| Subject: Grandmother to fight RIAA |
Author:
Betty
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 11:53:53 05/20/04 Thu
In reply to:
Betty
's message, "RIAA & goofy laws." on 17:09:22 02/01/04 Sun
Will a Carolina grandmother be the first person to stand up against the corporate entertainment industry in its attacks against innocent file sharers?
Thousands of men, women and children have been accused of causing desperate hardship to the multi-billion dollar industry by sharing music online.
However, no one has yet been found guilty of any wrong-doing because none of its victims can afford to go up against it and risk enormous financial penalties if they lose. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), owned by the Big Five record labels, in effect makes them an offer they can't refuse and its victims settle out of court.
In other words, they pay to make the RIAA go away.
No one knows exactly how much money the Big Five labels have collected in this way, and no one knows what they do with the money.
One of the most recent victims is, however, a Fayetteville grandmother whom the RIAA claims downloaded and shared copyrighted songs.
"About a month ago, Barbara Johnson tried to log onto AOL and found she was cut off," says a News 14 Carolina, going on:
"She called the company. 'They told me they did it because of the downloading and sharing the files with everyone else,' Johnson said. Then she received a letter from AOL. It said the Recording Industry Association of America plans to subpoena her account."
News 14 has Johnson saying her grandson downloaded the songs, but, "My grandma told me to stop so I stopped. I stopped downloading but I didn't delete my programs."
The report goes on that the RIAA phoned Johnson and said 520 songs had been downloaded and, "Those 520 songs will cost you $750 and I said, 'What?' That's $750 for each song'."
However, the RIAA told her it would settle for $3,500, she's quoted as saying.
According to News 14, the grandmother's reply was - "You know what? You won't get it because I don't have it."
It'll be interesting to see where this goes.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 