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BoingBoing points (via Michael Geist) to a music industry astroturf site that shows overly-happy, oddly attractive, and suspiciously diverse youths getting the maximum pleasure from cross-border DRM. We are urged to inject into our social networks our support and emotional attachment of the denizens of this fake network of non-existent corporate shills. With expected quickness, the commenters unearthed the stock photo the RIAA used.
It oddly reminds me of the “Send ‘em back” site that urged today’s youth to return the mp3s they’ve shared.
Ok, so the headline is misleading. But you might enjoy reading Charlie Nesson’s (et al.) brief [pdf] asking for a vast reduction in the $675,000 penalty Joel Tenenbaum is supposed to pay to the RIAA for downloading and sharing 30 songs. Here’s a taste:
Contrary to Plaintiffs’ assertion that Joel Tenenbaum caused them “billions of dollars†of damages in lost revenue, Pl. Opp. at 28, with respect to the thirty songs which are the subject of this action, Tenenbaum actually caused damages to the plaintiffs of, at most, $21.00. Had he purchased the thirty songs on iTunes he would have paid 99 cents apiece, of which Apple would have passed on 70 cents to the record companies.1 Assuming, contrary to fact, that the record companies have zero costs so that every cent returned to them is profit, the total return would have been $21.00.
Categories: copyright Tagged with: copyleft • copyright • piracy • riaa Date: February 18th, 2010 dw
Wow. This condescending site from the RIAA looks surprisingly like the parody site that I and some friends did in 2004. Amusing.
(I just reposted that second site at hyperorg.com, rather than at its original site.)
Categories: copyright, humor Tagged with: copyleft • copyright • humor • parody • riaa Date: September 19th, 2009 dw
The RIAA has won a ruling that the DMCA‘s provision that forbids backward engineering software to see how it work applies also to musical recordings. The ruling forbids any attempt to figure out the melody, arrangement, or chord progression of any copyrighted song, whether that figuring out is done mentally, at a keyboard, or using software. It also forbids graphical displays based on the music, including the psychedelic visualizations that come with many music players or the tapping of feet to beats embedded in a copyrighted work. An exemption has been made for those with perfect pitch, although they are not allowed to transmit or communicate the internal structures of music that they have mentally decoded.
The RIAA has also announced that it will sue to protect all who claim unique musical contributions to the culture. As a result, Pat Boone now owns the Motown sound, John Lennon owns singing above one’s natural range as a way of expressing emotion, Cat Stevens owns singing below one’s natural range for the same purpose, and Van Morrison has been awarded custody of any two-chord song to which musicians improvise while high enough on marijuana that they think other people are enjoying it.
An RIAA spokesmen expressed delight with the ruling and the new set of protections: “We think we’re now within sight of producing the last two or three original songs, and then the entire culture can call it a day.”
[Tags: satire copyleft copyright dmca riaa ]
Categories: Uncategorized Tagged with: copyleft • copyright • culture • digital culture • dmca • humor • riaa • satire Date: August 30th, 2009 dw
The appellate court has decided, on narrow grounds, that the judge in the Tennenbaum RIAA case was wrong to allow an upcoming hearing to be webast. ZDNet has a helpful article.
[Tags: riaa tennenbaum charles_nesson copyright copyleft ]
Categories: Uncategorized Tagged with: copyleft • copyright • digital rights • riaa • tennenbaum Date: April 17th, 2009 dw
In its response to Charlie Nesson’s argument that one of the hearings in an RIAA suit ought to be webcast, the RIAA lawyer said:
“[The video footage] will be readily subject to editing and manipulation by any reasonably tech-savvy individual. Even without improper modification, statements may be taken out of context, spliced together with other statements and broadcast (sic) rebroadcast as if it were an accurate transcript. Such an outcome can only do damage to Petitioner’s case.”
So, Chris Soghoian is running a contest, asking you to mash up testimony given to the FTC about Digital Rights Management (DRM). The prize: He donates money to EFF. The real prize: The scalding breath of comedy.
[Tags: riaa mashups web2.0 charles_nesson chris_soghoian drm copyright copyleft ftc contest ]
The abstract of a new paper by the pioneering Pam Samuelson and Tara Wheatland:
U.S. copyright law gives successful plaintiffs who promptly registered their works the ability to elect to receive an award of statutory damages, which can be granted in any amount between $750 and $150,000 per infringed work. This provision gives scant guidance about where in that range awards should be made, other than to say that the award should be in amount the court “considers just,” and that the upper end of the spectrum, from $30,000 to $150,000 per infringed work, is reserved for awards against “willful” infringers. Courts have largely failed to develop a jurisprudence to guide decision-making about compensatory statutory damage awards in ordinary infringement cases or about strong deterrent or punitive damage awards in willful infringement cases. As a result, awards of statutory damages are frequently arbitrary, inconsistent, unprincipled, and sometimes grossly excessive.
This Article argues that such awards are not only inconsistent with Congressional intent in establishing the statutory damage regime, but also with principles of due process articulated in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on punitive damage awards. Drawing upon some cases in which statutory damage awards have been consistent with Congressional intent and with the due process jurisprudence, this Article articulates principles upon which a sound jurisprudence for copyright statutory damage awards could be built. Nevertheless, legislative reform of the U.S. statutory damage rules may be desirable.
[Tags: copyright copyleft riaa pam_samuelson tara_wheatland law charles_nesson ]
Categories: Uncategorized Tagged with: copyleft • copyright • digital rights • law • riaa Date: April 10th, 2009 dw
… in the dark, threatening, and one-sided.
Thus, the RIAA is appealing the decision to let a hearing in its suit against a file sharer — Joel Tennenbaum — be webcast.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (did you remember to join?) has filed a brief in support of webcasting the hearing, in which it says:
“The record companies have long maintained that they brought these lawsuits against ordinary users to start a national conversation about peer-to-peer file-sharing,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “What better way is there for the public to learn what the record companies are doing than by seeing for themselves what happens in these lawsuits?”
[Tags: riaa eff tennenbaum nesson download copyright copyleft ]
Categories: misc Tagged with: copyleft • copyright • download • eff • misc • nesson • riaa • tennenbaum Date: January 30th, 2009 dw
The RIAA has announced that it’s not going to sue music downloaders, although it’s holding open the possibility of suing the most egregious offenders.
I like to think it took one look at Charlie Nesson’s case and fled with its short tail between its legs.
This is good news not only for those who have felt the full, brutal force of the RIAA’s whim-driven prosecutions, but because it helps the clear the ground for a longer, more considered redressing of the balance of rights and values.
[Tags: riaa music copyright copyleft charlie_nesson ]
Categories: Uncategorized Tagged with: copyleft • copyright • culture • digital culture • digital rights • music • policy • riaa Date: December 19th, 2008 dw
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