RIAA Settles Piracy Suit With 12-Year-Old For $2,000

[Systematic Chaos]

Omigod these F**KING PIGS! I hope those sons of bitches choke on their goddamn two grand!

WASHINGTON - A 12-year-old girl in New York who was among the first to be sued by the record industry for sharing music over the Internet is off the hook after her mother agreed Tuesday to pay $2,000 to settle the lawsuit, apologizing and admitting that her daughter's actions violated U.S. copyright laws.

The hurried settlement involving Brianna LaHara, an honors student, was the first announced one day after the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) filed 261 such lawsuits across the country. Lawyers for the RIAA said Brianna's mother, Sylvia Torres, contacted them early Tuesday to negotiate.

<snip>

The rest of this pathetic story:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=Tech&cat=Digital_Music

I LOVE collecting music and while I have downloaded some songs from one-hit wonders and stuff like that I generally prefer to collect CD's. I'm sorely tempted now to never buy another f**king CD as long as I live because of this heavy-handed BS! :argh:

[EV1Ltimm]

1. are you surprised the riaa would do this?

considering the things i've heard over the past couple of years, i'm surprised the RIAA lawyers didn't hold the girl upside down by the ankles while their clients collected the change.

they've been taking advantage of the talent for years, but now they're on to the next cash cow... cash settlements.

[ugarte]

2. I'm with you

I haven't bought a new CD in six months, but have bought more than a dozen used.

[The Zanti Regent]

3. Send them a message--Buy a Mac

Use the I Tunes Music Store and buy singles for 99¢!

If they did this to a 12-year old, what will they do for someone who is terminally ill?

[ikojo]

32. I have a Mac and my love for it is public knowledge

that being said...iTunes is OK but it still culls from the crap put out by the "music" industry. There is little indie stuff let alone political stuff on iTunes. I have bought songs off of iTunes but I'd like a wider selection of tuneage.

[toopers]

4. How is downloading songs any different than taping them off the radio

or from digital signal from the TV?

[otohara]

18. Big Difference

how about quality, convenience - variety. The taping from the radio argument doesn't work.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. I spent 27 years working in that industry.

The whole sordid mess is shot through, wall to wall, with the lowest forms of life ever concieved on this earth. Real venal bastards and bastardesses, who will attack anybody and anything, with full force and fury, to make a few points that will allow them to scrabble like a crab, up the career food chain. Very few are intelligent, but all are viciously capable of doing their jobs, in a manner not unlike a skilled executioner. It is no wonder that the rates of drug and ETOH abuse are astronomical. Many of them know that they left what humanity they had at the door. Most would double-fist their mother on network television if it would help their careers.

If one of them tells you the sky is blue, go check.

The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of them should be condemned to drag around 12 feet of their flyblown, foot-marked-and-scuffed colon, for the rest of their days. For starters, then let things turn ugly for them.

[LearnedHand]

13. Um, how do you REALLY feel?

Great post! Very well said.

[chiburb]

37. Wow!

One of the finest rants I've read in years!
(And an accurate description too...)

[starroute]

6. Is there any place to make contributions to this family?

It seems like they could use some help.

[maggrwaggr]

7. that's a great idea!

$2,000's gotta hurt most families. Can you imagine? That is so fucked up.

But if two thousand people each gave a buck .....

I love this idea. Wish I knew what to do about it. :shrug:

Any great organizers out there, people with free time, etc.?

[Hobarticus]

8. Something like this happened not too long ago...

College student got sued for file sharing, and ended up settling for somewhere around $12.

He started getting donations, totally unsolicited, and was able to meet the settlement plus legal costs.

Score one for the little guy...and the kindness of strangers.

[Hobarticus]

9. $12k, sorry.

[Mokito]

33. That's a really good idea

Not only would it soften the financial blow for the family or possible future families, but it would also send a strong message about this issue.

[prolesunited]

12. That would be nice

"The family lives in a city housing project on New York's Upper West Side, and they said they mistakenly believed they were entitled to download music over the Internet because they had paid $29.99 for software that gives them access to online file-sharing services."

I wonder if they will let her pay $20 a month or if they want the whole $2,000 up front?

[T Bone]

10. Plus the poor kid carried her own inventory of blank cds,

inventoried the cases for them as well, provided all the utility costs to record the tunes, and provided free labor and expertise, basically. Damn, only thing she really forgot was the artist royalties. But hey, who needs musicians and songwriters anyway, they are just some of the extra scum in the music business.

She should sue them under the child labor laws.

[The_Casual_Observer]

25. A little bit of urban legend embellishment?

n/t

[bluestateguy]

11. I hope somebody fights this

The outcome of the first few lawsuits will be pivotal and will determine whether or not the RIAA sues more people.

Just put me on one of these juries in a file sharing case. The RIAA will be really sorry.

[Robin Hood]

14. Fuck the recording industry!!! Fuck them with a big fat pointy stick.

I WILL NEVER BUY A CD FROM THESE BASTARDS AGAIN!!! I will purposely be buying CD's from bands that are not part of the music industry.

FUCK YOU!! You fucking greedy assholes. You make me sick.

Does anyone know how to write the riaa?

[Cronus Protagonist]

16. Great! Please do buy some of these self-published CDs

If you like them, of course...

http://brainscream.com



Click Here To See Fair & Balanced Buttons, Stickers & Magnets!>

[Robin Hood]

17. Cool, Thank you.

Excellent link. I will bookmark and listen later. I am listening to bernie ward right now, on www.kgoam810.com

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

36. The other day my wife forgot

and bought a mainstream CD. A compilation of romantic 70's and 80's songs. The look in my face got her puzzled, and then I reminded her of all this RIAA brouhaha. I told her to only buy in used CD shops.

[Robin Hood]

15. Look at their site. They're cowards. There's no contact link.

http://www.riaa.com/default.asp

[Guirigui]

19. Really smart move there, RIAA.

Who else is included in the latest batch of subpoenas? Let me guess; a few elderly nuns, a couple of baby seals and a retarded puppy . . .

I also hear one of the hoodlums is hiding out in some orphanage somewhere, under the name "Annie".

Hell, why not just give them the chair? The RIAA wouldn't look any worse than it does already.

[ikojo]

31. To see who has been subpoened by the RIAA (may they rot)

go here:


http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/riaasubpoenas/


http://www.eff.org/


The Electronic Frontier Foundation was started by John Perry Barlow who is Bob Weir's co-writer.

[Chovexani]

20. Yay!

Now some millionaire RIAA executive can get the golden faucets he's always wanted for the bathroom of his favorite private jet!

:puke:

[Robin Hood]

21. THeir own presidential palaces.

I guess that it's ok to have those if your in the US but not in Baghdad.

[Merlin]

22. They are sabotaging their own irrational position with this settlement.

By settlements like this, they are confirming that the value of the downloaded songs is roughtly $1 each. It's further confirmed by their deal along these lines with Apple, even though that requires special hardware.

At that rate, it doesn't come close to paying their legal fees to go after the average downloader, let alone this poor kid who evidently downloads more than most.

If the industry would have enough vision to provide a mechanism for people to be able to download songs legally and pay $1 each, most people would be happy to do so.

Why don't they? Because they don't want to cut out the retailers, true. But mostly it's because they want to keep forcing people to buy the whole album when all they want is a single cut.

The industry is so blind on this it's ridiculous. It has no idea what an explosion in music buying would be generated if it permitted the deal it has made--grudgingly--with Apple to be available generally on the web. In particular, people would love downloading older songs that are generally unavailable in stores, thus generating a whole new source of revenues for the industry.

But these guys in this biz are dinosaurs.

[imax2268]

23. chalk another one...

for corporate greed...!

[The_Casual_Observer]

24. Hope they send it to them in pennies freight collect

This kind of thing isn't new,it's just like when the IRS plants little horror stories before the 15th to scare people. Shame on the press for falling for this.

What kind of shithead judge would do this? He should have fined the RIAA for wasting his time.

I never buy CD's in the main stream, only Indie stuff on the net anyway, so they don't get a nickle from me, and probably never will again.

[RapidCreek]

26. Hmmm never downloaded songs before

But I think I'll start now....I remember the Warner Electra Arista shows I used to work in Chicago. Never in my life have a seen a more vacouse venal pile of maggots in one place. Most with absolutely 0 talent beyond the highly polished skill of fucking their fellow human beings...particularily artists. You could see the fuckers comming from a mile away....jeans, no sox, gucci loafers, rolex watches, and raw silk jackets....and of course the signature greasy pony tail.

RC

[brokensymmetry]

27. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse -

along comes the RIAA with the most outrageous behavior I've seen in awhile. Enron and Worldcom were bad, yes, but there's something about beating up on a 12 year old child and her single mother that makes me sick.

I, for one, will not buy another new CD from these vermin - ever.

[lumpy]

28. Putting the blame on kids for their 'piracy'.

From Cary Sherman pres. of Recording Industry Ass.of America :
" We think it's a very good thing for parents to be aware of what their 14 year old kids are doing in their rooms".

[Gman]

29. BULLSHIT!

The mother should have NEVER caved to this. She was probably scared to death.

They would NEVER have taken the 12 year old to court. The judge would have laughed them out of court.

MF's.

[lumpy]

30. That's right, Gman

n/t

[ikojo]

34. Working my way to 500 posts...I have a question about music

How many times are we, the American people, supposed to buy the same album or song by an artist?

Consider this: Someone born in 1960 who got into Rock n Roll at age 12 and bought a Beatles album has probably bought the same album in the following formats:
-album
-8 track to play in his parent's car (possibly much to their dismay)
-cassette to play in his first car
-CD to play on his CD player

That is the same album purchased FOUR times. I see ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong with downloading songs especially if you already own it on vinyl or any other medium. Not everyone possesses the technology nor knowhow to transfer vinyl to a computer hard drive.

When I was growing up we would sit by the radio just waiting for a fave song to come on. The play/record buttons would be at the ready and as soon as the DJ stopped blathering we would record the song.

When dual cassette players became affordable we would copy tapes just as we recorded CDs onto cassette tapes when CDs first came out and were prohibitively expensive for everyone to buy a copy of the CD.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

35. Check this out and give the RIAA the finger

http://irate.sourceforge.net
:nuke: the bastards!

[Eat_The_Rich]

38. Tom Petty has a great song...

...about the current state of the record industry on his album "The Last DJ". The song is called Joe and it goes like this:

My name's Joe I'm the CEO
I'm the man makes the big wheels roll
I'm the hand on the great lightswitch
You get to be famous, I get to be rich

Give me a kid with a good lookin face
Give me a kid can remeber his place
Some hungry, poor, son of a bitch
You get to be famous, I get to be rich

So give me a girl, there always the best
You put 'em on stage and you have 'em undress
Some angel whore who can learn a guitar lick
Hey, now that's what I call music

Well they come lookin for money when their public gets bored
But we'll fight 'em with lawyers they can never afford
Yea I'll make her look like a spoiled little bitch
She gets to be famous, I get to be rich


Well burned out Johnny thinks are books are shifty
What goods that alki to me when he's 50
Well we could move catalog if he'd only die quicker
Send my regards to the gig and a case of good liquor
He gets to be famous, I get to be rich

You get the idea!

[qb]

39. I would never promote doing anything illegal, but this guy I know

used to check out CDs from the library and copy them. Isn't that an interesting story?

[veganwitch]

40. http://www.boycott-riaa.com/

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/

thought you folks might want to see this.