January 9, 2004
The RIAA is Building a Clone Army
***If you haven't seen "House of Sand and Fog", you may want to skip the minor spoiler below***
This is weird and creepy. And sounds eerily like the scene in House of Sand and Fog where Ron Eldard uses his cop uniform to intimidate Ben Kingsley, hoping he can get over since Ben is an immigrant and might not know what his rights are. Also check out the wacky "hispanic nature" quote, and the EFF's puzzling stance:
Music Industry Puts Troops in the Streets
Quasi-legal squads raid street vendors
Though no guns were brandished, the bust from a distance looked like classic LAPD, DEA or FBI work, right down to the black "raid" vests the unit members wore. The fact that their yellow stenciled lettering read "RIAA" instead of something from an official law-enforcement agency was lost on 55-year-old parking-lot attendant Ceasar Borrayo.
The Recording Industry Association of America is taking it to the streets.
Even as it suffers setbacks in the courtroom, the RIAA has over the last 18 months built up a national staff of ex-cops to crack down on people making and selling illegal CDs in the hood. The result has been a growing number of scenes like the one played out in Silver Lake just before Christmas, during an industry blitz to combat music piracy.
Borrayo attends to a parking lot next to the landmark El 7 Mares fish-taco stand on Sunset Boulevard. To supplement his buck-a-car income, he began, in 2003, selling records and videos from a makeshift stand in front of the lot. In a good week, Borrayo said, he might unload five or 10 albums and a couple DVDs at $5 apiece. Paying a distributor about half that up-front, he thought he’d lucked into a nice side business.
The RIAA saw it differently. Figuring the discs were bootlegs, a four-man RIAA squad descended on his stand a few days before Christmas and persuaded the 4-foot-11 Borrayo to hand over voluntarily a total of 78 discs. It wasn’t a tough sell. "They said they were police from the recording industry or something, and next time they’d take me away in handcuffs," he said through an interpreter. Borrayo says he has no way of knowing if the records, with titles like Como Te Extraño Vol. IV — Musica de los 70’s y 80’s, are illegal, but he thought better of arguing the point.
The RIAA acknowledges it all — except the notion that its staff presents itself as police. Yes, they may all be ex-P.D. Yes, they wear cop-style clothes and carry official-looking IDs. But if they leave people like Borrayo with the impression that they’re actual law enforcement, that’s a mistake.
"We want to be very clear who we are and what we’re doing," says John Langley, Western regional coordinator for the RIAA Anti-Piracy Unit. "First and foremost, we’re professionals..."
...With all the trappings of a police team, including pink incident reports that, among other things, record a vendor’s height, weight, hair and eye color, the RIAA squad can give those busted the distinct impression they’re tangling with minions of Johnny Law instead of David Geffen. And that raises some potential legal questions. Contacted for this article, the Southern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said it needed more information on the practices to know if specific civil liberties were at risk...
...Langley says the anti-piracy teams have about an 80 percent success rate in persuading vendors to hand over their merchandise voluntarily for destruction.
"We notify them that continued sale would be a violation of civil and criminal codes. If they’d like to voluntarily turn the product over to us, we’ll destroy it, and we agree we won’t sue," he explained. The pink incident sheets and photos that Langley’s teams take of vendors are meant to establish a paper trail, particularly for repeat offenders.
"A large percentage [of the vendors] are of a Hispanic nature," Langley said. "Today he’s Jose Rodriguez, tomorrow he’s Raul something or other, and tomorrow after that he’s something else. These people change their identity all the time.M A picture’s worth a thousand words..."
...On its face, the move looks like a shift toward even more in-your-face enforcement. But don’t expect all RIAA critics to rally to the side of Borrayo and other sellers.
"The process of confiscating bootleg CDs from street vendors is exactly what the RIAA should be doing," said Jason Schultz, a staff attorney for the San Francisco–based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The EFF has frequently crossed swords with the record industry over its strategy of suing ISPs and individual listeners accused of downloading tunes from the Internet. A champion of copyright "fair use," the EFF says Buckles could bring a more balanced approach to the RIAA’s anti-piracy efforts. The more time the association spends rousting vendors, the thinking goes, the less it will spend subpoenaing KaZaa and BearShare aficionados...
(currently being discussed at ILM, but I saw it first from R0chey at okayplayer)
Posted by jsmooth995 at January 9, 2004 2:49 PM
man...that quote about the hispanics is classic!!
Posted by: Madison at January 9, 2004 10:36 PM
I lived around the corner from that taco joint in 1999.
Posted by: eric at January 10, 2004 6:01 AM
Nazis, Nazis, Nazis! What is the U.S. coming to? Since 9-11 the U.S. has cracked down on everything, showing internationals as well as its own citizens that it means business. Since 9-11 the U.S. has become more of a big brother police state. I wouldn't be surprised if John Ashcroft was behind all this. He won't be satisfied until everybody and their grandma is in prison for some common minor offence or a newly concocted argument for an offence.
Posted by: Kane Public at January 10, 2004 2:05 PM
I believe it is illegal to represent yourself as a police officer. These people aren't performing searches are they? Whether they are or not, it stinks! We need to take back America from our government and all of its big business bedfellows like the RIAA!
Posted by: Wendy McDonald at January 10, 2004 2:09 PM
What bothers me is the EFF's response. What's the diff between people downloading tracks and people buying bootlegs? Oh yeah, bootlegs are for the urban/poor, and MP3s are for the comfortably numb . . . how convenient.
Posted by: David at January 12, 2004 12:17 AM
. . .I guess 'fair use' isn't for everyone.
Posted by: David at January 12, 2004 12:17 AM
word to david. same old story: poor people get busted for doing the same things as rich people. the main difference being that poor people do it in public. it's a jungle sometimes.
Posted by: eric at January 12, 2004 2:14 AM
My reaction exactly, David. I didn't even notice how wacky the Hispanic quote was the first time I read this, because I was so taken aback by the EFF statement.
Posted by: Jay Smooth at January 12, 2004 2:29 AM
Hi. This is Jason Schultz from the EFF, who was MISquoted in the article. I saw your post here and wanted to make sure I clarified what happened. When I talked to the reporter, I had no idea that the article was going to be about the RIAA holding quasi-legal, racist raids. I thought it was merely another article about the RIAA sending out its investigators to collect info on CD bootleggers and then turn it over to the real police to do an investigation. I was shocked, just like many of you, when I saw the article and learned the real story. Make no mistake, the EFF is entirely committed to preserving all our civil liberties and would never endorse the kind of vigilante tactics the RIAA is using in its street raids.
If you're interested in reading more of my take on this mishap, I have posted a longer reaction on my blog here if you want to read it. Please feel free to share this response and my blogged response with any others who might be concerned.
Thanks,
Jason
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Posted by: Pete at January 24, 2004 9:51 AM
I hope the Civil Liberties Union slaps this John Langley of the RIAA Anti-Piracy Unit with a law suit, and any one else misrepresenting themselves as police officers. What a California charade - they play a role of cop and people believe it! People should know who they are dealing with when confronted with illegal search and seizure; demand identification and don't tell them anything but that you have a lawyer ready to sue them! Educate yourself about your legal rights and send a donation to the ACLU! We need to keep a close eye on these Nazi bastards and sue them when possible.
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