?!! Of course!
not to mention that the public in general needs their own lobbyists to watch out for the publics best interests. that's what's wrong, the public doesn't have any lobbyists to pay off the politicians. silly public paying all those taxes when our money should be used to pay off politicians.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Lobbyists?!! Of course!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Counterfeit CDs
BTW, there was no Federal involvement in the raid.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
... oh rly?
We should already have lobbyists fighting for us. We voted them into office."
Riiiighhhhttt....
And i'm sure the great people that are currently in the whitehouse, are looking out for our best intrest... riiiiiighhhhtt...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Larger Issues
[ link to this | view in thread ]
unprecedented
If a member of the RIAA stole a song I had written, would I be able to get the local police department to raid their facilities? Not a chance in hell. If the US is going to provide law enforcement in civil matters, they should do it for everyone, not just the RIAA.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Did Anyone Here........
Take a look at the American Family Association website http://www.afa.net and learn how letter writing campaigns actually work. Don't believe it? Then expect more stories like this one.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward
Ignoring THIS article the RIAA has been allowed to do conduct shakedowns much like the MAfia does. I mean come on telling a college student to drop out of college to pay them is crazy. This whole situation makes me sick. I say power to the pirates!!! The RIAA is only garnering more sympathy and support for those they lable pirates. I say we should all burn an "illegal" copy of a CD or DVD and pass it on. The RIAA (Recording Lables and Studios) should pay for there mafioso tactics.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
RICO
This is reportedly an organized crime syndicate trafficking in illegal goods. This was not just a couple of DJs making remixes.
No civil rights were affected. The RIAA convinced a judge that a crime was occurring, got him/her to issue a warrant and the local sheriffs executed the warrant and discovered over 50,000 counterfeit CDs.
The bloggers are obviously doing a great job of reporting the facts of this case.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This is nothing new
[ link to this | view in thread ]
web-traffic
If THIS story is of that quality, how many others that come from grassroots bloggers can you expect me to trust?
File this RIAA conspiracy theory story under "Heck, I read it on the internet, it must be true."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Wow.
the have lots of money. it's the same thing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
rediculous
QQ
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
swat to break up remix arist
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
not artists
Wake up...not everything every blogger writes is true.
PS Follow-up reports today are indicating that the story of the arrest and SWAT team usage was "partially fabricated by paid online bloggers for promotional purposes by the arrested individuals."
So, nyah.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
from the gone-too-far department indeed....
So the tagline for this article is "from the gone-too-far" department". Have you gone-too-far in misrepresenting the severity of the charges against the DJ. Reading some of the responses it seemed relevent to mention that this DJ may have been part of a larger network and there may be federal RICO charges present.
Whatever happened to balanced reporting. Then again, I guess techDirt has never professed to being an unbiased entity so pehaps my angst is based on flawed assumptions.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Click the link
And please, don't ever, EVER use the term "reporting" when discussing items in Techdirt. It's blogging, not "reporting."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
For people who dislike RIAA
http://www.jinx.com/scripts/details.asp?productID=181
Maybe if several thousands, possibly hundreds fo thousands wore this to the RIAA corporate office as a sign of protest?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Click the link
Agreed, but it is not like "reporting" is the bastion of truth nowadays. It is more like how big companies blog their truth to the masses. Good impartial reporting does not even exist anymore IMHO (Besides it would be boring anyways).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
RICO Abuse
If you watch the report...it takes some digging to find a local news report about it...you'll see that the men were arrested for violations of RICO, which is a criminal offense."
RICO abuse is a whole other can of worms, when they passed it, it was alledgedly only for use on mobsters.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: RICO Abuse
Just remember, whenever the government creates new laws to prosecute a particular group of people they will inevitabley use those laws on everyone. Thats why all these new terrorist laws scare the sh*t out of me.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: RICO Abuse
You speak the truth and it makes me wonder why so many people let these things happen, cheerfully even, and not even lose a bit of sleep over it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Life imitates South Park
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Open up the catalogues
Youtube has the SWAT/RIAA raid, notice the jackets?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khz6JocD-6A
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: RICO
It begs the question whether a mix is original work, which I think it is as it takes knowledge and talent to blend hiphop rythms in a manner to inspire the booty shaking.
Another interesting aspect of this case is the fact that these DJ's are loved by most of the artists they are mixing!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
RICO - RIAA
Sending in a SWAT team [which, I assure you, only intimidates the local population. These guys are amateurs. I've seen the real deal, the real deal works on serious crime. Not guys screwing around with music] is a gross abuse of power. There is no other way to put it. If it is really no longer possible to have the police investigate infractions then your society has some serious problems. That a private organisation could request the use of public resources to do their dirty work, in a case of such trivial importance is a -major- problem.
I don't care even if this was a RICO case. Why would the RIAA be offended by that? Weren't they convicted twice for price fixing of CDs? Isn't that the kind of thing the maffia does? I don't recall reading about any SWAT team beating down the door of RIAA for price fixing of CDs, which has cost everybody buying them a lot of real money.
The United States now has private corporations order attacks on citizens using inappropriate and absolutely disproportionate public force. You should worry about that. Next thing you know your supboena is served at gun point.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Counterfeit CDs
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mix Tape Rape
[ link to this | view in thread ]
for the 100,000,000th time
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: for the 100,000,000th time
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: for the 100,000,000th time
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Master copy?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
mine
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: unprecedented
The MPAA pretexted my personal info by lying to obtain what they said was probable cause. The pretext to search in a police state.
Now, years later I finally hear from the state, they want to pick up the case now and impose martial law on me over goods they dont even own. Marks not register in their name, "DOG-Marks" of tv stations. They clearly have an agenda to uphold the interests of corportae america over its citizens.
We'll see what $20,000 dollar lawyers are worth now.
Then, when you read the 2nd amendment of the constitution, it clearly says, the right of the people to posses and bear FIREARMS shall NOT BE INFRINGED.
But felony charges revoke your 2nd amendment, so is it a lie written in our constitution or has fed and state gov infringed on that right as it is written? Now people who have depression are not allowed to buy firearms per the newest gun bill and the VA tech shootings.
The DMCA they say has stripped "fair use" from the citizens. Thats only cuz no judge has completely shut that unconstitutional law down, they use it as a pretext to search, then the prosecutors stack the charges up trying to get an easy plea bargain.
They didnt like me distributing the 911 truth dvds, alex jones documentaries, he wants everybody to see them and urges people to copy and distribute.
Counterfeit trademarks charges 3 different classes, so what are they really doing?
My public servents, prositilizing for the new world order in repression of my liberties.
after 911 is exposed as the gov sponsored terrorism it is, all the media companies cuz they are propaganda selling the lies to america should all be arrested.
American citizens can clean up all the corruption in our police and gov, once 911 is understood, they have no chance. The MPAA, GOOD-BYE YOUR IN JAIL TOO.
Ron PAUL for president and he'll really change these miscarriages of justice we have to deal with from our public servents.
Wish us luck, lol
[ link to this | view in thread ]