Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits

[Turborama]

Source: Wall Street Journal

After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.

The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.


Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones. But ISPs, which are increasingly cutting content deals of their own with entertainment companies, may have more incentive to work with the music labels now than in previous years.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122966038836021137.html?mod=testMod

[chaplainM]

1. Good. Formal dress shouldn't be required for Sunday worship. n/t

[Book Lover]

16. That was very funny

And they say there are no clean Catholic jokes!

[Mugweed]

2. I thought it was massive suits...

like David Byrne used to wear.

[Turborama]

4. LOL it's at times like this I wish we could alter the title a little instead of...

...having to go verbatim.

[rocktivity]

3. In turn, a delighted David Byrne has in dropped HIS massive suit against the industry

:evilgrin:
rocknation

[Mugweed]

10. I now wish he'd change his singing style.

If you've heard the latest Brian Eno/David Byrne album, what sounds like great Eno/Byrne songs are totally ruined by Byrne's singing. Eno sounds great as the backup, very much like the old Warm Jets type sound. Byrne's Re Mo Mo style singing just subtracts more than it adds.

[rcrush]

5. The RIAA using common sense?

This cant be right.

[depakid]

17. Perhaps they've read the economic studies

showing that, when all is said and done, file sharing (music sampling) actually increases their bottom lines....

[TlalocW]

6. It's kind of their own fault

They knew which ways the winds were blowing, and there were concepts floating around of how music stores needed to change to adapt to the coming technical revolution - one big idea were booths where you could sit at a terminal and create a CD of songs that you wanted from a digital catalog that you then buy. The record companies didn't like that idea because they wanted to control everything instead of give customers what they wanted, and the technology eventually blew past them.

Not saying stealing is right. Just they missed an opportunity.

TlalocW

[Veilex]

7. This is a double edged sword...

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones. But ISPs, which are increasingly cutting content deals of their own with entertainment companies, may have more incentive to work with the music labels now than in previous years.

So they are going to try and get ISPs to do what has already been declared illegal? ISP's are not allowed to throttle (slow down or speed up) internet connections for a reason. Once a precedent allows them to do so, they can the arbitrarily choose what you can reach via the internet and what you cannot. IE: If the right-wing owned Comcast decides they don't like Democratic Underground, they can set it where getting to this website will take hours...or is completely unavailable.

While some of us (such as myself) would gladly wait to get to the website...the reality is that traffic to the site would greatly decrease... making it a less viable website for advertising purposes (Which likely the main funding that keeps the site going). In Short... no more DU.
I wish this were tin-foil hat talk or were just theory instead of a very real possibility.

[L0oniX]

8. The moron dinosaur's finally woke up?

[Trillo]

9. Just as an aside to the legal beagles.

My ISP doesn't have my email address, they sold it to marketeers in years past, and I was intolerant of that, but the agreement says they have the right to do so, so I needed to find a way to eliminate that e-spam exposure.

I presume others also use similar anti-e-spam techniques, so ISP notification by email will miss (presumably) a number of folks besides me.

[Piewhacket]

13. I'm no beagle, maybe more a bassethound, but...

I figure an ISP can require that you accept notices at a
given email address as one of their TOS. The more interesting
question is whether they can terminate your service for
some "violation" of that TOS, assuming they were looking for
some excuse to do terminate you (and had some defense for
doing it to you when they didn't do it to others).

Of course a TOS that sez you agree to stop doing what
you're doing, whatever it is, on pain of termination
if RIAA sez you are a bad and evil evil evil person,
well such a TOS would raise some very serious public
policy questions don't you think?

In fact
.... EFF sez this about that....
"This is a huge civil liberties issue," said Gwen Hinze, EFF's International
policy director. "When you cut off Internet access, we're talking about
cutting off a person's total ability to communicate."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10127313-93.html

[Trillo]

15. Absolutely (in answer to your question)

It seems a continuation of the policy, if I recall the news item correctly, of the U.S. government to deputize some corporations as part of law enforcement. Essentially, your scenario paints a presumption of guilt for humans; and for corporate persons, a presumption of innocence.

[Piewhacket]

20. Yes. Like the way they "deputized" ATT.

Or like the scenario in Orwell's "1984" where all citizens were commanded to look
outside their door to spot and report the fleeing criminal. Ashcroft proposed that
on his watch to fight crime, until it was mentioned at his press conference just
how incredibly illegal that would probably be under the US Constitution. (Do all
repukliens have IQs in the low 40's, or is all that venal and criminal stupidity
the result of a diligent course of study? Just a rhetorical question. hey)

Anyway, it is well settled (federal) law that such a deputy is a government agent,
and subject to the limitations, like the fourth amendment and due process of law,
to mention but two, placed on the government. But just don't get me started on
the FISA immunity shit and how that wreaks incredible havoc on a delicate balance
in the rule of law, or how I feel about Obama voting for it, cuz I have to consider
my blood pressure,

but thanks for the excellent comment.

[Piewhacket]

11. NO. This isn't good.

This is private censorship of a public right of way
based on a mere claim of wrongdoing. It will set these ISP up for
lawsuits. It won't work. We are going to fucking FIGHT, people!

Consider the analogy of a "privatized" bridge to San Francisco being only
available to repukliens.

These agreements should be promptly declared illegal and the MF who
made them put immediately in jail along with the MF politician who will
be trying to pass laws immunizing this conduct. ENOUGH CRAP FROM THESE
ANIMALS!

[Pavulon]

18. Sneaky vs blantant

blatant was downloading everything over a fixed port from a know set of ip addresses. Sneaky is downloading through an ssl session from a distributed system. Still trackable but that cant just turn ssl off. All secure transactions would stop.


So the discussion is now "we the isp" see large downloads to your home. Response is that is just my bank records or some files i need. They cant see into encrypted data. If they can they will not admit it. Its a flaming FU to use any tunnels to move this information.

I'll pay a penny a song, 20 cents for a 1080p rip. More than that, well better alternatives exist.

[Piewhacket]

21. Exactly. They are again trying to do..

just what was declared illegal when comcast did it.
the scheme violated net neutrality.

here limitations are based on a presumed content based on
some paranoid induced fantasy of a RIAA employee (paid commission on
how much traffic he stops. hey!). anyway, how can that
be legal in light of the prior ruling?
ISP's need to STFU and limit rate, not size.

(re ssl: careful, they could still "man in the middle", or do
an entrapment using an ssl RIAA site. )

[KamaAina]

12. A dead person?!

They probably thought they were going after a Deadhead... :P

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[ThatsMyBarack]

14. So can I start using Kazaa again?

I buy most of my mp3s from amazon.com or iTunes these days, but it's frustrating when they don't sell the songs I really want!

[Duer 157099]

19. Slippery slope that the Telecom immunity bill has opened up

If Congress had done the right thing on that bill, this sort of proposal would not even be able to be considered, for privacy purposes.

But now... just the tip of the iceberg

[silverojo]

22. Which will criminalize people UL'ing their own mp3's and large files

Fuck the RIAA. All the good music is coming from Asia now, anyway.

[douglas9]

23. RIAA Claim of Stopping Suits "Months" Ago Is False

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes
"According to a report on Wired.com, the RIAA spokesman claimed that the RIAA has not filed any new lawsuits 'for months,' and according to the Wall Street Journal report discussed here yesterday, the RIAA stopped filing mass lawsuits 'early this fall.' Knowing that the RIAA has a problem with telling the truth, I did a little investigating, and found out that the RIAA had, in fact, commenced a wave of lawsuits just last week. Why would anyone believe anything their spokesperson says? This is an organization that has a tendency to misspeak a lot, if you know what I mean, even when under oath."
CNet has a copy of the RIAA's new form letter that it will ask ISPs to pass on to alleged copyright-infringing users. It says, in part, "This letter does not constitute a waiver of our members' rights to recover or claim relief for damages incurred by this illegal activity, nor does it waive the right to bring legal action against the user at issue for engaging in music theft."

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F20%2F136255&from=rss

[slackmaster]

24. I always found those suits kind of disturbing

[thecrow]

25. Music industry drops effort to sue song swappers

Source: AP/Excite

Dec 19, 11:08 PM (ET)

By RYAN NAKASHIMA



LOS ANGELES (AP) - The group representing the U.S. recording industry said Friday it has abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and will work with Internet service providers to cut abusers' access if they ignore repeated warnings.

The move ends a controversial program that saw the Recording Industry Association of America sue about 35,000 people since 2003 for swapping songs online. Because of high legal costs for defenders, virtually all of those hit with lawsuits settled, on average for around $3,500. The association's legal costs, in the meantime, exceeded the settlement money it brought in.

The association said Friday that it stopped sending out new lawsuits and warnings in August, and then agreed with several leading U.S. Internet service providers, without naming which ones, to notify alleged illegal file-sharers and cut off service if they failed to stop.

It credited the lawsuit campaign with raising awareness of piracy and keeping the number of illegal file-sharers in check while the legal market for digital music took off. With two weeks left in the year, legitimate sales of digital music tracks soared for the first time past the 1 billion mark, up 28 percent over all of last year, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20081220/D95671K80.html

---

This will be a relief to some people....

More at link

Edited to remove the caption to a picture which obviously is not here

[dkf]

26. I don't buy or download music anymore anyway.

They play the same song like 20 times a day on the radio anyway.

[earcandle]

27. Try our online free radio station

my husband used to be a DJ in Santa Cruz, and a critic for
Puncture, and his favorite hobby is to run this radio station.
 It is very eclectic, and the music is real.  I think there is
a 27 hour loop.  And we change it every season.  Our next
theme is the Obama welcoming song list coming soon. 

Google Ear Candle Radio.  We also have a top twenty, and
live365 allows for not only voting, but you can also purchase
an artist's record  if they have it uploaded.  We get no
kickbacks, except for pennies from VIP users who pay some
amount per month and have no commercials.  Also people from
all over the world send us their new recordings and if the DJ
likes them, on they go.

At least give yourself some real music if nothing else in this
free world!
Clear Channel and their pap programs really suck. Thye choke
out the independent artists, but we play them. 

[alfredo]

28. Listening right now. Thanks.

Music from the eastern mountains, WMMT. They play some weird and wonderful music.

http://appalshop.org/wmmt/


BTW, welcome to DU

[dkf]

30. I don't know what it is about radio in Hawaii but

our selection is very limited. The amount of times I have heard "bleeding love" is amazing. I think it was playing on 3 stations at the same time once.

[alfredo]

29. don't believe them. They have proven to be liars and thugs.

[dana_b]

31. you and me both

I've been scared for years that they were going to come after my kid though. She's got a stockpile from Kazaa.

[alfredo]

32. they go after the poor and weak. Predators.

[dana_b]

33. ssems to be a common thread in our country right now n/t

[alfredo]

34. Hyenas would enter huts and grab babies, if they found a door unlatched.

[bemildred]

35. You gotta wonder what part of "blow me" they don't get?

Annoying people that use particular ISPs just motivates them to find another ISP. You may instill fear in a few sheep, but the sharks will just revel in the "challenge".

[lovuian]

36. people are making their own music

I know I am

[GoddessOfGuinness]

37. Does this mean they're going to attend Mass naked?