
RIAA paid its lawyers more than $16,000,000 in 2008 to recover only $391,000 - aj
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2010/07/ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-riaa-paid-its-lawyers.html
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ars
This isn't really the whole story. They are assuming that their member
companies will make more money as a result of less piracy. And that additional
money should/would be added to the total.

(Note: I did not say if it _will_ actually reduce piracy, just that that is
their assumption, and is why they are willing to pay this.)

~~~
baddox
Three things: This will not result in less piracy, pirates spend more money on
music than non-pirates, and frequently-pirated music makes more money than
less-pirated music.

Since January, there has already been one album that I have literally only
bought because of piracy (I never would have heard of the band were it not for
piracy). Last year I bought 2 or 3 albums which I never would have bought were
it not for piracy. How many albums do "normal" non-pirating consumer buy a
year?

~~~
hugh3
_This will not result in less piracy_

How so? Data point: I don't pirate music, partly because I'm paranoid about
getting sued by the RIAA. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

 _frequently-pirated music makes more money than less-pirated music._

Yes, popular music makes more money than unpopular music. Duh.

 _pirates spend more money on music than non-pirates_

Which, even if true, is not a demonstration of "pirates spend more money on
music than they would if they weren't pirates".

I am extremely skeptical of the idea that piracy helps the music industry. It
smells strongly of the kind of thing that people believe in order to justify
their own actions, rather than the kind of thing that people believe because
it's likely to be true.

If you're still pirating music in 2010, and the track you're pirating is
available on the Apple Store for 99 cents, then you're just being a cheap
bastard.

~~~
pyre
> If you're still pirating music in 2010, and the track you're pirating is
> available on the Apple Store for 99 cents, then you're just being a cheap
> bastard.

Where can I get my iTunes for Linux?

~~~
psadauskas
Amazon's digital music is pretty awesome. The only annoying limitation is that
you're only allowed to download the file once, but I just immediately upload
it to S3.

~~~
CountHackulus
Another annoying limitation is that Amazon MP3 is limited to US customers
only.

This greatly annoys me as there's an album I want that's not on iTunes, but is
on Amazon MP3. None of the local music stores stock it. My only choices are to
either pirate the album or pay exorbitant fees and wait several weeks to
import the disc.

Guess which one's easier.

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baddox
Now they can add $15,609,000 to their "money lost due to piracy" figure.

~~~
scotty79
I'm not sure. This would be first real number there. Unless you count the DRM
costs in.

~~~
teamonkey
Does anyone know how much a music DRM system actually costs to develop? The
voice of the internets says that it costs at least a bajillion dollars, is a
huge financial burden on the music industry and they're passing the costs on
directly to the artists.

Realistically I'd guess it costs more like a couple of million at the very
most which, spread over every product sold for a period of several years, is
actually peanuts.

~~~
philwelch
Developing DRM is the cheap part. You have to deal with the reduced sales and
bad press afterward.

~~~
teamonkey
That's an assumption. Do they really have a negative impact on net sales
figures?

------
awongh
I think everyone knows that you don't sue random torrenters on the internet
hoping to make a profit.

This was really part of a huge marketing campaign, where your audience reads
in all the big papers that some college student is being sued for $50,000
dollars and then are dissuaded from illegally downloading music... that's the
intent anyways....

~~~
cabalamat
Unless you are ACS:Law -- they seem to be making a profitable business from
it.

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JeffJenkins
That isn't that unreasonable. The US spends far more on preventing
counterfeiting than the total value of counterfeit money. The over-reaction is
meant to act as a deterrent so that the problem doesn't become more wide
spread (and in the case of currency, remove faith).

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sgman
Yes, but they did it to "encourage" people to purchase legal music which
presumably increased their revenues.

~~~
aj
Indeed. But a lot of reports (non on hand atm) state that this is not a direct
correlation.

that said, the figure quoted also (presumably) includes legal fees for matters
other than suing "pirates"/copyright infringers. So perhaps not a very
accurate figure but indicative at best.

~~~
philh
>that said, the figure quoted also (presumably) includes legal fees for
matters other than suing "pirates"/copyright infringers.

This seems to be correct. The numbers come from pages 8 and 9 of the linked
PDF. All it says is the law firms provided "legal services". I'm sure they
have many more uses for legal services than just suing pirates.

All we really know is "the RIAA recovered $391,348 from filesharers".

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pmccool
I imagine they spent a lot more on advertising their anti-"piracy" message.
Compared to that, the ROI is probably pretty good. I therefore expect the
lawsuits will continue, more's the pity.

~~~
vidarh
What's interesting to me is that at least in the UK there's been a noticeable
shift in the anti-piracy message.

Most telling is the anti-piracy ads in cinemas. (EDIT: I realize RIAA deals
with music recordings only, and that it's the same for their UK counterpart;
the ads used to be pretty much the same and the shift has been much more
dramatic for movies)

A year or so ago in the UK the cinema's were full of "if you pirate you
support organized crime and terrorism and you're pretty much satan" messages
with ominous music and threats about how you'd get thrown out and more if you
dared bring out any kind of recording device.

Now it's "thank you dear, nice customer for coming and paying to see the movie
and helping us make more instead of pirating"... It's almost creepy what a
turnaround it's been.

Maybe my long tradition of raising my finger at the old ads had an effect, or
maybe some execs have finally realized that antagonizing your paying customers
isn't as smart as it seemed to them at first.

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c1sc0
Good, I wholeheartedly recommend the RIAA to continue on this obviously
profitable path.

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reitzensteinm
More than $17.5 million.

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scotty79
Can we just declare this law as unenforcible and make it void?

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dotcoma
hey, they found a good online business model at last! ;-)

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shareme
its not the only recovered $391,000 its the protection of a RICO possible
racket whereas through fraud-like accounting they 'steal'musicians money.

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cmelbye
Wow. Well that's definitely not sustainable, so it will have to end sometime.

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Helianthus16
No one will miss them much.

"The RIAA? Or their lawyers?"

Ohoho, ahah, I crack myself up.

edit: ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT I'M SORRY I'M NOT FUNNY THIS LATE AT NIGHT I'LL
NEVER MAKE BAD JOKES AGAIN

~~~
OoTheNigerian
Go and sin no more.

