RIAA has to pay $107,951 for court costs in failed suit against disabled single mom

The RIAA has lost its lawsuit against Tanya Andersen, a disabled single mother, and have been ordered to pay her court costs of $107,951. But the good news keeps on coming: Ms Andersen is now countersuing for damages arising from her having to defend the suit.

"Well, Phase I of the RIAA's misguided pursuit of an innocent, disabled Oregon woman, Atlantic v. Andersen, has finally drawn to a close, as the RIAA was forced to pay Ms. Andersen $107,951, representing the amount of her attorneys fee judgment plus interest. But as some have pointed out, reimbursement for legal fees doesn't compensate Ms. Andersen for the other damages she's sustained. And that's where Phase II comes in, Andersen v. Atlantic. There the shoe is on the other foot, and Tanya is one doing the hunting, as she pursues the record companies and their running dogs for malicious prosecution. Should be interesting."

RIAA Pays Tanya Andersen $107,951

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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jancola

What is curious to me is how the RIAA picks its targets to sue… possibly out of a hat. There are millions of people downloading music who aren’t being sued. Why did they single out a disabled single mother? They couldn’t find anyone less sympathetic?

TMF: A link in the comments says they have already paid:
http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-pays-up-in-anderson-case-080814/
Ugly Canuck

Something about systematic abuse of process, but i’m probably wrong…you know the Third branch can be more unpredictable than the Congress and Executive. That’s why they’re independent.
hagbard

It may in fact hurt the music industry as we know it, but will it hurt or help music? Culture in general?

It only costs big bucks to produce new music the way the recording industry does it now. Meanwhile, my friend has created a professional grade music studio in his garage and has produced CDs for several local bands.

The music industry as we know it does not so much provide us with music as limit our choices so as to concentrate popularity and thus earning potential in a relatively small percentage of the musically-inclined population.

Is it any wonder they turn to choice-limiting as a strategy for dealing with their problems?
Ugly Canuck

Sorry not “unpredictable” I meant “just”.
themindfantastic

@21 JUSTAVOICE: Producing Music has never been cheaper, marketing music has never been cheaper, distributing music has NEVER BEEN CHEAPER. Its a new playing field. The problem now becomes how to get yourself NOTICED in the ever growing field of musical acts. Because as it gets cheaper more and more people get into it.
Anonymous

I heartily recommend setting up an online donation web site to support this woman’s countersuit. She’s doing everyone a favor.
John Coulthart

Phikus: The Lemon Kittens’ album We Buy A Hammer For Daddy (they always had great titles!) was released on the wonderful United Dairies label, one of the first wave of UK independent labels formed in opposition and as an alternative to the majors. UD released some major slabs of utter weirdness that never would have been allowed through the door of a major label. I doubt UD owner Steve Stapleton (of Nurse With Wound) has ever had much time for the BPI, the UK equivalent of the RIAA, and inventors of the fatuous “Home taping is killing music” campaign.
SeamusAndrewMurphy

Hoorah for Hagbard’s #73 comment.

It is always the existence of alternatives that frighten those in control. Extrapolate that to infinite examples in life and business. It’s a point that can’t be overemphasized. As a matter of fact, you’ve just thrown light on our entire economic legal and regulatory system.
Justavoice

How about this for a resolution to music file “sharing”. The music industry should set limits on how soon a customer can legally “share” their copyrighted material. For instance if they release a new album they could set a time limit of 60 to 90 days for exclusive rights and then allow the population at large to share it freely. Most profit from a new release is made within the first 2-3 months of release and drastically drops after that. The only problem I could potentially see with this is that people will just wait the required time before they could legally get it for free… Comments, problems with this idea? Let me hear them…
Justavoice

@27 THEMINDFANTASTIC: To get “noticed” by the country or the world it costs A LOT of money for marketing. Where does this money come from? The Record Labels…
- Antinous
  
  To get “noticed” by the country or the world it costs A LOT of money for marketing.
  
  Have you never hear of something called “viral marketing”? If your goal is to make music and make a decent living, you can do it yourself thanks to this whole internet thing. If your goal is to make millions, have a posse, do the talk shows and make some bad movies, you need industry money. Of course, you’ll have to sell your soul.
Ugly Canuck

Mind Fantastic, that has always been the problem. Even if you’re backed by Madison Ave’s full court press(which itself pushes up costs cause these buyers dont come cheap).The old problem was having the time to pay, the leisure to enjoy, the money to ease, the “consumption” of music…there’s always been a surfeit of music itself, cause people have always loved music.
There have and as far as I can see there will always be professional musiciansand players as well…there might just be less of an “industry” of nebulous hangers-on than there used to be .Or perhaps a different type of hangers-on (perhaps those more technically adept, tho the musicians I’ve known are pretty “technically adept” themselves with their instruments). But the “recorded music industry” per se must change with the technical means of production, just like everybody else does.
And I’m no Marxist.
Phikus

JOHN@82: Good to know. Still not available in the US unless you can get someone to special order it as an import (I have had no such luck for a lot of effort on this end.) It was that album and Big Dentist that I finally got ahold of through the torrents, featuring their standout cut “Nudies”. I will gladly re-buy both if they become available in the US, to support their releases here. The fact they are re-releasing LK in the UK gives me hope this may happen. Thanks!
Gary61

I agree with #27 TMF about:
“It costs big bucks to produce new music.”
No, it doesn’t, like TMF says.

‘Produce’ usually means some industry guy sitting in the mixer room, helping the recording engineer tweak the sounds. Perhaps putting up the bucks behind the scenes for studio time, PR flacks, promos, filming (what an archaic word) the videos, etc.

My band (see the link on my profile page) has used our own PA gear, a 2nd-hand Dell desktop, and various bits of audio software to record, mix, produce, and convert (to audio or MP3 files) songs we’ve done.

Out of pocket expenses? None. Just time and effort.

Cost of all the gear? Considerable (guitars, microphones, mixers, amps, cabling, drumkit, etc. etc.)
But considering we had pretty much all of that gear anyways (to play gigs), the extra expense was minimal indeed.
And we tweaked the sound until we got what WE wanted – not what some industry guy thought would sell (and generate profits).

As TMF says, the prob now is getting people to notice YOU and your band, above the rising tide of others doing the same thing ….

However, JustAVoice, I don’t agree that it’ll ‘hurt the music industry in the long run‘ – what it can and WILL do is make them change their business model, to change with changing times. They ARE still the best at promotion, etc., etc., but the ‘recording infrastructure’ they have is largely going to gradually shrink and fade away.

Van Halen, Jethro Tull (among countless others) have used their own profits from their music to build their own custom recording studios on their own property – so they can bypass the whole ‘industry’ issue.
Justavoice

The music industry is a business. Analogy: If I could go into a Burger King and buy one burger but get infinite burgers for the cost of just one, Burger King would go out of business. This rule applies to the music industry as well, if I bought just one CD and put the music on the internet for the whole world to “share” freely, why would anyone else need to buy the CD? Why would the record labels keep producing quality music if they weren’t making profit?
Justavoice

@31 Antinous: Viral marketing works for us nerds who have nothing better to do that surf around in dive websites all day, but what about the casual surfer? They may never see these things because they weren’t placed in areas of the web to generate enough buzz to be noticed. Marketing is most effective, at least for the time being, when it is force feed to the masses through mainstream media outlets.
hagbard

The music industry is a bunch of businesses, not one business, and some of those businesses are being undercut by smaller, newer businesses which are taking advantage of reduced production and transaction costs.

As the cost of making and distributing quality music drops, I think people are going to have to realign their expectations of what constitutes success.

Does “getting noticed” continue to mean being as famous and well-paid as Metallica, or does it mean getting gigs and having your songs sell on the iTunes store? If the music industry stop producing stars, does that mean the music industry is hurting, or that a few hyped-up musicians are no longer sucking up all the oxygen in the room?
Justavoice

@32 Gary 61: VanHalen, Jethro Tull, etc. etc. used money they earned through years of having their music produced and promoted through their record labels. They also don’t have the ability to make sure their music reaches the masses without the help of their record label. So although most any artist can create and produce their own music, having it heard by the populous at large remains a task they will not be able to overcome on their own. If anything, in this case, the two bands listed above used their record labels as a stepping stone to get where they are today. The fact remains they still at some point NEEDED a record label.
Piper

@ justavoice-
Your Burger King example might seem a logical comparison, but it has not been the case with music and file sharing. For whatever reason, not everyone wants an infinite “free burger”. I have no footnotes to back it up, but from what I have read on the subject the reality is quite the contrary –music sales have actually increased in the era of file sharing.
All of these arguments in support of DRM are throwbacks to previous eras of technological change. Like musician’s unions freaking out because the player piano would put them out on the street forever.
Did you ever make anyone a mix tape?
Justavoice

@35 Hagbard: Why buy some new up and comer’s music when I can get it for free through file “sharing”?
mdhatter

Jethro Tull basically started their own label, (their friends Chris X and Y Ellis did so, thus – Chrysalis). No idea about VH.

FYI – Ian Anderson now owns most of the Salmon in Scotland (and large chunks of their habitat, as well). So whenever you eat Scottish salmon, think of Jethro Tull.
hagbard

justavoice

because you want to see the new up and comer succeed so that she will create more music that you like?

because you are grateful for such creativity and beauty?
Justavoice

@40 Hagbard: How will I know she ever existed?
- Antinous
  
  Justavoice,
  
  You’re starting to sound like a broken record.
  
  Thank you very much. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.
someToast

Whats funny to me is that no money is actually being lost, just shifted around. So in order for me to download allegedly *smirk* tons of music I would need a bigger hard drive, a new MP3 player, my PS3 to listen to it on …yada yada yada. So in reality its not that the music is free, I’m still paying for it even if the actual music itself is.

The musicians aren’t getting money from your purchasing hard drives, PS3s, and mp3 players (well, unless it’s a Zune, and even then…)

By that logic, you’re entitled to “free” copies of Photoshop since you already put your money into a computer and hard drives.

I mean seriously why do you need a 8 gig music player if you are buying all of your music. This would be over 2k songs assuming 3-5 megs per song. That means someone spends $2,000 dollars on music alone to legally fill this (assuming .99 a song).

I’ve 24,558 songs on my iPod now. Most are from my own CDs, a small fraction from the Amazon MP3 Store, and an even smaller fraction from iTunes. I consider it a good use of my discretionary entertainment budget over the course of 23 years.

So yes, sometimes you seriously need an 8 gig music player if you are buying all of your music. Sometimes you need a 160 gig one.
hagbard

because the price was right and not too onerous?

because you feel confident that the money will go to the artist and not to lawyers and MBAs and marketing execs and DRM designers and lobbyists?

because you are honest?
Phikus

It’s about time their thoughtless schemes backfired! This is a major victory for people being victimized by a huge bloated greedy monster of an industry. And I am saying this as a musician: File sharing doesn’t kill music. The “industry” simply needs to evolve to suit the digital marketplace. Do you know how little $ trickles down to the artist on anything a major label puts out? Please!

Did Radiohead lose money for putting In Rainbows up for whatever people wanted to pay them? No. More and more artists are offering up their works this way. Nine Inch Nail’s The Slip was offered up as a free download, and it sounds like the forthcoming Eno / Byrne album will adopt this model as well. People who are smart in the industry have realized that if you simply offer more production value in the physical product, people will buy it. Offering up free downloads ensures there will be a great deal of buzz generated about new works. I downloaded In Rainbows for free, and then, as soon as it became available in stores, I bought a hard copy, not only to support a band I love and their strategy of making it available originally for free, but also because it is a higher quality recording on the CD vs the MP3s, and has a cool cover and enclosed stickers, etc. which now are emblazoned on my car.

If the Music Industry wants to continue to get away with low or no production value in their hard copies they offer, they deserve to have the music ripped and shared with reckless abandon. If they enclose a cool booklet with artwork, photos, lyrics etc. people will buy it if they like the artist, plain and simple. -Not to mention that most people can’t be bothered to download and burn their own CD. Please stop echoing the whining of this culture and soul eating dinosaur!
hagbard

justavoice

Because someone, maybe the artist herself, shares some of her music with you?
Piper

@ justavoice–
You seem very hung up on the idea that free=better. Try to understand that not everyone sees music as a mere document that you try to steal whenever possible. There are many reasons that people buy things that they could potentially steal, and maybe this is why filesharing has not destroyed the world and everything in it.
I like buying something physical most of the time. I get some things on ITunes, but in contrast it offers none of the joy of unwrapping an LP. I’ve never even thought about filesharing, just because it’s not something I’m into, and because I like supporting artists in their endeavors.
takeshi

Finally, some justice. The fact that she won will no doubt help her along in her lawsuit. Best of luck to the Tanya Andersons of the world.
themindfantastic

Digital media doesn’t work against the Burger King model, where the object is inherently a physical object that requires resources to reproduce each copy (at least for now… technology might make me eat those words). There is a difference between the plan on how to make a burger and the burger itself, the plan can easily be distributed, and no one actually loses anything in the reproduction of the plan, like an instructable, you can take that plan and make your own burger with the same ingredients and methodology for each burger. Yet with digital media the actual detailed plan of the media and the media are the same thing, meaning the cost of distribution of the plan is the same cost of distribuiton of the media itself, essentially minimal to nothing. Digital media at this moment is experiencing the effects of Post Scarcity economics, we have only really known Scarcity economics up until recently and post scarcity is becoming for some things at least the new reality we are dealing with. How do economies work under post scarcity, we aren’t immediately sure just yet, because we are still kind of figuring this stuff out. We have had small niche post scarcity models that seem to work pretty good (the library is a great example) but as more and more things become affected by this we either start having to adapt to new models or we get left behind in the dust. Becrying the fact people aren’t following old models of economics where you were once a monopoly or close to it, isn’t going to garner much sympathy.
Justavoice

@44 Hagbard: If music was spread through word of mouth it wouldn’t get very far, or it would take an obscene amount of time for it to reach everyone. (Example: Mozart, Bach, Beethoven)hundreds of years to become well known throughout the world. (Beatles 1957, John Lennon started forming the band, 1963 became a Worldwide sensation.)What is that 6 years to be known across the world? Thanks record industry…
- Antinous
  
  (Example: Mozart, Bach, Beethoven) hundreds of years to become well known throughout the world.
  
  Now you’re just being silly. That thing that you’re typing on – it’s attached to another thing that goes through a few more things and connects you to people all over the world. Instantly! It’s like magic. Mozart didn’t have that.
  
  You’re making the same tired argument over and over. If you have something new to say, we’re all waiting with breath abated.
Justavoice

@ Piper: Free is only good when it doesn’t hurt the things we love. You agree with me then about supporting musicians you like monetarily. That’s all I’m saying..
UnderRat

I stopped listening to the radio years ago. I didn’t like much on it and I hate listening to DJs, but I really, really love music. Most of what I listen to I learned about by word of mouth, MySpace, live shows and file sharing. “Hey, you gotta hear these guys, listen to this mp3″ is the basic email I get and send to many of my friends. When I do find a great band I NEED the CD or LP (and often spend paychecks on merch at their shows, Christ, I’ve flown to Germany just to see bands that don’t tour over here in the States very often.) because I love to support the bands I love. And, when it comes down to it, if I do end up with some mp3s that I don’t end up purchasing the actual CDs of it means I wouldn’t have bought the CDs anyway and it will most likely get purged when I run out of disc space.
ulor

Whats funny to me is that no money is actually being lost, just shifted around. So in order for me to download allegedly *smirk* tons of music I would need a bigger hard drive, a new MP3 player, my PS3 to listen to it on …yada yada yada. So in reality its not that the music is free, I’m still paying for it even if the actual music itself is. And whats funny about all of this is many of the major Corps, yes I am looking at you Sony, both fights this and profits off this, I mean seriously why do you need a 8 gig music player if you are buying all of your music. This would be over 2k songs assuming 3-5 megs per song. That means someone spends $2,000 dollars on music alone to legally fill this (assuming .99 a song). I guess some people are filling them w/ legal downloads, but I would be willing to bet more are filling them with *cough cough* not so legal music. So in many ways this is a fight between the left hand (Music Distribution) and the right hand (Consumer Electronics) of the big companies with the consumer getting fscked in the middle.

And even with the Burger King analogy some one is still getting money, this is more akin to if stores suddenly started selling burger making kits that would let you pump out a hamburger identical to any store you want.

Information may be free, but you still gotta pay to play, hence the digital divide.
hagbard

Justavoice

You’re just being cute, aren’t you?

As good as their music was, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, the Beatles, and John Lennon were all too stupid to set up good MySpace pages. That’s why their word of mouth took so long.
Phikus

More and more artists are getting away from major labels because they don’t need the middlemen. They are getting distribution deals to make sure the albums they put out in record stores, and doing all the things a label used to do for themselves. I would argue that Jethro Tull and VH have already got a guaranteed audience for whatever they wish to release. Many old school artists signed a deal when a label was more essential to their success (i.e. before the internet became the way to purvey music that it has) and may still have a certain number of releases to fulfill their contract obligations, or simply don’t know any better. In most new major label contracts for an artist who has been around for a while, more incentives have had to have been added (helping pay for touring etc.) to get them to sign.

Frank Zappa had a contract with Warner Bros he became less than fond of after a while. He still owed them four more platters on his contract, and in typical prolific form, he delivered all four to them as one eight-sided album. (Lather, with the two dots over the a, so it is pronounced like leather.) They balked at this and said he still owed them 3 more albums. They refused to release his album in protest. (Many artists have had their valuable work shelved in this way by short-sighted greed mongers in this beloved industry.) Zappa countered by going onto the radio (I believe in Detroit) and played the entire thing, intro-ing it himself and encouraging people to tape it. It went through the courts and eventually, Zappa was found to have met his contractual obligations. He was free of Warner. They had to release it eventually, but in spite, they broke it down into four different albums with shitty artwork on them. Tell me this industry has the artist’s best interest in mind…
Justavoice

@ Antinous: Nice, are you the waitress I give my 2 cents to?
Justavoice

@51 Hagbard: LOL
Justavoice

@ ntns: Hr s smthng fr y. Qt bng sch lch, gt jb, nd py t spprt yr fvrt mscns? Prtty strght frwrd r dd tht n zp rght n by y s wll?
hagbard

Antinous

Or is justavoice applying the socratic method? I’m not sure…
Sephiriz

I’m glad the defendant was able to get compensation for legal costs, but I wonder if there is justification in seeking further monetary compensation? Don’t misunderstand, I’d be overjoyed if the defendant won and managed to establish a precedent that does not favor the RIAA, but I feel that cheering the defendant on simply reinforces our ridiculous court system. If I somehow misunderstood something about this case, please correct me.
daten

SUCK IT RIAA.
hagbard

wait, that one didn’t seem so socratic….
kuanes

One small step….
Ursus

Word. What Daten said…
Justavoice

@58 Hgbrd: yh tht n ws knd f mn sprtd. plgz t ntns, knw why dysss klld y. Pnlp dsrvd bttr…
Jake0748

Yay!
Phikus

Stevie Ray Vaughan was already becomming a legend before he released a single major label album, simply from touring and word of mouth (even before the internets.) The record companies actually had to sit him down in an agreed upon hotel while he was on tour in order to bid for him to sign with one of them. They made it clear that they would not leave until he had decided to go with one of them. There are plenty of other examples of grassroots phenomena that were filling stadiums before they ever signed with a label (Phish, The String Cheese Incident, etc.) These days such bands eshew major labels cutting in on their cottage industry. All it takes is the aformentioned distribution deal to get their product in stores. Many such stores are no longer brick and mortar. The times they are a-changin’ and the industry had better change with it if it hopes to continue to intercede between artists and their audience.
Baldhead

goddamn right.
Justavoice

@ Justavoice: Vowels = Expletive deleted…………
mdhatter

So do we.
Justavoice

@ BngBng r ntns: Cnsrshp? lm….
- Antinous
  
  Justavoice,
  
  Read the Moderation Policy.
mdhatter

Generally speaking I treat downloading like it’s a radio station. I download what I want to hear, delete 2/3rds of it after one listen, because it sucks, and buy (on CD) a good number of the albums whose tracks I like and keep.

What’s wrong about that? Where am I going to hear the new Rani Arbo album on the radio?

Also, I usually try to buy the CD’s at the show, so that the record company gets a reduced chunk of the profit (made off the talent of the artist). I’m all for record companies making money, but not at all in favor of most of the industry contracts I’ve seen.
Anonymous

Boing boing is my fav but please work on the 5 Ws. I have no idea idea what this woman was being sued for by the RIAA. Your links just lead to other links
Phikus

Justavoice: It’s called moderation, and in this case, it is overwhelmingly justified.
John Coulthart

If everyone is “sharing” the music, record companies won’t be able to afford producing new albums.

Excuse me while I play my very tiny violin for the poor giants of the record industry. Let’s see how it was back in the halcyon days before downloading, shall we?

“Shortly afterwards I stumbled into a job in the marketing department of the now-defunct major label London Records. London specialised in bright, shiny pop music – Bananarama, East 17, All Saints, Fine Young Cannibals. It was the sort of label that favoured that week’s chart position over long-term artist development.

“The marketing meetings were an eye-opener. Records were â€œthis useless, stinking piece of shitâ€. Artists were â€œclownsâ€, â€œlosersâ€ and â€œspasticsâ€. Like many a bright-eyed newbie before me I was quickly, viciously, disabused of the notion that record companies loved music.

“It also soon became apparent that, if you were lazy and avaricious enough, there was only one area of the music business to be in. The kind of area where you could reasonably expect to be handed a six-figure salary, a BMW and a bottomless expense account in return for rolling out of bed at noon. A&R – Artiste and Repertoire, to give the full handle – is responsible for finding and developing new talent. The name is a genteel hangover from another era, reeking of civility and respect, of Ahmet Ertegun in a spun-silk suit leafing through some sheet music with Ray Charles. The reality was somewhat different: a generation of twentysomethings blasted to the gills on cocaine, tearing around the world trying not to lose their jobs by doing something crazy. Like actually signing a band.”

(snip)

“I quickly learnt a key fundamental for survival in meetings – say everything with absolute certainty and as though your life depended upon it. I saw a very senior industry figure (someone who, in all likelihood, has signed and developed music which you own) throw the first White Stripes record out of a fourth floor window with the words: â€œNo one will ever – ever – be having this f***ing nonsense!â€”

Etc. Read the whole thing here. I work part-time in the music business so its economy affects my livelihood. But I still have little sympathy for the music-hating parasites who used to run it, many of whom will still be running it. The artists don’t need them or the RIAA.
bardfinn

Party!
Phikus

Qualifier: When you devolve into personal attacks, you surely have lost your argument.
ployntabs

So was this another case of downloading music illegally? Maybe a link to the original story?
mdhatter

@justavoice – it’s not censorship, it’s moderation of QUITE immoderate comments. You’re free to kvetch about it on your own blog.
tresser

*steeples fingers*

exxxxcellent
Phikus

“Guitar music is on it’s way out.” -Decca Records chief exec, on passing over the Beatles.
ElDiablo0517

Truly, sticking it to the Man. All the way behind this one.
dainel

#31 Justavoice, The music industry is a business. Analogy: If I could go into a Burger King and buy one burger but get infinite burgers for the cost of just one, Burger King would go out of business.

And your point is? If that were possible, it would be wonderful. Being able to feed an infinite number of people for the cost of one burger is really not a bad thing. The world does not owe a duty to keep Burger King in business.

Neither does the world owe a duty to keep the record industry in business. I would even go further than that, and say that a future where musicians no longer could make a living, would not necessarily be a bad one. We would no longer have professional musicians. Only amateur ones. But the creation of new music would not stop. Music was not invented after the invention of the record player and the current copyright regime.
Justavoice

rd th mdrtn plcy. k, ‘ll ply by th rls. ntns, y hv nt ddd nythng sgnfcnt t ths tpc thr thn lght rhtrc wth n ntllctl thght. Yr pnts r shllw nd ll nfrmd nd t pprs tht y spprt stlng s ppsd t bng n hnst prsn. Whn y r nbl t prsnt clr, lgbl rgmnt y trn nt ttck md nd tll m t lv rdly. Snds lk y wnt s dp s y cld nd cmmnd y n yr ttmpt t hvng lgcl, wll thght t cnvrstn. wll ppld yr ffrts bt wll fnsh by lttng thm pss by m lk thy dn’t mttr, bcs n my pnn thy dn’t. Phks cn tll by yr qp bt my cmmnts tht y sm ffndd by smngly nsgnfcnt nd rltvly mld bntr. fr ths plgz nd wll kp t n mnd tht thr my ls b chldrn n th rm tht s wht sy nd my tk ffns t t. plgz t ll ffndd nd hp w cn mv n frm hr n mr cnstrctv mnnr.
Brettspiel

Does it bother anyone else that it is repeatedly pointed out to the reader that the woman is disabled?

Disabled doesn’t mean unable [to illegally download copyrighted materials].

I’m all for taking the fight to the RIAA, but pandering because she’s disabled seems a little disrespectful of Ms Anderson and people with disabilities in general.

It’s not as if she was accused of illegally.. well, I don’t know.. what is there that an able-bodied person might be accused of that a disabled person can’t do?
Justavoice

n ddtn t my lst cmmnt wld jst lk t pnt t t Phks tht n rgmnt s lst nly by ths wh fl t s bth sds. ntns bng n f thm bsd n Cmmnts # 45 nd 55. Whch tk s prsnl ttcks bt pprntly wr t mld t b cnsrd.
- Antinous
  
  Justavoice,
  
  You’ve tried to dominate this thread with repetitive, unsupported claims. Since you seem temporarily unable to remain civil, I’m giving you a time-out for three days.
Ugly Canuck

I don’t know Ulor when the elites are fighting it out sometimes we little ones don’t get fscked, it actually gets better, like in the case under discussion.
The price of info tech has really been plummeting over the past twenty-five years, but that’s how old my speakers are, i use them every day, you don’t want to know what I paid for them in 1983, but it was the best $$ I ever spent.
Point being that tchnical cost to enjoy your music “back then” sucked as much as the high cost of the music never mind the miserably limited range of choices then available.
May not feel like it to the RIAA but I think music has entered a new golden age…just not a gilded one. Gets those birds (artists) out of their golden cages (RIAA control contracts) too…
Lately I only listen to stuff recorded prior to 1950 anyway….
Anonymous

The Recording Industry is a sick puppy. Greed got the better of it, when it started suing it’s own customers. The product that is produced is shallow and lame. The so called “artists” of that industry are edited and only acceptable “music” is promoted.
The lyrics are shallow. The morals are loose. The message is mind control of the masses who are too dumbed down to notice.
I stopped buying CD’s a few years ago, when the RCAA sued a teenager. I figured then, the product was spoiled, and the industry was passe.
I’m glad that this woman won, and I hope that a class action comes out of this. I would like to see that entire monopoly busted for all time to come. When that happens, music will re-emerge as free as it was intended, and “artists” will once again have the power to create art.
Once the monopoly is broken, talent will decide the market.
Music is important to the soul. This industry sells soul draining noise.
I hope it goes bankrupt.
I hope that new ways of thinking are freed by the end of a monopolistic era in marketing of “music”.
themindfantastic

And on the other coin the RIAA will drag its feet paying this judgement if not appealing the judgment entirely to avoid paying it. Just because the court tells you to do something doesn’t mean someone actually does it.
hagbard

now they start complaining about those horrible tort lawyers ruining capitalism…
hagbard

I think Phikus is getting at an important point in mentioning contract obligations. As they lose the competitive advantage of having the capital to buy expensive studios and studio gear, record or CD production plants, etc., they lose the ability to compel artists to accept contracts on their terms.

Artists don’t have to go begging for attention from the big labels and they don’t have to agree to sign over their rights to the label.

As their bargaining power weakens, the labels have fewer and fewer copyrights to “defend”.

This is another reason why the RIAA has responded so excessively to sharing. It isn’t that little Billy’s download lost them $18 in sales; it’s that the very existence of alternatives threatens their survival.

It’s like you’re a ferryman, railing against the construction of a bridge. It’s true that the ferry industry is hurt, but more people are getting across the river.
prion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4dzVuhGIMQ

i’m disabled!
The Lizardman

Pointing out that she is disabled further plays upon the sympathies of the reader and makes the RIAA seem even more evil and underhanded (if that is possible) – it does also reveal a subconscious bias that most of us seem to hold and probably is / was not done with specific intent but just the natural result of that bias.

Similarly, when an able bodied adult is hassled by security over stepping their bounds the outcry is far less than when, for instance, the TSA has a toddler on the no fly list or is rude to a person who is disabled. All instances should be essentially equal but outrage that results in action (or at least continued coverage) often requires a victim with a special vulnerability
minTphresh

bye-bye, justavoice. feel free to troll other sites, tho…
Brettspiel

Yes, but those examples are at least reasonable – toddlers are extremely unlikely to hijack planes and the disabled should be treated with equal respect, but disability has absolutely no bearing on whether this person is capable of downloading music over her computer. Does her photo in the paper also have a big sad eyed puppy?
Xopher

Point of information: Mozart was a frackin’ ROCK STAR in his own time.
mdhatter

@Hagbard

As they lose the competitive advantage of having the capital to buy expensive studios and studio gear, record or CD production plants, etc.,

yes, AND as all of those remnants of the 20th century music industry are replaced by laptops with internet connections (which are much less capital intensive than they were even 10 years ago), the edge of ‘the industry’ is further degraded.

While your label may be increasingly obsolete but not being a dirtbag never goes out of style. That’s why the labels are up in arms… they don’t know how to NOT be dirtbags to artists.
Ugly Canuck

The wheels of justice tend to grind fine & slow but inevitably, push leads to push-back.
demidan

Chalk one up for the good guys!
Phikus

For every Beatles there may have been 10, 20, or even 100 other bands just as talented who never got the chance to record under the old model where the labels were the gatekeepers on which musicians got exposed to the masses. No longer. Now, if you are dedicated to your craft you can find your audience. It used to be that luck had just as much if not more to do with it as talent. Does anyone really think that the schlock being purveyed by the music industy by and large these days is innovative and original? Quite the contrary, I’m afraid. Anything interesting that happens to slip through the cracks is the exception to the rule. Why is this? -Because these gatekeepers want to play it safe. They aren’t interested in backing true talent. Anyone with a mediocre amount of talent who looks good on camera who has stars in their eyes and is foolish enough to do anything to become famous can be given a recording contract and spewed across the airwaves, which are programmed by Clear Channel and others who get kickbacks to do it. Why should musicians give these thugs another nickel of our hard earned cash?

Another good point in favor of file sharing: There is a lot of music that is no longer in print or recorded live performances that have not been made commercially available. Who are they to say we shouldn’t be able to enjoy them? Last night I found two out-of-print Lemon Kittens albums on a bit torrent site I have been looking for for 20 years! This makes me vary happy. Should that be against the law or prohibited because people are afraid of being sued by the RIAA?

Ok, here’s a chaser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv2qLOiioPc
rpaschelke

Just a highly unscientific survey (sample size of 1) on where the music industry is going –

I’ve just turned 60 – my wife has bought lots of CD’s for years, but me, not so much. Here at work I listen to Pandora. It works for me, I hear a lot of music I wouldn’t otherwise. And just the other day, I heard a young artist and bought her CD online as a birthday present to myself.

The point being – she’s released through a label, not sure which one. I don’t think it’s that large. The point is that a sale was made because of an explicitely different form of promotion which bring myriads of artists I would not have heard otherwise to my ears.

Please note that my primary means of listening are either via streaming from the web or CD. On the radio, I listen mostly to public radio. I have an iPod at home, but don’t use it so much. But my wife is much more active in downloading music.

Litigation by the music industry is so pathetic, so ultimately irrelevant. Musicians have so depended till now on the “music industry” to publicize them so they could make bank on their live performances. But the internet is making that kind of marketing irrelevant.

Even for those of my generation!
Justavoice

I for one don’t necessarily agree with the RIAA and their somewhat tyrannical regime. I do however agree with the fact that file sharing is going to hurt the music industry in the long run. It costs big bucks to produce new music. If everyone is “sharing” the music, record companies won’t be able to afford producing new albums. It’s as simple as that…
Ugly Canuck

There’s a rumored class action possible against the RIAA in the details of the judgment, but I found out about it on Slashdot, so this info’s FWIW…