UPDATE: “Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case.”
RIAA’s ‘Sensitivity’ Backfires Bigtime
“An abundance of sensitivity”… but to what? As Cory Doctorow points out, the RIAA only dropped the suit after it started getting flack for continuing a lawsuit against the deceased man’s family. The RIAA’s “abundance of sensitivity” was clearly directed towards protecting its tattered image, rather than any sort of concern for the Scantlebury family.
Recording Industry vs The People — DO these people have no shame?
In Michigan, in Warner Bros. v. Scantlebury, after learning that the defendant had passed away, the RIAA made a motion to stay the case for 60 days in order to allow the family time to “grieve”, after which time they want to start taking depositions of the late Mr. Scantlebury’s children:
Most of the worst music comes from indies too, to be fair about it.
The incredible thing to me in all this is how, within a large group of people, who all graduated from law school (so they can’t be total morons), someone doesn’t say, “Hmmm, maybe suing a dead guy’s family is not such a hot idea. Isn’t there some degenerate looking college student we can go after instead?” In so many dealings like this, there seems to be such an absence of common sense. I know the RIAA is scum, but it’s still amazed that they, of all people, haven’t heard of PR.
You guys are just plain wrong. The RIAA is actually winning. Reasonable people know it is winning because of:
1) The enormous increase in users willingly paying to download digitial content; and
2) Peer to peer site after peer to peer to site succumbing to legal action against it. Most recently? Limewire.
Relying on peer to peer is increasingly becoming something only losers do.
15: The swastika doesn’t mean what you think it does. The meaning was perverted by the Nazis. I guess it’s a gigantic stroke of luck for the Western world that they didn’t choose to use a cross instead.
#21, As a former musician, I much prefer a raw edge to music. The homogenized, computer filtered, perfect crap turns me off. Most people that actually enjoy music would rather listen to a live set then some packaged pablum. And, most Indie music fits that raw mold. Sure there are some Indie artists that obviously would make better bus drivers, but at least you find out before plunking down your hard earned cash.
Hurrah for Creative Commons and Magna Tunes !!! If you are unfamiliar, check them out.
#24, The swastika is a version of the cross. There are literally hundreds of versions. Each one symbolizes whatever the holder wants it to symbolize.
25: Shape-wise, it may be something like a cross, but the word has a particular meaning, and that can be translated as “mark of goodness”. This mark is very prevalent in Hinduism, from ancient times, and is always intended to convey the same feeling, regardless of what one thinks its meaning is. No Hindu mentally associates a swastika with a traditional cross (straight arms). They are different symbols.
I guess I should have been more specific about what I meant by “cross”. I meant “Christian cross”.