Despite the victory after months of legal wrangling, the RIAA has done nothing with the information and will not say what it plans to do. As of Tuesday, the trade group had yet to send out cease-and-desist letters, file suit against the subscribers or forward the information to the government for prosecution, among other options.
“They’ve been very cagey,” says Verizon’s Sarah Deutsch, who predicts the RIAA will send letters shortly. She worries that hundreds, if not thousands, of similar requests for users’ identities will come over the summer. “We’re concerned there will be an avalanche, and our subscribers’ privacy rights will be violated.“
But the record labels, beset by slumping sales and frustrated in their attempts to close down online swap services such as Kazaa, with tens of millions of users, have begun chasing individuals aggressively. The RIAA recently settled lawsuits against four college students for $12,500 to $17,500 each.
“If all we do is send out anonymous letters, the message is, ‘Go infringe until you’re caught,’ ” Oppenheim says.
“The decision gives us another tool to deal with the piracy problem,” he says. “We’ve been engaged in an education campaign to communicate that downloading unauthorized music is illegal � and that we know who you are.“
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