Atomictumor

Things aren’t going well for the RIAA and their tactics of throwing a lawsuit on people accused of downloading music.  Its been working well when the folks accused roll over and pay the few thousand dollar settlements offered, but when they man up and take the case to court, well, its just not working well.

Ars Technica talks about two recent cases, one involving an Oklahoma mother, another involving a cheerleader in California, and both dismissed for lack of proof.  See, the RIAA has so far been getting an easily obtainable IP address of an alleged copyright infringer, getting the name from the ISP distributing the IP address (all easy stuff to do), and dropping the lawsuit down on the person who owns the internet account.

Problem is, theres no way to connect the person who owns the internet account to the person doing the downloading.  In both of these cases, they were able to provide evidence that other people in the house may have done the downlading, the former being an ex-husband who lived at the house, the latter being cheerleaders constantly at the house for lessons.

RIAA dropped the cases like a hot potato when it became apparent that they had no leg to stand on.

Does this mean its OK to fire up Kazaa and download that Paris Hilton song that I know you all want?  Well, maybe not, because its a king hell of a messed up legal situation.  You get sued for uploading, not downloading, so technically, as long as you don’t share what you got, you’re all good.  However, that makes you no friends on the internet. 

You know, I don’t really have a problem with this being illegal.  What I have a problem with is the extent to which these corporations can legally go to ruin your life for an essentially victimless crime.  And yes, it is victimless.  Nobody goes hungry.  In exchange for a poor ass me being able to listen to a little music, a rich ass them maybe doesn’t get another champaign bath. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 10th, 2006 at 8:03 am and is filed under Justice, Fearmongering, Geekery, Whitey Keeping Me Down, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.