yep, forced a 12 year old girl living in low income public housing to pay 2000 dollars.
from the register=

RIAA keeps 12-year-old quiet with $2,000 bill
By Ashlee Vance in Chicago
Posted: 10/09/2003 at 00:28 GMT


The RIAA took quick steps to blunt a public relations atrocity by agreeing to settle out of court with a 12-year-old girl accused of trading copyrighted songs.

It took all of twenty-four hours for young Biggie Brianna to be hit with a lawsuit and then pay up for her alleged crimes. The youngster's mother has agreed to shell out $2,000 to get the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) off her family's back. This marks the first settlement to come as a result of the 261 lawsuits the RIAA filed this week.

Earlier in the day, Brianna complained of stomach pains and emotional suffering as a result of the RIAA's actions. After signing the soothing settlement, however, she expressed regret at having harmed the precious artists.

It's okay, Brianna, don't worry. Fox manufactures new artists every few months. The new ones won't know that you committed the naughty act of trying to listen to their music.

The pigopolists no doubt prepared a contingency plan should any toddlers, pre-teens or bedridden seniors get caught in their web of lawsuits. Alarm bells must have sounded in the swine cave when word of Biggie Brianna got out. A number of news outlets rushed to tell the story of the honors student gone wrong.

Brianna thought the $29.99 fee her mother paid for the Kazaa music trading service entitled her to download songs at will. Nothing like a lawsuit seeking $150,000 per song to correct that misconception. This is what some refer to as a growing pain.

This settlement has taught us a few valuable lessons about the RIAA's methodology. Apparently, young teens hit the copyright infringement scale at the $2,000 mark. College students, by contrast, must cough up between $12,000 and $17,000 for their violations, as we saw earlier this year. So any parents out there with children under 12 can expect their precious tots' crimes to cost around $1,000. That's comforting.

It's also clear that the RIAA has no leniency for the less well off in society. Brianna happened to live in a New York Housing Authority apartment, which provides safe, affordable housing to low- and moderate-income families. The music label executives are struggling to pay the rent on their penthouse apartments because of file-trading, so why cut the lower class some slack? We all have needs.

The RIAA's actions, however, aren't going unnoticed by the government. During a Senate Judiciary Hearing Tuesday, the RIAA president Cary Sherman faced some tough questions.

"Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" Sen. Dick Durbin asked, according to the AP.

"Yes, there are going to be some kids caught in this, but you'd be surprised at how many adults are engaged in this activity," Sherman said.

Don't let your emotions get the best of you, Cary. Come on, stay tough.

The RIAA is sure to have some PR gaffes as their legal crusade goes along. But a few miscues are certainly worth it when we are all being taught such a valuable lesson. ?

fuck them.
i wish they were sluts... and sucked cocks for 10c.

shame on riaa have no self respect at all when they sue 12year old kids.. hopefully someone will kick riaas ass and shut them down for good...

ah, they take no prisoners, just money money money. I take that back, there are a couple people looking at prison time for filesharing mp3.
ive really got to respect an orgainization like the RIAA, they are fucking evil.

all what need peoples is -
hey, Bush (senator or someone else) we r not gonna vote for u next time, bitch ass, if RI44 will still bitching..
and... riaa is dead.
and their director and employers r sucking cocks for 10c. or make photosession for Playboy..
name - "Bithces of RI44".. like Enron...
ffs

they're just making a statement.

Now They have the option, admit and pay $2000, or pay $3 a song.

according to most of the news places ive read up on thier 'amnesty deal' is a sham. even if someone signs up for it the RIAA isnt legally prevented in any way from going after them. and if you are one of 200,000 to 1.7 million people already being 'investigated', signing it would be considered admittance of wrongdoing aka a confession. hell, even if someone was to quit all donkey/emule/kazza right now and deleted all there files, they are still targeted from files they shared months ago.

the mpaa are starting thier wave of lawsuits next, and i imagine what and how they do it will depend a lot on how these RIAA things go. man, they have even started nailing people for getting porn clips(the normal porn, not kiddie porn), that's the last straw.

these laws may not affect your countries, but if u read the news, europe is starting to use the usa's laws as a templet.

If I understand correctly, the RIAA mostly goes after the filesharers who share well-known or previously well-known songs. If you look at the offending mp3's in the subpoena's, you'll notice mostly crap like Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, NAS, J-Lo etc. In a nutshell, the RIAA is merely forcing the public to develop some taste in music and leave all the choreographed-brainwashed-MTV spawnshite alone.
If they're going after moviesharing, I doubt they'll be looking for Bio-Zombie. They'll be more likely to give a shit about Matrix Reloaded, Hulk and all the other choreographed-brainwashed-MTV spawnshite

However, sharing music can be slightly safer using Soulseek, which allows you to choose who gets to download from you. You don't have to share your files with the rest of the world. When I download from someone, I add them to my list so they can download from me. And with my musical taste, I doubt I'll be adding an RIAA member to my friends list. I don't listen to uninspired steaming piles of crap.

Bleh!

i have no respect for riaa after what they have done, what about the multi million billion dollar atist, just sit back and see a kid and her family sink more down in depts. bloody wankers!!!....

riaa is discriminating the freedom of internett... someone plz hack them and bury them for good....

btw, what artist?
which song got that girl?
now it's possible to start war. make a site.. with something like doc said..
about bitchy cocksucking slut aka Aguilera or Spears (example). with a lot of money and poor girl...
and "Dont buy that shit! cuz of ...."

Where is the gain? Where is the money?

It is certainly not from a 12 year old girl for 2000 bucks. The publicity... hey, we are the riaa and we don't like looking like asses to the world for letting people download music and share it at will, so we are gonna scare the shit outta people just so we can show we have balls.

Are we to believe them when they say they have lost X amount of dollars to illegal file sharing? Lots of people do. Enough for laws to get passed unnoticed and unchecked. Sounds like an easy excuse for low sales. Bring .mp3's and file sharing more into the public view by passing laws and suing people. Next comes the pour of people buying songs online? Which then = more $$?

Last time I was at a music store the place sure wasn't empty. They are spending how many millions to go after people? It just don't wash.

For sure its all about money, but I'm not so sure its from where everyone thinks.

Or maybe they just don't got nothing better to do.

erm, i thought u were German? Surely you shouldn't have been voting for Bush anyways?

Just wait when china & india becomes industrialised, and 40 % of it's citizens can afford a pc and a dsl......

R.I.P R.I.A.A

I wonder how much it cost the RIAA to take this girl to court. A lot more than 2000. I don't think they did it for the money. They are making a statement to all the other 12 year olds in this country. I mean, they are very impressionable, especially listening to shitty pop bands. Still doesn't make it right.

Someone should make a movie where all the RIAA employees are staying late in their office surfing on kazaa looking for the next teen and a killer stalks and kills all of them. It would be a hit!

think i will get writing on it

Sounds like good movie.......I'd definately download it

I wonder if it's a genuine story though, lots of falsities have been spread by both sides and it sound implausable that the RIAA would take a teen to court on such a matter.

lol Spud.
well.. germany is kewl of coz..
but T-Online (Deutche Telekom) sends letters now... @stop using p2p programms or we gonna kick your ass@...
my provider said that from October i can begin suck my dick if i will use emule... well.. i'll change ISP in October, fuck them. lol.


btw. i am buying music CD's cuz i listen to the bands who need support.. they r not reach...
of cuz i got some pop songs..
but i am 100% sure THAT I WOULD NOT buy them if i could not dl them...
what i want to say - they dont loose so much money like they say...

'the register' does tend to put thier own spin on things, but there was a link to the original story in the New York Post-http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/5349.htm

i'm not so much worried about the enforcement of copyright laws to get thier money, its all the extra little laws added. being anonymous on the internet is over now, people are being tracked down and taken to court for just voicing thier opinions. the good old internet will just be another tool to keep all us sheep free from thinking bad thoughts and able to sleep well at night because the powers that be have eliminated all the troublemakers, or at least scare the 'criminals' enough not to take what's thier$ or change the status que.

excuse my bitching, being in the minority is one of the few things i seem to be good at.

i dont live over there... so this hitler attidude like riaa show have no effect over at my country and thank god for that...

but...

there is only time before someone get pissed off and try to destroy riaa this have been shown before when their http site was hacked..

you don't have to live over there.....this very week the US military launched a sattelite in orbit.....although nothing was disclosed many are convinced it was this super spy sattelite that tap into anything anywhere.....

Monkeysmasher may be ridiculed by some of you , but the time of anonymous surfing (if there ever was such a thing) is or soon will be over....and some crappy firewall ain't gonna protect you either.....
I give another 10 years - after that storage devices have enough capacity to register every visit to every site of every internet user....

Down while you can