RIAA Drops Allofmp3 Lawsuit; Pretends Mp3Sparks Doesn't Exist

from the maybe-if-we-ignore-our-problems... dept

It's been quite some time since we heard about Allofmp3, the Russian online music download store that offered extremely low prices on DRM-free downloads (you even got to pick your format). The company insisted that it was legal in Russia, and had all the appropriate licenses. Multiple times, the company was brought to court in Russia, and every time, it was found to be legitimate. In fact, the company even tried to pay royalties for the music it sold, but the recording industry refused to accept the payments.

However, the entertainment industry had US diplomats lean on Russia, claiming that if it didn't shut down the site, the US would block Russia's admittance into the WTO. So, eventually, Russia did shut down the site through somewhat questionable means. Of course, within minutes of it being shutdown, the company reappeared under the name Mp3Sparks. In fact, Allofmp3.com accounts worked just fine on Mp3Sparks. And, of course, there are a dozen or so other Russian online download stores that also offer the same sort of deal (and all of which are playing by Russian copyright laws).

For some reason, though, Mp3Sparks just hasn't received nearly as much attention as Allofmp3, and it seems like The Pirate Bay has taken on the role of "public enemy number 1" for the recording industry. So, it should come as little surprise that the RIAA has dropped its lawsuit against Allofmp3.com, saying that the company is now defunct, while totally ignoring Mp3Sparks.

Filed Under: lawsuits, riaa, russia
Companies: allofmp3, mp3sparks, riaa

Bad Day For The RIAA: Two High Profile Cases Go Against RIAA

from the judges-getting-things-right dept

Well, well, well. The RIAA is not having a particularly good week. In the Tanya Andersen case (where the RIAA sued an innocent person), the court has awarded Andersen $108,000 in legal fees from the RIAA. You may recall that the RIAA had protested having to pay legal fees, which the judge smacked down. Note that this is entirely separate from Andersen's racketeering case against the RIAA.

However, the much bigger news concerns the infamous Jammie Thomas case. As you'll recall, the RIAA won that case, even though it now admits that it said false things under oath. Much of that decision hinged on the fact that the court said that "making available" was infringement, which is the opposite of what many other courts have been saying. In fact, it turns out that it went against the binding precedent in a different case within the same circuit. The judge has now admitted that he may have committed a "manifest error of law" in his jury instructions, and it sounds like he's going to order a new trial.

This is a big deal. The RIAA has been holding up the Thomas case over and over again as proof that (a) "making available" is infringement and (b) that courts will award huge fines for those caught file sharing. If that decision gets tossed out (not even by an appeals court, but by the judge who ruled in the first place), it will suddenly make the RIAA's claims relating to that case disappear completely.

Filed Under: jammie thomas, legal fees, making available, riaa, tanya andersen
Companies: riaa

RIAA, MPAA In Denial About The Death Of DRM

from the good-luck-with-that dept

As a bunch of you are submitting, at a panel discussion down in LA, an RIAA representative claimed not only was DRM not dead, but that it was making a comeback. However, the statements show a fundamental misunderstanding of what's happening in the marketplace. RIAA technology guy David Hughes made this statement:

"I made a list of the 22 ways to sell music, and 20 of them still require DRM."

Well, David, I just made a list of 22 ways to sell transportation mechanisms, and 20 of them still require a buggy whip -- but it doesn't mean anyone will buy them. Then, even worse was the statement from the MPAA's Fritz Attaway:

"We need DRM to show our customers the limits of the license they have entered into with us."

Well, there's your problem Fritz. The second you focus on how to limit your customers, you've lost them. No one wants to be limited these days. They want to be able to do what they want and they will reward those who allow them to do so. Treating your customers as people to be limited (i.e., people who you offer less value to) pretty much guarantees that they'll go elsewhere.

Filed Under: david hughes, denial, drm, fritz attaway, mpaa, riaa
Companies: mpaa, riaa

Florida Judge Won't Let The RIAA Off The Hook

from the pissed-off-judge dept

If you follow the various RIAA lawsuits, you'll notice the pattern. The RIAA bullies and bullies and bullies people, trying to get them to settle. They almost never want to go to court -- and if someone fights back -- especially to the point of filing countersuits, the RIAA looks to get out of the case as quickly as possible. Step one, of course, is trying to get the countersuits dismissed. Apparently, it tried to do that last year when a defendant in Tampa countersued the RIAA. The judge, however, wouldn't let the RIAA off the hook and refused to dismiss most of the counterclaims. Amazingly, in a very similar case in front of the same judge, with the defendant again countersuing -- the RIAA asked the court to dismiss the countersuits, claiming the earlier decision was in error. Generally speaking, it's probably not a great idea to tell the judge that a ruling he made a few months back in a nearly identical case was a mistake. After receiving the motion to dismiss the countersuit Tuesday evening, the judge turned it down first thing Wednesday morning. The judge's order itself is short and sweet, saying that the RIAA showed no evidence as to why the original ruling was incorrect and so it sees no reason to treat this countersuit any differently than the last one. Of course, just like last time, the RIAA doesn't want this to go to court, and will likely try to settle up as quickly as possible.

Filed Under: countersuits, florida, lawsuits, riaa
Companies: riaa

RIAA Massively Ramps Up Warning Notices To College Students Over File Sharing

from the last-throes... dept

While the RIAA has been sending threatening notices to colleges about student file sharing for a while now, it seems to have recently stepped up the attack. Various colleges are reporting a rather massive increase in these notices, despite no discernible change in file sharing activity. In some cases, they're suddenly getting as many notices in a day as they used to get in a month. Some universities are also pointing out that they don't see any corresponding activity in their log files that would indicate that industry insiders had actually checked to make sure these files were infringing.

One interesting theory is mentioned in the Wired article above. The RIAA has been using the number of such notices as some sort of indicator of how much piracy is occurring -- and even lobbying for laws that would require any university that got over a certain number of notices to install special filtering/monitoring software. So, by showing an increase, the RIAA can try to show how "necessary" this is, even if the notices are totally bogus. As one person points out in the article, it does not seem at all reasonable to judge how much piracy is occurring (or what actions need to be taken) based on an arbitrary number that is totally under the control of the RIAA.

Filed Under: notices, riaa, universities
Companies: riaa

RIAA Now Decides That Not Enough People Have Heard Of Project Playlist

from the reverse-attention-whores dept

There they go again. The RIAA and MPAA keep picking totally random, mostly unknown, startups and suing them -- giving them all sorts of free publicity. They did it years ago with Napster and more recently with The Pirate Bay. And yet... they keep doing it. In the latest example, the RIAA is suing a company called Project Playlist, which offers apps for MySpace and Facebook that let you play music found elsewhere online. There are a bunch of similar offerings out there (some of which I think are even more well known). If this case goes forward, it could be quite interesting, as again it's hard to see how Project Playlist is the liable party. It just lets users point its player to mp3 files that are found on other sites. Those files may be infringing, but Project Playlist is just the player. It would be like suing Sony for making a Walkman on the assumption that most tapes used in Walkmen include infringing copies of songs.

Filed Under: copyright, lawsuit, mp3s, riaa
Companies: project playlist, riaa

Tanya Andersen Decides To Drop Racketeering Charges Against The RIAA

from the this-is-for-the-best dept

Business Week has a fantastic and detailed article going through the history of Tanya Andersen's legal battles with the RIAA. As has been pointed out from early on, the RIAA went after her with very little evidence, bullied her to settle and pay up, and then tried to force her to agree not to countersue before it would drop charges. Andersen and her lawyer, however, refused to give up -- and not only won against the RIAA, but had the RIAA pay up on Andersen's lawyers' fees. After all that, she and her lawyer have filed a series of lawsuits against the RIAA alleging illegal investigative practices and racketeering.

While it's great to see her fighting back, we'd always said that the racketeering claim was a huge stretch, based on the specifics of the law. It doesn't do anyone any good to file a racketeering charge if it can't be proven. So, it's good to see that Andersen appears ready to drop that claim. At the very end of the article, it notes that a judge has pushed back on Andersen's filing, and she plans to drop the racketeering and fraud charges. Instead, a new filing will focus on "conspiracy, negligence, and abuse of the legal process." Again, "conspiracy" seems like a long shot -- but negligence and abuse of the legal process seem a lot more interesting. Either way, there will be plenty to follow in this case.

Filed Under: copyright, piracy, racketeering, riaa, tanya andersen
Companies: riaa

Why The RIAA May Want To Side With Open Source Developers In France

from the what-is-distribution-anyway? dept

We all know that the RIAA has been pushing for a certain definition of what constitutes "distribution" online these days (which the courts are still in flux over). An anonymous reader points to a case in France that the RIAA may want to pay attention to -- where it may find itself siding with some strange bedfellows: open source developers. Apparently, some of open source developers have sued the large French ISP Free/Iliad for failing to offer up the software used in the 3 million routers that customers use, despite the fact that it includes GPLed software (which requires that any software you distribute also be available to others for free). The ISP has responded by claiming that it hasn't actually distributed the software, since the routers are still officially a part of its own network -- and therefore the software doesn't have to be offered up.

In other words, simply giving the routers to users doesn't count as distribution in his definition -- which would certainly go against the RIAA's "making available is distribution" claim). However, as the link above suggests, it could get even worse. If you follow the same definition that Free/Iliad is making, then an ISP could purchase a site license for certain applications or content and then let everyone on its "network" access it, since it wouldn't be "distributing" it. Thus, suddenly, it may be in the RIAA's best interest to side with a bunch of open source developers before the definition of "distribute" in France gets defined in a way that the RIAA wouldn't much appreciate.

Filed Under: distribution, france, gpl, open source, riaa

Another Court Ruling Actually Does Say Making Available Is Not Distribution

from the better-decision dept

While the ruling in the Elektra v. Barker case got plenty of attention, even if some of it was misleading, the EFF points out that in another ruling on the same day (which got much less publicity) a court in Boston seems to have made a much stronger case for why making available is not distribution. Once again, the judge did not throw out the case, saying that an "offer to distribute" is still enough of a claim to have the case move forward to trial (at which point the copyright holder would need to show that actual distribution occurred). However, with so many different court rulings making so many different interpretations of "making available," there are going to be appeals and eventually it will move up the chain. If (as is likely) different appeals courts end up disagreeing it may eventually make it to the Supreme Court, where we can get a final ruling on whether making available is or is not the equivalent of distribution.

Filed Under: copyright, court ruling, make available, riaa

RIAA Now Open To 'You Must Be A Criminal' Tax On ISP Fees

from the not-the-answer dept

This certainly isn't the first time it's been proposed, but it appears that the RIAA is potentially warming up to the idea of a "music surcharge" that would have ISPs pay $5/month in order to allow anyone to share music online. Just a month ago, we were discussing why this is a bad idea. First, it's effectively treating everyone as a criminal, and forcing those who don't download or share music to subsidize everyone who does. Second, and much more importantly, it's not necessary. If there's anything that the past five years (and the past year especially) has taught us, it's that there are many different ways for musicians to make money without requiring the government to step in and set up a business model for them. In other words, there's no compelling need for such a mandated system. Third, once you do this, it opens up additional questions from other industries. Will the government need to set up laws that prop up their business models as well?

Some people are comparing this new RIAA proposal to the one that the EFF proposed four years ago. However, that one was quite different, in that it was a voluntary licensing system, rather than a mandatory one. In that system, anyone who wanted to could voluntarily pay $5/month to have free reign to share and download music. This new proposal would mandate that ISPs pay the fee (meaning that ISPs would quickly pass the costs on to everyone). That's quite different. It also might be a different story if ISPs voluntarily offered this as a feature for customers -- where they would license the music so anyone could freely share it. That's a case where the ISP would effectively be paying for the creation of music and using its free nature as a promotional good for its service. However, that rationale goes away if it's mandatory. So, while it's nice that the RIAA has woken up (about a decade too late) to the idea that new business models are needed, this proposal isn't a very good idea.

Filed Under: copyright, isps, levy, mandatory, music, riaa
Companies: riaa