RIAA settles with 12-year-old

[Julio Franco]

Barely 24 hours after suing alleged file swappers around the United States, the recording industry has settled its first, agreeing to drop its case against a 12-year-old New York girl in exchange for $2,000.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed 261 lawsuits Monday against computer users it said were exclusively "egregious" file swappers. One of the targets wound up being Brianna Lahara, who was identified by the New York Post as a 12-year-old honors student who lives in a New York City Housing Authority apartment.

Read more: CNet News.

 

[poertner_1274]

I heard about this yesterday, I'm not sure how well this will go over with other people who got sued. I'm sure they aren't going to want to settle with everyone, and will want to prosecute quite a few people.

I know she is young, but are they going to show the same leniency to a 24 year old?

Anyway it is cheaper for them to settle than pay lawyers fee's, so good move on the mothers part.

 

[TS | Thomas]

I actually didn't even think you could sue a minor in the USA. Sort of a shame they settled in a way, I mean how bad would it really look when a massive organisation has to resort to suing a 12 year old in the courts.

 

[Phantasm66]

my 5 year old sister listened to an mp3 I downloaded once... maybe the RIAA should sue her!

man, this is getting silly! Someone has to stop these guys.

 

[Nic]

The RIAA do have a point. If they were to simply ignore file swapping, then at some point the music industry will go bankrupt. It is illegal to download copyrighted music, and album sales are affected.

I dislike the RIAA as much as anyone, but they are acting within the law, so I can't see how anyone can complain. Maybe someone needs to produce a secure encrypted file swapping service to make things harder for the RIAA to detect infringments.

At least the price of music CDs is coming down because of all the lost sales, supposidly caused by file swapping, though sky high CD prices also play a major role. Check out this link ...

Music giant to drop prices

 

[XtR-X]

I think they picked a young person to sue just to make a point about it. No matter what day and age, they can get you [if they wanted to].

 

[lzrdlps]

If recording artist would release a decent album, instead of an over-priced CD with 1-2 decent songs then people might not download their music. How many of us have paid $15 for a couple of worthwhile songs, and the rest of the CD filled with whatever the artist felt they could fill it with. Bought a concert ticket, Eagles are coming to town, cheap seats are $65. Inflation I can understand, greed is another way to steal from you. That's my opinion, but I'm medicated right now.

 

[young&wild]

Originally posted by Nic
The RIAA do have a point. If they were to simply ignore file swapping, then at some point the music industry will go bankrupt. [/URL]

Yeah, but then...you have take into account other stats like the number of albums released and etc.

 

[TS | Thomas]

Originally posted by Nic
The RIAA do have a point. If they were to simply ignore file swapping, then at some point the music industry will go bankrupt. It is illegal to download copyrighted music, and album sales are affected.

They probably said the same thing with the introduction of the cassette player/recorder, which could "copy" music from CD/Radio to tape.

 

[Nic]

I don't like the RIAA one bit, but once broadband becomes common and more of us have computers in our homes, then music sales will go down. How many users have copied a CD, or made a tape, and then gone out and purchased the original album? Very few is my guess. However, I am not against downloading mp3s while album prices remain unrealistically high. There's nothing to stop users recording radio broadcasts, and indeed, there is a surcharge on tapes and CDs to cover this.

The situation in the past, with cassette player/recorder, is not quite the same as it is today, with the internet. In the past you would have needed to know someone with an original album in order to make a copy of it. Today, with the internet, you only need to install a file swapping application. That essentially translates from one original purchase to millions of free downloads. Things are much more serious.

I've never bought any albums for around 5 years now and that's because in the UK, albums can cost the equivalent of around $25 in some cases. That's way too much as far as I am concerned, so I only buy older albums when special promotions/sales are running. I don't download mp3s either as they sound awful when played on good HiFi equipment, in my opinion.