What?!?!

[JammyJim]

The US record industry is planning to sue people who swap music over the internet.

Starting on Thursday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says, it will gather evidence against users of "peer-to-peer" software such as Kazaa, and file $150,000 (£90,000) lawsuits against them

The RIAA says its sales have been hit hard by the software, which allows users to swap music, films, and other files over the internet.





Is this wild bizarreness or is there truth. Presumably this is only people who are downloading and transferring AFTER thursday...

[roadrunner_0]

i know where you live!



(sorry, but i have been waiting a couple of days to say that!)

Propaganda.

It works on me. I won't open Kazaa again.

DC++ here I come!

[sinnamon xie]

I won't buy CDs again. Boycott the music industry, so them what bad records sales REALLY look like

[JammyJim]

'Net piracy': Ask the record industries boss
This forum has now ended. A transcript and recording will appear here shortly.
The US record industry is planning to sue people who swap music over the internet.

Starting on Thursday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says, it will gather evidence against users of "peer-to-peer" software such as Kazaa, and file $150,000 (£90,000) lawsuits against them

The RIAA says its sales have been hit hard by the software, which allows users to swap music, films, and other files over the internet.

Should web music swapping be banned? Will moves by record companies to sue customers be counterproductive?

Allen Dixon, executive director of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the organisation which represents the international recording industry, answered your questions in an interactive forum.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...nt/3022820.stm

Published: 2003/06/26 11:34:04 GMT

© BBC MMIII

[Ragnarak]

heh am glad i only download movies thesedays ;-)

[Starbucks]

People stealing music is wrong, i would never do it



:ninja:

[Cmdr_Cyrax]

I'd like to see them try

[LHC]

I don't see why they want to do it. It's clear that closing Napster down solved all the problems of file sharing.

[JammyJim]

Music labels hunt net 'pirates'


Record companies believe song-swapping is costing them sales
The US record industry is planning to sue people who swap music over the internet.
Starting on Thursday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says, it will gather evidence against users of "peer-to-peer" software such as Kazaa, and file $150,000 (£90,000) lawsuits against them.

The RIAA says its sales have been hit hard by the software, which allows users to swap music, films, and other files over the internet.

But the president of one peer-to-peer site blasted the RIAA threat as counter-productive.

We're going to begin taking names and preparing lawsuits

Cary Sherman,
RIAA


How the record industry will track down pirates
"When you start suing all your customers, it's not going to leave a good taste in their mouths," Wayne Rosso, of Grokster, told BBC News Online.

"They're out of their minds," he said.


The RIAA - whose members include AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Sony, Bertelsmann and EMI - says it will target the heaviest users of song-swapping services.

How could filesharers be tracked? Click here to see a graphic
Its president, Cary Sherman, said: "We're going to begin taking names and preparing lawsuits against peer-to-peer network users who are illegally making available a substantial number of music files to millions of other computer users."

File-swappers trade an estimated 2.6 billion songs, movies and other files a month, the industry says.

The RIAA expects to file at least several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages within eight to 10 weeks.

Kazaa, the most popular software for file sharing, reported that the number of its users online fell roughly 16 percent by late Thursday morning shortly after the RIAA announced its new campaign.

The move raises the stakes substantially in the long-running battle over file-swapping.

Most previous lawsuits have targeted websites such as Napster, the industry pioneer that was shut down by legal action.

Record companies have also planted dummy files masquerading as popular tracks to try to deter song-swappers.

Court ruling

A recent court ruling makes it easier to track down copyright violators through their internet providers, and last month four college students agreed to pay damages after being sued by the RIAA.

We're going to fight back using every means at our disposal

Wayne Rosso,
Grokster
Mr Sherman said he expected lawsuits asking for damages of $150,000 for each copyright violation to be filed in six to eight weeks.

Computer users who wished to avoid legal action should change the settings on their software to block access to their hard drives, or uninstall the software completely, Mr Sherman said.

The organisation hit a snag last month when a judge ruled two networks, Grokster and Morpheus, should not be shut down because they do not control what is traded on their systems.

Grokster's Mr Rosso says that court loss is the reason the RIAA has turned its attention to individuals.

"They're upset that we beat them in court," he told BBC News Online.

Commercial opportunities

Supporters of song-swap networks say they are an easy way for music fans to discover new artists - but record companies liken the practice to shoplifting.

HAVE YOUR SAY
Net piracy isn't killing music, it's keeping it alive

John M, UK


Send us your comments

Mr Rosso says there are many ways to make money from file-swapping.

"Licence it, sell waivers to downloaders, tax CD burners, tax software-ripping programmes," he said.

He said Grokster would be happy to sell licenses to download music, but that none of the record companies would discuss it with his firm.

And he said Grokster would resist the RIAA's latest move.

"We're going to fight back using every means at our disposal," he said.

[Sandsnake]

Simple: I will never buy a CD from an RIAA-affiliated artist again.

[JammyJim]

im just glad i have the internal uni network which is like kazaa but a million times better.

[Nusselt]

what exactly does gathering evidence mean??? can they really get at you??

[Sandsnake]

Originally posted by Nusselt
what exactly does gathering evidence mean??? can they really get at you??

I'll be interested in seeing how they get around the fact that most of the major sharers use Kazaa's default naming, which isn't unique to anyone in the slightest.

[Leshy]

Like the RIAA is going to invest time and money in the home users.

[Nusselt]

i was thinking that they might simply to act as a deterrent to everyone else. But even if they do there what like 4million people at any one time being norty? it wont put people off for long.

[JammyJim]

Kazaa experienced a 16% drop in usage today when this was announced.

thats rather large...

[Nodrog]

Originally posted by Leshy
Like the RIAA is going to invest time and money in the home users.

It only has to make a scapegoat out of one or two in order to scare quite a lot of people out of downloading files.

[Toop]

Originally posted by JammyJim
Kazaa experienced a 16% drop in usage today when this was announced.

thats rather large...

All idiots. They're bluffing. They can never sue 2 million kazaa users [edit: I think there were 2 mil, not sure actually, but anything over 10k is too much] , and even if they try they'll never get that much money. The costs will be higher than their gain. The only thing they can do is say things like this and sue a few users as 'examples'.

[Nusselt]

it'll put people off for awhile but i still think that over all it just wont work.

[Sandsnake]

What they'll do is hit those guys with 15 gigs of tracks on an T-1 or higher connection. That will slow down some stuff, but it will hardly stop anything.

[queball]

Originally posted by Sandsnake
Simple: I will never buy a CD from an RIAA-affiliated artist again.

That'll show them! Have fun listening to local bands, obscure losers, and crappy punk.

[Sandsnake]

Originally posted by queball
That'll show them! Have fun listening to local bands, obscure losers, and crappy punk.

no, you see, I've always made a point to go and buy music that I liked. I've burnt maybe 2 or 3 music CDs. This is at an end.

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Toop
All idiots. They're bluffing. They can never sue 2 million kazaa users [edit: I think there were 2 mil, not sure actually, but anything over 10k is too much] ,

They don't have to sue them all. They just have to sue (or even just threaten to sue) enough to scare most of the users off.

and even if they try they'll never get that much money.

I don't think they're suing to make money directly; they're suing to stop people from pirating music. If they're successful, then they probably figure they'll make it up later in added music sales.

The costs will be higher than their gain. The only thing they can do is say things like this and sue a few users as 'examples'.

Well, yes, but who wants to be an "example?"

[Aryn]

they'll never catch me! i use winmx :ninja:

[Cmdr_Cyrax]

Originally posted by Aryn
they'll never catch me! i use winmx :ninja:

I wondered who I was downloading all that pr0n from

[sinnamon xie]

They have already starting suing people for it. I am sure most of you have heard that there are lawsuits against college students at certain universities around the US.

http://chronicle.com/free/2003/04/2003040401t.htm


They only want $150,000 per song.

And since they make little to no money every year, that isn't much now is it?

Everyone knows college students just hoard money in their basement :/

[Rids]

Surely they have to prove what you have on your system is genuine, and not fakely named files?

Thus, they would need to download your entire collection to be sure?

HEH

[Dante Hicks]

Bring it on Mr Valenti.

[Kumnaa]

Originally posted by JammyJim
The US record industry is planning to sue people who swap music over the internet.

Starting on Thursday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says, it will gather evidence against users of "peer-to-peer" software such as Kazaa, and file $150,000 (£90,000) lawsuits against them

The RIAA says its sales have been hit hard by the software, which allows users to swap music, films, and other files over the internet.





Is this wild bizarreness or is there truth. Presumably this is only people who are downloading and transferring AFTER thursday...

They are still selling RECORD numbers of albums and singles fs. Greedy ****s. I still havent forgiven Metallica for their ****ness in this area plus their new album is a bit naff!

[Deffeh]

Perhaps if music was more accessible? I have 930+/- music files on my computer, lets say they were all on albums of 15 - thats still 62 albums. Thats say, £620 total minimum.(being leniant on how many files i have, whether all the tracks were on albums, whether these albums were all complete, how many tracks per album etc) £620 just to listen to the music i want? No thanks. The music industry should be taking advantage of P2P. Id pay a one off $50 or something, to download as much music as i like legally. Or have a quota, or something.

[Erkenbrand]

Originally posted by Deffeh
The music industry should be taking advantage of P2P. Id pay a one off $50 or something, to download as much music as i like legally. Or have a quota, or something.

The RIAA has repeatedly passed up this oppurtunity on the grounds that it wasn't profitable, something Apple have shown to be complete bolox with it's new download service. As someone put it, your looking at a dinosaur trying to sue the world so it doesn't have to evolve.

[Cmdr_Cyrax]

Originally posted by Erkenbrand
As someone put it, your looking at a dinosaur trying to sue the world so it doesn't have to evolve.

[seventh]

could anyone code a similar thing to kazaa but with a central server.

on the central server you have one hell of a hard drive, you get every artist possibly imaginable to sign a contract to you saying "my music will always be on this server" make the contract legally binding for i dunno 25 years.

the band get signed, musics still free.

ofc you wont be able to listen to the h00j artists, but if its free. its getting the music out for those unsigned bands.

you get set searches up in like "bands similar to" and then a list of different bands in different genres


i think that'd be great.

[queball]

Originally posted by seventh
could anyone code a similar thing to kazaa but with a central server.

on the central server you have one hell of a hard drive, you get every artist possibly imaginable to sign a contract to you saying "my music will always be on this server" make the contract legally binding for i dunno 25 years.

the band get signed, musics still free.

ofc you wont be able to listen to the h00j artists, but if its free. its getting the music out for those unsigned bands.

you get set searches up in like "bands similar to" and then a list of different bands in different genres


i think that'd be great.

How could it be "every artist possibly imaginable" but not "h00j artists"? How is this different from Audiogalaxy?

Edit: and mp3.com and any other similar site

[seventh]

like, get the artists to send you their material on cd

then the users pay like...i dunno £5 to use it forever


so

step one : get big server and fast line
step two: get artists to join you, back you, upload their music
step three: get users to sign up for £5 for unlimited use, they can download as many of these artists as they like.

£5 aint much so people'd be willing to pay it

and if enough users did it. lotsa dollar.

[queball]

Originally posted by seventh
like, get the artists to send you their material on cd

then the users pay like...i dunno £5 to use it forever


so

step one : get big server and fast line
step two: get artists to join you, back you, upload their music
step three: get users to sign up for £5 for unlimited use, they can download as many of these artists as they like.

£5 aint much so people'd be willing to pay it

and if enough users did it. lotsa dollar.

£5 * the entire population of the Earth < the RIAA's annual revenue

[Dante Hicks]

I presume the RIAA have realised that opposing all download technologies is pretty stupid. Their strategy should be :
1. Go after big/blatant pirates.
2. Encourage Apple style download tracks/albums schemes (with a quid per track or somesuch).
3. Pressurise all hardware manufcaturers to put DRM tech on all mp3-like players to marginalise MP3s.

Either way, I don't think that will be enough. I think in the long-term they're finished, at least in the form they are in now.