Hola everyone!

It’s been awhile since I sat down and chatted with you all. But I have been tinkering away in the wizard’s lair trying to come up with a vaccine for all of these disgusting RIAA/MPAA employees, but to their luck they are some form of hybrid disease. So we have to stay vigilant in our quest to smite these foul creatures.

Enough with the wizard talk. Do you own an iPod, Zen, Zune or any device that you have to rip from a CD so you can play your purchased CD on that device? I know there are not that many people that own these crazy futuristic devices, but if you’re like me you like to stay ahead of the times. If your answer is “Yes”, then the RIAA thinks you are a thief. So I guess I should not come out and tell you about my laser disc copying cluster I have in the basement. Even if you make a copy of your purchased CD then they think you are stealing. So backing up your music is a definitely a no, no.

“After years of battling in court and close to 30,000 lawsuits, making a copy of a CD you bought for your own personal usage is still a concept that the recording industry is apparently uncomfortable with. During the Jammie Thomas trial this fall, the head of litigation from Sony BMG testified that she believed that ripping your own CDs is stealing.

When asked by the RIAA’s lead counsel whether it was wrong for consumers to make copies of CDs they have purchased, Jennifer Pariser replied in the negative. “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song,” said Pariser. Making “a copy” of a song you own is just “a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy’,” according to Pariser. ” Via ars technica

All of this leaves me to believe that once again the RIAA is scum. It makes sense to come after the end user, the small guy. It’s not like they are going after the companies that are making these things possible, like manufacturers of CDRW/DVDRW drives. The small guy does not have the type of money to fend these bloodsuckers off, but the large manufacturing companies do. That question has always been lying back in my head, why don’t we hear about any lawsuits anymore about the RIAA going after the source of what they call
“destruction of their media”. It started with CDR technology and the actual media. Why don’t they go after Microsoft, Apple, and many others for creating ripping tools built in to their software?

Maybe they have in the past, but I could not dig it up. But now all we hear is the RIAA attacking the little people. We can’t really use that excuse for Grokster, and Napster, but the majority of these attacks are against the end user, never against big business.

But once again the RIAA tries to take us all down a peg. But soon we will overcome!

If you have all been keeping up with the whole MediaDefender fallout you might have heard about this story. It seems like Interscope Records are using P2P networks as marketing tools. Some more outrageous emails have been uncovered from the MediaDefender debacle, but in an email transcribed from an Interscope Records exec to a MediaDefender employee asking if a new single of their artist was gaining traction on P2P networks. They quote saying:

“Nicole from pussy cat dolls has a single called “whatever u like”. It’s not selling well on itunes or playing that great on radio. A song called “Baby Love” just leaked (I don’t know how long ago). Interscope wants to know if Baby Love is picking up steam on p2p. They need to make a decision by early next week on whether they should switch to this song as the single. Please get me a score comparison on Monday for these two tracks. Also, please put beyonces, fergie, gwen, and nelly furtado singles as comparisons.”

We are fairly certain other record companies are doing this as well, they leak a song and they want to see how well it performs in an open market. So P2P users and networks are being used as a tool, providing record companies with valuable marketing information. It seems a little hypocritical if you ask us. So while innocent people are being sued by the RIAA, record companies are doing the same thing P2P users are doing and more. It sure tells you how much they love an artist when they leak tracks for them.  The war continues….

A quote from my good friend the Geek’s Henchman sums this week up, “They may take our internet lives but they’ll never take our internet freedoms!” With all of the new info and news about piracy this week we decided to put a hot spotlight on all the rumors, news, and information on how we all can defend our online freedoms. This idea came to us after reading about the whole media defender debacle. Now in the past we have blasted many companies and sites about disregarding freedoms of their customers and users which we think is wrong. We will continue to back the consumer, and continue to back the people.

So with that we give this week to you, the consumer. This whole week will be dedicated to piracy, and how we feel about. It will also be dedicated to how you can fight for your online freedoms. Now we fully respect the intellectual property of artists in the music, movie, and software industry, but what we don’t respect is how “private contractors” go about hunting down and entrapping people. These companies like the MPAA and RIAA are just that, companies, so many people think they are a part of the US government. They are not, people think this because the MPAA and the RIAA act like they own the internet, and they feel that they can create laws that are only sanctioned by them. They do have the backing of the US government because they have persuaded the judges of this country into taking freedoms and protection away from the consumer. In reality they classify themselves as non-profit trade association, which is  some what of a joke.

This week we will cover a lot of important pieces to this gigantic shell game the consumers and contractors play. We will touch on how ISP lie about what they watch you do and how they track your actions to simply protect themselves. We will touch on how you can protect yourself using P2P services like Bit Torrent. We will show how to protect yourself if you do by chance get a call or letter from one of these evil entities. Now we will never be able to match the funds that the MPAA and the RIAA have to fight back, but we can let everything be heard, and let our judges and elected officials know how we feel about it these issues. 

So we all here at The Geekery want you to sit back and just read, even if you do not agree on some of these controversial topics, its always good to hear all sides of the story. 

The RIAA has been slapped by a class action lawsuit, filed by Tanya Anderson, a single mom from Oregon who claims the organization’s goons impersonated her 10-year-old daughter’s grandmother over the phone to extract evidence.

Charges filed against the RIAA include — deep breath now — counts of negligence, fraud and misrepresentation, racketeering and corruption, abuse of the legal process, malicious prosecution, outrage and intention to inflict emotional distress, computer fraud and abuse, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright laws, and civil conspiracy.

The case was spotted by the ever-watchful folks at The Recording Industry vs The People. You can grab a copy of the complaint at their website.

The lawsuit fingers the RIAA, a number of record labels under the organization’s umbrella, and MediaSentry - a firm the RIAA uses to sniff out individuals suspected of illegally swapping copyrighted music.

Anderson claims the non-profit RIAA engages in a coordinated enterprise scheme of threatening and intimidating litigation to maintain a music distribution monopoly.

The suit alleges MediaSentry “conducts illegal, flawed and negligent investigations for the RIAA and its controlled member companies.” It goes on to say that for years the group has entered a secret agreement targeting private citizens.

From the filing:

MediaSentry and the RIAA know that their investigations are illegal and flawed. MediaSentry is not licensed or registered to conduct private investigation of private US citizens. Moreover, in a March 2004 sworn deposition MediaSentry’s then president admitted to various serious flaws in the investigative scheme which all Defendants know result in misidentification of individuals.

The process:
The lawsuit describes the RIAA’s sinister machine, which it alleges clogs and abuses the federal court with baseless lawsuits.

First, the RIAA and controlled members file information farming suits against anonymous “John Doe” parties to coerce internet service providers into identifying the users behind particular IP addresses. Because no specific parties are named, the lawsuit claims those targeted are often deprived of due process and never know the RIAA is harvesting their private information. After the information is gathered, the anonymous suits are typically dismissed immediately before the individuals know they have been “secretly sued,” robbing them of the opportunity to appear in court to protect their identities.

The RIAA’s next step is sending “threatening and misleading letters,” that contain false allegations and omissions. The letters are confusing, claiming the recipient has both “already been sued,” and “have not yet been named as a defendant.” The letters tell the recipient that all the necessary evidence has been secured and the recipient has 10 days to make contact with the RIAA before a federal lawsuit is filed against them.

The class action suit claims 10 days does not provide the letter recipient with any meaningful time to investigate the allegations. The letter also conveniently neglects to inform the recipient that they were the subject of a private “illegal” investigation, or that there is a known possibility for error or mistaken identity.

“With its legal expertise, the RIAA has a heightened duty to act reasonably, responsibility, and legally to avoid foreseeable harm…,” the suit claims. Despite knowing the nature of the investigations, it has acted negligently when it conspired and coordinated with MediaSentry. The RIAA has used the information gathered on a “campaign of threat and extortion.”

If the complaint is certified for class action, it could pave the way for others harassed by the RIAA to join the lawsuit. Such a confrontation was bound to happen given the organization’s notorious tactics, and should it fail, more would doubtlessly find their way to court.

Via the Austin Modine via the Register