The first RIAA jury trial has ended and the single mom accused of sharing 24 songs has been ordered to pay $222,000 by a jury of her peers.
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RIAA 1, Single Mom 0: RIAA Defendant Loses, Must Pay $222,000 For Allegedly Sharing 24 Songs
By 10.5.07
Sony BMG: Copying Music You Own Is "Stealing" And You Are A Criminal
By 10.3.07
More silliness from the RIAA, according to Ars Technica. Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, was called to testify in the case of Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas.
By 9.24.07
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Tanya Andersen, RIAA defendant, has been awarded awarded attorney’s fees for her nearly two-and-a-half-year fight against a copyright infringement lawsuit. [Ars Technica]
Interview With RIAA Lawsuit Target Tanya Andersen
By 9.19.07
You might remember Tanya. She was falsely accused by the RIAA of sharing over 1,000 songs. Rather than admit they had the wrong person, the RIAA lawyers just wouldn’t quit.
MediaDefender's Emails Hit The Internet: Entrapment? The New York Attorney General's Office?
By 9.17.07
MediaDefender, a company that “disrupts” p2p on behalf of record labels and movie studios, suffered an embarrassing leak this weekend when 700MB of internal company emails were distributed on the internet. Oops!
Class Action Status Requested For Malicious Prosecution Suit Against RIAA
By 8.18.07
Remember Tanya Anderson? After the RIAA’s case against the 42 year-old single mother for downloading gangsta rap was dismissed with prejudice, Tanya turned around and sued the RIAA for fraud, racketeering, and malicious prosecution. Now, her lawyers have filed papers in federal court asking to grant her suit class action status. From Ars Technica:
By 8.10.07
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Universal drops DRM out of fear of an Appleopoly. Say that three times fast. [BoingBoing]
Warner Music Group Loses A Whole Lot Of Money
By 8.7.07
Warner Music Group is losing a lot of money, according to Reuters. The company said in a statement:
“This (revenue) decline was driven by a challenging recorded music industry environment as the shift in consumption patterns from physical sales to new forms of digital music continues,” the company said in a statement. “Declines in our physical … revenue were only partially offset by increases in music publishing and digital recorded music revenue.”
So, shoppers, why is that? Crappy music? DRM? Is music too expensive? Do you not enjoy music anymore? Are you broke? Are you buying games for the Wii instead of a CD? Are you a bunch of pirates? Avast.
U-Haul Gets Mad If You Follow Their Directions, Park In A Ghetto
By 8.5.07
Willie wasn’t sure why U-Haul told him to park his rental truck in a poorly lit, fenced-off gas station lot that was clearly under construction, but he figured he had the right place when he saw several other U-Haul trucks in a closed pen nearby; Willie parked next to the pen, locked his rental, and got the hell out of there; when Willie told U-Haul he returned their truck as per their instructions, “they try to tell us it is our fault and we would be charged for this….for what? For doing exactly what they said. Exactly.” Now U-Haul wants $1,700:
Judge Awards $68,685.23 in Attorneys Fees Against RIAA
By 7.17.07
In the case of Capitol v. Foster, the judge has awarded $68,685.23 in attorneys fees to the defendant, Debbie Foster. According to Recording Industry vs The People, this is the first time attorneys fees have been awarded to an RIAA defendant.
Consumer Sues Choicepoint For Saying She Was In An Accident She Wasn't In
By 7.16.07
Angie Duckworth is suing Choicepoint and State Farm for $75,000+ for reporting her as being in an accident she wasn’t in, and messing up her credit report.
Internet Radio Saved?
By 7.13.07
Wired’s Listening Post Blog claims that internet radio has been “saved” (for now, anyway) and that SoundExchange executive director Jon Simson “promised — in front of Congress — that SoundExchange will not enforce the new royalty rates. Webcasters will stay online, as new rates are hammered out.”
How The Recording Industry Killed Itself
By 6.28.07
In the fall of 2003, the RIAA filed its first copyright-infringement lawsuits against file sharers. They’ve since sued more than 20,000 music fans. The RIAA maintains that the lawsuits are meant to spread the word that unauthorized downloading can have consequences. “It isn’t being done on a punitive basis,” says RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol. But file-sharing isn’t going away — there was a 4.4 percent increase in the number of peer-to-peer users in 2006, with about a billion tracks downloaded illegally per month, according to research group BigChampagne.
Today Is The Day Of Internet Radio Silence
By 6.26.07
Ignoring all rationality and responding only to the lobbying of the RIAA, an arbitration committee in Washington DC has drastically increased the licensing fees Internet radio sites must pay to stream songs. Pandora’s fees will triple, and are retroactive for eighteen months! Left unchanged by Congress, every day will be like today as internet radio sites start shutting down and the music dies.
Judge To RIAA: Students Must Be Allowed To Respond To John Doe Lawsuits
By 6.20.07
The RIAA has argued that it would suffer irreparable harm unless immediate discovery was allowed, but Judge Garcia didn’t find that argument convincing. “While the Court does not dispute that infringement of a copyright results in harm, it requires a Coleridgian ‘suspension of disbelief’ to accept that the harm is irreparable, especially when monetary damages can cure any alleged violation,” wrote the judge. “On the other hand, the harm related to disclosure of confidential information in a student or faculty member’s Internet files can be equally harmful.”
NBC Lawyer: Copyright Infringement Is A More Important Law Enforcement Priority Than Fraud, Burglary And Bank-Robbing
By 6.15.07
Meet NBC/Universal general counsel Rick Cotton. He told a press conference that,
“Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned. If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year.”
Cotton is the Chairman of something called the Coalition Against Counterfieting and Piracy and is “spearheading” a new effort by the MPAA and and the RIAA called, “Campaign to Protect America.”
Congressman Who Took Money From RIAA/MPAA Says Congress Should Cut Funding To Colleges
By 6.7.07
The RIAA’s campaign contributions are hard at work this week as members of Congress threaten to cut off federal funding to educational institutions if they don’t stop file sharing on their networks.
