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Representatives of Motown Records, Universal Music Group and BMG are seeking settlement amounts ranging from $4,000 to $4,500 from USC undergraduates in exchange for not being named in a copyright infringement lawsuit currently pending in federal court in Los Angeles. The case, Motown Records v. John Doe (08-CV-5029), was filed last July against anonymous "John Doe" defendants for illegal music filesharing. No individual defendants have yet been identified by name in the case.
USC is the latest Southern California university ordered to turn over student names and contact information for the purposes of preventing music piracy. Previously, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis and Loyola Marymount have been ordered to provide names of students in similar cases.
However, unlike the judges in the other cases, Judge Manuel L. Real ordered that the plaintiffs in the USC case can only use the information for non-monetary relief. Judge Real's October 7, 2008 order states that USC student information is "to be used for the sole purpose of obtaining injunctive relief." As of last week, representatives of the record companies were telephoning and writing USC students to propose settlements.
Settlement demands in other music file-sharing lawsuits brought by major record companies represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have been reported as high as $7,500 according to Wired.
Universities have expressed concern that the turnover of student names may violate their obligations under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Last week, Warner Music Group proposed a voluntary blanket licensing scheme for universities. The proposal would add a fee to student tuition to permit music file sharing in schools.
Photo by Johan Larsson via Flickr
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Both the RIAA and Directv have sued people whom they knew were innocent. When an innocent person is sued it means that false information was provided the court. It means money was paid to settle by an innocent person.
While the person sued tries to report this false information given to the court, the court does nothing. Reporting to the Justice department as well goes no where. As a consequence, law enforcement has to be sent the message that there is no one above the laws. The next time you are a Juror or a witness, do just what Justice does in these cases, Ignore Justice. Jury nullification is a great way to give back just what Justice did to the innocent person who was sued.
hell, forget blanket licensing for universities, maybe we should have blanket licensing through one's ISP, just like cable television. the record label business model is obsolete. shaking down college students for 4 and 5 grand is arranging deck chairs on the titanic.
I'd encourage anyone to check out Ray Beckerman's blog. He is one of the lawyers that is disgusted by the RIAA's terror campaign against the public, and has been covering every case and news story related to it.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/
"RIAA Terror plan?" PLEASE, spare me! College kids illegally download millions of songs per year. Thats the truth. Why should anyone be allowed to STEAL someones music? How are they targeting innocent people? I dont see this at all. I cant stand people who get all excited about an artists new music and then just goes and downloads it for free. Dude. Just shell out the 10 fucking bucks ya cheap thief.
This is such a horrible strategy, all it will do is make kids more angry at record companies. There will be more of an us vs. the old music industry and the stealing will continue.
I think it's more of a platform issue, if there were platforms that would make downloading easier without insane loggin info. etc. maybe people would pay. Itunes is ok, but certainly not easier than zipping a file and uploading to yousendit. We have technology for pay passes and atms etc., we need a strong platform and a card we can just input a number into, something easier.
Some songs aren't good and not worth paying for either the song or the album. Secondly, there is a genuine disconnect with college kids, they don't understand or want to understand that piracy is theft. Third, record companies need to really strategically plan where to move forward rather than plugging small holes because it will get them no where.
They need to create products that people want to buy. Throwing music out there and seeing what sticks isn't working. Vinyl is making a resurgence, how about treating fans like fans rather than peons and maybe people will begin to care about music again.
Great comments. I could not have expressed my outrage at the RIAA any better.
What I find rather funny is that THIS is illegal, the not following a judges order.
But forcing people to pay monetary compensation, in order to avoid being falsely accused and reported to the police or avoid being falsely named in a court of law, no matter if your innocent or guilty apparantly IS legal, while any definition of blackmail spells just like that.
...
First off, I'd like to note that as of now the RIAA has won a grand total of trials for piracy. The only conviction, against an impoverished single mother who unknowingly shared a handful of songs for a few hours, was recently overturned. Mostly because of RIAA's shady investigative methods. Now:
"Why should anyone be allowed to STEAL someones music?"
Except is it really stealing? When someone downloads a song without paying, is it like they stole a shirt, a car? Is the original still not there? It is very different, because it is an intangible good. Having a song for yourself does not mean ridding someone else of the actual product.
The main problem is you and the RIAA both treat it as if a person who downloads a song is the same as a person who steals all of a band's equipment. This is something that people can never get behind because it is impossible to rationally equate.
@caliking01 The problem is the way they "find" you. See, they track you down by your IP - except, the IP you have right now, may not be the IP you will have tomorrow, or whenever you reboot your cable/dsl/router. So when someone is named in a suit - it's whoever has the IP at the time - who may not be the same person who had the IP 3 months ago when they noticed they had illegal songs. So - you, maybe you've never downloaded anything in your life - might actually find yourself in a lawsuit - if say anyone in your neighborhood downloaded a song, because eventually you will get that same IP address (unless of course you pay for a specific /dedicated one).
Also, people with open Wifi are also sued, as people will log into it, download illegal songs, and disconnect. The IP traces back to their house...so they get named in a lawsuit - even though they weren't the actual ones to do anything.
Is that fair? No. But it'll cost you $10k to defend yourself and *maybe* win...or you pay the $3k to make it all go away. The other tactic is they'll sue from different states, so it'll cost you even more - and you won't find out of the lawsuit until the last minute. The RIAA has many different dirty dirty practices to get money out of you. You're screwed even if you didn't download anything.
...And that is how innocent people are sued.