Ben Sheffner, over on Copyright & Campaigns, has a nice piece on the efforts of record industry lawyers to overturn an order providing for live Internet coverage of a court hearing next Thursday in one of the RIAA's lawsuits asserting copyright infringement against the operator/user of a peer-to-peer file-sharing system (RIAA v. Tenenbaum). The case (quoting from the court's order):
. . . like many others now before the Court, is one for copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. ยง 106. The Plaintiffs are some of the nation's largest record companies. The Defendants in these consolidated cases are individual computer users — mainly college students — who, the Plaintiffs claim, used "peer-to- peer" file-sharing software to download and disseminate music without paying for it, infringing the Plaintiffs' copyrights. Many of the Defendants have defaulted or settled, largely without the benefit of counsel, subject to damages awards between $3,000 and $10,000
District Judge Nancy Gertner had granted a motion, filed by the Berkman Center at Harvard (which is representing the defendant), allowing a webcast operator, Courtroom View Network, to stream Thursday's proceedings live on the Berkman Center website. The RIAA has filed several "extraordinary writs" — for mandamus and prohibition — seeking to overturn the order.
I should say, to begin with, that I'm generally a big fan of live broadcasts of court proceedings; in fact, I think we should do more demanding of our public officials that they provide such access routinely. [I clerked at the Supreme Court back in 1993, and it annoyed me then, and it annoys me still, that live broadcasts of Supreme Court proceedings are not made generally and widely available] And I should also say that I'm not a huge fan of the record labels' campaign against individual file-sharers (Sheffner views it a little more positively). But whatever position you take on these matters, this really is not a pretty sight. What are they afraid of? Here's what the record labels put in their papers:
Petitioners [the labels] are concerned that, unlike a trial transcript, the broadcast of a court proceeding through the Internet will take on a life of its own in that forum. The broadcast will be readily subject to editing and manipulation by any reasonably tech-savvy individual. Even without improper modification, statements may be taken out of context, spliced together with other statements and []rebroadcast as if it were an accurate transcript. Such an outcome can only do damage to Petitioners' case.
How tone deaf are these guys? An industry that is so completely out of touch with its customers is not long for this world. The RIAA, I grant you, is in a tough spot regarding file-sharing, and it has taken (as it has every right to take) a hard line on the law in the battle against file-sharing. But come on, guys. "Statements will be taken out of context"!! No!! I hate to be the one to tell you this, but: Welcome to the 21st century. Yes, the tapes will be all over the Net, and people will do all sorts of things with them, some hilarious, some idiotic, many in between. Yes, some of that will make the record labels (and their lawyers) look like fools. We have a name for that: "free speech." It is, by and large, a really good thing. Plus, people seem to enjoy engaging in it. Why not try to figure out how you, too, can play in this new space? You don't have enough thumbs for all of the holes in this dike, and we, the public, are justified in finding your efforts to do so contemptible.
If they were my client, I would've begged them not to make me file such a motion, just to keep from looking like idiots.
Daniel J. Cloherty and Victoria L. Steinberg of Dwyer &Collara, and Eve G. Burton and Timothy M. Reynolds of Holme Roberts &Owen.
ZING!
If the officially stated goal of your legal campaign is to "educate the public", objecting to the public understanding your legal campaign makes it clear you have something to hide. Considering the RIAA's legal tactics so far, it's clear why they don't want the general public to see what how their legal campaign really works.
until then, i look forward to watching these proceedings. i think they are more scared due to some of the tactics they pulled in this particular case.
The court ought to grant the motion.
However we may feel about file sharing, and about the RIAA tactics in combating it, the laws are written to protect their legitimate claim to the property being "shared". They are more than justified in fighting for their rights. By allowing the release of video of the trial, the court is handing a propaganda tool to the set who'll use it to unfairly prejudice the public against these companies, and stirring them towards additional acts of copyright infringement.
Free speech does not demand that the court aid and abet malicious propaganda. Once the tape is released, there ought not be any limitations on its use and modification. As an administrative matter, though, the court doesn't need to make it available.
Whaaa? You're just assuming any prejudice will be "unfair." That's not argument, it's assertion. You're right that the riaa has the right to pursue these cases, and may be justified in doing so. But they shouldn't get to do so behind closed doors. Why isn't it "unfairly prejudicing" the public FOR the riaa to keep the proceedings under wraps?
No one here is arguing that the RIAA doesn't have a moral or legal right to fight for their copyrights. And while I'm sure we find it a bit distasteful that the people that get litigated are often quite powerless against the RIAA, they pirated the music in the first place.
What people here find annoying/ironic/disgusting about the RIAA here is the two-facedness about trying to keep this from being broadcast. What they want is a nameless kind of fear going around. They want people hearing that X or Y got sued by the RIAA and lost a lot of money. What they don't want is for people to actually see them sueing John Collegestudent and for people to take pity on him. Broadcasting it on the internet isn't putting a 'propaganda tool' in the hands of pirates (even if they do use it for anti-RIAA 'propaganda'). It's putting the whole truth of the situation out there. The RIAA could just as easily broadcast the bits they want in a form of pro-RIAA propaganda; nothing's holding them back from that. The fact that they're unwilling shows a shortsightedness and a stubbornness that you see being reacted to here.
In case you haven't figured it out yet, they don't actually think that any of their stated objections are legitimate. It's just that they have to say something, and "airing the trial will show how underhanded our tactics are" isn't going to cut it.
It's like how people across the net keep pointing out that the companies want DRM to avoid piracy, but DRM doesn't actually avoid piracy. Of course it doesn't. That's not what it's really for. Their stated intentions are just an excuse, not their real reason.
If it's just an "administrative matter," it's a discretionary ruling and the Court of Appeals should keep it's hands off.
The judge, responding to RIAA own claims the deterrence is their goal, is fostering just that. Imagine all the teenagers who will be terrified by hearing RIAA's logical arguments and the rousing rhetoric of its battery of lawyers. Sauce for the goose, guys.
No way this is "abuse of discretion."
And anyone familiar with Nancy Gertner's history will realize that this is exactly what the judge intends. I loathe the RIAA but when I heard who was presiding judge in this case I actually began to feel sorry for them.
The RIAA has decided to stop suing individual pirates. They will instead seek to stop them by having the ISP's warn them, and then disconnect them if they continue illegal copying.
They are also planning to offer a lot more singles for sale over the internet, non-DRM'd (albums are an artifact of distribution means).
Unfortunately,
They set the price on singles way too high (as they'll find out) - around a dollar a cut.
The threat to deny internet access is potentially dangerous, as access is rapidly becoming a necessity of modern life.
Finally... It is time the copyright laws be changed. Is it reasonable to grant far more protection to a single song recording than a great invention (say, the laser)? That is the current law. as a result of pure corruption. Copyrights have been extended so that no modern copyright has expired, and if current trends continue, never will.
For the Constitutional law folks... is a century copyright length unconstitutional because it violates the purpose of the copyright clase of the Constitution?
Historical note: The prerogative writs are not motions for which the burden is on the petitioner, nor are they the order to be issued by the court on the merits. The writ -- of quo warranto, habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibito, procedendo, or certiorari -- is the summons, when filed with the court and served on the respondant. It is a command to the respondant to show proof, and defaults to the demand of the petitioner if proof is not provided, or the judge does not rule in favor of the respondant, including if no hearing is held. What makes these prerogative writs extraordinary is that they are not motions with the burden on the movant. (And what makes them "prerogative" is that they are supposed to be heard before any other matters on the court docket, except for other such writs.) This is something else that tends to be mistaught or not taught in law schools.
Obitur dictum: Although this is not a criminal case, it is a misconstruction of the "Necessary and Proper" clause to infer a power to prosecute criminally from the power to "promote" or create a monopoly. All the statutes making copyright violation a crime are unconstitutional.
And just suppose I don't purchase wifi myself, but piggyback on open networks in my neighborhood?
Sounds like it would be good for me (as before), and bad for my neighbor. OTOH a few of those letters start going out and people will learn to encrypt their wireless.
Right up there with privacy, identity, and reputation. All so easy to violate in the new world.
You really can't trust Sheffner's judgment. He supports the RIAA's campaign:
"I support the record labels' litigation against individual infringers."
The RIAA has been using unlicensed investigators to perform illegal investigation, illegally joining un-related defendants for mass litigation, using ex-parte motions in sham litigation to get discovery information and then dismissing the suits, using the discovery information to extort money from accused individuals, lying to people claiming they have all the necessary evidence to prevail at trial, suing dead people and even people who've never used a computer, regardless of the merit of the case...and so on, continuing to sue people even after it is obvious they have the wrong person because they are trying to make an example of people rather than sue on the merits, ad infinitem. Only a person unfamiliar with the facts or a person of stunningly poor judgment could publicly support such a campaign, IMO>
What utter nonsense. The fact is that **either** party can try and use the recording to their advantage--if the facts support them. However, it seems pretty clear from the RIAA's hysterical attempt to appeal the recording of a mere hearing that they know the facts show the RIAA's position to be un-reasonable. And the RIAA's claimed fear of edited versions are equally unfounded because the un-edited version will be available for anyone to double check, un-like when a case is only covered by broadcasters for clips on the evening news--a point the judge specifically noted.
If they were my client, I wouldn't beg. I'd say "no." You don't have to file a frivolous motion just because your client says so.
Of course, I don't get paid by my clients, so the threat of being "fired" doesn't faze me. But the really good private lawyers are willing to get fired over something like this.
Why wouldn't it be used by the pro-RIAA contingent to stir the populace towards additional purchase of RIAA content?
I seriously doubt the people they are worried about are "customers," in the sense of people who pay money for their products.
The explanations for their motions are implausible, so I suspect a public relations motive that can't be expressed directly. Come to think of it, snippets taken out of context are extremely likely.
I detest the RIAA and our current system of copyright laws, but their strategy makes perfect sense. A small army of RIAA enemies, working for free, will create mashups of the dumbest-sounding things the RIAA's lawyers and witnesses say. Jon Stewart might create his own. In the worst-case scenario, some of it gets replayed on TV news shows. The RIAA has no army of free labor to create scads of counter-mashups that make the defense lawyers and witnesses look bad, and without nearly as many friends on the net their counter-propaganda would spread much more slowly. The RIAA is a big net loser on this one.
By contrast, fighting the release of trial video produces bad publicity among people who are likely to hear about trial motions. Does it get on YouTube? No. Does it get spread all over Facebook? No. Does it run any risk of making it onto Jon Stewart? Nope.
While I hate the RIAA, their strategy here is eminently sound.
Oh, really??? Not in my experience.
I was once a expert witness in a case where the defendant's lawyers got the corporation to spend 3 times as much on their attorney's fees as the plaintiff's highest settlement offer. The lawyers just kept saying he'd win (unlikely from the start) and throwing motion after motion onto the fire.
Knowledge Is Good
P.S. The RIAA ostensibly is associated with some of the most creative minds available. Why does the RIAA appear to rely on the proposition that the other guys' mixes would necessarily be better than the RIAA guys' mixes?
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Really, I'm no law professor / blogger but I'd think the merit of the appeal would have to do with its **legal validity** and of the legal validity of the judges ruling, rather than her "identity".
Do tell about what it is you are implying about the judge but aren't saying.
Do tell about what it is you are implying about the judge but aren't saying.
Are you a lawyer?
At every appellate court, there's a short list of district judges who make the judges roll their eyes every time they draw another appeal from them- "oh god, what has she done THIS time?"
That may be so, but this writ of mandamus is an extraordinary appeal for an **ordinary** ruling that is well within the judge's discretion. I don't think generic slams on a judge can be said to apply in this case.
David's post was about the tactical wisdom of bringing this up to the First Circuit. When you're in front of a particular judge with a particular reputation -- and especially with a particular reputation among the circuit court judges and clerks -- there can be good tactical reasons to try to bring in the court of appeals as early as you can. I think a discussion of the tactical wisdom of this appeal would have to consider that point. Now, perhaps you might conclude that despite this, the appeal is still unwise: That's fine. But as I said before, I would think that an assessment of the merits of this appeal has to consider the identity of the district court judge.
I suppose the RIAA would rather have the monopoly on any propaganda. Nice try, I hope they lose this one.
I think you have it. The RIAA has worked very hard to be the only party with complete knowledge of all of their legal actions. Allowing an actual complete record of the trial on video hurts that effort and helps defendants have access to RIAA claims and tactics, without having to fork over for a transcript.
Your point just shows that not all highly paid corporate lawyers are all that good.
But in this case, Professor Kerr may be right that there's some overriding tactical goal that involves making the district court judge look crazy, but this seems to make her look better and the RIAA look crazy.
While I hate the RIAA, their strategy here is eminently sound."
Your analysis only makes the slightest bit of sense if they have a good chance of winning their motion. If it is the general consensus that they do not, they are only piling bad publicity onto bad publicity. Perhaps the release of the trial video might not have garnered much attention before. Now it is sure to be pored over as the "MATERIAL THE RIAA FOUGHT TO KEEP YOU FROM SEEING".
Not that incompetence and tonedeafness from the RIAA is surprising.
In this trial, by contrast, a live videotape will allow all the defense lawyers out there a huge opportunity to see: (1) what kind of evidence RIAA actually has; (2) how credible its witnesses (expert and otherwise) are on the stand; (3) what weaknesses, if any, are in RIAA's case, and how the defendants exploit those weaknesses; and (4) any impeachment evidence the defendants can get out of the RIAA folks.
Remember, these RIAA cases tend to be cookie-cutter. Because of the relatively small dollar amount involved (doesn't RIAA usually offer to settle these for $5k or less?), it would be prohibitive for the average defendant in a RIAA case to muster a defense. Having this information in the public domain would be invaluable. In addition, if the trial doesn't go well or if significant holes or weaknesses are discovered in RIAA's investigatory techniques, you have a gold mine of "past pattern &practice" evidence to use in Rule 11 motions in other proceedings.
And that, my friends, is why I think RIAA is fighting the publication of the trial so much. Not that I'm on RIAA's side here, because I'm not, but I'm just trying to give the litigator's perspective on this.
Tone deaf enough to subpoena a high school student for deposition on one day notice. He was the son of a defendant.
Tone deaf enough to send a C&D letter to an astronomy professor for distributing an MP3 of his own song about the Swift gamma ray satellite.
Tone deaf enough to sue patently innocent defendants.
So being so tone deaf they don't know whether they're filing for a writ of prohibition or a writ of mandamus shouldn't be surprising. And not wanting the public hearing to be publicly available is perfectly in tune with the song they're singing.
This highlights one of the biggest legal rackets in the judicial system--court reporters' monopoly on transcripts. Court reporters are frequently paid a taxpayer salary to sit in the courtroom. They then get paid an enormous fee (often $3-5 per double-spaced, wide-margin page) to produce the first copy of the transcript. Then frequently $1-3 per page for each copy any one else wants. Generally, a lawyer who makes an extra copy of a transcript is violating some court rule somewhere.
In complex criminal cases for indigent defendants, court reporters can be paid tens of thousands of extra taxpayer dollars beyond their salary just to hit "print." Then I have to spend taxpayer dollars driving to the courthouse to read the transcript because the original lawyer can't spare his copy.
This made more sense when court reporters had to manually turn their notes into words, but now that is done by computer. They do have to proof, but that's it.
Court reporters deserve a fair, competitive salary. But now, they are imposing monopoly rents on the litigants, and on the taxpayers when the litigants are indigent.
Yeah- I've not researched it but they are apparently not copyrightable, at least for court proceedings. I don't know about depositions, but the same principles should apply- it's not an original work. Perhaps there are court rules on copying them. I know for the federal courts you have to pay $ to get a transcript.
Except for when I've noticed a deposition myself, I have almost never ordered a transcript-- I always ask the other lawyer to make me a copy, and they almost always do.
I know one plaintiff's lawyer who would always tell the court reporter he wouldn't waive reading and signing- then, before his client signed, he would make a copy for his own use.
This is at best an unresolved question. Nimmer cites a case that involved an attempt by a court reporter to claim copyright, IIRC, but I don't see how the stenographer would own copyright in anything. Each witness might theoretically own the copyright in what they say -- but as far as I know it's never come up, and you can find all sorts of deposition transcripts all over the Internet.
I think the greater worry here is, from the RIAA's view, more nonsense like the hubbub over the brief in the Howell case.
Is this supposed to be a good thing? It sounds like the equivalent of stealing from a secretary.
I would think that there was the possibility of a copyright in depositions, possibly owned jointly by the attorneys and the deponent, or if an expert, maybe just by him. Court would be more problematic. The work of federal judges (and court reporters, etc.) is not subject to copyright, but it is remotely possible that some testimony by someone might contain enough original expression to qualify for copyright protection. But even if there were potentially some weak copyright in court testimony, it is highly likely that it would fall to a Fair Use defense.
Not quite. Only for payment of the first copy, and it's not strictly copyright, but work product trade secret and a claim quantum meruit. The first party to get one can file it in the case file and thereby make it public domain. That can be done with almost any copyrighted material, just as it can be done by reading it into the Congressional Record or other such public journals. I recommend this be done for transcripts generally. Otherwise you can get a case like one I was involved in a few years ago in which a party who had committed perjury on the records "got to" the recorder to produce two "amended" pages with the perjury removed.
The things I would like to record are when the judge or one of the lawyers admit to ex parte conferences and to blatant corruption that occurred then. I advocate not only recording what happends in the courtroom but in the judge's chambers and anywhere else they might meet.
They have no monopoply, only a privileged position. Any person may bring to court, even as part of the audience, a certified court reporter who makes her own transcript. This can be filed with the case file and made part of the record. That transcript is not subject to the orders of the bench to strike anything from the record. I recommend people bring in their own court reporters if they can afford it.
However, one may want to bring in a court reporter from outside the jurisdiction. A local reporter is vulnerable to being corrupted by the local legal establishment into producing a false record
All of which goes to the need to revive counterclaims for abuse of process (and, if one wins, malicious prosecution).
Why didn't you get a copy of the court reporter's tape?
Well that's a fascinating story, but its a little disjoint from the reality of what's been going on: shoddy investigative tactics, dubious legal theories designed to last only long enough to browbeat a victim into settlement, and abuse of process. They've drawn the attention and ire of several State AG. The legal tide has been slowly turning against them as each defendant in turn plays chicken a little further before settling and gets rewarded by a favorable ruling. The RIAA seems to have caught on that its settlement scheme is breaking down. They are trying to disentangle themselves where possible. They've started withdrawing from suits to a substantial degree--except where they are stuck because the suit has progressed so far for so long that they appear concerned about sanctions from the bench given the pattern of conduct.
Doubtless there is illicit distribution going on, but its rarely by the people caught up in court.
Interesting. Have you got any evidence of that?
The backlash RIAA is getting from the courts is growing. There are multiple suits now where RIAA has lost Rule 11 motions -- and those motions are almost NEVER granted. If RIAA suit defendants are able to build up enough (1) sanctions orders and/or (2) counterclaims for malicious prosecution or abuse of process, it could create the kind of predicate act evidence you'd need to contemplate a class action lawsuit against the recording industry.
(As a practical matter, you need pretty serious evidence of a pattern and practice of fraud before you'd stand a chance to get a class of people who settled with RIAA or had to defend an action brought by RIAA certified).
This was in the 1980s in Texas. Tape was paper, was not preserved after the transcript was typed out and printed.
Your statement presumes I got it from reading the writings of others. I did my own investigation, starting from when, starting in 1958 at the age of 12, I worked for my mother preparing the tax returns of others. When I taught myself symbolic logic at the age of 15 I started casting things like legal documents, statutes, and regulations, into normative extensions of the well-formed propositions in the predicate calculus. In college, I went into computer programming (in LISP) to verify and find proofs, it was a natural extension to analyze things like tax codes and regulations to test their chains of derivation. Not surprisingly, I soon found that almost all of the practices and positions taken by the IRS are not supported by an unbroken logical chain of authorization from the Constitution. I(Likewise other practices of government.)
Naturally, this bothered me, but I always thought the logical flaws were so obvious that they would be known by many, and saw no point in bringing them to anyone's attention, figuring that such obvious lawlessness could only be supported by relentless corruption of the entire system.
I began to encounter tax protest literature in the late 1990s, after organizing the Constitution Society. Not surprisingly, I found some of it to be soundly reasoned and factually based, and much that was not. However, I have not found anyone who has duplicated my logical analysis.
So it is not I, sir, who has "fallen" for anything, but you who has fallen for the dubious wisdom of a corrupt herd without having done the rigorous analysis the issue requires.
Well there's your problem right there.
What on earth would lead you to believe the government is logical? Or laws at all are logical.
Not really possible for lawyers for indigent persons. But I see your point. Here, some judges use contempt threats against any lawyer who copies a transcript, even if the lawyer has previously paid for the transcript they got. Further, you can't get a copy from the clerk because the judge has frequently ordered that no copies be made.
The "privileged position" of court reporters needs to end. They deserve a fair salary, plus, perhaps, an additional payment for turning their notes into a real transcript initially. But after that, they should only be paid very small fees for certifying transcripts. They should get only five to ten cents a page for copies. And they should get squat when someone photocopies a transcript themselves.
I saw one murder case in which there was civil litigation relating to who (besides the defendant) could be held civilly liable for the murder. Lawyers for the victims and civil defendants purchased multiple copies of the 10,000 page transcript from the court reporter. The court reporter made tens of thousands of dollars (heck, it's possible it hit $100,000, but I doubt it) for just hitting "print." That's a useless, government-protected monopoly.
I look forward to the no-doubt extensive series of posts complaining about enforcement of speed-limit laws. After all, EVERYONE speeds, so why should you pick out only a few people and enforce it? Why do communities insist on clinging to a dying regulatory model? Just abolish all speed limits and raise gas taxes instead.
You are missing the point, DD, by a wide margin.
The RIAA has a history of suing innocent people and throwing the full weight and legal might of a multi-billion dollar corporation into the prosecution of their case, even after it is apparent they have sued the wrong person, treating each case as an "example to the public" of their might, rather than on the merits. And the RIAA has used an unlicensed private investigator to perform illegal investigations in literally tens of thousands of cases. The RIAA has made false averments of fact in their filings, claiming to have detected a person, when their illegal investigator's methodology does no such thing. And the list goes on and on.
If local communities prosecuted innocent people for speeding using a faulty methodology to claim the defendant was even in the area, and demanded millions of dollars from each in restitution, even after discovering the actual innocence of the defendant, then maybe you'd have an analogous analogy.
B - "Interesting. Have you got any evidence of that?"
- - - - -
Actually, A's statement makes it seem like there are the "normal" small-potatos downloaders, picking up a song or two for personal consumption, and then a few huge mega-harvesters doing the true damage to the musicians. Not so.
You load the program, you turn it on, it finds a ton of music all over the world (because it looks at the "available music" directories of all the thousands of other users who are turned on at that moment - this is linking software, primarily), you pick a song or maybe five thousand songs, press a button, and then come back the next day to see that you have those five thouosand songs on your own computer, in your shared music directories, and now thousands of people are downloading it from you and all the others, and you're downloading more music, and everyone's music directories are getting huger every day . . . .
Fast connections make it possible. Pick up a complete, high-bit-rate (meaning, high-quality sound) music file - a song - in under ten seconds. Do that all night. Rinse and repeat.
I had a chat with my son when I saw he had over thirty thousand - that's 30,000 - songs on his computer. I didn't even know there WERE that many songs. It took him about two months of downloading at night to get that.
And he's typical.
My son, and all of his friends, have most every song, album, CD, genre, group, style - whatever - you could name, and none of them have ever bought a CD, or a record, or a tape. When I was that age, I spent substantial numbers of my discretionary dollars for music, and had far, far less than they have now, for free.
So, there has to be a huge cost to this, and a loss from someone's pockets. Talking about "obsolete distribution methods" sounds a lot like saying it became morally acceptable to steal cars once key-duplicators became available. Sorry, it's still theft - it's just easier theft now.
So, do you think that the RIAA lost 30,000 dollars because your son would have purchased each and every one of those songs? The RIAA would sue you for minimum statutory damages of $750 per song, up to $150,000, which comes out to between $22,500,000 and $4,500,000,000. And they can start a case against you by looking up your email that you thoughtfully provided in your post as bob_in_ep@yahoo.com. (I suppose if you are really Machiavellian, you could just be setting up an enemy for an RIAA pillaging.)
Are you sure you think the RIAA is being reasonable? After all, the beef people have with the RIAA isn't that they are seeking to protect their rights but that they are using wrecking balls to try to squash gnats, and they've used illegal means to do it, including using unlicensed private investigators, and making false averments of fact, falsely claiming to have detected and individual when there methods do no such thing.
A person who has just confessed to having direct knowledge of copyright infringement can't afford to be so cavalier in their attitude about the RIAA's scorched earth factory litigation campaign. Remember, they haven't actually stopped suing people. You could be next.
It isn't a matter of ease of violation. And there is a great deal of difference between a person's right to privacy, etc. and a broken business model.
The RIAA represents a model of delivering music to consumers that has no value. It did have value when there was no real alternative delivery mechanism, but these days, artists don't have to ties themselves to labels and their distribution chain. The RIAA has no answer to maintain it's relevance and so seeks to squeeze the last bit of revenue out of it's dead model that it possibly can. They are in the same boat as buggy whip makers a century ago.
I think the RIAA lawyers are unlikely to argue that, though.
"If you allow this motion, we will become addicted to being on TV."
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