The RIAA is like the mafia
Says Dow Jones writer
A COMMENTATOR at Dow Jones MarketWatch yesterday concurred with what we've been suggesting for a while - that the RIAA is behaving like the mafia.
Theresa Poletti's March 20 column begins: "As any fan of The Sopranos knows, the mob often takes out its enemies in a gruesome fashion as a way to warn others to fall in line. The same can be said of the campaign over the past four years instigated by the dreaded Recording Industry Association of America...."
She relates the RIAA's practice of sending college students extortionate letters demanding payments of thousands of dollars and threatening federal lawsuits. She writes:
"I don't condone [copyright infringement], but the RIAA's tactics are nearly as bad as the actions of mobsters, real or fictional. The analogy comes up easily and frequently in any discussion of the RIAA's maneuvers."
The column quotes Robert Talbot, who is a law professor at the University of San Francisco, as saying, "My students were saying it's extortion."
He teaches an Internet and intellectual property clinic. Many of his law students volunteer to assist people who get threatening letters from the RIAA.
Talbot said, "The letters are kind of scary. These are usually kids who are 17 or 18 years old, they don't have any money and they are scared. Students are trying to negotiate, but I don't have much hope. They don't want to negotiate. It's pay up or we go into federal court."
Poletti doesn't believe it's quite fair that the RIAA should be placing students' educations at risk, lashing out at them to make up for its own lack of vision in failing to adjust its obsolete business model to the realities of new technology.
She mentions that the RIAA won a big victory last October when a jury found Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two, liable for copyright infringement and ordered her to pay the sum of $222,000 as damages for 24 songs.
The column also summarises the ordeal of Tanya Andersen. The disabled single mother of a young daughter, Andersen was unjustly accused by the RIAA in a federal lawsuit and harrassed for years by the RIAA's minions.
The RIAA's lawsuit against Andersen was eventually dismissed and the RIAA was found liable to pay her attorney fees, in an amount yet to be determined.
A week ago, Andersen filed an amended complaint in her countersuit against the RIAA and its member companies, unlicensed private investigators Media Sentry and settlement collections agency. Her lawsuit requests class action status on behalf of others who have been similarly victimised by the RIAA's campaign of threats and intimidation.
As Poletti notes, Andersen's lawsuit alleges that the RIAA and its associates violated the US federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) statutes. Those laws were passed in order to prosecute the US mafia.
There's more below, but it's good to see that someone in the mainstream media is at last beginning to "get it" about the RIAA and its goons. µ
L'Inq
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Comments
Uh oh, Seinfeld flashback coming on
I don't know when Kramer started writing for the Inq, but the word is in fact 'statutes' not 'statues'.http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/statutes
PH writes: Giggle. Fixed.
Forgiveness vs Vengeance
The symbol of Easter is an egg. Why? Because animals that were first born as an egg get to be born again as their final “self” which means that Easter is about rebirth. But how are humans to be reborn? Certainly not through the “baptism” of touching the fantanale bone area of innocents by [latent of fully manifested paedohillic] “priests” [for only saints, the non-religious variety, and mothers should touch that area or else “genetical acquisitions” will result]. That’s where religion has its knickers in a twist. Especially the one self-proclaimed as “Christian”.Around 2,000 yeas ago, Jesus Christ [or more accurately, Yeshoda Krishna, for he is named after his “father” and his father’s foster mother] potentiated the aspect of forgiveness/resurrection [and Christ is not about the crucifixion but resurrection, crucifixion self-flagellates should find out. The cross alludes to Christ “residing” at the crossing of the optic chiasma within humans, meaning “vision/sight” in all its forms & aspects]. Like all absolutes, forgiveness is hard to manifest for most because having/knowing-about the potential is meaningless without having the power to actually forgive but such is the hypocrisy for most who profess so. And “forgiveness” does not mean just that. It means not having “adulterous eyes/intent” – which means envy, jealousy, covetousness, “bearing false witness” and the whole kaboodle. Especially the one about “one’s fantasy glistening bodies”, the pet actvity of the self-proclaimed “Christian West”. Busoms, buttocks and more. Yummy ! Yes, “it will make you blind”, grandma warned but she’s just an old fogie. “Been there, done that”.
What the xzy has this to do with the RIAA? So, you like to miss the part about greed and coveting others’ property, eh? Those who “manage” commerce and its poodle economics + politics are conveniently blind for they have only one intent and that is perpetual income. Regardless and “The System” will always be on their side for “They know not what they have done”. Afterall, ‘tis the season to be forgiving, eh? This zero-sum ping-pong about rights & wrongs is just to keep the Systemic Wheel spinning. Only those who know themselves, warts & all, will be able to witness whereas great and democratic idiotics & lunatics revel in another round of, “My turn to tell you how great/stupid I am…”
Change can ONLY come from the individual with “purity first” and not from those with “achievement first” and purity spreads through others having the same [latent] purity being firstly, able to witness that purity, and secondly, trying their best to be the same. The “Becoming”. No one breathes for another for you cannot force a horse to drink if it is not thirsty. The “Christian West”’s contemporary mad culture teaches demonising, lack of chastity, greed, spreading of “religion”, excitements, abandonment, achievement, “capitalism”, “communism”, and much more. Through its ogre mass media, this mad culture is driving in-roads into ancient cultures, instilled through centuries of nurturing by real saints [not the religious varieties and such cultures has little to do with race/nationality/religious-beliefs other than being a stability foundation]. The good Indian/Chinese/Eastern-culture is not a dead one but one that is yours but as in the case of those yellow peril, they will come back to haunt you, just like drugs, etc, etc. Hypocrites really don’t care much for their progeny, do they. Why? Because it’s just a zero-sum game, sport.
r.i.a.a. is mafia
it is mafia, because it protects interests only of mafia's boss, - big label investor and top managers. musicians and people punished for nothing.this could go very horribly wrong
"Like the mafia"? - you should ask some real musicians about the cut-throat world of commercial music!This is an important topic because it's potentially going to have an extremely detrimental effect on the internet as a whole, if recent plans revealed by various governments manage to get put into effect.
I don't think it can be stressed quite enough how bad it will be if the likes of P2P is made illegal - these are the sorts of things being suggested to deal with piracy, because of course copying copyrighted files utilises file sharing.
The calls, and in some cases agreements, for ISPs to cut off users internet access if they are caught sharing files, aren't detailing how this is expected to occur. How are the ISPs to monitor traffic to the extent that they know what each user is up to - and how can they be expected to know if a file sharing app is being used illegally or not? - what about distributed computing like folding@home for example? what about grid computing shares? what about projects like Tor that enable users to distribute their extra bandwidth to other users - how are they going to tell that apart from a bit torrent that might be being used for copyright infringement shares?
I know not being paid your dues for your own works distribution is more than a big pain in the ass, but I'm also seeing this issue being hijacked by interests that do not want to see the internet being the free resource that the likes of grid and distributed computing allows.
Me! Me!
I'm a real musician in the cut troat world of blah blah. It s**ks, I want money.Youse guys
Youse wiseguys at the Inq can expect a visit from my cousin Tony the Terrible. Tony will teach youse a valuable lesson of "la cosa nostra". We at the RIAA will make youse an offer you can't refuse...No pity for theives
Hey. I haven't been threatened by the RIAA. Why? Because I don't steal music or films. I don't have any pity for the single mother or the college students or whomever. If they didn't steal or make songs and films available for others to steal then they wouldn't have any problem with the RIAA. It's long past time that we stop sympathizing with the criminal just because we don't like the RIAA's tactics.Please don't pick-on Easter's period
I'm no stickler for rules; heavens! No!And I do believe in leeway and freedom of speech; admiring concise disquisition. But I could interpret some posts by "St. Hippo Crittes" and "sircular" to be Eastern vs. Western, religious and/ or cultural bashing diatribes; irrelevant, vague, far-too-cryptic social commentary, and possible proselytisation; all deserving section__ IMHO. My concern is for the individual. In the least goal of his endeavours, I sincerely hope he gets gratis self-edification (wanker!).
PH you certainly have my permission to spare/censor all/part me from/to others. (article H: terms & conditions?) I'll keep reading no less. Cheers.
Right...
> concurred with what we've been suggesting for a while - that the RIAA is behaving like the mafia.Perhaps you and she should read "Cosa Nostra" by John Dickie then?
Because, comparing them to the Mafia, must be like comparing the dolls on the DolMio adverts to them. Sure, the Dolmio dolls eat spaghetti and say "mamma mia" a lot, but really that's not enough.
That's just saying on TV they are both played as bad Italian stereotypes, you see?
Suing people for shit, is just telling us the RIAA are American, not Mafia.
The mafia didn't send nasty letters. Now you might say "Ah but, look the RIAA goes to court and...." and then it's the court that does the bad stuff...and no, not bad stuff like the Mafia did, not even close...not unless they are being shipped to Cuba....
What next, Scientologists are like the beluga whale?
in several ways they are that
They are like the mafia not just because of threatening letters, but also in that they demand money from the musicans itself to allow their works published... "We will protect you"... Sounds familiar?whats fair...
At the end of the day, anyone who feels theyre getting the shaft tries to instinctively find a fairer alternative.Even itune at a buck a song is a ripoff, i can usually buy the album locally for cheaper than buying a virtual copy, if the album in question is 9.99 and there are 15 songs on it , i wind up paying 5 $ more than getting the real deal, it comes down to greedy abuse by middlemen, and they know their time has come, this is the last dieing struggle before their business model gets replaced.
Theres just too much out there for people to purchase indevidually yet they try and remain deaf to this, with the massive amounts of multimedia out there the only obvious solution is a business model where people would pay lets say 5.99 a month for an all you can eat deal, and payoffs to artist are a direct % of the amount of their material that is downloaded on a monthly bases. By cutting out the middle men who make 90% of the profits, with this setup the artists would still make as much if not more money. Works for cable tv cant see why the hell it couldnt work for music.
besides in the golden day of rock and roll albums and singles were practically given away, because it was advertising for them, and thats what packed their concerts, people would listen to the radio or get a cheep single or lp, and they would goto their shows, which is where the bands made their real cash, then the middlemen started reralizing the cash that could be made from albums and raised the prices while still giving artists practically the same rate that they had when the albums were just a promotional tool. Maybe artists should do that again, view their music as a marketing tool to pack their shows, and not as their primary income, so what if its less money they can work for their $$ just like we all do, instead of sitting on their partying asses collecting royalty checks like fat leaches. And destroying their livelyhood ,and their futures, of their fans, when normal people read of judgements like the above, they feel a sense of disgust at these greedy bastards, and literally wish them bankruptcy, i know i do.
any richer man that feels the need to take a poorer mans money is not worth the air he breaths. Enough with greed already.
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
from 'bob dylan Masters of war
Wrong is now Right?
Ok, yes the music bosses don't pay the musicians what they deserve. But i don't see how this separate matter equates to people being allowed to steal music. Theft is theft period! If you don't pay for it, it is stealing. How do you justify this as the bosses don't keep up with the times, or they charge too much?? I think gas (petrol) is too much, but it does NOT give me the right to steal it, even if the oil companies are making billions i don't think they should be allowed to.So when do we decide when an item cost more than it should, thus allowing us to steal it? Who decides? Does this also mean that your neighbor can come into your house and steal as he thinks you have more then him, unrightfully?
The way to win this is to buy music that is either on CD, online and not copy protected, and to encourage artist to sell music through their website independently, thus simply taking the bosses out of play all together.
Justifying theft is NOT the answer, that i can assure you.
Richard
Indeed...
I don't know which is worse. This narcisistic notepad-masturbation by Hippo Crittes, or the unintelligible schizophrenic crap that von Drashek writes.... Both give me an enornmous urge to beat the snot out of 'em.......Back to the topic though.
Being like the Mafia is one thing for sure, but what puzzles me is that no one is bothered by the monopoly.
Micro$oft gets its fair share of attention for that here at the Inq, but I would like to know what is the name of the *other* organisation which is the RIAA's direct competitor and helps keeping the music/movies prices down?
Word Games
I do not accept the notion that transmitting a signal is 'stealing' or 'piracy'. Labels used to go out of their way to get DJs to play a song on the radio, even knowing that people were out there with their cassette recorders because they knew many listeners would still want to buy the vinyl or CD. That they don't realize P2P is just as good for them is pure head-in-sand stupidity. No, 'sharing' is NOT 'stealing' or 'piracy' but just 'free advertising'. Unless head is pulled out of sand, this particular mafia, the RIAA will simply put itself out of business due to its own unwise actions.self rightious crap
http://consumerist.com/368663/riaa-pockets-filesharing-settlement-money-doesnt-pay-artists-whose-copyrights-were-infringedAll this talk about stealing is incredibly ironic considering all the pain and suffering the riaa has caused with its mafia methods, only to now be getting sued by the very artists its claiming to protect...
why? well it seems that the riaa after legal expenses has nothing for the artists.... and you wonder why people download......
stop following blind, read between the lines.
Mafia & big business
It's not unusal for large corporations to be Mafia controled, take a look at Yahoo! http://endmafia.com