Line'em up! RIAA to sue thousands

[matt merch]

By Ashlee Vance in San Francisco
Posted: 25/06/2003 at 21:10 GMT


The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has issued the biggest threat to date against online file-traders, saying it will sue thousands of individuals into submission.


Starting Thursday, pigopolist grunts will begin combing P2P networks in search of industrious file traders. Once the RIAA has targeted a large store of copyrighted files, it will serve a subpoena on the user's ISP, grab his/her name and address, and fire off a lawsuit.


"The RIAA expects to use the data it collects as the basis for filing what could ultimately be thousands of lawsuits charging individual peer-to-peer music distributors with copyright infringement," the RIAA said in a statement. "The first round of suits could take place as early as mid-August."
[

A pair of recent court rulings opened up this means of attack on file-traders. First, a Los Angeles judge in April said P2P service operators could not be held responsible for their users' actions. This decision blocked the RIAA from shutting down large chunks of the P2P community in one go - think Napster - and pushed them toward nailing individuals.


More recently, the RIAA won another decision over Verizon, which gave it permission to see the name and address of the ISP's customers.


Users face civil lawsuits, thousands of dollars in fines and even criminal prosecution. At least the legal action is a more civilized way of conducting business. Sending out fake files and having musicians swear at users are puerile forms of protest.


For now, file traders should swap with caution. The RIAA plans to inject network scanning software out into the vast P2P world and track what files users are looking for and what they trade. If the RIAA bot spots an infringing song, it marks the date and time the file is accessed.


It's unfortunate the government did not have such sophisticated tools when it was examining the music labels' pricing fixing scheme that pushed CD prices higher throughout the 1990s. Maybe then, the labels would been hit with something harder than a slap on the wrist.

Time, perhaps, for a good old-fashioned consumer boycott? ®




url]http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31434.html[/url]

[isus]

the riaa is just trying to find a way to pay for all the shit they have ben doing lately. all these fakes, people they employ to find users, etc... they need money.

and no matter how many times it has been said, it's still good:
just share less files. still share, but only 50-100 files. even i own that many files on old cd's. just burn the stuff and then delete from the hard drive. then when they come to you, just say it wasn't you, and countersue for whatever you can (false accusation? i dunno, haven't watched judge judy in a long time)

hell, even if they browse through your files, they can't prove you are sharing copyrighted materials, so they hafta upload it. then they are dl'ing copyrighted materials... i thought that was illegal ;)

[cheapprick]

Okay, I'm forced to wonder. How many people will really get caught with the goods?

Everyone suspects that Kazaa is the dangerous place to be and I have my doubts. If they are using a bot to look for "infringing songs" there isn't as big of a threat using Kazaa Lite++. You can click the option to keep others from browsing your files, so the bot would literally get 1 song at a time. Unless your sharing every song from the latest hurting "American Idol" winner's album, not every song will be searched out. I can't see them trying to bully 1000's of people over 2 or 3 songs that they turn up.

Just my opinion.

[cheapprick]

The guy in my avatar agrees with me.

[Shadow, Thief of the Sun]

cheapprick - Is it Lars Ulrich in your avatar ?

[cheapprick]

Yeah, he's come full circle now. "Little Lars" loves the file sharing, and well, being spanked with barb wire.

edit: It's actually a picture from "The Charlie Rose Show", in which Lars was debating the "evil" of Napster vs one of the guys from Public Enemy. You can watch the entire segment on real player.
here (http://www.rapstation.com/promo/lars_vs_chuckd.html)

The pic features Lars waving goodbye to unfaithful fans.

[Shadow, Thief of the Sun]

I must say that he's looking weird on this picture. I guess that he's saying something like: "Let's see what's going on with post-Napster file-sharing"

[cuwerewolf]

Do you know which networks are being watched? I'm mostly using WinMX now, and I haven't heard much complaining about RIAA letters from that program.

[cheapprick]

Actually, they are all being watched. There is no absolute safety.

[Composer]

Originally posted by isus
buy some drugs! :: become a mobster! :: steal music!!!;)

Very mature. Well, your time is up. Is that someone knocking at your door?

[ThePillarOfAutumn]

CACA

[Jelsoft]

It's going to be interesting to see the type of people the RIAA is going to round up.

I can see the headlines now:

"Catholic Priest is arrested for file sharing"

"16 year-old babysitter is taken into custody for using Kazaa"

"Single mother of two is busted for sharing Michael Bolton MP3s files"

[collideous]

how about?

[Kyle06]

I agree lets do that

[guzur]

If anyone here is from or knows someone in the Austin, TX area a local reporter is looking to hear people's reactions about this latest RIAA threat, so if you either are afraid or are very upset talk! Be heard! Contact: nsyeed@statesman.com

[Evil_Dweller_01]

Originally posted by Jelsoft
It's going to be interesting to see the type of people the RIAA is going to round up.

I can see the headlines now:

"Catholic Priest is arrested for file sharing"

"16 year-old babysitter is taken into custody for using Kazaa"

"Single mother of two is busted for sharing Michael Bolton MP3s files"

Dude..that was hilarious man

Anyways, even though its funny...those are to be taken seriously because those could be the headlines for all we know

[salmonman_78]

Loved the headlines post but think of it. If they went out to get everyone who was sharing and succeeded in getting all of us, then there would be a couple million people waiting to go to jail blocking up the legal procedures and actions against real criminals. And needless to say aren't we having enough problems already with overcrowded jails in america? Well I'm out for now, and gonna make that anti-RIAA picture into a sticker for my car.

[Theinfamousone]

K, I can see the RIAA knocking on my door, who are they going to arrest? My whole family? We've all downloaded music on the computer atleast once, even my 10 year old brother gets stuff on Kazaa, how do they know it wasn't my neighbor that came to my house and put Eminem on here and I thought it was like the candy M&M song or something?

My mom bought this computer, but my dad paid for it, who are they going to indicte? What if I was the one that bought the hard drive the music was stored on?

My point is that the RIAA has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a single person is responsible for sharing copyrighted content, there's really no way to do that because there's so many wrongs with that kind of singling out attack.

[salmonman_78]

You have a very good point infamous, cause of the ownership thing if you want to look at it the computer could be shared and parts boughten by many people so just who would they take then? I say its gonna be a wild ride but we will win or grind the system to a hault. Either way will give us something to do.

[rainbowdemon]

Most, but not all, of the music I listen to is classic rock from the late 70's and early 80's. Most of which you can't buy even if you want to. So I wonder are they coming after the dinosaurs too??:mellow

[rainbowdemon]

Recording industry officials said Friday that they don't expect their campaign to produce change overnight. Read between the lines on this one. Is all of this lawsuit b.s. just a scare tactic? This makes me think that it is.

[icontrolthesun]

Everyone seems to think you'll be sent away to jail! I believe we will be faced with a large fine as opposed to jail time. They file a civil suit and we have to hire a laywer to prove they're wrong. It'll be more expensive to fight then to just cave and end up settlling out of court.

sucks to be poor don't it?