Forums: RIAA Certification

BTJunkie, the file sharing and torrents index voluntarily decided to shut down after being in existence for 7 years. As a final closing message, they wrote on their site, btjunkie.org, " This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!" According to Torrent Freak, the shutdown has to do with the Megaupload and Pirate Bay cases. The legal...

I already wrote a big post about yesterday's SOPA markup day one. While we're moving forward on day two, I wanted to call out one key point that was really made clear by an amendment offered by Rep. Jared Polis late in the day yesterday, which hasn't received nearly enough attention. As you may recall, with the "manager's amendment" version of SOPA (i.e., SOPA 2.0), the "notice-and-shut off funding" section of the private right of action in Section 103 was removed. This was good, because we've seen how the notice-and-takedown provision of the DMCA has been widely abused. However, what...

December 5, 2011 | By Kurt Opsahl RIAA and AAP File Amicus Brief in Righthaven Appeal The Association of American Publishers and the Recording Industry Association of America have decided to cozy up to a copyright troll, filing an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit appeal of Righthaven v. Hoehn.  The Hoehn case is one of many decisions where a district court dismissed the case brought by copyright troll Righthaven. Indeed, Righthaven has lost on the merits every single time a court has considered its arguments (before six judges and counting). In Hoehn, the court correctly found both that Righthaven did not...

Oh let the laughter ensue raucously on this one folks. Seriously how ridiculously stupid do you have to be to not only steal music from the very people you are suppose to be representing, and protecting, but then to get caught doing it. It all started back in 2006 when Dutch performer Melchior Rietveldt was approached by the anti-piracy group BREIN to write a score for an anti-piracy video which he was led to believe would only be shown a a local arts festival. Well it turns out that his music found its way on a large number of retail...

A pending bill aimed at curbing online piracy would "put American innovators and investors at a clear disadvantage in the global economy," a coalition of venture capitalists and Internet experts warned this week. The Protect IP Act (S. 968) "is ripe for abuse," they say in a letter to Congress. "It allows rights-holders to require third-parties to block access to and take away revenues sources for online services, with limited oversight and due process." The letter was signed by more than 50 executives, including Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, Esther Dyson of EDventure Holdings and Fred Wilson of Union Square...

When federal authorities shut down five Web sites last month on suspicion of copyright infringement, they gave no warning and offered no details of their investigation, and they have not filed any criminal charges since But after the seizure warrant used in the operation was released last week, the operators of several of the sites said in interviews that they were innocent of infringement, and criticized the investigation for misrepresenting how their sites worked.

We keep hearing about it—the “all-digital future”: easier, more convenient, no need to drive to the store. Download all the content you want instantly. Thus, iTunes, OnLive, Steam, and various other services were born. But this convenience bears a steep price. In our rush to embrace the all-digital future, we’ve sacrificed fundamental property rights. Time and again, record labels, software developers, and movie studios have expressed their displeasure with physical media. The overhead is too steep. There’s too much piracy. The second-hand market is immoral and equivalent to piracy. Technophiles love to debate the merits of streaming media, but it’s...

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.” COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and...

MINNEAPOLIS, - A Minnesota mother was ordered by a jury to pay $1.5 million to the Recording Industry Association of America for illegally downloading and sharing 24 songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay the sum, $62,500 for each illegally downloaded song, by a Minneapolis court after two previous convictions were thrown out on appeal, the New York Daily News reported Friday. Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay $222,000 following a 2007 trial but the decision was declared a mistrial upon appeal. She was next ordered to pay $1.92 million in a June 2009 trial, but the judge lowered the amount...

A federal jury found Wednesday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, of Brainerd, must pay $62,500 per song — for a total of $1.5 million — for illegally violating copyrights on 24 songs. This was the third jury to consider damages in her case, and each has found that she must pay — though different amounts. And after each time, the single mother of four has said she can't pay. "I can't afford to pay any amount. It's not a matter of won't, it's a matter of 'I can't,'" Thomas-Rasset said Thursday. "Any amount that I pay to them is money that I...