How many people has the RIAA sued in total?

[Justin]

Coverage of the RIAA has been ongoing for many years since as they’ve taken people to court over copyright infringement. Though we have seen dozens of cases, and hundreds of interviews, it's never been well known exactly how many times the RIAA has tried to sue someone into submission. Recently, that question was asked, and some startling figures were discovered – upwards of 35,000 people with most of them taking part in the average $3,000 to $5,000 settlement.

The RIAA disagrees, saying that the number of people actually stands closer to 18,000 in total. Where does the truth lie? According to Ars, somewhere right in the middle. The RIAA has admitted to filing over 30,000 individual lawsuits, but those are composed of both named and anonymous people, and not every case was settled. Regardless of which figure you decide to use, that gives a lowball amount of $50 million in settlements alone, perhaps as high as almost double that.

That's no small amount of change, and yet it's been common knowledge for a while that the RIAA does not actually generate any amount of cash in pursuing people in the court. With a monumental amount of lawsuits and each one a losing prospect, is the RIAA's “investment” in lawsuits paying off?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/35389-how-many-people-has-the-riaa-sued-in-total.html

 

[gobbybobby]

Oh yea! I don't know anyone taken to court or threatened with anything. No letters/emails form ISP or companys,. What a load of sh** I don't believe it. GIVE up is what I say. These companys had there chance at selling there stuff online and blew it. Now look where we are. Piracy is an everyday thing for some people. Cracked games consoles and Knock off movies, I agree it needs to stop. you pirates are KILLING INDUSTYS! But the 21 century approah of ''sue the fu****'' is not working. Services like spotify offer free music and most good TV network opperators have on demend TV and online services in place now. Software, if u need it BUY it. if it costs £1000 and u are not willing to pay, then u don't need it.

I Bid to not pirate ANYTHING, EVER again. (Unless its a leaked Beta of somethink. that don't count right!)

 

[Guest]

Are the individual lawsuits making money? I would be surprised if they got even close to breaking even. It's not about making money through the lawsuits; its spending tens of millions of dollars a year intimidating pirates from pirating in the first place, and recovering those *hundreds* of millions of dollars in lost profits a year. (According to their data anyways.)
If every suit they file results in $10,000 dollars of expenses, but keeps 100 people from downloading just $200 dollars of warez for the rest of their life, they've made a $10,000 profit.

The point of punishment is to discourage future transgressions, not to recover the losses of each crime in the past.

 

[Tekkaraiden]

Well they wouldn't do it if they were losing vast amounts of money at it. Oh wait it's the artists money anyways.

 

[OneArmedScissor]

gobbybobby said:
you pirates are KILLING INDUSTYS!

Oh, give it a rest. In 2008, the music industry had 10.5% more sales and made $1.5 billion more than the year before. It grows all the time. They like to distort this by talking about the decline in CD sales, which is directly attributable to the HUGE increase in paid downloads and vinyl sales.

Just because some high school kids with no money have $20,000 worth of downloaded albums doesn't mean anyone was hurt, much less killed.

gobbybobby said:I Bid to not pirate ANYTHING, EVER again. (Unless its a leaked Beta of somethink. that don't count right!)

And I will never speed again, ever...except when there are no cops around, because it doesn't count if they don't catch me, right?

Exact same deal. We all do it at some time or another and can justify it to ourselves, as very rarely, if ever, is it actually the true reason anyone was hurt.

Once in a while, there may be someone who speeds through a traffic light and runs into someone. Once in a while, there may be someone who is pissed off by the music industry's wrong doings and vows to never pay for an album again.

Neither of those things are the norm, and they both involve multiple issues that lead to the end result. It's not that cut and dry.

 

[superTramp92]

There are a lot of people who take the whole "do as i say not as i do" stance when it comes to privacy. Yeah they know it's wrong, and yeah they tell others not to do it, but they inevitably do it them selves. Of course there can be underlying circumstances to cause piracy. I "know" a guy who has a windows xp disk (bought) and registered it on a computer, Couple years later, gets a new computer but still wants to use the same operating system as his old one. Wants to do a fresh install to get everything running smoothly but has to go through all this junk with MS to unregister the product in order to register it with a different computer. In the end piracy of that OS was far easier.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

I refuse to believe that the music companies are losing anything. After all, the people who pirated the thing to begin with were never going to buy it in the first place! Since it was available, they were able to download it. The RIAA\MPAA should try to stop these albums from leaking online in the first place, rather than suing everyone who downloads them.

Piracy involves copyright infringement, which is NOT the same as stealing something physical. IMO, it does not cost the owner of the copyright any money.

 

[polidiotic]

You can't take these people seriously... they've distorted the term "piracy" so much that the original meaning doesn't hold precedence anymore. They redefine words all the time to suit their needs.

The people they're suing are those who are finding the files available, for free, online. At large, they're not even large distributors or the original creators (or "pirates") of the files in question. It's not piracy, if you didn't steal the item. None of these people are in it for profit... only the RIAA & MPAA, who are the real pirates by bullying people with lawsuits and threats.

The people they need to be worried about are those that are duplicating copies and selling them. Why? Because they're actually stealing sales from the recording industry. Obviously a person willing to pay for something copied, might be willing to pay for something legitimate. That's the only lawsuit that makes sense... all of this other ****? It's bull... and they know it.

 

[JDoors]

@Justin: "... is the RIAA's “investment” in lawsuits paying off?"

If by "paying off" you mean by keeping piracy in the news and tickin' people off to the point where MORE people are tempted to pirate and those that already do are pirating MORE stuff, then it's been a rousing success. Good job. Great investment.

Time to disband the RIAA.

 

[Guest]

Good Ol' RIAA! with their own Police force and all. So people want to pirate Crap Industry music? Let 'em. I'll still Stay indie as an artist Producer etc. I think that, like the politicos in D.C. They are so far out of touch with the creative arena of Music, that they're digging them selves into a hole. One I Hope that collapses like a badly fortified mine. I'm only sorry about the people that get suckered by the promise of Fame and fortune, that get screwed by the industry a la 1950's and 60's black artitsts, and end up broke and in debt to the labels. It's a waste of talent, that could possible be nurtutred by a more Artist based indie lable, or DIY ethic. as far as how many people have the RIAA have Sued: 1 was too many. I seriously doubt that the familys of the A&R execs, and Cfo's Ceo Lawyers are going hungry because Granny downloaded a Faron Young song without paying for it. I'm reminded of Disney's bid to Copyright certain music notes. Basically I'm saying Screw the RIAA. and support those who get sued. Talk about frivolity in lawsuits!

 

[Guest]

Are the individual lawsuits making money? I would be surprised if they got even close to breaking even. It's not about making money through the lawsuits; its spending tens of millions of dollars a year intimidating pirates from pirating in the first place, and recovering those *hundreds* of millions of dollars in lost profits a year. (According to their data anyways.)
If every suit they file results in $10,000 dollars of expenses, but keeps 100 people from downloading just $200 dollars of warez for the rest of their life, they've made a $10,000 profit.

The point of punishment is to discourage future transgressions, not to recover the losses of each crime in the past.

Punishment to discourage future transgressions....THAT HAS Always Worked....
Actually, I would "Pirate" a mp3 to listen to a band that i'm not familiar with, If I like them, I'll Go Buy the Cd, why? because mp3's suck. It's a crap format, so I don't see that making and mp3 from a Hi Res studio master is all that expensive. the money's have been paid, the artist will recieve their royalties and more importantly, the record companies will get their cut, and the saying that "It's the artists money?" well... to a certain extent, being that the lable puts up the cash for a chance at a return on inveestment, buteverything that facilitates the artist is basically property of the Label, if your album flops, you're in the hole.. usually somewhere in 5 to 6 digit realm. then It's the Artists Money. You get paid when everyone else gets their cut not before...

 

[Guest]

fu~~ the RIAA. im in college, i cant even afford beer. if i had the money, maybe id support some artists. my plan is this, once im a rich successful business man someday or win the lotto i will personally write my favorite artists a fat check and send it to them. by pass the middle man RIAA that takes 80-90% profit of every album that's sold. Thats how you support the artists/industry

 

[raybay]

Depends on how you count... or how RIAA counts... They claim 25000+ names, but nobody knows how many are Doe suits, and how many of that 25000+ are grouped into various categories...
"The fact that the tactics being criticized by the law students (and the judge) are routine for the RIAA is unquestioned. Indeed, the RIAA's 25,000+ lawsuits would be nigh impossible without Doe lawsuits. But such lawsuits are problematic not only for the reasons outlined above, but because the Does usually never find out that they have been sued and discovery has been taken against them until after the Doe case is dismissed and individual lawsuits are filed." from the ARS Technica site.

 

[tengeta]

The RIAA screwed up, they had their chance and now they are fixing THEIR mistakes.

Whats the problem? They have no actual idea how to fix it so they resort to this.

 

[apallohadas]

Guest said:
The point of punishment is to discourage future transgressions, not to recover the losses of each crime in the past.

You failed Criminal Justice didn't you?

Punishment is a retributive act for a deed done. Fines recover losses. The funny thing about punishment, is that 'you can't punish the bad out of a person'.

Also, I'm wondering why you guys keep talking about warez and other things that the RIAA aren't involved in.

 

[apallohadas]

Guest said:

Punishment to discourage future transgressions....THAT HAS Always Worked....

That is incorrect. Research has proven that education is more effective than punishment when it comes to future crime prevention.

 

[Guest]

It looks like better then 80% of those sued take the 3 grand chicken out deal, so if it cost these folks 500 to file the suit they are making 2500 per suite, not a bad return on your buck.

I feel for those taking the deal but you know if you hire a lawyer his fee will easily exceed the offer by three to thirty times so you really don't have a choice unliess you happen to have a legal degree laying around and lots of time on your hands to deffend against these folks.

 

[gingerbill]

i would like to know the facts on how many people have paid when they get the lettter and how many told them to F off . Would also like to know how many off those who told them to F off got taken to court.

I might be wrong but from what i read elsewhere they usually do nothing when you tell them to get lost and rely on people folding. I would tell them to get lost and take me to court . But it easy to say that till it actually happens , the letter would make you worry .

 

[Phantasm66]

onearmedscissor said:

gobbybobby said:
you pirates are KILLING INDUSTYS!

Oh, give it a rest.

Indeed. I'm tired of hearing all this crap about starving artists and the entertainment industry in chaos. Its complete bollocks.

 

[Guest]

I would like to point out something that has not been mentioned at all, ever. Don't get me wrong. I am not a stealer of information, but there is a part of the lost money equation that is not being mentioned that needs to be mentioned. Let's think about the transformation of how the music has been recorded and sold. Vinyl records that warped and got scratched, 8 track and cassette tapes that would break, get caught in players, or get ruined by heat or magnets. These older forms of media that we were using kept changing and we had to keep repurchasing the same music to stay up with the times or just because the music companies were selling us media that was flawed and was going to break eventually. They were making money left and right because people had to purchase the same songs over and over just to keep hearing them due to the crap it was recorded on. Now, we don't have that any more. We have the ability to take a digital copy and save it in a file on a computer, on a flash drive, or on a portable media player. AND, we can copy it to another digital device, in our own home for our own use for no more money. The real complaint the music companies and artists really have is that they are no longer making all the extra income they were making from the poor manufacturing processes they were selling to us in the first place, so now they feel since their profits have shrunk, they need to sue us for every penny they can get. I am not naive. I know there are some who steal music via pirating or bootlegging, but don't think they did not do that in the past when you could record your own songs via the radio or through your home stereo onto cassettes. The real problem here is that they have created a true high quality media that can be kept safe in a file in case the media (cd or flash media) should ever fail and they are losing the repeat sales from those that were having to buy the same songs over and over as they kept wanting to hear the music that was sold to them on bad media. I say the people of the world should sue the RIAA for selling us crap for the past 50 years and give us back the money from all of the times we had to repurchase the songs. They have been ripping off the public for so long that they expect to be able to keep ripping us off, as if they have that right. I say they need to stop complaining and be happy for the money they make. They would lose their back sides in a suit of that nature if we drew up a class action suit against the RIAA for making us have to buy their music over and over since they sold us defective products. Then maybe we could have some peace and just enjoy the music. "Shut up and play" should be the motto for the law suit. We are still buying your music. As for me... I buy more than ever since I have more confidence in that I will still have the songs to listen to for a long time. They are not losing money on me, so shut up and play.

 

[raybay]

Not to mention the crummy rock music, and the bad jazz that was just repeats of other bad jazz going back to the 40's. They should not have done that to us... selling us crappy music, and promoting how good it was, creating hit after hit, duping us into buying even more crappy music... and that doesn't even beging to cover folk, international, and new age where the real crap is actually really crap.

 

[Guest]

Killing the industry? I wonder how is that happening with actors getting 4 mils per movie!!

 

[Twister123]

if piracy ended tomorrow , no more punk or "devil music" only clean cut stuff would be available , no room for cutting edge material , tipper gore {thats al gore's wife, she introduced the parental advisory sticker , or settled for it , because she couldn't get people imprisoned for "devil music" ya know , anyone old enough to remember the dead kenedy and penis landscape , and all that} would be delighted

 

[Guest]

If the industry comes with an descent product i will buy it.
I have bought a lot of games that were 'great' at different sites. example: Kane and Lynch.
EA doesnt allow bad reviews about thier games.So who started the whole thing.People were getting sick and tired of it, to buy with huge prices the products they made and getting dissapointed, at least i was .
So now i download the piracy stuff,i give it a shot for a couple of hours then if i like it then i buy it.
Same a as XP i bought since SP2 came out.
I spent hunderds of euro's for games i dont play longer then 2 hours.Too expensive for me 25 euro's for an hour of frustration.

@Industry come with descent products and a good support and people will buy it.
Examples enough look around.

Greetings from Holland