Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Part Two

by Marc on February 13, 2007

I earlier reported on Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman admitting that his kids are music pirates who have downloaded unauthorized files. He said it was a family matter.

That statement has come full circle. RIAA lawsuit defendant Robert Santangelo wants to know why keeping it in the family is good enough for the CEO who should know better, but not for him.

According to his countersuit:
"Plaintiffs have crafted at least two additional and alternative forms of damages, which forms have not been offered to this Defendant, even though similarly situated. One alternative, explicated by Warner Music's CEO, Edgar Bronfman, is for a parent to talk to his or her children: 'I explained to them [his children] what I believe is right, that the principle is that stealing music is stealing music. Frankly, right is right and wrong is wrong, particularly when a parent is talking to a child. A bright line around moral responsibility is very important. I can assure you they no longer do that.' As to what else he did to them, he responded, 'I think I'll keep that within the family.' Plaintiffs have failed and refused to offer this Defendant the same form of damages."

http://www.p2p-weblog.com/

Judge Gives RIAA Until Thursday March 1st to Respond to Motion to Compel Turnover of RIAA's Lawyers' Billing Records in Capitol v. Foster

In Capitol v. Foster, where the RIAA has sought "discovery" into the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's attorneys fees, even though the RIAA (a) already has all of Ms. Foster's lawyer's billing records, and (b) has for the past year been refusing to provide Ms. Foster's attorney their own attorneys' billing records, the Judge has given the RIAA until Thursday, March 1st, to respond to the motion Ms. Foster's attorney made last week to compel the RIAA to turn over all of its lawyers' billing records on the case:

February 26, 2007, Order, Directing Plaintiffs to Respond to Defendant's Motion to Compel by March 1, 2007*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

By: Ray Beckerman

March is Boycott RIAA month

Alright, we've been following the RIAA's increasingly frequent affronts to privacy and free speech lately, and it's about time we stopped merely bitching and moaning and did something about it. The RIAA has the power to shift public policy and to alter the direction of technology and the Internet for one reason and one reason alone: it's totally loaded. Without their millions of dollars to throw at lawyers, the RIAA is toothless. They get their money from us, the consumers, and if we don't like the way they're behaving, we can let them know with our wallets.

With that in mind, Gizmodo is declaring the month of March Boycott the RIAA month. We want to get the word out to as many people as humanly possible that we can all send a message by refusing to buy any album put out by an RIAA label. Am I saying you should start pirating music? Not at all. You can continue to support the artists you enjoy and respect in a number of ways.

Firstly, I encourage everyone to purchase music from unsigned bands and bands on independent record labels. There are tons of great artists out there, many of which you're probably already a fan of, that have nothing to do with the RIAA. Buy their records at eMusic, an online store that sells independent tunes in beautiful, DRM-free MP3 format.

Secondly, you can still support RIAA-signed bands without buying their music. Go see them live and buy their merchandise; they get a hell of a lot more money from that then they do from album sales. And hey, you could benefit from getting out more, couldn't you?

If you are unsure whether or not an album is put out by an RIAA label, the handy RIAA Radar will clear everything up for you. They have both a search engine and a great bookmarklet, so be sure to get yourself hooked up.

Let me just reiterate that we are not saying you should stop buying music and start pirating everything. We need to send a message with our wallets to the RIAA, and that message will only be stronger if we show support for musicians without your money making its way to the lawyer fund.

So come on, make next month one to remember. Let's stand together and let the RIAA know that yes, we are paying attention and no, we aren't going to put up with their unethical practices any longer. –Adam Frucci

Colleges Struggle to Cope With Flood of Copyright Complaints

The major record labels are sending thousands more copyright nastygrams to colleges regarding student file sharing this year. Of course, file sharing continues unabated, and these P2P-related notices will simply push fans to use other readily-accessible technologies that the RIAA can't easily monitor -- copying music through iTunes over the campus LAN, swapping hard drives and USB flash drives, burning recordable DVDs, and forming ad hoc wireless networks.

So the RIAA's strategy still won't stop file sharing, but it certainly will cause collateral damage to academic freedom, free speech, and privacy. In a recently released report, the Brennan Center lays out what that cost looks like today based on interviews with representatives from 25 service providers including 10 from universities. Universities are already being forced to waste substantial resources on doing the RIAA's dirty work. Flooded with machine-generated complaints, schools are unable to evaluate the merits of particular complaints. While lacking procedural safeguards to make sure students wrongly accused of infringement are not penalized, many schools have adopted stricter penalties than the law requires. Schools have also adopted network monitoring and filtering tools that interfere with legitimate expression.

The increase in P2P-related notices stands only to make matters worse. The RIAA's Cary Sherman states that the increase in the notices is "something we feel we have to do," but blanket licensing provides a clear alternative to blanket lawsuits. Take action now to help stop the lawsuit campaign.
Posted by Derek Slater at

More antics in Capitol v. Foster

RIAA Refuses to Turn Over Its Attorneys Billing Records in Capitol v. Foster; Debbie Foster Moves to Compel

In Capitol v. Foster, in Oklahoma, the RIAA has refused to turn over its attorneys billing records, although Ms. Foster had demanded those records almost a year ago.

Citing caselaw which establishes that, in connection with an attorneys fees motion, the fees spent by the non-prevailing party are relevant to the reasonableness of the prevailing party's fees, Ms. Foster has now made a motion to compel production of those records.


Defendant's Motion to Compel Production of RIAA's Attorneys' Billing Records*

RIAA uses p2p for video scam

p2pnet.net News Special:- Let me preface this with some background.

My name is Bill Evans. I founded the original Boycott-RIAA.com website in 2000. I later sold it and continued to run it for a couple of more years before I left. In that time, I did over 100 radio interviews, appeared on Tech TVs Music wars, attended conferences such as The Future of Music Coalitions Policy Summit, SXSW (South by Southwest).

In addition, I've met with Rick Boucher, his Legislative Aide for Internet Affairs at the time, and came to know people in and out of the business who were as concerned as I was with the state of music affairs, artist rights and consumer rights.

To me one of the highlights was when John Perry Barlow approached me after the Tech TV "Music Wars" special and shook my hand and told me � Keep up the good work�.

I�ve met Hilary Rosen face to face. I�ve met Cary Sherman face to face. I�ve had knock down drag out verbal fights with the RIAA�s �Internet Evangelist� at the time Karen Allen, to the point that it was considered a moment to remember by many in the industry. It was cordial, and humorous. My firsts words to her (after looking at her from head to toe and back) were "You don't look like the devil." She was all of maybe 5'1" tall and maybe weighed 100 lbs. (I'm nearly 6'2" and about 230.

They know who I am. Keep that in mind.

A while back p2pnet ran an article about �CampusDownloading.com� an RIAA propaganda web site. Needless to say the video contained on the website was of full of half truths, innuendo, and misleading statements of fact. The quality of the video on their website was laughable, (they really should have hired a video pirate to rip it).

As I result, I went to the Campus Downloading website and placed an order for the free DVD. The page on which you order the DVD implies its for use on campus. Well, I live in a college town (Virginia Tech) I didn�t represent that the DVD was for use on campus, but for personal use.

"I want to show it to my neighbors," I said.

This week the DVD arrived Priority Mail, along with twoi four-color posters, and a letter on RIAA letterhead. The address label had the return address of the RIAA. In addition to the cost of the DVD, posters, and letter, the postage was $4.05, plus a bubble pack envelope.

The RIAA spent at least $10 getting the Campus Downloading DVD to me, not to mention staff time. It was shipped from Washington, DC, and the letter, from Paige Ralston, is extremely interesting.

It gives me permission to use Campus Downloading DVD in,"the way you see fit, including making however many copies necessary."

It goes on to request that I stream the DVD video from my own site rather than from theirs. That'll save them a few bucks, and it'll also get me doing their work for them for free and paying their broadband costs too ;p

They claim, "If thousands of students log onto the site at once," they could, "experience difficulty in viewing the video". And wouldn't that be a crying shame?

Ironic isn't it? The very thing the RIAA doesn't want you to do with music, is the very thing they're asking you to do ...

... Copy it and share it.

I've included photos of the package to let you see what's in it. And wouldn't it be interesting if everyone ordered a copy of the DVD?

We'd could cost them a fortune.

I urge every student to order a copy.

Be honest, tell them it's for you.

If they run out, they need to get more made.

And the videos do have their uses.

They make very pretty coasters, great targets, and Shoot, you might even want to sell them on ebay as collector items.

And they really do have potential uses in classrooms - as examples of deceptive advertising and propaganda.

Bill Evans - p2pnet

Study: P2P effect on legal music sales "not statistically distinguishable from zero"

A new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry.

Entitled "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis," the study matched an extensive sample of music downloads to American music sales data in order to search for causality between illicit downloading and album sales. Analyzing data from the final four months of 2002, the researchers estimated that P2P affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe.

The study compared the logs of two OpenNAP P2P servers with sales data from Nielsen SoundScan, tracking the effects of 1.75 million songs downloads on 680 different albums sold during that same period. The study then took a surprising twist. Popular music will often have both high downloads and high sales figures, so what the researchers wanted was a way to test for effects on albums sales when file-sharing activity was increased on account of something other than US song popularity. Does the occasionally increased availability of music from Germany affect US sales?

The study looked at time periods when German students were on holiday after demonstrating that P2P use increases at these times. German users collectively are the #2 P2P suppliers, providing "about one out of every six U.S. downloads," according to the study. Yet the effects on American sales were not large enough to be statistically significant. Using this and several other methods, the study's authors could find no meaningful causality. The availability and even increased downloads of music on P2P networks did not correlate to a negative effect on music sales.

"Using detailed records of transfers of digital music files, we find that file sharing has had no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample," the study reports. "Even our most negative point estimate implies that a one-standard-deviation increase in file sharing reduces an album's weekly sales by a mere 368 copies, an effect that is too small to be statistically distinguishable from zero."

The study reports that 803 million CDs were sold in 2002, which was a decrease of about 80 million from the previous year. The RIAA has blamed the majority of the decrease on piracy, and has maintained that argument in recent years as music sales have faltered. Yet according to the study, the impact from file sharing could not have been more than 6 million albums total in 2002, leaving 74 million unsold CDs without an excuse for sitting on shelves.

So what's the problem with music? The study echoes many of the observations you've read here at Ars. First, because the recording industry focuses on units shipped rather than sold, the decline can be attributed in part to reduced inventory. Gone are the days when Best Buy and others wanted a ton of unsold stock sitting around, so they order less CDs. The study also highlighted the growth in DVD sales during that same period as a possible explanation for why customers weren't opening their wallets: they were busy buying DVDs.

RIAA's New Settlement Website Promoting P2P File Sharing Clients?

from the nice-work,-fellas dept

While lots of folks have been talking about the RIAA's latest attempt to pressure ISPs into handing over subscriber info, Eliot Van Buskirk over at Wired noticed something interesting. The domain name that the RIAA registered for their new "pre-lawsuit" settlement packages (where you get a discount for not pointing out that their evidence is flimsy), it appears that the RIAA has put up a parked page that is full of ads pointing to all sorts of file sharing programs, many that include adware and spyware. As Eliot notes: "does this mean the RIAA can be sued for contributory infringement?" Considering that the entertainment industry was just pissed off at the Google ads on a different site for similar reasons -- you'd think they might want to consider suing themselves here. Of course, it seems that someone over at the RIAA got wise to this and has now switched off the advertising on the domain. Still, I wonder how much money they made promoting P2P programs...

Via: techdirt

Leaked RIAA Letter Asks ISPs for Help in Thwarting File Sharing

Tuesday, 13 February 2007

Topic: News

Ray Beckerman over at Recording Industry vs. The People posted a letter leaked to him presumably by someone who works at an ISP, in which the RIAA asks ISPs for help in both tracking down subscribers suspected of file sharers and convincing them to settle before their cases go to trial.

In light of recent news (broken on Listening Post) that Debbie Foster succeeded in winning legal fees from the RIAA after having their lawsuit against her thrown out of court, this letter could represent the RIAA hedging its bets against similar cases going to trial in the future. The organization wants ISPs to make it clear to their subscribers that if they settle out of court with the RIAA, rather than seeing the case to trial, the cost of their settlement would be discounted $1,000.

That's not the only way in which the letter reveals the RIAA is trying to work with ISPs in order to keep these cases out of court. Normally, the way a P2P lawsuit works is: an RIAA member label spots one of their songs being shared, logs the sharer's IP address, brings a lawsuit against the (still unknown) "John Doe" defendent, and then subpoenas the ISP in order to find out who the particular John Doe is.

Instead of this circuitous route through the legal system, the leaked letter reveals, the RIAA wants ISPs to send form letters to the John Does themselves, asking that they turn themselves in to the RIAA and commence the settlement process. Basically, the leaked letter reveals that the RIAA is sick of having to jump through legal hoops that protect individuals from being policed by a non-governmental organization.

VIA: P2Pweblog.com

Lime Wire Sues RIAA for Antitrust Violations

In Arista v. Lime Wire, in Manhattan federal court, Lime Wire has filed its answer and interposed counterclaims against the RIAA for antitrust violations, consumer fraud, and other misconduct. Lime Wire alleged that the RIAA's goal was simple: to destroy any online music distribution service they did not own or control, or force such services to do business with them on exclusive and/or other anticompetitive terms so as to limit and ultimately control the distribution and pricing of digital music, all to the detriment of consumers. (Counterclaim, paragraph 26, page 18).

This case is but one part of a much larger modern conspiracy to destroy all innovation that content owners cannot control and that disrupts their historical business models.(Counterclaim, paragraph 28, page 18).

Lime Wire has demanded a trial by jury.

Answer and Counterclaim of Lime Wire defendants**

Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Via: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com

Ms. Lindor Opposes RIAA Motion to Compel Production of Her Son's Computer

Ms. Lindor Opposes RIAA Motion to Compel Production of Her Son's Computer

In UMG v. Lindor, in Brooklyn, Ms. Lindor has filed opposition papers to the motion the RIAA has made to compel the production of her son's computer and listening devices:

February 7, 2007, Declaration of Ray Beckerman*
Exhibit A (February 7, 2007, Order and Decision in Capitol Records v. Debbie Foster)*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Going Up: Movie, TV and Music Downloads

eMarketer projects that digital media content spending will grow from $1.3 billion in 2005 to $7.8 billion in 2010. Online video is small now but will take off as more legitimate content is made available by the major studios and there are more distribution channels and retail stores carrying it.

The breakdown:

US 2005 Revenues (million)
$1,104 Digital Music
$199 Online TV
$11 Digital Movies

Projected US 2010 Revenues (million)
$4,950 Digital Music
$2,191 Online TV
$651 Digital Movies

Our note: Wait I thought this poor little industry was losing money every year?

Grokster + DSU = ?

December 15, 2006

EFF’s Fred von Lohmann, post-Grokster: “A variety of new digital technologies are advertised and promoted for uses that the technology vendors believe to be fair uses. For example, Time Trax promotes its technology for recording satellite radio, Mercora for recording music from webcasts, and Sling Media for transmitting your TiVo’d TV shows to yourself over the Internet….

“Is it inducement if you reasonably, but incorrectly, believed that the use for which you promoted your product was covered by fair use (or any other copyright exception)?”

The Federal Circuit, today (via Jason): “Grokster, thus, validates this court’s articulation of the state of mind requirement for inducement. See Manville, 917 F.2d at 544. In Manville, this court held that the ‘alleged infringer must be shown . . . to have knowingly induced infringement,’ 917 F.2d at 553, not merely knowingly induced the acts that constitute direct infringement. This court explained its ‘knowing’ requirement:

‘It must be established that the defendant possessed specific intent to encourage another’s infringement and not merely that the defendant had knowledge of the acts alleged to constitute inducement. The plaintiff has the burden of showing that the alleged infringer’s actions induced infringing acts and that he knew or should have known his actions would induce actual infringements.’”

Original article: HERE

NY Teen in Piracy Lawsuit Accuses Record Companies of Collusion

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- A 16-year-old boy being sued for online music piracy accused the recording industry on Tuesday of violating antitrust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats.

In papers responding to a lawsuit filed by five record companies, Robert Santangelo, who was as young as 11 when the alleged piracy occurred, denied ever disseminating music and said it's impossible to prove that he did.

Santangelo is the son of Patti Santangelo, the 42-year-old suburban mother of five who was sued by the record companies in 2005. She refused to settle, took her case public and became a heroine to supporters of Internet freedom.

The industry dropped its case against her in December but sued Robert and his sister Michelle, now 20, in federal court in White Plains. Michelle has been ordered to pay $30,750 in a default judgment because she did not respond to the lawsuit.

Robert Santangelo and his lawyer, Jordan Glass, responded at length on Tuesday, raising 32 defenses, demanding a jury trial and filing a counterclaim against the companies for allegedly damaging the boy's reputation, distracting him from school and costing him legal fees.

His defenses to the industry's lawsuit include that he never sent copyrighted music to others; that the recording companies promoted file sharing before turning against it; that average computer users were never warned that it was illegal; that the statute of limitations has passed; and that all the music claimed to have been downloaded was actually owned by his sister on store-bought CDs.

Santangelo also claims that the record companies, which have filed more than 18,000 piracy lawsuits in federal courts, "have engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud the courts of the United States.''

The papers allege that the companies, "ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy'' by bringing the piracy cases jointly and using the same agency "to make extortionate threats ... to force defendants to pay.''

The Recording Industry Association of America, which has coordinated most of the lawsuits, issued a statement saying, "The record industry has suffered enormously due to piracy. That includes thousands of layoffs. We must protect our rights. Nothing in a filing full of recycled charges that have gone nowhere in the past changes that fact.''