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RIAA vs The People: Four Years Later
Author: Phil CogarPublished: 3rd September 2007
The RIAA won't be too happy once they read the report done by the EFF but it does offer a good read for those interested.
The beginning of the document gives a history of the RIAA's first lawsuits and strategies and highlights areas such as the lawsuits against P2P companies (Napster, Grokster, and others) and individuals as well as its strategy to twist the DCMA to force ISPs to reveal the user behind an IP address. Thousands of people ended up settling out of court with the RIAA after being initially sued and it turns out that the RIAA had used illegal tactics to obtain the individual's information. Unfortunately for all that settled, the RIAA never returned any money that it had illegally received in a settlement.
It's actually a very good read and includes other information such as wrongful lawsuits against the deceased, people who didn't own a computer and people who didn't even subscribe to the ISP involved in the infringement case. The RIAA was (and still is, actually) ruthless about its lawsuits, even suing people who had downloaded copies of music that they had legitimately owned.
The really juicy bits of the document include areas such as people fighting back, the fact that P2P has grown substantially since the initial lawsuits with around 35 times as many illegal downloads being made then legal downloads, and the direction that the digital distribution market is heading.
The last seven and a half pages are references for the document itself so it should only take a short amount of your time to read over the other 16 and a half pages. So go ahead and read it in it's entirety and let us know what you think over in the forums or in the comment section below.
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Comments (18)
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I hope they nail the RIAA and take a good shuck out of them
Doug
If they started doing that to music, well, good luck with them getting past wave out + audacity.
£7??? Where the hell do you go to the cinema? It's about £3 at my local Vue, even less on Tuesdays or with a student card.
Exactly, I can't stand that, we are being punished for paying rather than downloading it (plus if I had downloaded it I could probably get a HD version rather than SD). That said I can usually skip the ad by pressing the menu button on my remote ;)
Vue down here is £7.20 after 5PM ...
I hope that the people who work at the RIAA will one day feel ashamed for this. When I read the news article about the 7 year old girl getting sued AND the dead woman being sued I wanted to fly out to California and punch each one of them and their lawyers in the face.
It's sickening what people will do for money now-a-days :(
Fortunately my DVD player skips all the crap and goes straight to the menu when I play a DVD. Way to go LG!
Your sarcasm-dar is borked