Music Industry Puts Troops In The Streets (RIAA police!)

[LifeDuringWartime]

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/07/news-sullivan.php

Music Industry Puts Troops in the Streets
Quasi-legal squads raid street vendors
by Ben Sullivan





Though no guns were brandished, the bust from a distance looked like classic LAPD, DEA or FBI work, right down to the black "raid" vests the unit members wore. The fact that their yellow stenciled lettering read "RIAA" instead of something from an official law-enforcement agency was lost on 55-year-old parking-lot attendant Ceasar Borrayo.



The Recording Industry Association of America is taking it to the streets.



Even as it suffers setbacks in the courtroom, the RIAA has over the last 18 months built up a national staff of ex-cops to crack down on people making and selling illegal CDs in the hood.



The result has been a growing number of scenes like the one played out in Silver Lake just before Christmas, during an industry blitz to combat music piracy.




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i think i'm going to be sick! read on to find out why…

[IronLionZion]

1. assholes

well whatever. As soon as I'm out of school and have a job I'll start paying for music. Perhaps I'll buy from labels not associated with the RIAA and from bands that denounce this type of bullshit.

[Muddleoftheroad]

2. This is not new

The phone company used to do it when people sold illegally acquired phone equipment. They had agents who went to flea markets and antique shoes who would confiscate equipment and threaten you with arrest if you challenged it.

[jmowreader]

3. I agree with the RIAA on this

There is a difference between you making an MP3 from one of your CDs, putting it on your iPod and listening to it, and you making fifty copies of one of your CDs then selling the fifty copies. One is fair use, the other isn't.

[muchacho]

13. people don't mind stealing from the majors

>>There is a difference between you making an MP3 from one of your CDs, putting it on your iPod and listening to it, and you making fifty copies of one of your CDs then selling the fifty copies. One is fair use, the other isn't.

i think your correct in your assessment of fair use, I don't agree with the strong-arm tactics of the RIAA.

Part of the reason so many people tat would never steal a pack of gum trade illegal files is that it's easy and they think the record companies are weasels. They squeeze the artists and they squeeze the consumers ($16, for a CD, please).

Instead of figuring out how to take advantage of the new technology and add velue to their product they take the defensive and go after thier consumers.

[jmowreader]

24. How are you going to add value that people will pay for?

More songs? Easy to rip to MP3 and pass around.
DVDs in the package? DeCSS.
Neat liner art? Ah, who cares about that, all we want is the music and we want it free.

This is a bad time to be in the music industry; anything you do gets either stolen (music, video) or denounced (attempts to keep people from stealing your stuff).

[mbperrin]

4. THESE people

"A large percentage are of a Hispanic nature," Langley said. "Today he’s Jose Rodriguez, tomorrow he’s Raul something or other, and tomorrow after that he’s something else. These people change their identity all the time."

Well, thank God they're not prejudiced or anything - he didn't really say Messkins, did he?

Repo guys in Houston have been doing this kind of shit for ten years now representing themselves as constables with phony court orders in hand. (Occassionally, one of them finds themselves in a tight spot!)

Oh well, hiring assholes to pick on poor people is nothing new. But putting people in cop clothes, giving them cop ID's and papers and then saying, Hey we're not saying they're cops is BULLSHIT, to quote my dear sainted grandmother, who often said that liars would burn in the hottest hell.

[NYC]

5. Corporate police out on the streets?

?

[indepat]

6. Sure hope they don't take the law into their own hands/ violate anyone's

constitutional rights: if they do, sure hope they get their asses sued out the gazoo.

[TexasMexican]

7. Wow thats incredibly fucked up.

If they ever came to my house to take my belongings I would most definately shoot them and I would be well within my rights here in Texas.

Dressing up like some quasi officer of the law does not give them the right to take people's belongings.

Hopefully these people will get much more appropriate reception in future raids once people figure out that they have no legal authority to do what they do.

[Sterling]

8. Yes I would shoot too

I promise to shoot first if ever someone pretending to be a cop bothers me. Horrible crimes are commited by people pretending to be cops. If one of these rent a cops gets capped I will not be surprised or sympathetic.

[TolstoyAndy]

11. But Tex Mex and Sterling, that's the new freedom

It's new improved freedom, for your safety.

You have no right to those guns, and the corporations
have every right to all you own!

(sorry, I better put an /end sarcasm on this)

[muchacho]

14. rental

It's free market protection.

If you can afford it, hire a counter-force to lay in wait for these major label thugs.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

9. This CANNOT be legal! They have no legal authority!

:puke:

[T Bone]

10. They would be legal authority if they have been deputized by the

sherrif. Don't assume they haven't been deputized.

[DoNotRefill]

20. No way in hell they're deputized...

the liability would be HORRENDOUS.

[LifeDuringWartime]

12. just wait…

until the MPAA and Microsoft dispatch their own gestapo thugs :scared:

[DuctapeFatwa]

15. If they have more money, and more guns than you, that's all the legal

authority they need.

What do you think would have happened to this guy if he hadn't handed his stuff over?

[7th_Sephiroth]

16. anyone breaks into my house screaming police

and the .50 cal bullets start flying

[Kipper58]

21. .50 cal bullets?

Wouldn't a .50 cal machine gun be a little unwieldy to use INSIDE your house? ( sorry - couldn't resist!)

:hi::hi::hi::hi::hi::hi::hi:

[ninkasi]

17. I read the article...

but it doesn't really say what "quasi legal" means. They are definitely giving the impression that they are with the police, or another government agency. I'm not saying it's right to sell bootlegged music, I'd just like a better definition of the quasi-legal part.

[mrdmk]

18. The RIAA goes into the home or tries to

This copy protection legislation started in 2002. I was trying to find out if it is still alive. What it entails is putting a chip of sorts in any recording device in attempt to stop copying copy written material. This includes mp3 units, vcr’s, cd burners, tape recorders, computers, anything that records. Here is some reading and people behind this proposal.


http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51245,00.html

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-860192.html

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51072,00.html


Having been in the music business, the RIAA can really makes some bodies life miserable and without merit. This group goes after persons as well as businesses. They have resources because every money transaction in the entertainment business they get a percentage. They have network of people who will just sit and watch an event to power lawyers who love a good court case.

edit: typo

[DoNotRefill]

19. I hope they get busted...

for impersonating a police officer.

[kayell]

22. Seems a bit more serious to impersonate a cop

than to sell bootlegged music.

[brainshrub]

23. Welcome to the corporate state

where corporations are allowed vigilante justice.