Paragon Forums

[TonyV]

Crap, this isn't related City of Heroes, except maybe in the sense that these people are villains. Please, feel free to totally skip this message, and I admit that it probably doesn't belong here, and I'm only posting it because it's a matter of great importance only to me personally.

For those of you who don't know what the RIAA is, it is an organization of the major record companies, the big boys in the industry that pretty much owns every song you might hear on the radio. In a nutshell, for lack of a better word, it is the music cartel. You might have heard that lately, they've taken to going after mp3 file sharers using such programs as Kazaa, eDonkey, BitTorrent, etc.

All that's fine and good, but what they don't tell you is that they don't always go after the right people. Their process is flawed to the point where they've gone after dead people, little old ladies, people who don't even own computers, even people who have been proven to not be guilty of what they're suing them for. Their goal isn't to stop piracy, that's not going to happen. Their goal is to intimidate the people they're suing in to forking over thousands of dollars, whether they're innocent or not.

Today, the RIAA reached a new low. Today, they filed a lawsuit against Ray Beckerman. "Who's Ray Beckerman," you ask? He's a lawyer and vocal defender against the RIAA's intimidation tactics of sue everyone and let god sort 'em out. He's won several very important victories against the RIAA and successfully defended many clients against their ham-fisted legal threats. This lawsuit is basically the RIAA trying to avoid paying court-ordered attorney's fees that Ray racked up in defending one of his clients.

The RIAA is claiming that he is a "vexatious litigator." In other words, if you don't want to bother winning your cases on merit, sue the lawyers who are fighting you. The purpose is clear: to have a chilling effect not only on those who would fight back against these cases, but also on the lawyers who might have the audacity to defend them!

In response, today, I've donated several hundred dollars to both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and to Ray Beckerman via his industry watch blog, Recording Industry vs. The People. I'm not going to beg you to do the same, that's completely up to you.

However, if you've made it this far in the post, I do ask to take a few minutes to read the blog. Keep up with what's going on. Help spread the word about what these companies are doing. Bear it in mind next time you buy a music CD from a non-independent label. Eventually, thanks to people like Ray Beckerman informing the public of what's going on, they'll have to come around.

Sorry for the diversion, carry on.

[eabrace]

Yeah, that's the RIAA for ya.

Ironically, the RIAA isn't suing the Republican party for using Heart's "Barracuda" without permission - and Ann and Nancy Wilson were really offended by its use.
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@B Samson
- "I ran out of character slots, so now I'm a contact."

[sleepykitty]

@.@ RIAA? crooks? you realize your insulting the scum of the earth by lowering them to the lvls of the RIAA.

>_> seriously.. they started this whole thing claiming looses from ppl downloading music based not on any realistic sales figure, but that ppl would buy every last single thing they download then delete in disgust.

<_< if you start at a lvl where your doing the equivalent of insurgence fraud (reporting things damaged well beyond that of what was just to get more money) to start out with... this should be no surprise to anyone, as they obviously needed somewhere to go in order to sink lower. Heck, just look at the junk laws they lobbied into effect.

[catwhoorg]

Suffice to say I am not a fan at all of the RIAA.
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@Catwhoorg, @Mr Falkland Islands

[sleepykitty]

is anyone?

[GuyPerfect]

In addition to being full of his trademark humor, the production quality of this particular song by Weird Al is a lot better than most. As a bonus, it pertains to this discussion!

Don't Download This Song (Free, legal download)