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RIAA makes judgements? What do you consider outlandish? Some could consider that a slap on the wrist is outlandish when copyrighted material is being made available to millions of internet users, thereby depriving the copyright holder of potentially significant royalties. Anyone who puts other people's copyrighted works on a P2P site knows that they are making it available to the whole world and should be held responsible for the consequences of their actions.

The Recording Industry Association of America is labeling a Texas woman “vexatious” for her refusal to pay the record labels $7,400 for allegedly infringing 37 songs on the Kazaa file sharing network.

Instead, 22-year-old Whitney Harper is demanding a jury trial. The Texas Tech student wants a federal judge to consider the mistrial in the Jammie Thomas case, in which a jury awarded the RIAA $222,000 for infringing 24 songs. In that case, the nation’s only file sharing lawsuit to go to trial, a Minnesota federal judge declared a mistrial after concluding he wrongly instructed jurors that simply making music files available on a peer-to-peer network constituted infringement.

Whitney’s motion is believed to be the first of the thousands of pending RIAA file sharing cases to invoke the Jammie Thomas mistrial decision, which U.S. District Judge Michael Davis wrote Sept. 24. The RIAA wants to appeal that decision, but first needs Davis’ blessing.
[...]
The RIAA is urging the Texas judge to stick with his previous rulings that making music files available constituted infringement, and therefore force a settlement instead of trial.

And just because you have an Internet connection does not make you a criminal..

RIAA moves to reduce artist royalty payments

Posted Dec 6th 2006 6:07PM by Grant Robertson
Filed under: News, RIAA
Sometimes you just have to ask yourself if the RIAA could display more greed or avarice without actually hiring Satan as its general counsel. The Hypebot points to an article in Radio and Records which reads, "During the period when piracy was devastating the record industry, the RIAA argues, profits for publishers rose as revenue generated from ringtones and other innovative services grew. Record industry executives said there was nothing strange about seeking a rate change that would pay less to the people who write the music."

So, let's see if we get this straight. The RIAA alienates its fans and customers by overcharging, failing to embrace new technology and suing anyone who tries to give music fans what they want. At the same time, the publishers work hand in hand with innovators (such as ringtone publishers) and find great success. Now, as a thank you for all the hard work and deft thinking, the RIAA asks the feds to lower the amount of money they pay artists under statutory deals?

I'm reminded of the Simpsons spin off episode when they launched "The Critic." Jay Sherman asks the Arnold Schartzeneger-alike, "How do you sleep at night?", to which he replies, "On top of a big pile of money, with many beautiful women." I'm left to wonder, exactly how does the RIAA sleep at night?

1. As a result of Labels’ and Studios’ scheme, the vast majority of artists never receive a royalty payment.

134. Labels and Studios contract with Artists to pay a royalty for the sale or distribution of each recording. According to the contract, the Artist must pay for all of the production costs of the recording, and typically pay 50% of the independent promotion costs charged by Trans World, (as well as 50% of the costs of videos and 50-100% of tour costs). This is called "recoupment." The artist does not receive any royalty money until the recording company has recouped the costs that the Labels and Studios fraudulently conspire with Trans World to inflate.

135. It usually takes two or three years before even a successful artist receives his or her first royalty payment. As Sheryl Crow stated in a response to a question from Congresswoman Bono at a May 2000 U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing, she did not receive any money until after her record had sold "three or four million copies." Very few records ever sell this many units. As an example, in 1999, nearly 39,000 recordings were released, but only 3 singles and 135 albums -- 0.35% -- were certified as selling three million units, and notably, many of these records had been selling over a number of years before finally reaching the three million unit sales mark in 1999. The vast majority of royalty artists never receive a royalty payment.

2. Labels and Studios thus breach their contracts with artists by fraudulently conspiring with Trans World.

136. Labels and Studios all require that artists enter into contracts which prevent artists from auditing manufacturing records and shipping records. As a result, there is no way to know how many copies were produced, or what “cost of goods sold” actually is; as well as how many copies actually shipped, how many of them were actual credits or returns. In this way, Labels and Studios conspire to conceal their fraudulent scheme.

137. Labels and Studios also conspire to coerce artists into long-term contracts, and then breach those contracts, in order to pirate from Artists the ownership of the Artists’ original compositions. As Ann Chaitovitz, Director of Sound Recordings, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, testified before the California State Senate Select Committee on the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY HEARINGS ON RECORDING ARTIST EXEMPTION TO SEVEN YEAR STATUTE (LABOR LAW SECTION 2855 (B)) on September 5, 2001:

Another offensive provision of recording artists’ contracts is the requirement that the artist transfer ownership in the sound recording to the record company. A very few artists are powerful enough to negotiate contracts providing that ownership of their sound recordings shall revert to them at some time in the future. New artists do not have the clout to negotiate such a provision and, thus, are required to transfer ownership of their sound recordings to the record label. This is true although the artist actually pays to produce the sound recording, with the record company acting like a mortgage bank that provides a loan to the performer to finance the recording in the form of an "advance." That advance is "recouped" by a record label when it deducts the advance from royalty payments owed to an artist for sales of that recording. However, unlike a bank which grants a mortgage to a homebuyer, the record company maintains ownership of the work even after the artist has "paid back" the advance. Imagine the absurdity of the bank still owning your house after you have paid off the mortgage!

138. Ultimately, artists -- some of them in their 60s and 70s, who are authors of hugely successful songs that we all enjoy, use and sing – live in total poverty, never having been paid anything, and deprived of their ERISA funds. Artists who have generated billions of dollars for an industry die broke and un-cared for.

139. By fraudulently conspiring with Trans World to conceal inflated expenses that eliminate or substantially reduce the artists’ royalties, Labels and Studios breach their fiduciary duties to the rightful owners, originators and performers of original compositions.

140. This is piracy.

141. Finally , I also learned that recent changes in the marketplace, including changes to accounting regulations to control off-balance sheet transactions, made the kickback schemes on which Trans World depended more difficult to conceal. Without the off-balance sheet kickbacks, Trans World would be insolvent.

And just because you have an Internet connection does not make you a criminal..