WASHINGTON (AP) -- The recording industry is providing its most detailed glimpse into some of the detective-style techniques it has employed as part of its secretive campaign against online music swappers.
The disclosures were included in court papers filed against a Brooklyn woman fighting efforts to identify her for allegedly sharing nearly 1,000 songs over the Internet. The recording industry disputed her defense that songs on her family's computer were from compact discs she had legally purchased.
According to the documents, the Recording Industry Association of America examined song files on the woman's computer and traced their digital fingerprints back to the former Napster file-sharing service, which shut down in 2001 after a court ruled it violated copyright laws.
Compared to shoplifting
The RIAA, the trade group for the largest record labels, said it also found other evidence inside the woman's music files suggesting the songs were recorded by other people and distributed across the Internet.
Comparing the Brooklyn woman to a shoplifter, the RIAA told U.S. Magistrate John M. Facciola that she was "not an innocent or accidental infringer" and described her lawyer's claims otherwise as "shockingly misleading."
The RIAA papers were filed Tuesday night in Washington and made available by the court Wednesday.
The woman's lawyer, Daniel N. Ballard, of Sacramento, California, said the music industry's latest argument was "merely a smokescreen to divert attention" from the related issue of whether her Internet provider, Verizon Internet Services Inc., must turn over her identity under a copyright subpoena.
"You cannot bypass people's constitutional rights to privacy, due process and anonymous association to identify an alleged infringer," Ballard said.
Read the full story here:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/28/downloading.music.ap/index.html
The disclosures were included in court papers filed against a Brooklyn woman fighting efforts to identify her for allegedly sharing nearly 1,000 songs over the Internet. The recording industry disputed her defense that songs on her family's computer were from compact discs she had legally purchased.
According to the documents, the Recording Industry Association of America examined song files on the woman's computer and traced their digital fingerprints back to the former Napster file-sharing service, which shut down in 2001 after a court ruled it violated copyright laws.
Compared to shoplifting
The RIAA, the trade group for the largest record labels, said it also found other evidence inside the woman's music files suggesting the songs were recorded by other people and distributed across the Internet.
Comparing the Brooklyn woman to a shoplifter, the RIAA told U.S. Magistrate John M. Facciola that she was "not an innocent or accidental infringer" and described her lawyer's claims otherwise as "shockingly misleading."
The RIAA papers were filed Tuesday night in Washington and made available by the court Wednesday.
The woman's lawyer, Daniel N. Ballard, of Sacramento, California, said the music industry's latest argument was "merely a smokescreen to divert attention" from the related issue of whether her Internet provider, Verizon Internet Services Inc., must turn over her identity under a copyright subpoena.
"You cannot bypass people's constitutional rights to privacy, due process and anonymous association to identify an alleged infringer," Ballard said.
Read the full story here:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/28/downloading.music.ap/index.html
