back to article Feds bust world's most prolific music piracy ring

Six men have been accused of running the world's most prolific music piracy ring, an online crew federal prosecutors allege delivered more than 25,000 copyrighted albums, often before they were officially released. As members of Rabid Neurosis, or RNS as the group was called, they tapped insiders at music retailers, radio …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    It's funny really...

    >>The claim of personal benefit is important, since sentencing guidelines frequently require a showing that copyright infringers financially gained from their activities.

    When has that ever been important? Hell, the RIAA will happily sue 6 year old kids out of their college funds if they simply install limewire. What money changed hands there?

    It's all about sucking what you can out of your consumers. Recording sales are low? Think they'll wonder if it's the shit they publish; the fact that they're always suing their customers; or will they blame copyright violations?

    I still find it hilarious that you guys tolerate the kind of bullshit this organization (and it's related "brother" organizations) pulls. I mean, back in the 50's I'd be afraid of one day hearing you all had burned down the buildings with the execs in them.

    Hell, even the RIAA admits they screwed the artists out of their money first. They don't sue you in the name of the artists that were infringed. So in the end you're not even withholding money from the artist either.

    Paris, coz even she knows when she's getting screwed.

  2. Maksim Rukov

    countdown to context mangling

    Maybe these chaps should take some inspiration from Jerimiah Mondello and Don't Copy That 2. They may wish to seek sentence mitigation by appearing in a RIAA advert which alludes that their punishment was related to downloading a few songs from a P2P network, as opposed to a grab-bag of more serious crimes.

  3. raving angry loony

    alternative

    Alternative conclusion is that they wrote a lot of pre-release music reviews? But hey, it's always nice to hear the RIAA side of things and how they're protecting the world from people who use and abuse artists. Um, yeah, that.

  4. Steve Adams

    Did they [anyone] charge/make money from this?

    It wasn't clear from Dan Goodin's article:

    Did people exchange money for access to pirated music?

    Note: I understand that people involved appear to have traded pirated content [which has a monetary value - somebody can decide what] but I am NOT asking about that :-)

    - i.e. did the pirates generate income [other than access to pirated content] for themselves?

    Cheers, Steve.

  5. Hnk0
    Pirate

    Now

    THAT's piracy. Notice how they got their hands on material through insiders? hmmm wonder if the big studios are now going to sue themselves...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Who?

    "In March 2006, an RNS member distributed Cassandra Wilson's Thunderbird album about a month before its commercial release."

    Who? I'd never heard of her until I read this article, so in that respect, she's just had better publicity than her record company gave her...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    quick lock them up

    .. before they show the music industry how to do their own job better...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Commercial? Prison time for Betamax

    I don't think that's what is meant by *Commercial* copyright infringement, since by that definition all infringement would be commercial.

    If I videotape a movie off the TV on my Sony Betamax instead of buying a video tape copy of the movie from store, then I have saved $13, however that does not make it commercial.

    So the framers of the law could not have intended that, ergo this prosecution should fail.

    Pretty incredible, all copyright infringement would face jail time if the court let their definition stand.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about SOME condemnation!?

    Amazes me - irrespective of who gets their grubby hands on what (and I'm talking about the "industry") nobody in real street (i.e. the sort of people who make comments here) every really have a bad word to say about pirating.

    String 'em up I say - or keelhaul them! Yes the system is a bit crap and could do with being fairer to artists and consumers - but mass piracy ain't the way (I say "mass piracy" 'cos I'll differentiate between these guys and AC's poor little 6 year old).

  10. Jack_Herer
    Unhappy

    RIP...

    I'm sure they won't get away scott free from this one, whatever they plea. I also don't condone "mass piracy", however I think these boys did stand out from the crowd, 20,000+ releases over a decade and it's taken a further 3-4yrs to gt them, pretty impressive. I think it's worth noting that they were a proper "scene" group, and not your standard run of the mill P2P / torrent releaser. Whilst i'm sure financial gain will be proved / disproved, these guys along with the other scene groups do it for the reputation / notoriety / kudos of being the fastest and the best. Granted once there release gets into the wild mass downloading / sharing begins, which will have it's own consequences. Without sounding like i'm advocating what they did, at least a release from RNS and the likes is of top notch quality (the "scene" has standards!) unlike some of sh1te that the P2P / torrent community churns out!

    If they did it for money, put them behind bars, if not, yes they deserve some form of punishment for blatent copyright infringments en masse, but somehow I feel they really aren't the bad guys.

    RIP RNS

  11. Daniel Garcia 2

    @How about SOME condemnation!?

    i, instead, still mesmerize that people can go one with the idea of copyright(beyong recognize the creator) as a something worth defending ...

    monopolies are never good, in long term they produce stagnation, and in this case shittier and shittier music.

    now, why is it not clearly written if those guys profit or not? if you see a red arrow at the end of the page, it is not a surprise.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No problem

    Just fine them $10K per copy and throw their arses in prison for the next 30 years as law provides.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    It's all a bit of a laff really

    They make 'em

    They sell 'em

    You copy 'em

    They still get rich....

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Wha?

    Did I read this right? These guys have been running one of the largest piracy rings ever probably leading to the piracy of thousands of albums and they get just one charge of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement each? That comes with jail time and a measly $250k fine at most. They'll probably end up with probation and nothing even close to the $250k fine. Yet Jammie Thomas, a housewife, downloads 24 songs on her computer and is slapped with a $1,920,000 fine?

    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2349029,00.asp

    How is this justice?

  15. Forename Surname
    Thumb Down

    down

    The thing about this is that group has not been functioning since 2007. In other words they have stopped for about 2 years then the cartels go after them. Might as well as go sue everyone who has ever used the internet b/c every time you visit a site, cache stores a copy of it on the users hd which means everyone is a copyright offender.

    Also in relation to them gaining access to a massive scale of infringing content b/c of their releases, yes and no b/c they could have still had access to a massive scale of infringing content without providing releases as to do so.

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