Bush Administration: Happy, But Wrong, About RIAA Courtroom Win

from the effective-policy? dept

It's no secret that entertainment industry execs tend to exaggerate the impact of their "successes" -- and it would appear that such thinking works with politicians as well. President Bush's Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement made a statement to applaud the RIAA's courtroom victory last week, saying that it shows that the legal system is working, and noting that: "Cases such as this remind us strong enforcement is a significant part of the effort to eliminate piracy, and that we have an effective legal system in the U.S. that enables rights holders to protect their intellectual property." Except, of course, that's simply politician speak. This win is not going to help the RIAA "eliminate" piracy. In fact, few think it will have any dent at all. And, it's hardly an "effective" legal system if the end result is just as much infringement and a ton of people pissed off that a single mom is being fined a quarter of a million dollars for wanting to listen to a few pop songs. If anything, it makes more and more people wonder what the hell is wrong with the legal system -- and the companies that insist this is the best way to keep their obsolete business model in place.

Filed Under: copyright, president bush, riaa
Companies: riaa

RIAA Wins Case, Gloats

from the this-won't-help dept

As we expected this morning, the RIAA has won its lawsuit against a woman for sharing files. This is unfortunate in the long run, as the decision is actually going to hurt the companies the RIAA represents more than if it had lost the case. That's because the RIAA will take this as a validation of its "sue our fans" strategy, rather than realizing it's finally time to try a different model. In the meantime, the woman in the case, Jammie Thomas, never should have let the case go this far as there appeared to be plenty of evidence that she actually did break the law. The RIAA often has weak evidence, but in this case the evidence was much stronger. Unfortunately, that distinction won't be made by most, and they'll simply assume that if the RIAA won this case, it should win many others. The RIAA, of course, wasted no time in gloating about the decision and is using this to push others to settle rather than fighting the RIAA lawsuits. This actually is reasonable advice if, as in this case, you were guilty of breaking the law and the RIAA has the evidence to show it. The problem is that's often not the case -- yet, again, that important point will get lost.

Filed Under: copyright, lawsuit, riaa
Companies: riaa

RIAA May Have A Pretty Strong Case

from the some-evidence-is-sticking dept

Lots of folks are paying plenty of attention to the first RIAA lawsuit to go to a jury trial. Initially the reports were that the defendant's case was strong, and the RIAA didn't have very much evidence. In fact, the RIAA's star technical witness has been debunked before, and it appears that many of his claims were once again debunked in the court room. However, even with such weak technical evidence, I have to agree with Tim Lee that this sounds like the RIAA has a pretty strong case, based on the combination of the IP address and the username in Kazaa. It's the identical username that the woman uses for many, many different online accounts -- making it tough to believe that someone else happened to be using that same username from an IP address assigned to her account. It also seems highly questionable that the woman would claim she never had Kazaa with that kind of evidence. There are still some legal questions here -- including whether or not the court will instruct the jury that simply making content available is copyright infringement. However, it's disappointing that this is the case that's going to trial, because it certainly looks like the RIAA has stronger evidence than usual in this particular case. Despite what some people think my position is on the issue of unauthorized sharing, I absolutely do not condone it (nor partake in unauthorized sharing). I think the laws covering this type of thing tend to do more damage than good to the very industry it's supposed to help -- but that doesn't mean people should be free to ignore them. I also think the RIAA is making a dumb business decision with these lawsuits and that it often accuses people without much real evidence. However, even with the flimsy technical evidence, the combination of other factors certainly makes this look like a much stronger case from the RIAA's side. That's unfortunate, because if the RIAA does win, more people will assume it legitimizes their lawsuit strategy and even supports their other cases where the evidence is a lot weaker. Perhaps I'm missing something, but it's difficult to see how this case was a good one to fight the RIAA on.

Filed Under: copyright, jury, lawsuit
Companies: riaa

Will Investors Pressure RIAA To Change Its Ways?

from the we-can-hope dept

The Motley Fool had an article last week predicting that the RIAA will soon be forced to abandon its lawsuit-happy business strategy, as a number of lawsuit targets have not only been winning in court but also getting their legal fees covered by the recording industry. The article makes a lot of points that Techdirt has been making for years, but a couple of things are particularly interesting about the article. First, the Motley Fool is a mainstream investment site that's read by a ton of people on Wall Street. If the financial press starts writing stories about how the lawsuits are a waste of money, these companies could start to feel increased pressure from their shareholders to find a new strategy. Secondly, the article makes an important point about the effects of file-sharing on musicians: file-sharing can hurt artists by reducing their sales, but it can also help them by getting the word out about their music. The former effect is more important to the superstars, who are already famous. But for up-and-coming artists, the benefits of greater exposure greatly outweigh any losses from their (already small) sales. Since most musicians aren't superstars, the rise of file-sharing may actually help the average artist, by flattening out the distribution of music revenues: Justin Timberlake won't be as rich, but up-and-coming bands will find it easier to reach new fans.

Filed Under: riaa, wall street
Companies: riaa

Report Suggests RIAA's Lawsuit-Happy Strategy Still Not Working

from the creativity-needed dept

Marginal Revolution links to a new paper by economist Stan Liebowitz on the economic effects of file sharing on the recording industry. It's a response to an earlier paper that argued peer-to-peer file sharing has had little impact on CD sales. Leibowitz digs into the arguments and finds a number of problems. For example, one of the arguments in the original paper depends on the assumption that college kids use peer-to-peer networks less during the summer than during the school year. Unfortunately, Liebowitz presents data suggesting that's not true: in two of the three years they studied, file-sharing activity was actually slightly higher in the summer than the rest of the year. Liebowitz also faults the authors for failing to release their full datasets; he says he was unable to replicate several of their results using publicly available data. In the end, Liebowitz makes a pretty convincing case that file-sharing technologies are hurting the recording industry: industry revenues in the United States fell by a third from 1999 to 2005. Of course, Liebowitz's data also suggests that the RIAA's current strategy of suing everyone in sight—which they launched in 2003—isn't working so well either: revenues continued to fall between 2003 and 2005. They've tried suing technologists and suing customers, and neither has saved them. Maybe it's time they tried some more creative approaches that don't involve hiring lots of lawyers.

It's also worth noting that neither study looks at trends in the overall music industry, which includes not just CD sales but concerts, T-shirt sales, sponsorship contracts, musical instruments, music lessons, and so forth. These are all important part of the music industry, and some of them have been doing quite well lately. As people use peer-to-peer networks to discover more music they love, they're likely to be inspired to spend more money on these other music-related products and services. As long as plenty of good music is being created and listened to, then the copyright system is working the way it's supposed to, even if the people who ship little plastic discs around the country aren't making as much money as they used to.

Filed Under: riaa, strategy
Companies: riaa

First RIAA Lawsuit To Face A Jury

from the so-how-will-a-jury-of-your-peers-feel? dept

The RIAA didn't want it to come to this, but one of its lawsuits accusing someone of sharing unauthorized content is about to go to a jury trial. As Ray Beckerman notes, it's not a particularly good trial for the RIAA (which partly explains their desire to avoid the whole jury thing). There's no evidence that the defendant infringed copyrights, and the supposed expert witness the RIAA is expected to call has been thoroughly debunked as an expert. Of course, juries can be very tough to predict, and you can bet that the RIAA will appeal to the emotional angle of "stolen" music. If it's worked on politicians, perhaps they'll find a gullible jury as well.

Filed Under: copyright, jury, lawsuit
Companies: riaa

Another Day, Another Smackdown By A Judge Against The RIAA

from the yet-again... dept

In the early days of the RIAA lawsuits, it seemed like judges just took the RIAA's word on things, but that's long since changed as lawyers defending those accused have become more sophisticated -- often realizing that the RIAA research tactics were questionable, the evidence they had was quite flimsy and the system was guaranteed to accuse all sorts of innocent people without much support. As this has happened, judges have become increasingly skeptical of these RIAA lawsuits and those who haven't done anything wrong actually (finally) have a decent chance of pointing out that the RIAA's evidence is wrong. And, in fact, judges are increasingly pushing the RIAA to pay the legal fees of the people they falsely accuse. In the latest such decision, a judge has smacked down the RIAA and ordered them to pay the legal fees in the case of Tanya Andersen. You may recall that the RIAA had accused Andersen of copyright infringement a few years ago -- and then continued to pressure and intimidate her long after it became quite obvious that Andersen clearly was not guilty of what the RIAA was accusing her of doing. The RIAA eventually dropped the case, but Andersen wanted her legal fees paid (separately, she's also suing the RIAA, claiming their investigation techniques are illegal).

The ruling from the judge on paying the legal fees is well worth reading, as it suggests yet another judge is sick and tired of the RIAA assuming that it can just throw up some flimsy evidence and then bully people into paying:

Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case. Plaintiffs exerted a significant amount of control over the course of discovery, repeatedly and successfully seeking the court's assistance through an unusually extended and contentious period of discovery disputes. Nonetheless, after ample opportunity to develop their claims, they dismissed them at the point they were required to produce evidence for the court's consideration of the merits..... this case provides too little assurance that a prosecuting party won't deem an infringement claim unsupportable until after the prevailing defendant has been forced to mount a considerable defense, and undergo all that entails, including the incurring of substantial attorney fees.

Filed Under: copyright, lawsuit, legal fees, riaa, tanya andersen
Companies: riaa

Canadian Recording Industry Suddenly Against Private Copying Levy It Fought So Hard For

from the suing-is-more-lucrative dept

For many years, the recording industry has been able to convince the Canadian government that it needs to add a "private copying levy" to various forms of blank media, to reimburse the industry for any "private copying" that happens on that media. This is pretty questionable for a number of reasons -- basically amounting to a government tax to support a private industry and its inability to adapt its business model to the market. At times, this private copying levy can be an astounding 70% of the cost of blank CDs. Once mp3 players (specifically the iPod) started to become popular, the recording industry fought to have the private levy attached to those players as well. In late 2003, the industry got its wish -- but with a catch. A ruling found that the devices could be taxed, but if they were, then downloading unauthorized content would be seen as legal (uploading unauthorized content would still be illegal). A judge later overturned the iPod levy, but some in the industry have kept fighting for it, and the Copyright Board of Canada supports extending the levy to iPods.

However, in a surprise move, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (basically, Canada's version of the RIAA -- controlled by American record labels, of course) has come out against extending the private copying levy to mp3 players, admitting that if the levy is extended (even though it will send millions of dollars directly into recording industry bank accounts), Canadians may (incorrectly, in the view of the CRIA) start to believe that downloading is legal. Of course, some people pointed out this loophole in the recording industry's efforts to extend the private copying levy years ago -- but it seems that it just occurred to the powers that be. Once again, it's a case for the industry to be careful what it wishes for. The private copying levy makes the industry a ton of money, but does so at the expense of anger from purchasers of any blank media. Still, that anger is probably better than the anger generated by thousands of lawsuits against file sharers based on flimsy evidence.

Filed Under: copyright, downloading, ipods, levy, private copying
Companies: cria, riaa

Judge Tosses Out RIAA Suit For Being Based On Nothing More Than Speculation

from the here-in-the-court-system,-we-rely-on-these-things-called-facts dept

Recently, we've seen the courts getting less and less willing to accept the RIAA's flimsy evidence as being enough to convict someone of breaking the law with file sharing applications. The latest such case is along those lines, as a judge dismissed a case noting that it was just a "boilerplate listing," lacking enough substance to make a case. Specifically, the judge found that: "Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation. The complaint is simply a boilerplate listing of the elements of copyright infringement without any facts pertaining specifically to the instant Defendant." It's about time that courts realized that the RIAA shouldn't be able to run around accusing all sorts of people without any real evidence.

Filed Under: copyright, lawsuit, riaa
Companies: riaa

RIAA Finally Pays Legal Fees On Mis-Filed Suit... But Manages To Screw That Up As Well

from the incompetent-or-just-arrogant? dept

Remember last month when the RIAA was simply ignoring a court order to pay up the legal fees for one of the people that they incorrectly sued for file sharing? Well, they've finally paid up... but even then they ignored both the interest they owed for being late and the instructions for how payment was to be delivered. At some point you have to wonder if they're just messing with people on purpose or if they're really this incompetent.

Filed Under: lawsuits, legal fees, riaa
Companies: riaa