[folklore]

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I'm sure police wouldn't roam the sidewalks arresting random pedestrians. The RIAA should not relentlessly pursue innocent individuals. If everyone it pursued were guilty, there would be much less backlash. This notion that innocent people shouldn't be willing to defend themselves is a perversion of justice. I'd want blood if someone went after my daughter impersonating her grandmother too.

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I should have been more clear. I do not think that the particular tactics alleged here are good (i.e., impersonating the child's grandmother). My guess is that such tactics were cooked up in a sleazy private investigator's office, not the RIAA boardroom. My comments were more pointed toward the general strategy of suing individual users that the RIAA is pursuing.
Every time a news story about the RIAA hits, folks seem up in arms about the RIAA trying to recoup some of the cost of casual piracy and provide some deterrent to using P2P to steal. I don't see what the problem with the overall strategy is.

[KBCraig]

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This is almost like placing the entire police department of a giving city in pursue jaywalkers.

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One jaywalker isn't that much of a problem. But what if every street were clogged with jaywalkers, preventing regular vehicular traffic, I'm sure the police would reallocate resources to the interagency anti-jaywalking task force.

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And if that task force operated like RIAA did in the Anderson case, they'd be charging people with jaywalking when they were just standing on the sidewalk -- not even crossing the street, much less crossing illegally.

[hautster]

Jaywalking could get you killed. The RIAA would just like you to think pirating music could get you killed.
I am very much against piracy, but the RIAA is draconian in its measures. Kudos to a citizen standing up for her rights!

[jmincey]

The RIAA is despicable. It doesn't live by the value that theft is wrong; it lives by the value that theft from the RIAA is wrong. The RIAA has no shame.
In the pursuit of its aims, the RIAA clearly will not be constrained by anything remotely resembling ethics or decency.

[Axl]

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Jaywalking could get you killed. The RIAA would just like you to think pirating music could get you killed.
I am very much against piracy, but the RIAA is draconian in its measures. Kudos to a citizen standing up for her rights!

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He he - the death sentence should be mandatory for pirating. Or maybe if that is too draconian, being suspected of pirating three times should mean you are down and out forever. Gotta love those laws that really keep the streets safe from undesirables (pirates and such). But yeah, the jaywalking parallel doesn't really work. I mean, what is so damn wrong about crossing the street, anyway? If it's such a bad thing there is a simple solution - create pedestrian crossings every, say, 50 yards (like making legal copies of music readily available and cheaply and thus discourage bad behavior/habits). And in the name of equity for jaywalkers, sue the crap out of any car driver that don't give way to pedestrians crossing.

[Kurtster]

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I haven't yet heard a good argument for not suing music thieves. Sure, sure, you can say that the RIAA is suing its own customers - but try extending that logic to not prosecuting shoplifters. It just doesn't hold up.

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There's a fundamental problem with the question here because the RIAA classifies legitimate music buyers as thieves. Music is not a consumable like a donut you can "steal" by shoplifting and is gone once you eat it.
If I bought a CD and forgot to put it on my iPod and I want to use a file sharing service to download it from someone else while I'm away from home, I'm no criminal. I PAID for that music. I'm not going to pay for it over and over and over again simply for their greed. Before the DMCA opened the floodgates to trampling our "fair use" rights as consumers, these kinds of lawsuits were laughable.
If you loan a friend music the RIAA considers you a thief, "fair use" be damned. Even if your friend likes the music and subsequently buys the music you loaned them, the RIAA thinks you belong in prison. Unless you're a friend of the President and get your sentence commuted, you could spend time in the cooler or go bankrupt from legal fees and fines, or both.
The average citizen has little protection against this kind of prosecution. This woman got very lucky to have someone sympathetic to her case express that and leave the RIAA vulnerable. Most people won't be that lucky.

[Grapho]

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Every time a news story about the RIAA hits, folks seem up in arms about the RIAA trying to recoup some of the cost of casual piracy and provide some deterrent to using P2P to steal. I don't see what the problem with the overall strategy is.

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If they stick to that strategy, you are right, they are not doing anything wrong. The problem here is that they are not simply doing this. This article provides some insight to the lengths that they are willing to go to instill fear. Even going overboard like in this case. The problem is not so much in how the RIAA went about this, but more so in the lack of action from institutions like the FBI in pursuing this kind of illegal activity. It is simply not a priority, and should it be? When you have limited resources you have to allocate them according to the importance that they are deemed to have. I know of lots of people with thousands of acquired tacks that have collected them illegally. My point is that this kind of crime is simply not severely frowned upon by society, their for this relentless pursue only seems like over reaching my the RIAA regardless of how entitled they are to take such actions.

[folklore]

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But yeah, the jaywalking parallel doesn't really work. I mean, what is so damn wrong about crossing the street, anyway? If it's such a bad thing there is a simple solution - create pedestrian crossings every, say, 50 yards (like making legal copies of music readily available and cheaply and thus discourage bad behavior/habits).

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Jaywalking is dangerous for the pedestrian and for vehicular traffic. Too much jaywalking, and vehicular traffic can't flow through the street properly, causing horrific traffic jams that can effectively shut down an area. That, in turn, hurts business and just about anything else that occurs down that street. A crossing every few yards basically legalizes jaywalking, whereas pedestrian crossings integrated with street intersections are a good compromise of the relative freedom of movement of both pedestrians and vehicular traffic.
So yes, jaywalking en masse can be very, very bad for a whole lot of reasons. Most of those reasons do not apply to the individual jaywalker. He's just one guy crossing the street. As you say, where's the harm in that? One person, little harm. Large numbers of people, lots o' harm.
And that's the parallel to casual piracy. One 12 year old downloading the latest hit song from Rihanna? Little harm to the record industry. A few thousand or a few million people downloading songs for free? That's a problem. A big one.

[folklore]

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There's a fundamental problem with the question here because the RIAA classifies legitimate music buyers as thieves. Music is not a consumable like a donut you can "steal" by shoplifting and is gone once you eat it.

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You've hit upon the core of the issue.
The fundamental problem is that people don't view intellectual property theft as stealing. Outside the bounds of fair use, using copyrighted work without permission is stealing. Period. It doesn't matter if you can't eat it.

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If I bought a CD and forgot to put it on my iPod and I want to use a file sharing service to download it from someone else while I'm away from home, I'm no criminal. I PAID for that music. I'm not going to pay for it over and over and over again simply for their greed. Before the DMCA opened the floodgates to trampling our "fair use" rights as consumers, these kinds of lawsuits were laughable.

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I'm sure that's what every user of Napster was doing. Okay, that was a cheap shot, but you get the point. Fair use of P2P is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to copyrighted material.

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If you loan a friend music the RIAA considers you a thief, "fair use" be damned.

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That depends on what you mean by "loan." Let's take the example of a book. I can loan a book from my personal library to a friend, and no theft occurs. If he photocopies the book, gives me back my copy, and keeps his photocopy of the entire book, then that is theft. Same with a CD. You can loan a CD to a friend, but if the friend copies it and keeps the copy, the friend is a thief. And you're an accessory to theft.
Why is this hard for some people to understand?

[heavyboots]

And the truly sad thing is that RIAA put themselves in this situation. Prices for CDs got bumped hugely initially due to "manufacturing costs" and never went down after it began to cost them $0.10 to make a CD. To this day about 80% of all CDs out there are hugely overpriced, including digital downloads. I probably bought over 30 DVDs last year. Why? Because they're between $5 and $10 at Costco. Stroll around to the CD side and everything there is over $10--and not for a movie with extras, but just for 8-12 album tracks!
Admittedly I'm buying older movies, but CDs should never have been priced over $7, imho and older CDs should never be over $5. Then it's much more of an impulse buy and it's in line with the kind of cost I pay for movies. As for iTunes Store, why would I pay for a digital download that doesn't come with any cover art or liner notes, must be backed up in order to avoid buying it again and either comes digitally hamstrung or watermarked?
Anyway, just my rant, but good lord do I wish the RIAA could actually hear what its customer base is demanding rather than dictating to them that "You'll like what we're selling or else!" /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[tazzben]

What I really don't like about the RIAAs approach is the lack of selectivity. For the record I have never stolen or "borrowed" anything and I have a huge collection; well over 2000 CDs. I am, a good customer. But the RIAA treats me and everyone else with the same contempt as with legitimate pirates. Because they have a piracy problem, WE get DRM. Because they have a piracy problem, we get CDs with root kits. And as this case shows, they don't even go after the legitimate pirates. They were shown multiple times that she was not guilty; and yet they decided that continue the case. Amazingly, even if she was guilty, it wasn't like they were going after a piracy kingpin.
The RIAA's approach seems to me a bit like when you were in high-school gym, and one kid was chewing gum, so the teacher gave the entire class detention. I understand their are pirates, but I don't understand why they think its ok to punish everyone else as well.

[np2]

Although or because I am 57 years of age, I clearly remember the days music was worth per se and not because it belongs to Capitol or whoever. I treasure thousands of LPs and digital music has only added do the ease of use, not the quality of the experience. In fact, quality is denied, as far as legitimately downloaded music is concerned... The great trick is to pay again for a lower sound quality version of the music you once purchased. I have done it already with CDs that came to replace worn-out LPs and now I am supposed to do the same for 128 kbps versions. They even tried to make CD-ripping illegal (Sony) or am I wrong and it IS illegal? And a few years later, I will be asked to pay again for 320 kbps or something like that. Apple is showing the way with the iTunes-EMI deal and we are all supposed to applaud. I do not stand for piracy but I also do not wonder why so many people react by illegally downloading.

[scotts13]

I've pretty much opted out of buying new music; I'm off the sales chart. Back in the day, I'd go to the record store each payday and get one or two vinyl albums. I got quality music, large, impressive cover art and readable liner notes.
These days we pay more (even adjusting for inflation) and get none of that. Of course it may just be me, but what current music that isn't vulgar criminal trash, is formulaic pabulum best suited to use as annoying ring-tones.
For a few years I bought no music. When the PtP services started up, I had a way to preview music, replacing the old ability to preview an LP in the store. What I liked, I sought out on CD; what I didn't, I erased.
With the rise of DRM and the RIAA lawsuits, I now keep a list of music I want, and wait for it to appear on the USED shelf at the local record store. I WILL NOT BUY from these thugs, and WILL NOT PAY their prices. But neither do I pirate music.
The funny thing is, I DO follow my old pattern and buy one or two DVD's each payday. When the MPAA follows the RIAA's tactics, that will stop, too.

[TeaEarleGreyHot]

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Prices for CDs got bumped hugely initially due to "manufacturing costs" and never went down after it began to cost them $0.10 to make a CD.

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At the risk of being stomped by your heavy boots, I'll point out that the value of a recording is unrelated to the cost of the storage medium. That it costs a penny to manufacture is irrelevant. The "right" price is the one which buyer and seller agree upon, to transact a sale. Period. Don't like the price? Don't buy. And don't steal.
Or do you REALLY mean that all books, stories, poems, and Constitutions are ONLY worth the paper they're written on?