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Thread: Join RIAA Boycott

  1. #76
    Titanium Member efc's Avatar
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    More news from the boys with the supenas. Lets show those college punks a thing or two.

    I still say, "Boycott, boycott, boycott".
    ***************

    Record industry sues U.S. file-sharers
    Wed April 28, 2004 02:37 PM ET

    LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A U.S. music industry group says it has sued 477 more people for online copyright infringement as part of its effort to stop music piracy, blamed for a prolonged sales downturn. Since January, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), employing the "John Doe" litigation method, has sued more than 2,000 people.

    The RIAA is using this method because the names of the 477 people accused of illegally distributing copyrighted sound recordings on peer-to-peer services were not yet known, said Jonathan Lamy, spokesman for RIAA.

    The trade group has identified suspected song-swappers by Internet addresses only since an appeals court in December sided with Verizon Communications by ruling that Internet Service Providers did not have to respond to subpoenas, filed as a prelude to lawsuits, requesting names of users.

    As in previous suits, the RIAA plans to discover swappers' names and locations through court-issued subpoenas, Lamy said.

    Wednesday's action was directed at file sharers using commercial ISPs as well as 69 people at 14 universities, including Brown, Emory and Princeton.

    In March, RIAA suits targeted 89 people using college networks.

    "It remains as important as ever that we continue to work with the university community in a way that is respectful of the law as well as university values," said Cary Sherman, the RIAA's president.

    The RIAA represents the world's big record labels like Warner Music, Bertelsmann AG's BMG, EMI Group Plc, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music and Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group.

    The RIAA has filed 2,454 lawsuits since September, including suits filed before the "John Doe" method became mandatory. It has settled about 437 cases for about $3,000 each (1,700 pounds).
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  2. #77
    Succeded in braking Windo TZ Veteran Dehcbad25's Avatar
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    Is there a new list?

  3. #78
    Titanium Member efc's Avatar
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    Department of Law
    120 Broadway
    New York, NY 10271
    Department of Law
    The State Capitol
    Albany, NY 12224
    For More Information:
    212-416-8060
    For Immediate Release
    May 4, 2004

    $50 MILLION IN ROYALTIES RETURNS TO ARTISTS

    Deal With Record Industry Sets New Procedures for Recovery of Unclaimed Asset


    State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced a deal with the nation’s top recording companies that returns nearly $50 million in unclaimed royalties to thousands of performers. The agreement comes after a two-year investigation by Spitzer’s office found that many artists and writers were not being paid royalties because record companies had failed to maintain contact with the performers and had stopped making required payments. This problem affected both star entertainers with numerous hit recordings and obscure musicians who may have had only one recording.

    "As a result of this agreement, new procedures will be adopted to ensure that the artists and their descendants will receive the compensation to which they are entitled," Spitzer said.

    Under the deal, the recording companies have agreed to do the following:

    • List the names of artists and writers who are owed royalty payments on company websites;
    • Post advertisements in leading music industry publications explaining procedures for unclaimed royalties;
    • Work with music industry groups and unions to locate artists who are owed royalty payments; and
    • Share artists’ contact information with other record companies.

    In addition, each company has agreed to have the heads of the royalty, accounting and legal departments meet regularly to review the status of royalty accounts and take steps to improve royalty payment procedures.

    The companies have also agreed to comply with New York State’s Abandoned Property Law, which requires that if an artist or his or her family cannot be found, unclaimed royalties be "escheated" or turned over to the state. The state then holds these monies until a claim is made.

    The participating companies include: SONY Music Entertainment; Sony ATV Music Publishing; Warner Music Group; UMG Recordings; Universal Music; EMI Music Publishing; EMI Music North America; BMG Songs; Careers-BMG Music Publishing; BMG Music and the Harry Fox Agency.


    Spitzer thanked the recording companies for their cooperation in resolving the matter. He noted that the companies could have fought the initiative, which actually goes beyond what the law requires. Instead, the companies worked with the Attorney General’s office to resolve the matter in a way that will help artists and their descendants.

    Spitzer also thanked music industry attorney Bob Donnelly, who originally brought the matter to the attention of his office and then helped identify ways to resolve it.

    Prominent artists who were owed royalty payments included: David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Harry Belafonte, Liza Minnelli, Dave Matthews, Sean Combs and Gloria Estefan.

    Spitzer noted that while royalty disputes are common in the entertainment industry, this particular problem did not involve disagreement over the terms of the recording contract or the amount of the royalty payment. Instead, it was a matter of the record companies not maintaining accurate contact information to mail royalty payments. Pursuant to the agreement, the companies will make a greater effort to locate and stay in touch with artists who are owed payments.

    Spitzer said the recording companies had improved their efforts to find missing artists since the investigation began two years ago and that, collectively, the companies had already returned more than $25 million to those who were owed funds. An additional $25 million is expected to be distributed as part of the settlement.

    The matter was handled by Assistant Attorneys General Gary R. Connor, Harriet B. Rosen, Patricia Cheng and Joseph Wilson of the Attorney General’s Investment Protection Bureau, under the direction of Acting Deputy Attorney General Terryl Brown Clemons.
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  4. #79
    Super Moderator Super Moderator Big Booger's Avatar
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    Are they paying interest on these payments? As it sounds like to me they may be a little late in getting the payments to the artists...

    Another reason to loathe the RIAA...

  5. #80
    Titanium Member efc's Avatar
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    And they wonder why sales are down.

    *********************
    Price hike at Apple iTunes


    Published Friday 7th May 2004 11:26 GMT in The Register

    The world's five biggest music labels have successfully forced Apple to increase the prices it charges for songs on the online iTunes Music Store.

    As we reported back in April, the major labels have been engaged in negotiations with the Mac maker in a bid to persuade it to put up prices.

    According to a New York Post report today, citing sources close to the talks, all five have succeeded.

    The sources claim Apple has now signed agreements with EMI, Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), Sony, Universal and Warner that will see prices on some songs rise from 99c to $1.25, an increase of over 26 per cent.

    Still, that's better than the $2.99 price point some labels had been pushing Apple to introduce.

    Album prices are going up to. Many are likely to continue to be offered for $9.99, but some are appearing in the ITMS for $16.99, a rise of 70 per cent.

    As one music industry source told The Register: "That will really ingratiate the public and discourage piracy, won't it?"

    Apple does appear to have had it way in other areas, however. The NYP's sources reckon the company did not agree to label demands that some artists' songs only be sold in album batches and not as individual tracks.

    In the past, some acts, most notably Radiohead and Metallica, have said they will not allow their songs to be offered individually. But that clearly runs against what many music consumers want: the ability to pick and choose the songs they want and not be stuck with all or nothing album offers. The old days of buying an entire album for one song are hopefully behind us.

    We'd say it's about time the music industry started thinking that way too. There will always remain a place for albums - CDs too - but artists and labels have to start thinking 'outside the disc' if they're to reach a new generation of consumers now empowered to buy exactly what they want.

    Other services may face similar demands, but there does seem to be a particular focus on Apple. Having established the market for legal downloads, Apple now seems to be facing a music industry paranoid about the power that success might bring the Mac maker. ®
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  6. #81
    Titanium Member efc's Avatar
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    Apple Computer dismissed rumors Friday of rising single-song prices at its iTunes online music store, saying that it planned to maintain the price tag of 99 cents per song.

    Reiterating comments made by Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs last week, an Apple spokeswoman said the company is maintaining its single price tag for individual songs. The comment came in response to an article in the New York Post reporting the likelihood of higher prices as a result of new contracts with record labels. As earlier reported, some full-album prices have already begun to climb on the service.

    "These rumors aren't true," Apple spokeswoman Natalie Sequeira said. "We have multiyear agreements with the labels and our prices remain 99 cents a track."

    Apple's commitment to the 99 cent retail price point--which is shared by other music services such as Musicmatch--comes in spite of wholesale prices for music that are already beginning to fluctuate, according to record labels and other download services.

    The big music labels are eager to move to a system where they can price prerelease or top singles differently than back-catalog tracks. This variable pricing has long existed in the offline world, and will help them make more money from the most popular music, while increasing demand for older tunes through lower prices, they say.

    "The problem is, the systems that everyone built to get things going were built to get things going," said one top record executive in a recent interview. "The easiest way to do that was to have fixed pricing. (But the services) have been expanding those systems so they can vary pricing."

    Some labels have already begun passing on these variable wholesale prices to the online services, executives have said. This has appeared in occasional rising album costs, but like Apple, none of the download stores has yet passed along the higher wholesale costs of singles to their customers.

    Executives at other music services have said that the shifting wholesale costs would likely find the download stores beginning to experiment with both higher and lower prices over the next year. Apple, which retains a majority market share, will likely influence the decisions at services with smaller audiences.
    Last edited by efc; May 8th, 2004 at 05:03 AM.
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  7. #82
    Super Moderator Super Moderator Big Booger's Avatar
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    With sales up, the RIAA and their cronies think they can just gouge and gouge to get every last penny that they can muster...

    CEO speaking to the board:

    "This year profit margins were up by 50 billion, but that is not good enough. I want to make it to Forbes' top 20. I say we raise prices and produce more crap music. It should sell well to all the brainless teenagers across the globe"


  8. #83
    Succeded in braking Windo TZ Veteran Dehcbad25's Avatar
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    Great. I was thinking to apply for that service. Now I won't

  9. #84
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    I'm in.

  10. #85
    Titanium Member efc's Avatar
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    On May 25 RIAA sued another 493 downloaders. Sales are up even thought the industry is treating customers like dirt. Makes me ill.
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  11. #86
    Titanium Member efc's Avatar
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    Single mom overwhelmed by recording industry suit


    BY LESLIE BROOKS SUZUKAMO

    Pioneer Press

    Tammy Lafky has a computer at home but said she doesn't use it. "I don't know how," the 41-year-old woman said, somewhat sheepishly.

    But her 15-year-old daughter, Cassandra, does. And what Cassandra may have done, like millions of other teenagers and adults around the world, landed Lafky in legal hot water this week that could cost her thousands of dollars.

    Lafky, a sugar mill worker and single mother in Bird Island, a farming community 90 miles west of St. Paul, became the first Minnesotan sued by name by the recording industry this week for allegedly downloading copyrighted music illegally.

    The lawsuit has stunned Lafky, who earns $12 an hour and faces penalties that top $500,000. She says she can't even afford an offer by the record companies to settle the case for $4,000.

    The ongoing music downloading war is being fought on one side by a $12 billion music industry that says it is steadily losing sales to online file sharing. On the other side, untold millions of people — many of them too young to drive — who have been downloading free music off file-sharing sites with odd names like Kazaa and Grokster and who are accusing the music industry of price gouging and strong-arm tactics.

    Lafky says she doesn't download free music. Her daughter did last year when she was 14, but neither of them knew it was illegal because all of Cassandra's friends at school were doing it.

    "She says she can't believe she's the only one being sued," Lafky said. "She told me, 'I can't be the only one. Everybody else does it.' "

    A record company attorney from Los Angeles contacted Lafky about a week ago, telling Lafky she could owe up to $540,000, but the companies would settle for $4,000.

    "I told her I don't have the money," Lafky said. "She told me to go talk to a lawyer and I told her I don't have no money to talk to a lawyer."

    Lafky said she clears $21,000 a year from her job and gets no child support.

    The music industry isn't moved. It has sued nearly 3,000 people nationwide since September and settled with 486 of them for an average of $3,000 apiece, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major and minor labels that produce 90 percent of the recorded music in the United States.

    "Our goal in these cases and in this program (of lawsuits) that we're trying to achieve is to deliver the message that it's illegal and wrong," said Stanley Pierre-Louis, senior vice president for legal affairs for the RIAA.

    Since the music industry began its lawsuit campaign, awareness of the illegality of downloading copyrighted music has increased several-fold this year, Pierre-Louis said.

    "And we're trying to create a level playing field for legal online (music) services," he added.

    These services sell music for under a dollar a song, and some have become well known, like Apple Computer's iPod service, which advertises heavily on TV. Others are just getting off the ground.

    Pierre-Louis said the RIAA does not comment on individual cases like Lafky's, but he said the music industry typically finds its targets by logging onto the same file-sharing services that the file-sharers do. Its agents then comb the play lists for names of songs that are copyrighted and that they believe are being illegally shared.

    The record companies follow the songs when they're downloaded onto computers, and they also note how many copyrighted songs are stored on that computer's hard drive memory, because those songs are often "uploaded" or shared with others through the file-sharing service.

    Since January, the industry has filed 2,947 lawsuits, most against "John Does," until the record companies went to court to get names of the downloaders from their Internet service providers. Last month, the music industry filed 477 lawsuits nationwide, including two "John Doe" lawsuits against users at the University of Minnesota whose identities have not been revealed.

    The industry is particularly keen on stopping people who keep their computers open on the Internet for others to share. On Lafky's computer, for instance, record companies like Universal Music Group, Sony and Warner Bros. found songs by groups they publish like Bloodhound Gang, Savage Garden and Linkin Park. Also found were songs by artists Michelle Branch, MC Hammer and country stars Shania Twain and Neal McCoy, which not only were downloaded but also available to others to upload, according to the lawsuit.

    Federal copyright laws allow for penalties that range from $750 per infringement or song up to $30,000 per infringement, Pierre-Louis said.

    If a defendant is found to have committed a violation "in a willful manner," he or she can be fined $150,000 per song, he said.

    The record companies are willing to negotiate cases individually if someone says they cannot afford the penalties. So far, no case has gone to trial, the RIAA said.

    Pierre-Louis said the RIAA isn't afraid of a consumer backlash. "We're facing a daunting challenge and we have to face it head-on," he said.

    Tammy Lafky is facing her own challenge. She said she doesn't know what she'll do. "I told her," she said, referring to the record company lawyer, "if I had the money I would give it to you, but I don't have it."
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  12. #87
    Titanium Member efc's Avatar
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    Beastie Boys' album installs DRM code

    http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/index.php?p=2099


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  13. #88
    Super Moderator Super Moderator Big Booger's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by efc
    Beastie Boys' album installs DRM code

    http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/index.php?p=2099


    Just use linux. I don't think it will be installing Mac and WIndows Code on a Debian install... hehehehe

    Honestly it's crap like this that makes users want to go out and intentionally download the Mp3s or entire albums...

  14. #89
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    add me, i haven't purchased a cd in 3 years and still counting.

  15. #90
    Titanium Member efc's Avatar
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    Associated Press
    Hundreds More Sued Over Music File Swaps
    06.22.2004, 03:51 PM

    The music industry filed copyright infringement lawsuits against 482 computer users Tuesday, the latest round of litigation by recording companies against suspected online music file-swappers.

    The cases were filed against 213 people in St. Louis, 206 in Washington D.C., 55 in Denver and six in New Jersey, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the Washington-based trade group that represents the major recording companies.

    As in previous complaints brought by the industry this year, the lawsuits were filed against unnamed "John Doe" defendants, identified only by their computers' Internet protocol addresses.

    The tactic is used when the defendants' identities are not known because it allows plaintiffs to ask the court to subpoena Internet access providers to reveal the names of their customers.

    "Illegal downloading continues to cause enormous harm to the entire music community," said Steven Marks, the RIAA's general counsel. "We must stay on the path of education, enforcement, and offering great legal services."

    In all, a total of 3,429 people have been sued by the recording industry since its legal campaign against individual computer users began in September. At least 600 of those cases were eventually settled for roughly $3,000 each. None of the cases has yet gone to trial.

    The recording industry blames lagging music sales in recent years on the rise of online music piracy.

    While some surveys have shown the number of people engaging in file-sharing has declined since the RIAA began its legal assault, other data shows millions continue to share music, movies and software online.
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