744 more sued...yawn

[MikeHunt]

Music Industry Sues 744 More for File Sharing
Wed Aug 25, 2004 01:28 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The trade group representing the U.S. music industry has filed a new round of lawsuits against 744 people it alleges used online file-sharing networks to illegally trade in copyrighted materials, it said on Wednesday.

The Recording Industry Association of America said the various suits, filed in courts across the country, cover "John Doe" defendants whose true identities are unknown to the group. There were also suits against people who were identified but did not agree to an out-of-court settlement with the RIAA.

An RIAA spokesman was not immediately available for further comment.

The RIAA said the individuals it sued used a variety of Internet platforms to swap songs, including Limewire, Grokster, Kazaa and eDonkey.

Since last September, the RIAA has sued more than 4,000 people in its efforts to combat piracy, which the music industry has blamed for a multiyear decline in CD sales. Some music fans have countered that bad music, and not piracy, was to blame for the decline.

Last week a federal appeals court held that makers of file-sharing software could not be held liable for certain kinds of copyright infringement, dealing a blow to efforts by the movie and music industries to stop at the source the exchange of files they say has cost them billions.

The RIAA represents the world's largest record labels, such as Warner Music, EMI Group Plc (EMI.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and the music arms of Bertelsmann AG (BERT.UL: Quote, Profile, Research) , Sony Corp. (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Vivendi Universal (V.N: Quote, Profile, Research) .



© Reuters 2004.
:ass

[thongsai]

u wouldnt be yawnin if it were u lol

[mxpwx]

good news for people in massachusetts, not only is gay marrigge legal here theres a judge that managed to stall all p2p related lawsuits for months

[Mels_Smileys45]

The judge must like downloading gay porn! Just kidding

[nukehella]

I wonder if Warner and company sued any AOL users.
A RIAA member and a ISP(of sorts)-that is a gay marriage.

[goNucks]

<3 Canada.
I stopped file-sharing anyways, accursed dialup.

[black_magiic]

Im glad I live in Canada, but who knows how long it will remain safe here

[a3ro3]

"good news for people in massachusetts, not only is gay marrigge legal"

Except the voters in Massachusetts are against gay marriage. The people, not an old dried up judge, should have the final say in government.

[CyRaX]

Im glad I live in Canada, but who knows how long it will remain safe here
Canada is safe! Yay I live in Canada.

[g-smooth2k]

Source: PC World (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117553,00.asp)

Latest round of legal action targets users of a variety of services, including eDonkey.

The Recording Industry Association of America has filed 896 new lawsuits against file traders using peer-to-peer services, the organization announced this week.

The total includes 744 new lawsuits against users of a variety of P-to-P services, including Kazaa, eDonkey, and Grokster. The RIAA filed an additional 152 lawsuits against people already identified in the litigation process who declined RIAA offers to settle their cases, according to the RIAA. Not including the lawsuits announced this week, the RIAA has filed more than 1500 lawsuits (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115897,00.asp) against alleged music uploaders since January.

The 744 "John Doe" lawsuits (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114387,00.asp), against unnamed users of P-to-P services, were filed in Atlanta; St. Louis; Oakland, California; New York; Austin, Texas; Covington, Kentucky; Denver; Trenton, New Jersey; and Madison, Wisconsin.

New Tactics
The RIAA's expansion of lawsuits to eDonkey users is an attempt to respond to "changing circumstances" in the P-to-P world (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116262,00.asp), RIAA President Cary Sherman says in a statement.

"Without a strong measure of deterrence, piracy will overwhelm and choke the creation and distribution of music," he adds.

A July survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates found that 64 percent of those surveyed believe it is illegal to make music from the computer available for others to download for free, while only 13 percent said it was legal, according to the RIAA. By a margin of 60-17, those polled were "supportive and understanding" of legal action against individual illegal file sharers, the RIAA says.

The RIAA did not disclose the perimeters of the survey.

Critics Speak Out
But P-to-P vendors continue to question the RIAA tactics. Instead of suing music fans, the RIAA should negotiate a way to pay artists with P-to-P vendors, says Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United, a trade group representing five P-to-P vendors, including Grokster and eDonkey.

"Nothing's new," Eisgrau says of the new lawsuits. "The fact that the RIAA has the right to bring these lawsuits doesn't make them the right thing to do."

Eisgrau calls the lawsuits "highly unproductive."

"These kinds of suits just can't be squared with a pathological refusal to so much as even discuss collective licensing proposals advanced by respected academics and economists across the country," Eisgrau adds.

EDonkey owner Meta Machine has tried to talk with music labels about licensing music (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112777,00.asp) for the P-to-P service during the past six months, says Sam Yagan, president of the New York-based company. The lawsuits announced Wednesday are the first such lawsuits against eDonkey users to Yagan's knowledge, he says.

Meta Machine is more concerned about the lawsuits' influence on those discussions with music labels than the potential negative effect on the number of eDonkey users, Yagan says.

"I thought, prior to today, we had been making some real progress with the labels and the studios," he says. "This comes as a total surprise. This is not the behavior of a business partner acting in good faith."

[Miniver]

"good news for people in massachusetts, not only is gay marrigge legal"

Except the voters in Massachusetts are against gay marriage. The people, not an old dried up judge, should have the final say in government.
If held, the vote would actually be very close. Try not making blanket statements about the opinion of millions of people.

"53 percent of Massachusetts residents opposed gay marriage and 60 percent supported civil unions."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/03/30/vote_ties_civil_unions_to_gay_marriage_ban/

[Burd]

"good news for people in massachusetts, not only is gay marrigge legal"

Except the voters in Massachusetts are against gay marriage. The people, not an old dried up judge, should have the final say in government.

Right. And imagine what would have happened if the "people" of Alabama or Mississippi had been allowed to vote on Civil Rights in the 1960's. There's a reason why we don't vote on everything. That's what the Constitution is for. It says that people have rights no matter what the "majority" says. (Boy! Did this thread just get off topic!) :fire

[Burd]

Attempt to get back on topic: What if somehow the question of file sharing were put on the ballot and the "people" voted that it should be illegal. Should we (the filesharers) abide by that decision?

[charlesmelissa]

(Old Mindset) + (New Technology) = RIAA

They just don't get it.

Basic Fact . . . File sharing can not be stopped. They thought they could control the burning of records, now people say "What is a record?" The same thing with 8 tracks tapes, then cassettes. The RIAA does not control P2P, so they can not stop the medium. All they can do is create a market.

Question: "Why did I go to P2P?"
Answer: " I was able to download a Disney movie on P2P that Disney had "retired" to their vaults for 5 years. We adopted a 3 year old and the 3 year old wanted a copy of a movie a friend of her's had. Daddy promised and went to the Disney store to buy a copy. But daddy found out that Disney would not sell him a copy of Sleeping Beauty for a couple of years. That's fine with daddy because daddy downloaded a copy of the movie for the 3 year old to watch :) Happy 3 year old, happy daddy- sad Disney.

[Travis982]

There is a defense strategy against these lawsuits according to a New York attorney:

1. If you get summoned, immediately wipe your hard drive & write all 0's. Don't ignore summons.
2. Re-install OS and normal programmes (without of course any P2P programmes).
3. Setup Wi-Fi (if you don't have it already)
4. When in court plead not guilty and state that war drivers frequent your neighbourhood. (It wouldn't hurt to have expert witness there to testify as to how war drivers operate, how Wi-Fi operates, how far it can reach, etc.)
5. During this process (after wiping of course) allow anyone who wishes to examine your computer.
6. According to attorney this has worked in 13 cases.

And to CyRaX:
"Canada is safe! Yay I live in Canada."

Me too. But don't believe that. Safe for now perhaps; but there is constant pressure from those greedy bastards down south. And we are dependent to a large degree on the U.S. especially tradewise.

Please don't think I am against the American people (except they need to hone their voting skills). But big business (including the entertainment industry) has basically taken over the U.S. government and is ruining what used to be the best country in the world.