Jailtime Seems A Bit Harsh For Online Music Store Owners Who Didn't Get All The Right Licenses
from the why-not-just-make-them-pay-up? dept
Most readers here probably know the story of Allofmp3.com -- a Russian website that signed a licensing deal with a Russian music licensing group ROMS. The site was immensely popular because (a) it sold un-DRM'd files (back before that was common) and (b) sold music incredibly cheaply. The recording industry should have taken this as a lesson in how to create a super popular online music store -- but instead it freaked out, and nearly created an international diplomatic incident in threatening Russia with economic sanctions unless it shut the site down. The problem was that since it had the ROMS license, it was legal in Russia. In fact, Allofmp3.com even tried to pay the record labels some money -- which they refused. The record labels, of course, insisted that the ROMS license wasn't sufficient, but no Russian court ever agreed. Eventually the site was shut down, though it lives on at MP3Sparks. However, it's lost a lot of steam because the site has been blocked from accepting most common forms of payment.Law Professor Michael Scott points us to the news of what appears to be a similar offering in Italy -- except that, in this case, the operators of the site have been sent to jail. The only news that I can find on this is from the IFPI site -- which is obviously a bit biased, but it does look like the owners of the site did get a license from the Italian Authors' Society (SIAE), which they believed was sufficient. A lower court agreed, but the appeals court has sided with the record labels.
But here's the kicker: the operators of the site have now been sent to jail for criminal copyright infringement. Already I have problems with most criminal copyright infringement cases -- because, by any reasonable standard, copyright is a civil dispute -- it's an issue between two businesses. In this case, it's even more egregious because it seems clear that the site wasn't just some random guy selling MP3s he had no right to, but had clearly tried to obtain the correct licenses. However, these days, when to do just about anything with music you need to get numerous different licenses (Peter Jenner, back at MidemNet, claimed that you needed 33 different permissions to do pretty much anything with music in Europe, though others disagreed), it seems fairly ridiculous to throw someone in jail for not being able to figure out every single party that has to sign off on something -- especially when you were lead to believe that you had what you needed via the Authors' Society.
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Filed Under: copyright, downloads, italy, jail, licenses
Companies: ifpi
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Gangster?
Maybe the IFPI out there is in the Mafia's pocket...
Come to think of it, maybe the RIAA and MPAA are in the Mafia's pocket...
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Re: Gangster?
http://mafiaa.org/
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Re:
But no, not anymore. Went from Win-Win compromise to Win-FuckedWithARake. The first win is for the copyright holder, while everyone else is the later.
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Re: Re:
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The problem is that copyright law has been twisted to the point that it's not even remotely aimed at its original intent. Copyrights now last until death + I think 75 years, and infringement penalties, instead of being based on actual lost profits, are based on punitive fines that involve treating them as a criminal rather than a civil matter. If you illegally share music to a few dozen people, you've done maybe $100 of "damage", not hundreds of thousands.
This problem is compounded by our broken legal system. A large corporation can force anything they want out of existence by simply threatening to sue. It doesn't matter if, even WITH our terribly modified copyright laws, they don't have a case in court. They present you with the choices of:
-fight them in court, lose because you can't afford a real lawyer, and incur so much legal debt on top of it that you go out of business
-take down the content, even though it isn't infringement
It's not much of a choice to say the least.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's going to be a solution any time soon. It doesn't matter that pretty much everyone who know anything about copyright wants it returned to how it used to be... Hollywood owns too many senators for it to ever happen. Hopefully that'll change as the public gets increasingly disgusted over losing stuff they paid for to DRM... but I don't think we'll see real change any time soon.
Long story short though, copyright itself is fine... it's what we've done to it that's the problem.
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Seems clear
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They are more corrupt and greedy than Wall Street!
T
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Is "between two businesses" really a good way to describe a hoard of music industry lawyers against some random individual without financial muscles whose actions where not commercially motivated?
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Allofmp3 = Legalised Theft
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Re: Allofmp3 = Legalised Theft
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Re: Allofmp3 = Legalised Theft
So, what you're supporting is US law being enforced on other countries because you're not comfortable with the way they do things. It's sad that you think this way.
In the meantime, stop looking at the negative aspects of the case, and look to the positive. How many people have heard your music because of the downloads from that site? Are they people who would have otherwise downloaded your music?
Here's an interesting piece of information, by the way: I hadn't heard of you before you posted this message. However, from looking at your site, I see that I have a remix of yours as part of a compilation that I downloaded from AmieStreet (4th On The Floor by West Indian Girl). I haven't listened to the "disc" that your remix is included on, but I'll do that this weekend. If I like the remix, I may well go on to download more of your music, and you'll get my money. All because you complained here about AllOfMP3 - not bad, huh?
By the way, have you ever considered putting your music up for sale on independent sites like eMusic or AmieStreet? You seem to have numerous remixes on those sites but none of your actual albums - a missed sales opportunity IMHO.
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Re: Allofmp3 != Legalised Theft
saru proclaimed:
Actually, they did try to pay, but the money was refused. It says so in the article—you did read the article before shooting your mouth off, didn’t you?
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Re: Re: Allofmp3 != Legalised Theft
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Re: Re: Re: Allofmp3 != Legalised Theft
No, of course not.
1) The RIAA and friends go whining to Congress.
2) Congressional critters then make suggestions to said companies.
3) Said companies tow the line
4) PROFIT !!!
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Re: Re: Re: Allofmp3 != Legalised Theft
And even further investigation has shown that the mob is run by the RIAA. So I guess they were legit after all.
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Re: Allofmp3 = Legalised Theft
The courts there said otherwise.
How do you know there were any sales?
Maybe you need to come out of the closet.
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Seriously? 33 licenses? and here I thought permission from the label and artist was enough for any reasonable person
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Change the name of DRM
They obviously think that as a consumer I have to live with whatever changing sets of ambiguous and inconsistent rules they set up in order to extort the maximum amount of money out of my attempts to listen to/watch/read/think about entertainment, so why won't they just be honest about it?
I'm willing to pay the pimps their share once, but to keep coming back to me and insist that I pay again and again feels like I'm getting screwed over and over.
Guess what guys? While you're trying to screw me over, someone on a different street corner is giving it away for free. Gee, I wonder where my money's gonna start going?
So, in the name of all of other fed-up consumers out there: Take your "Fuck You licensing" and shove it!
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There's a funny thing about this
It's funny how the recording industry simply doesn't get that. So I spent a ton of time ripping and labeling all 300 of my CDs. And instead of the $600 they could have gotten from me for music I already bought they ended up with $0.
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