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.