SciITech
|a
Tuesday, Septe
The Battalion
Page 6A • Tuesday, Septem
RIAA offers pirates
amnesty, sues others
By Alex Veiga
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — The recording indus
try filed hundreds of lawsuits Monday accus
ing individual music lovers of illegally down
loading and sharing songs over the Internet.
The lawsuits, which had been expected,
underscore the industry’s increasing aggres
siveness in cracking down on the trading of
pirated music files over file-sharing networks
such as Kazaa.
The 261 lawsuits were
filed in federal courts around
the country by the Recording
Industry Association of
America on behalf of its
members, which include
Universal Music Group,
BMG, EMI, Sony Music and
Warner Music. More waves
of lawsuits were expected,
and the total could eventually
reach the thousands, the
RIAA said.
“Nobody likes playing the
heavy and having to resort to
litigation,” RIAA president
u
... When your
product is being
regularly stolen,
there comes a time
when you have to
take ... action. ”
Cary Sherman said in a statement. “But when
your product is being regularly stolen, there
comes a time when you have to take appro
priate action.”
The music industry says file-sharing is a
violation of copyright laws and blames the
practice for a 31 percent decline in compact
disc music sales in the last three years, which
have dropped 31 percent drop since mid-
2000. The individuals sued Monday were
sharing, on average, more than 1,000 songs
each, the group said.
The recording industry also announced an
amnesty program for people who admit they
illegally share music online. They must,
among other things, promise to delete any
illegally downloaded music and not partici
pate in illegal file-trading again.
Individuals targeted by Monday’s lawsuits
would be ineligible.
In June, the industry announced that it
would target hundreds of individual comput
er users who illegally share music files, hop
ing to cripple online piracy by suing fans.
The announcement came just weeks
after U.S. appeals court rulings requiring
Internet providers to readily identify sub
scribers suspected of illegally sharing
music and movie files.
Earlier, the recording
industry association sued
four college students it
accused of making thousands
of songs available for illegal
downloading on campus net
works. The group settled
those cases for $12,500 to
$17,000 each.
Monday’s lawsuits result
ed from subpoenas sent to
Internet service providers
and others seeking to identify
roughly 1,600 people the
group believes engaged in
illegal music sharing.
Coleman, R-Minn., chair-
— Cary Sherman
RIAA president
Sen. Norm
man of the Senate Governmental Affairs’
Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations, has promised hearings on
the industry’s use of copyright subpoenas
to track downloaders.
Coleman has expressed concerns that the
campaign could ensnare innocent people,
such as parents and grandparents whose chil
dren and grandchildren are using their com
puters to download music. He also said some
downloaders themselves might not know they
are breaking the law.
U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of
$750 to $150,000 for each song offered ille
gally on a person’s computer, but the industry
group has said it would be open to settlement
proposals from defendants.
Amnesty proposal not a realistic solutioi
For many col
lege students, the
Recording Industry
Association of
America is an
unimportant body.
But for Internet file
sharers, many of
whom are college
TECH
Perspectlu.es
George
Deutsch
students, the RIAA has come to rep
resent the bad guys in its showdown
with individual Internet users over
the common practice of file sharing.
The music and movie swapping
giant Napster was successfully sued
by the RIAA and the Motion Picture
Association of America in 2(X)I,
forcing the company to cease mak
ing its online file-swapping services
available to users. But since then,
the RIAA has had little success
suing other file-sharing services
such as KaZaa, which has forced the
recording industry to take aim at
individual file sharers. So far, 1,600
people — representing the worst
file-sharing offenders — have fallen
under the industry’s gun and are
facing subpoenas.
But it is impossible to sue every
body, which is exactly what the
RIAA must be thinking. The RIAA
announced yesterday its plans to
grant amnesty to repentant music
and movie downloaders, but only
after announcing that it would sue
261 more file swappers. As terms of
the RIAA’s proposed agreement,
file sharers not wanting to be sued
by the group would have to sign a
notarized form admitting to illegal
file swapping and agree to delete
music files from their hard drives
and never illegally trade files again.
For most music sharers, this will be
a hard pill to swallow.
It is presumptuous and arrogant
for the RIAA to make such a propo
sition, as there is no guarantee it
could successfully prosecute every
one who has ever illegally shared or
downloaded files,
assuming all these
people found. And
even if people do
sign the agreement,
the record industry
cannot guarantee
1 that its terms are
being met.
The recording industry is operat
ing under the assumption that file
sharers fear its many lawsuits,
which may not be true. With the
exception of the Napster suit, the
RIAA hasn’t had tremendous suc
cess stopping file sharing. For
example, the parent companies of
both Morpheus and KaZaa were
able to beat RIAA lawsuits this
year; KaZaa in the Netherlands and
Morpheus in the United
Many suits still remain unr
but the fact that KaZ
Morpheus are still up am
Witln
L60C
part of the RIAA.
fact, it remains to be -
er any of the 1,600 currr
subpoena w ill even be pc
and, if so, to what de:
nit the conviction of &
. some of which were the;
lay, the RIAA’s live
By Mar
THE ASSO(
sU
holds no weight. As
JAA
me
from
state
I)|v (>(
Dinmands little ns;
■t users, as the nw
law suits doesn't It
the musicians, but instea:
>rd labels.
I he record industry's atiem:
> file sharing through an air:
.•cment will not work, ft:
continue to illegal!) shart
ong as CDs are overpriced.:
.ill take more than a dbpr
i bargain to change that.
enough to show that not everyoi
fears the recording industry. TT
amnesty offer will only reinforc
the belief that there is little th
RIAA can do to punish file swap
pers. The agreement reeks of
desperation.
The RIAA also
neglected to men
tion an important
point: the group
does not represent
every copyright holder
whose property is
being illegally
shared. So just
because a given file
sharer signs the RIAA
amnesty agreement
does not mean he
won’t be sued. It Jm
just means he i®
won't be sued Jp
by the record- w
ing industry.
That fact seems ™
to be worth mentioning
|o
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