RIAA successfully sues illegal downloader; Owes 1.92 Million dollars

[ryos]

Well at least it doesn't appear likely that they'll actually get it. I won't worry about it too much until they actually do get awarded royalties for each time a cell phone rings. Or until they start winning lawsuits against phone companies for allowing us to have our phone ring without paying royalties.

It would be really, severely stupid if they did. Also, if they did, you think anyone would actually pay? How do you even enforce something like that? Bollocks.

[Eerongal]

Apparently the RIAA is in court with one J. Tanenbaum about more file sharing at this moment. One RIAA executive has stated that the damages of the previous case of $150,000 per song was "absolutely appropriate"

[The Jade Knight]

How else can the RIAA afford to pay all its administration 6 figures?  (I hear the president of the RIAA makes 7 figures)

[sortitus]

That's a very impressive salary for a regulatory agency's head. The fact that the president of a company that does so little can make that much is quite disgusting. Then again, if you look at it as a massive law firm it makes the salaries less crazy, if no less infuriating.

[Patriotic Kaz]

Lawyers that make millions of dollars of cases invest millions of dollars into them....and very few lawyers make millions my father is a lawyer and i've grown up around him and his law school buddies and from what i can tell the average salary, once your business is established, is about 150k a year

[sortitus]

I've nothing against lawyers. My sister's a lawyer. The thing I have a problem with is lawyers that have no apparent morals and/or work for slimy companies. The RIAA, for the most part, is basically a website squatter (I hate, HATE, HATE, HATE squatters!) combined with a patent-gathering company(Patenting an idea and protecting it from infringement is fine with me. Purchasing patents and making all of your money off legal settlements is not.). The RIAA's product (it's not even theirs, which makes it even worse) is 99% intellectual property, 99% of the products they sit on are worthless, but by existing they drive prices of their clients' products up. And then the patent gathering part sues the crap out of anyone who uses a sequence of three notes from a song from a label they represent.

[Patriotic Kaz]

Lawyers have morals..or half of them do the most ethical and unethical people are found in that profession. The reason people often think they don't is because they are an advocate for their clients interest and therefore will do all they can, but with in the perameters of the law, to mislead you and leave there client in a favorable postion. I.E. So and So sues RCA for model A burning down their house...well it was model B which is very different from model A... they DO NOT have to provide the other side with that information and RCA may not have to pay a cent because they can prove it wasn't model A

[The Jade Knight]

That's a very impressive salary for a regulatory agency's head. The fact that the president of a company that does so little can make that much is quite disgusting. Then again, if you look at it as a massive law firm it makes the salaries less crazy, if no less infuriating.

It's not a regulatory agency, but maybe you didn't mean to say it was.

[sortitus]

It's not a regulatory agency, but maybe you didn't mean to say it was.

They aren't a government agency, but they do regulate the recording industry pretty effectively (partially just by being so huge). *shrug*

[The Jade Knight]

It's not a regulatory agency, but maybe you didn't mean to say it was.

They aren't a government agency, but they do regulate the recording industry pretty effectively (partially just by being so huge). *shrug*

Well, not really.  They're an advocacy group.  They don't regulate, they advocate.  And as such, they provide watch-dog services for the major record labels (thus the sue-happy nature of the RIAA, which is all too eager to keep its pockets padded), and get congress to enact laws that the RIAA likes (giving it more power to sue).

[Eerongal]

Tenenbaum's trial has concluded with him owing $23,000 per song for 30 songs. that's less than the previous case, but still quite pricey IMO for stealing a little more than a CD's worth.

[Eerongal]

SUPER AWESOME NECROMANCY REVIVIFICATION BUMP!

The dollar amount on this has been reduced to $54,000 by the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota