The music industry has dramatically escalated its attack on internet file-trading networks by announcing plans to sue individuals who download copyright-protected music. However, some experts say the tactic could backfire by pushing traders to switch to newer, more anonymous networks, as happened following the demise of the original network Napster.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents the five biggest record companies in the world, said on Wednesday it would start recording information about “users who are illegally offering to ’share’ substantial amounts of copyrighted music”. These users would then face civil or criminal lawsuits requesting fines of up to $150,000 each, it said.
The RIAA says it could ultimately file thousands of lawsuits charging individual peer-to-peer music distributors with copyright infringement. “The first round of suits could take place as early as mid-August,” according to an RIAA statement.
Music fans can locate and download songs for free by connecting to file sharing networks such as Kazaa and Grokster. These combine the music collections of individuals to create a vast online library of free music.
Falling sales
The RIAA blames these networks for falling sales and says the practice threatens the livelihoods of recording artists. But critics accuse the industry of alienating music lovers by pursuing heavy handed tactics and failing to work with file-sharing networks to find ways of compensating artists for downloads.
The RIAA’s legal attack “seems immensely counterproductive”, says Julian Midgley, of the UK’s Campaign for Digital Rights. “Many of the people [using the networks] are too poor to buy music anyway, or are using it to experience new music that they’ll go out and buy on CD.”
A US court recently ruled that the companies that created the networks could not be held accountable for the action of individual users. But another court ruling cleared the way for the RIAA to pursue individuals by ordering the ISP Verizon to reveal the identity of some file traders.
Users of Kazaa and Grokster can be easily be identified by their machine’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, which in turn links them to an ISP. There is virtually nothing users of these networks can do to hide their activities, says Adam Langley, a computer programmer specialising in file-sharing.
Shotgun approach
But the RIAA has not specified how many songs would be considered to constitute a “substantial amount”, so there is widespread uncertainty over who may be targeted first.
Experts say it would be easiest for the RIAA to go after users offering thousands of music files through high-bandwidth internet connections, as these will stand out most on the network. But some believe less frequent swappers could be targeted as a scare tactic.
“If I were them I’d go for a shotgun approach,” says Langley. “You would want to hit every demographic so that everyone knows someone that’s been hit.”
Difficult to trace
Midgley would “not be at all surprised” if the legal assault ultimately backfired on the RIAA by encouraging people to use more cunning file-sharing programs. He notes that decentralised networks such as Kazaa and Grokster were created mainly in response to the legal action that shut down the central servers used by Napster, the original music file-sharing network.
Langley agrees that some users could be pushed onto file-sharing networks designed to preserve their anonymity. One such service is FreeNet. This splits files up so they cannot be traced to individual users and makes it more difficult to trace file requests.
But Langley also notes that FreeNet is still in development and may be beyond the technical ability of many file-sharers.
Paid-for music download services launched by the record companies themselves have so far proven unpopular with users, who complain that they are too restrictive and expensive.
One exception has been Apple’s iTunes service, which has delivered five million song downloads since launch at the beginning of May. This service lets users download songs for 99 cents each and allows them to be transferred to CD and MP3 players.
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