RIAA Drops Case In Chicago 229
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes, "The RIAA has dropped the Elektra v. Wilke case in Chicago. This is the case in which Mr. Wilke had moved for summary judgment, stating that: '1. He is not "Paule Wilke" which is the name he was sued under. 2. He has never possessed on his computer any of the songs listed in exhibit A [the list of songs the RIAA's investigator downloaded]. He only had a few of the songs from exhibit B [the screenshot] on his computer, and those were from legally purchased CDs owned by Mr. Wilke. 3. He has never used any "online media distribution system" to download, distribute, or make available for distribution, any of plaintiffs' copyrighted recordings.' The RIAA's initial response to the summary judgment motion, prior to dropping the case, had been to cross-move for discovery, indicating that it did not have enough evidence with which to defeat Mr. Wilke's summary judgment motion. P2pnet had termed the Wilke case yet another RIAA blunder."
Counter? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Counter? (Score:5, Insightful)
But he didn't lose, the case was dropped, "amicably". Nobody won, nobody lost. But the guy is still out his time and legal expenses. What if they'd searched his house, confiscated his equipment, sent him to the point of bankruptcy with legal fees and then went, "Ah, hah-hah, we
Or worse, at that point, they say, "Well, the evidence is shaky. But we've got the time and money to draaaag this out.We're very persistent, you know. We believe you're guilty of *something*. Care for an out-of-court , undisclosed, settlement?"
How many cases does the RIAA have to screw up like this before the law realises that they're out firing random lawsuits at people on the internet?
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That's just another way of saying it was settled out of court. Which is what happens in most of these cases -- the accused pays up a few thou to RIAA who then goes away. That's not a win, that's just having spent more money on laywers than most before entering the settlement.
Regards,
--
*Art
Re:Motion to continue a case? (Score:4, Informative)
Change in attitude? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Change in attitude? (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen. And understand. The RIAA is out there. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
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"...until *music* is dead." (Score:2, Insightful)
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the dogs (Score:5, Funny)
Standards? (Score:2, Insightful)
There just isn't much information in this story, it doesn't even say if anyone paid out at all. Could it have been a settlement? What did this guy ACTUALLY do? I doubt he is being sued for literally nothing. Any news article that sites P2P websites is not really very fair or balanced.
Next time you read something like this, please send a link to a real article, not just s
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So..... going from that, there might have been *cough* some little bit of guilt involved.
I wish some truly innocent person would counter-sue after one of these backdowns for legal costs
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If there is a case where someone had and account undersomeone else's name, or someone's computer was b
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Arg!
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Your Honor... (Score:3, Funny)
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That's actually an interesting point...Can anybody comment as to how you need to present your "previously owned music" as evidence? How do you prove that you owned it before the RIAA if you've tossed your receipts out? What is to stop exactly what parent poster said? Can college students being sued just go out, buy the CDs with cash (so as not to leave a credit trail), toss th
Items 2 and 3 don't quite make sense together (Score:2, Interesting)
That's how you do it in civil court (Score:5, Informative)
In the event of a lawsuit like this, that's how you'd go about it. Off the top of my head I'd challenge if the listing was undoctored (since screenshots are easy to fake), if it was of the right client (many P2P networks will misreport what you have on accident sometimes), if they verified the contents of the files, if they verified that they were coming from the stated IP address, if the IP to account mapping was accurate and unaltered, and if there was a way to prove that nobody else was using my network. It's just pointing out all the levels of problems. So even if the judge/jury buys everything else is legit, they believe it is likely someone else was using my network.
You'll find in some civil cases there can be hundreds of responses as to why the plaintiffs are full of shit. It's just how the game is played. You throw out any and everything that is wrong with their case, and see what you can get to stick and shoot it down.
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Obviously Im not equating the 2 crimes, but you have to be consistant. The wrong name just sounds like an admin blunder, its not in the RIAAs interests to t
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Or he could just, as per #2, be saying that he's coincidentally got some of those songs but not because he got them from any file-sharing service. More than one person has likely ripped any given song, so it's entirely possible that he's got songs ripped from his CDs that someone else also has and is sharing.
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Regardless, what were the songs in question here? Is it some obscure indie band that maybe six people in the world listen to, or is it Madonna? If it's the latter (or something like), then it's entirely possible that he's got a CD and other people are sharing the songs.
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They key word is "some". The RIAA showed two screenshots from what I remember. Mostly likely there were screenshots from a p2p program that listed songs from some p2p user. Paul claims he doesn't own any songs from list A and "some" songs from list B but those songs were legally purchased. He also claims that he does not have any p2p software. The RIAA has to prove that in court. Unfortunately, with the way they have approached investigative work, they may actually have to search his computer. Which t
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Are you honestly trying to argue that since not all probability problems have a solution that fits with naive intuition, it must be that all uses of probability by all people are suspect? You don't need to have tak
Perhaps Mr. Wilke wouldn't be in this situation... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Perhaps Mr. Wilke wouldn't be in this situation (Score:2)
Weird Al Rocks!
riaa doesn't undertand legal system? (Score:2)
That's why we don't just issue search warrants because someone suspects you are guilty. You have to have credible evidence to go looking (legally) for additional corroborating evidence. You use evidence to
Try this as a regular citizen (Score:3, Interesting)
He was wealthy and able to fight, it was worth it to them just to drop it. The PR of actually losing the case would be much worse.
Spartacus (Score:3, Funny)
{stands up} No, I am Paule Wilke
{sits back down}
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Wow! WTF have you been smoking? I cannot make heads nor tails of what you're saying.
Are you asking moderators to mod you as flamebait or what?
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While we're doing the ball-less class-action suit, STOP F'ING BUYING CDs AND MUSIC and take away their bottomless pit of money. Right now they're raking in the dough so they can afford to pay plenty of lawyers to argue about how much piracy (Yarrrr!) is hurting the industry. Fuck them at both ends, and maybe get some results (or at least an NC-17 rating!)
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How do balls even factor into it? Yeah, I'm sure you're frustrated and all, but you're just ranting now. Balls have nothing to do with it. It's all about money. I wouldn't want to blow my kids' college fund fighting a lawsuit against an opponent with a bottomless pit of money. So no, balls aren't the
Congresscritters (Score:3, Funny)
I wish the 4 or 5 people that still use that Limbaugh-favoured term would stop doing so.
To me, a 'critter' is a fuzzy little (possibly annoying) animal or pest. Are vultures, sharks, sloths and blood-sucking leeches also called 'critters' in your vernacular?
Re:Congresscritters (Score:4, Funny)
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I think the new national critter for America should be the Lionowl if we are anthropomorphising animals [wikipedia.org].
But what do I know; my country's animal kingdom reps are beavers, mooses, geese and polar bears, none of which can catch an eagle.
Unless we built this flying beaver...
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Re:Why?? (Score:4, Informative)
Whose ass did you pull that number out of?
I rip my CDs with EAC and compress with LAME or aoTuV vorbis because that's the only way I know I'm getting good quality. So much stuff on the net is ripped in igorance. I use EncSpot to check over anything I do download and most of the time it reports sync errors and crapass encoders like Xing.
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And I thought most of the other arguments given for downloading RIAA-label music off the Internet were the ultimate in bullshit.
Why, pray tell, would you want to download music, ripped into a lossy format by some unknown encoder, that you already own on CD? If your answer involves the words "Sony", "BMG" or "rootkit" then I know you're talking gibberish.
Faster than ripping (Score:2)
The more interesting number is: how many people would buy the song they're downloading if they had to. Even from iTunes? for $2?
I think 2%
The other more interesting number is: how many sales are *generated by the other 98%, when they user plays it for her friend, or ends up buying it, or whatever. Does it balance out that 2%?
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Probably none, because if the friend says "Cool, I'll go and buy that", the response is quite likely to be "Buy? Nah, what you need to use is LimeWire, you can get it for free there". More to the point, if you already have the song for free, sound quality isn't an issue for you and you don't really care about packaging (l
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How about when I'm at a record store, ready to buy, and I see a discounted CD by a band I remember from my friend's mp3 collection? Or from a mix someone gave me.
I can tell you conclusively that the answer is definitely not "none" because I've personally bought at least 5 CDs that I would never have heard of were it not for p2p. To be fair, I also definitely know one CD I would have bought but did not because someone downloaded all the tra
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Last time I was at the record store I was the only person there. They offered me coffee so I would stay a bit longer.
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If your CD is so incredibly badly scratched that CDparanoia can't make sense of it, that's more your fault for taking so little care of your stuff.
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I'm not the guy you responded to, but I wanted to chime in on this. I downloaded a lot of music I had CDs for instead of ripping it for a couple of reasons.
1.) I was able to just queue up the various songs I had an immediate interest in. I didn't have to wade through a stack of CDs, get them ripped, etc. (That and often my CD collection was split between home and work.)
2.) I
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2. Customer owns CD player at home, none in car, nor a portable.
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Can you back that up? I'm guessing you pulled that number out of your ass. Like you, I can only speak of anecdotal evidence, but I've yet to meet someone who downloads music he already owns the cd for.
Of course it might be that I'm simply hanging around with the wrong crowd but I suspect that's not the case.
Re:Why?? (Score:4, Funny)
You misspelled money.
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Re:Why?? (Score:4, Informative)
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here's one (Score:5, Insightful)
There are several potential avenues to explore.
Abramov? (Score:2)
(A cursory search didn't find any connections.)
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Re:Just so I actually understand this correctly (Score:5, Insightful)
And do you support a legal system where someone can sue YOU, using information that is so inaccurate that they actually don't even have your proper name?
RIAA vs. Osama Bin Laden Aliscool, tonight, on THE PEOPLE'S COURT.
Re:Just so I actually understand this correctly (Score:5, Interesting)
How do you get dragged into the lawsuit to begin with when it isn't your name? When they brought the papers by why didn't he just say "Sorry. That's not my name, you have the wrong address," and close the door on them?
Is there a lawyer in the house? (Score:2)
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But that's the point, though. The judegement wouldn't be against YOU. Because you're not that person. Don't they ask you if you're the party they are seeking when they show up to serve the papers? If the person answers "No, I'm not." why would they continue to serve you. Aren't they under some legal obligation to actually serve the correct person?
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But to suggest that people should ignore a lawsuit is really bad advice.
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And later:
Re:Just so I actually understand this correctly (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, calling a copyright infringer a pirate just makes the act sound cooler than it actually is. Plenty of cracker groups in the 80s and 90s latched onto it for that very reason.
Of course, these days it has lost most of it's potency- positive or negative. Calling a copyright infringer a pirate is given no more thought than calling a custodian a janitor.
The use of the term as a negative propaganda tactic has failed miserably.
True; we need more precise terminology (Score:2)
Here's an unofficial contest entry form. Try your hand at injecting colorful, catchy words into the popular culture to differentiate the following cases from "pirates":
Someone who downloads copyrighted files: improve on "downloader" or "p2p user"
Someone who shares copyrighted files: improve on "filesharer" or "uploader"
Someone who violates the DMCA for legitimate, otherwise legal purposes,
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Is it more immoral than the vast theft that was perpetuated on the public with each extension of the term of copyright? All those works were created, published and sold under the terms of copyright at that time. Yet, the MAFIAA [mafiaa.org] was able to unilaterally change those terms by bribing enough people in congress.
If stealing millions, maybe even billions, of dollars worth of content from the public is not only OK, it is
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I'm sorry, but I can't stand this argument, I really can't. It's so hypocritical it isn't funny. You're surrounded by content, drowning in it, even. There is more creative content available today than there has been in the whole of human history. But God help us creative artists if we actually want to charge money for that year's worth of writing/painting/composing/sculpting work, or leave a legacy for our families. You're allowed to do that, b
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That's funny. I read your entire rant, and I did not see even a hint of a justification as to why my point is hypocritical. Absolutely zero discussion of exactly why "the mickey mouse act" was not theft.
What I did read was an amazingly ironic diatribe about the law changing as society changes so that an artist can be paid for their work.
Guess what - the law needs to change to catch up with society. The content cartel are t
Re:Just so I actually understand this correctly (Score:4, Interesting)
Only the most jaded of free information zealots don't believe artists should be able to charge for their content, so I don't really think that's the central issue of the copyright debate. The real issue is how much control society should grant the content holders. Should they have the right to forbid others from making digital copies of their content?
As you say, we now have a great deal more creative content available than ever before. Yet is this because of copyright law or despite of it? With so much content available, society as a whole can not afford all of it. Is this a cost benefit selection where consumers must make do with the limited amount of content they can afford? Does preventing the free flow of digital expressions of thoughts and ideas really encourage the creation of new thoughts and ideas?
Nothing wrong with asking. But is it okay to demand for payment? Is it acceptable to deny others access to your hard work? Does society really benefit more by keeping your content under legal protection? Isn't the debate over where to draw this line exactly what society should be having right now?
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I would say that the amount of content availab
Re:Leave it to the RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)
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It makes me wonder how much money they're losing if they're paying their attorneys and only getting a few grand here and there.
RIAA is funded by the same record companies that claim to be losing millions due to piracy, while throwing money to support the whole RIAA infrastructure and to be spent on stupid (or cruel) lawsuits like this one.
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Unless you were being ironic, in which case, it's all in good fun.
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It's not about the money (Score:2)
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They don't care about losing money. (Score:4, Informative)
Many people see "grandmother sued for $1,000,000 for downloading music on the internet" and will be afraid to download music unless the RIAA gives its blessing. The same thing with thing with the MPAA and movies. Though they pay lots of money to their attorneys, their point is made.
The RIAA filed a dismissal on the eve of a bad ruling against them. I had Mattel do the same with a libel claim, when the judge asked what was libelous, Mattel dropped it. They do this to prevent a bad ruling against them, because they will be stuck with that bad ruling.
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I rest your case.
Re:Anyone noticed (Score:4, Funny)
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This case, Elektra v. Wilke [riaalawsuits.us], was discussed on Slashdot here [slashdot.org] when the RIAA admitted it did not have enough evidence.