Record industry to sue downloaders.

[bobbi]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The embattled music industry disclosed aggressive plans Wednesday for an unprecedented escalation in its fight against Internet piracy, threatening to sue hundreds of individual computer users who illegally share music files online.

The Recording Industry Association of America, citing substantial sales declines, said it will begin Thursday to search Internet file-sharing networks to identify users who offer "substantial" collections of mp3 music files for downloading. It expects to file at least several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages within eight to 10 weeks.

Executives for the RIAA, the Washington-based lobbying group that represents major labels, would not say how many songs on a user's computer will qualify for a lawsuit. The new campaign comes just weeks after U.S. appeals court rulings requiring Internet providers to identify subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music and movie files.

Read full story here:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/06/25/download.suits.ap/index.html

 

[bobbi]

Suit filed against one student prompts another to change

CNN) -- On April 3, the Recording Industry Association of America filed suit against my college hall mate.

Daniel Peng, 17, a computer whiz who skipped two grades before coming to Princeton University, ran a campus-wide search engine that could be used to locate and download songs and movies.

The music industry slapped him with a lawsuit seeking $97.8 billion in damages for distributing copyrighted works. His site was shut down and his life thrown into chaos.

Dan, a junior, lived right down the hall from me last semester, and his plight made me rethink the whole issue of sharing music online.

Students wipe hard drives
News of Dan's situation exploded on the New Jersey campus. Some students sprinted back to their dorm rooms to wipe their hard disks clean of any record of unauthorized downloads.

Full Story:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/06/27/music.sharing.column/index.html

 

[DarkDevil]

****.

 

[Alpha]

He should have dumped that stuff after the big warning they gave everyone. Oh well, too late. I guess they are showing us they ARE going to do stuff about it.

 

[bobbi]

Yes they did bring a law suit against him, but I think that if they try to sue everyone who has downloaded songs/movies and so forth from the net it won't work. I honestly don't think that the Courts will pass by cases such as murder just to hear a trial about illegally downloading songs from the net. It would be a waste of tax payers dollars with all of the suits they would have to bring before a Judge.

 

[bobbi]

Well apparently new sites with file sharing programs are popping up, and the owners of these sites will be keeping the Identities of their users hidden.

 

[Alpha]

Hmmmmm this sounds like a mess. Pretty soon we'll have the war on file sharing :p

 

[bobbi]

This whole thing is going to end up bouncing back and forth, they will shut the sites down, then new ones will appear in it's place, so it's going to keep going back and forth until one of the two decide to give up.

 

[Alpha]

I agree. Or one of the two decides to develop weapons of mass digital destruction :D

 

[bobbi]

Originally posted by Alpha
I agree. Or one of the two decides to develop weapons of mass digital destruction :D

lol then they would just sue one another over who had the idea for it first.

 

[bobbi]

UPDATE

Judge: Kazaa can't pursue lawsuit
Tuesday, July 8, 2003 Posted: 9:41 AM EDT (1341 GMT)

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The distributor of the Kazaa software for sharing songs, movies and other files online cannot pursue an antitrust lawsuit against major recording labels and movie studios, a federal judge ruled.

Sharman Networks made the antitrust claims in January as part of its defense of a copyright infringement suit filed by the entertainment firms.

Sharman argued that music labels and studios conspired to keep authorized and copy-protected versions of their songs and movies off Kazaa. It essentially blamed piracy on the entertainment companies, saying they failed to work with Sharman to create a legal alternative.

Not entitled to damages
U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson dismissed Sharman's claims, which many copyright lawyers had considered a stretch.

In Thursday's ruling, Wilson said that even if the allegations were true, Sharman would not be entitled to damages because it distributes file-sharing software and not online entertainment.

"Sharman Networks was grasping at straws to distract the court from their own improper behavior," said Matthew Oppenheim of the Recording Industry Association of America. "We are pleased that the court recognized what we have said all along -- that these claims lacked any merit."

The copyright claims against Sharman remain pending. Wilson previously ruled that two other file-sharing companies, StreamCast Networks and Grokster, are not to blame for any illegal copying conducted by the services' users.