Metropolis Reality Forums - The RIAA is outta control...

Sponsored by: The Fans!

Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
Nov 25^th, 2024, 2:40am

Upcoming Premiere Dates:
Survivor 23, Season premiere
Thursday, September 14 (8:00-9:30 PM, ET/PT) on CBS

Metropolis Reality Forums Ť The RIAA is outta control... ť

   Metropolis Reality Forums
   Off-Topic Forums
   In the News (Moderators: lakelady, yesteach, MediaScribe, Bumper, Isle_be_back)
   The RIAA is outta control...

Previous topic | New Topic | Next topic »

Pages: all 1 2

Add Poll

Notify of replies

Send Topic

Author

Topic: The RIAA is outta control... (Read 679 times)

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

The RIAA is outta control...
« on: Sep 9^th, 2003, 11:26am »

Quote

Modify

The RIAA has nailed one of the most prolific file-traders in the U.S., filing a lawsuit against 12-year-old Brianna LaHara.

When not at the playground with her friends, "Biggie Brianna" is trading music files from her home in New York. The little girl received one of the 261 lawsuits filed by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) on Monday, according to the New York Post. She may look like a sweet and innocent child, but the RIAA says it's only going after major copyright violators at the moment. So you make the call.

"I got really scared. My stomach is all turning," Brianna told the Post. "I thought it was OK to download music because my mom paid a service fee for it. Out of all people, why did they pick me?"

It turns out that Brianna's mum paid a $29.99 service charge to KaZaA for the company's music service. Brianna, however, thought this meant she could download songs at will. How naive!

When reporters charged into Brianna's home, she was helping her brother with some homework. She is an honors student at St. Gregory the Great school.

Brianna could face charges of up to $150,000 per infringed song. but we have a feeling this might be a tad unrealistic. We suggest the RIAA take all of her toys instead.

"Nobody likes playing the heavy and having to resort to litigation," RIAA president Cary Sherman said in a statement. "But when your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action."

Go get her, Cary. Ž

« Last Edit: Sep 10^th, 2003, 12:10pm by Rhune »

IP Logged

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #1 on: Sep 9^th, 2003, 11:27am »

Quote

Modify

The RIAA has kicked off its new revenue generating suing practice in style, filing lawsuits against 261 file traders.

The music label mob has methodically reached this point. After filing over a thousand subpoenas, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is now going after the worst of the bunch with good old fashioned lawsuits. The file traders could pay up to $150,000 per illegal song swap, if they are found guilty.

It's no secret that the music labels blame file traders for a decline in sales. They don't point to their own failings such as a lack of subscriptions services, high CD prices or threats against their consumers as the problem. No, this is a righteous bunch doing what is required to protect their intellectual property.

"Nobody likes playing the heavy and having to resort to litigation," RIAA president Cary Sherman said in a statement. "But when your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action."

This is quite a change of heart from when the labels "played the heavy" in the 1990s by price-fixing or so the FTC said. But the music industry big-whigs would rather not talk about that little fiasco. Instead, they would like to talk about the lost revenue. That is, after all, why they've launched this new lawsuit arm of their business.

Along with announcing the lawsuits, the RIAA also put out new data for the last six months of sales. You'll find some interesting tidbits in these numbers.

Overall, CD sales did decline at the start of 2003. Compared to the first six months of 2002, retail unit shipments fell 9.8 percent to 245.2 million and revenue dropped 9.1 percent to a paltry $4.25 billion. Don't shed too many tears just yet though.

Over the same period, CD single sales surged by 162.4 percent in units and 173.5 percent in revenue. This raises an interesting question.

Most file traders go after songs one at a time. They pick and choose the tunes they like. Could it be the case that consumers don't see a good value in buying an entire CD for $16.99 when all they want is a couple of songs? The hike in single sales backs up this trend.

The recent success of Apple's iTunes service would also seem to confirm this. Users of iTunes can buy one song at a time for 99 cents. Apple conveniently put out a statement today, saying it has sold 10 million songs since its service started just four months ago.

If the music labels had gotten their act together long ago and provided a decent online store or cut prices on their CDs, they might not find themselves in this predicament today.

That would make too much sense. Instead, the RIAA hopes to sue thousands of users and recoup its losses one teenager or grandmother at a time. That's good business.

Given the RIAA's bold stance here, we've taken the liberty of finding the perfect way for music executives to celebrate their hubris. Their balls are obviously too big to fit in their pants, so why not put them where it counts. Ž

IP Logged

david
Guest

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #2 on: Sep 9^th, 2003, 2:36pm »

Quote

Modify

Remove

This is going to get ugly!

IP Logged

azure
ForumsNet Member

Gender:

Posts: 4087

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #3 on: Sep 9^th, 2003, 2:46pm »

Quote

Modify

in my opinion it already has gotten ugly Undecided

IP Logged

HELLO EVERYBODY!!

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #4 on: Sep 9^th, 2003, 3:36pm »

Quote

Modify

It passed beyond ugly when they were given the right to sieze people's computers without any proof of guilt. I think it was 3 or 4 months ago that was passed that they could just sieze the computer or website of anyone they even suspect of violating their copyrights, without any proof necessary. You have to go prove your are innocent to get your things back.

IP Logged

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #5 on: Sep 9^th, 2003, 4:34pm »

Quote

Modify

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The targets of the first lawsuits against music fans who share songs on the Internet include an elderly man in Texas who rarely uses his computer, a Yale University professor and an unemployed woman in New York who says she didn't know she was breaking the law.

Each faces potentially devastating civil penalties or settlements that could cost them tens of thousands of dollars.

The Recording Industry Association of America launched the next stage of its aggressive anti-piracy campaign Monday, filing 261 federal lawsuits across the country. The action was aimed at what the RIAA described as "major offenders" illegally distributing on average more than 1,000 copyrighted music files each, but lawyers warned they may ultimately file thousands of similar cases.

The grandfather and the academic
Durwood Pickle, 71, of Richardson, Texas, said his teenage grandchildren downloaded music onto his computer during their visits to his home. He said his grown son had explained the situation in an earlier e-mail to the recording industry association.

"I didn't do it, and I don't feel like I'm responsible," Pickle said in an interview. "It's been stopped now, I guarantee you that."

Pickle, who was unaware he was being sued until contacted by The Associated Press, said he rarely uses the computer in his home.

"I'm not a computer-type person," Pickle said. "They come in and get on the computer. How do I get out of this?"

Yale University professor Timothy Davis said he will stop sharing music files immediately. He downloaded about 500 songs from others on the Internet before his Internet provider notified him about the music industry's interest in his activities.

"I've been pretending it was going to go away," said Davis, who teaches photography.

Unhappy file sharers
Another defendant, Lisa Schamis of New York, said her Internet provider warned her two months ago that record industry lawyers had asked for her name and address, but she said she had no idea she might be sued. She acknowledged downloading "lots" of music over file-sharing networks.

"This is ridiculous," said Schamis, 26. "I didn't understand it was illegal."

She said the music industry shouldn't have the right to sue.

"It's wrong on their part," she said.

An estimated 60 million Americans participate in file-sharing networks, using software that makes it simple for computer users to locate and retrieve for free virtually any song by any artist within moments. Internet users broadly acknowledge music-trading is illegal, but the practice has flourished in recent years since copyright statutes are among the most popularly flouted laws online.

"Nobody likes playing the heavy," said RIAA President Cary Sherman, who compared illegal music downloads to shoplifting. "There comes a time when you have to stand up and take appropriate action."

Hearings planned
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, has already promised congressional hearings into how the music industry has identified and tracked the Internet users it's suing.

"They have a legitimate interest that needs to be protected, but are they protecting it in a way that's too broad and overreaching?" Coleman said. "I don't want to make criminals out of 60 million kids, even though kids and grandkids are doing things they shouldn't be doing."

The RIAA did not identify for reporters which Internet users it was suing or where they live. Lawsuits were filed in federal courthouses in New York City, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas and elsewhere.

"Get a lawyer," advised Fred von Lohmann, an attorney for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. "There's no simpler advice than that, whether you intend to fight this or not. You'll need someone to advise you."

With estimates that half of file-sharers are teenagers, all sides braced for the inevitable legal debate surrounding the financial damage to parents or grandparents. The RIAA named as the defendant in each lawsuit the person who paid for the household Internet account.

"That question will come up immediately, whether a minor can have the requisite knowledge to be the right defendant," said Susan Crawford, who teaches law at Yeshiva University's Cardozo law school in New York City. "A very young child who didn't know what they were doing would be a bad defendant for the industry."

Offering amnesty
The RIAA also announced an amnesty program for people who admit they illegally share music, promising not to sue them in exchange for their admission and pledge to delete the songs off their computers. The offer does not apply to people who already are targets of legal action.

Sherman called the amnesty offer "our version of an olive branch."

Some defense lawyers have objected to the amnesty provisions, warning that song publishers and other organizations not represented by the RIAA won't be constrained by the group's promise not to sue.

U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person's computer.

IP Logged

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #6 on: Sep 10^th, 2003, 10:18am »

Quote

Modify

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32740.html

The RIAA took quick steps to blunt a public relations atrocity by agreeing to settle out of court with a 12-year-old girl accused of trading copyrighted songs.

It took all of twenty-four hours for young Biggie Brianna to be hit with a lawsuit and then pay up for her alleged crimes. The youngster's mother has agreed to shell out $2,000 to get the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) off her family's back. This marks the first settlement to come as a result of the 261 lawsuits the RIAA filed this week.

Earlier in the day, Brianna complained of stomach pains and emotional suffering as a result of the RIAA's actions. After signing the soothing settlement, however, she expressed regret at having harmed the precious artists.

It's okay, Brianna, don't worry. Fox manufactures new artists every few months. The new ones won't know that you committed the naughty act of trying to listen to their music.

The pigopolists no doubt prepared a contingency plan should any toddlers, pre-teens or bedridden seniors get caught in their web of lawsuits. Alarm bells must have sounded in the swine cave when word of Biggie Brianna got out. A number of news outlets rushed to tell the story of the honors student gone wrong.

Brianna thought the $29.99 fee her mother paid for the Kazaa music trading service entitled her to download songs at will. Nothing like a lawsuit seeking $150,000 per song to correct that misconception. This is what some refer to as a growing pain.

This settlement has taught us a few valuable lessons about the RIAA's methodology. Apparently, young teens hit the copyright infringement scale at the $2,000 mark. College students, by contrast, must cough up between $12,000 and $17,000 for their violations, as we saw earlier this year. So any parents out there with children under 12 can expect their precious tots' crimes to cost around $1,000. That's comforting.

It's also clear that the RIAA has no leniency for the less well off in society. Brianna happened to live in a New York Housing Authority apartment, which provides safe, affordable housing to low- and moderate-income families. The music label executives are struggling to pay the rent on their penthouse apartments because of file-trading, so why cut the lower class some slack? We all have needs.

The RIAA's actions, however, aren't going unnoticed by the government. During a Senate Judiciary Hearing Tuesday, the RIAA president Cary Sherman faced some tough questions.

"Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" Sen. Dick Durbin asked, according to the AP.

"Yes, there are going to be some kids caught in this, but you'd be surprised at how many adults are engaged in this activity," Sherman said.

Don't let your emotions get the best of you, Cary. Come on, stay tough.

The RIAA is sure to have some PR gaffes as their legal crusade goes along. But a few miscues are certainly worth it when we are all being taught such a valuable lesson. Ž

IP Logged

MzWings
ForumsNet Member

Praying for FN members/family health & happiness

Gender:

Posts: 0

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #7 on: Sep 10^th, 2003, 11:08am »

Quote

Modify

"Yes, there are going to be some kids caught in this, but you'd be surprised at how many adults are engaged in this activity," Sherman said.

:razz:

This whole situation is beyond preposterous. I remember ohhhhhhhh so many years ago when movies became available on video tapes. There was a strict and severe warning about not copying the tape - under penalty of law. Well - duh! :dizzy:

All one had to do was put a piece of tape over the hole where the pop-off tab used to be - to copy it. That's not rocket science.

So, when music cd's became available for the general public, it was a given (for lack of a better word) people would share/copy them. There's no "tab" to prevent this :laff:

Sure - I would agree to some degree that copying/sharing is a type of thievery - of sorts. But, in my little mind, (again, for lack of a better word) RIAA, hacking into peoples personal computer or seizing them for the sole purpose of suing for copying said cd's, is far far worse.

Why in THEE hell can't the cd companies do something to make them virtually impossible to copy? Maybe that's rocket science. :inquisitive:

Ohhhhh - it's a communist plot to take over the little people, I tellya - yeah, that's it - that's the ticket - a communist plot. :laff:

« Last Edit: Sep 10^th, 2003, 11:09am by MzWings »

IP Logged

"Senility Prayer"...God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."

azure
ForumsNet Member

Gender:

Posts: 4087

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #8 on: Sep 10^th, 2003, 11:13am »

Quote

Modify

lol wings

however I think the problem is more with the fact that people are downloading the music for free and then burning their own CD, rather than buying one at all. Before at least one person bought the tape and other people copied it, now there is not even an initial purchase.

My personal opinion is....get over it RIAA. When you start maknig your cd's and concert tickets and memorabelia (sp?) a bit more affordable, people may begin to respect it.

IP Logged

HELLO EVERYBODY!!

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #9 on: Sep 10^th, 2003, 12:06pm »

Quote

Modify

Having to deal with piracy in my own game, I sympathize with the RIAA on combating piracy. However, we found a long time ago that going after individuals is like stepping on ants. You can stand around and stamp all day, but more will just pour out. You can spend thousands of dollars in legal fees chasing broke people if you want to...

We got smart. We stopped bothering with big wastes of time and money like that and instead have focused our time and effort and money on better security within our own program. We understand that we will never eliminate piracy entirely, but that we can take a lot of steps to reduce it, that don't entail taking a 12 year old to court.

I just think they are going at this bass-ackwards and that they have crossed a line somewhere in our rights, and our right to a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty, etc. with these laws they are getting pushed through. It is WRONG to take someone's machine without the burden of proof. It is WRONG to take a 71 year old man to court because someone else unknowingy put files on his machine.

IP Logged

MzWings
ForumsNet Member

Praying for FN members/family health & happiness

Gender:

Posts: 0

Re: The RIAA is outta controll...
« Reply #10 on: Sep 10^th, 2003, 1:35pm »

Quote

Modify

on Sep 10^th, 2003, 12:06pm, Rhune wrote:

We understand that we will never eliminate piracy entirely, but that we can take a lot of steps to reduce it, that don't entail taking a 12 year old to court.

I just think they are going at this bass-ackwards and that they have crossed a line somewhere in our rights, and our right to a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty, etc. with these laws they are getting pushed through. It is WRONG to take someone's machine without the burden of proof. It is WRONG to take a 71 year old man to court because someone else unknowingy put files on his machine.

Rhune - kudos to you and your company that you took stringent security measures.

Something is terribly wrong and horrendously bassackwards, all right - with the whole picture. It also appears that these people are considered to be guilty from the git-go without trial. This is all very painful......

IP Logged

"Senility Prayer"...God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Re: The RIAA is outta control...
« Reply #11 on: Sep 11^th, 2003, 12:27am »

Quote

Modify

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The recording industry has taken its piracy fight directly to music fans, suing more than 200 people this week alone. Now comes the hard part: Persuading the very people it has threatened with legal action to revisit music stores or sample legal downloading services.

That might prove difficult, some observers say, because the industry's lawsuit campaign could spark a consumer backlash spurred by the discontent many music fans already feel over soaring CD prices and the shrinking number of retailers offering varied music titles.

"The real hope here is that people will return to the record store," said Eric Garland, CEO of BigCampagne LLC, which tracks peer-to-peer Internet trends. "The biggest question is whether singling out a handful of copyright infringers will invigorate business or drive file-sharing further underground, further out of reach."

Scaring music sharers
Jason Rich, of Watervliet, New York, said the record companies' campaign prompted him to stop downloading music from file-sharing networks, but he called the issue "disconcerting."

"I think it's kind of silly to go after individuals," said Rich, 26. "There are so many Web sites out there, people don't know necessarily they're doing anything wrong."

Some of the music fans caught in the piracy net cast by the recording industry took steps Tuesday toward settling the copyright infringement lawsuits levied against them for sharing song files over the Internet.

Settling suits
The industry sued 261 people on Monday and has promised to sue hundreds more in coming weeks as it strives to stamp out music piracy it blames for a three-year slump in CD sales.

The Recording Industry Association of America settled the first of the suits Tuesday for $2,000 -- with the mother of a 12-year-old defendant, Brianna LaHara of New York. Brianna was accused of downloading more than 1,000 songs using Kazaa.

RIAA Vice President Matt Oppenheim said he was not surprised to see young and old alike caught in the industry's snare.

"We know that there are a lot of young people who are using these services and we totally expected that we would end up targeting them," Oppenheim said. "As we have said from the beginning ... there is no free pass to engage in music piracy just because you haven't come of age. We're not surprised and we're not deterred."

Consumers already think so little of the music companies, that the lawsuits likely won't make much difference, said Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research, Inc.

"The industry has been backed into a corner, and their image is so bad, the lawsuits are not going to be much of a problem," he said.

The industry opted to target individuals earlier this year, figuring music fans who prefer to get their music online now are beginning to have viable options to do so legally through for-pay music download services like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store and Buy.com's BuyMusic.com.

But while iTunes has sold more than 10 million song downloads since its April launch, no service has emerged for the large majority of computer users on the Window platform.

Less file-sharing
There are signs some people have stopped file-sharing since June, when the RIAA announced its lawsuit campaign, and also have moved to other file-swapping networks perceived to be safer than the market leader, Kazaa.

Traffic on the FastTrack network, the conduit for Kazaa and Grokster users, declined over the summer and climbed again last month, as has the number of people using less popular file-sharing software like eDonkey, Garland said.

At the same time, a decline in CD sales worsened. Between June 15 and August 3, the decline in CD sales accelerated 54 percent. And as of August 3, CD sales were down 9.4 percent over the same period in 2002, according to the Yankee Group.

IP Logged

david
Guest

Re: The RIAA is outta control...
« Reply #12 on: Sep 11^th, 2003, 11:56am »

Quote

Modify

Remove

"Dont bite the hand that feeds you" Wink

IP Logged

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Re: The RIAA is outta control...
« Reply #13 on: Sep 11^th, 2003, 12:23pm »

Quote

Modify

More from The Register:

The RIAA's vendetta against file sharing is entering a new phase, applying the taint of child pornography to foul the waters. Not content to sue twelve-year-old children, the music industry is now marshaling its flacks on Capitol Hill to stigmatize P2P technology as a vehicle of kiddie porn.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings earlier this week to expose the problem. Our children are encountering the most appalling images of child rape when they search for music files, a number of witnesses claimed.

General Accounting Office (GAO) Information Management Issues Director Linda Koontz had done some hands-on research.

"In one search, using 12 keywords known to be associated with child pornography on the Internet, GAO identified 1,286 titles and file names, determining that 543 (about 42 per cent) were associated with child pornography images. Of the remaining, 34 per cent were classified as adult pornography and 24 per cent as nonpornographic," she said.

Of course it's unlikely that children would accidentally search for music using keywords known to be associated with KP, but Koontz was prepared for that objection and brought along some research using more innocent keyword searches. Here the torrent of KP by which our children are being swept away seemed to slow to a trickle.

"Searches on innocuous keywords likely to be used by juveniles (such as names of cartoon characters or celebrities) produced a high proportion of pornographic images: in our searches, the retrieved images included adult pornography (34 per cent), cartoon pornography (14 per cent), child erotica (seven per cent), and child pornography (one per cent), Koontz admitted.

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota has had some experience prosecuting pedos who've used P2P services. He implied that the KP available on KaZaA and other services is actually worse than that found elsewhere.

"The images of child pornography available on peer-to-peer networks are some of the worst seen by law enforcement to date. Included in the images seized by police in the cases being prosecuted by my office, are still photographs of very young children engaged in sexual acts with other children and adults and video clips lasting several minutes of children being subjected to unspeakable acts of sexual violence," Spota claimed.

How this is worse than the same vile material found elsewhere on the Internet in vastly greater quantities was not explained.

Later, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Chairman Robbie Calloway asserted that there is a direct connection between the availability of KP images and the likelihood that children will be assaulted in the real world.

A pedo "can convince himself that his behavior is normal, and eventually he will need more and increasingly explicit child pornography to satisfy his cravings. When mere visual stimulation no longer satisfies him, he will often progress to sexually molesting live children," he explained.

Next, Sharman Networks Executive Veep Alan Morris did his best to counter the demonization of KaZaA as a tool for dangerous perverts by pointing out that there are far safer ways to trade KP.

"Pedophiles quickly realized, when P2P first appeared, that it was a foolhardy way to pursue their warped ends. To make their collections publicly available on P2P is counter to their cloak of secrecy. Law enforcement agencies quickly picked them off and so they retreated back to their sordid encrypted sites, newsgroups and the like," Morris said.

When it came time for Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) President Cary Sherman to speak, he spent the bulk of his time whining about a "drastic decline in record sales" brought about by "the astronomical rate of music piracy on the Internet."

After mentioning kiddie porn briefly in passing, he then launched an attack against telecomms behemoth Verizon, which has not been quite as cooperative with the RIAA as Sherman would wish, having moved to protect the privacy of its subscribers from the music-lobby's 'John Doe' subpoenas.

He then recapitulated the RIAA's excellent arguments and Verizon's spurious arguments in this dispute at considerable length, and detailed exhaustively the various provisions of the DMCA that Verizon is supposedly violating, as if giving court testimony in that particular dispute.

Sherman concluded that "the DMCA information subpoena represents a fair and balanced process that includes important and meaningful safeguards to protect the privacy of individuals" and protect the music cartel's revenues, as if this had been the hearing's topic.

And of course it always was the topic. It's clear from Sherman's tirade that the day's exercise was purely an attack against P2P technology for its presumed negative effects on the music cartel's profits, not on children. The specter of child rape may have hung over the proceedings like a revolting stench, but it was nothing more than an atmospheric effect. If Sherman has the slightest concern for the welfare of children, he certainly knows how to hide it. Ž

IP Logged

Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 292

Re: The RIAA is outta control...
« Reply #14 on: Sep 15^th, 2003, 8:55am »

Quote

Modify

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Several Internet music services and a disc jockey have offered to reimburse a New York woman who paid $2,000 to settle charges that her 12-year-old daughter illegally copied music online.

A coalition of several "peer to peer" song-swapping networks said Thursday it was trying to locate Sylvia Torres so it could pay the legal settlement she reached with the Recording Industry Association of America on Tuesday.

Rochester, New York, radio disc jockey Brother Wease also offered to pay Torres' legal bill, and online music retailer MusicRebellion.com said it would allow Torres' daughter, Brianna Lahara, to download $2,000 worth of free music from its industry-sanctioned site.

However, the would-be benefactors all said they would not extend their offers to the 260 other individuals who face RIAA lawsuits for copying music through Kazaa, Grokster and other peer-to-peer networks.

An RIAA spokesman declined to comment on the offers.

Lahara, a Manhattan honor student who offered Madonna's "Material Girl" and some 1,000 other songs through Kazaa, has emerged as something of a poster girl for those who denounce the RIAA's legal campaign as heavy-handed.

"Out of all the millions of people who have downloaded, some girl in a housing project in New York City has got to come up with two grand?" said Wease, who offered to help through his charitable children's fund.

"I just feel that these people are bullies," said Grokster President Wayne Rosso, a member of the P2P United trade group, which offered to pay Torres' bill. "They're like the show-business version of the Taliban."

RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said the recording industry was not targeting 12-year-olds. The only information it had when it filed the suits was the name and address of the Internet account holder, he added.

"The objective of this campaign is not to win a popularity contest, but to communicate a message of deterrence so people realize there can be consequences to this illegal behavior," Lamy said.

Rosso said the industry should try to work out a solution with Grokster and other peer-to-peer networks so record labels can be paid for the billions of songs downloaded monthly.

One solution could be a flat, per-song royalty rate similar to that paid by radio stations and Webcasters, he said.

Lamy said a flat-fee approach would be impossible because it would have to encompass movies, books and other copyrighted material traded online, as well as take foreign users into account.

Traffic has remained steady on peer-to-peer networks since the lawsuits were filed, officials at the networks said.

IP Logged

Pages: all 1 2

Add Poll

Notify of replies

Send Topic


Previous topic \| New Topic \| Next topic »