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Thread: Music Labels Step Up Internet Piracy Hunt

  1. #1
    Damnatory's Avatar OTL BT Rep: +6BT Rep +6
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    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 significant 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.

    The RIAA's president, Carey Sherman, said tens of millions of Internet users of popular file-sharing software after Thursday will expose themselves to "the real risk of having to face the music."

    "It's stealing. It's both wrong and illegal," Sherman said. Alluding to the court decisions, Sherman said Internet users who believe they can hide behind an alias online were mistaken. "You are not anonymous," Sherman said. "We're going to begin taking names."

    Country songwriter Hugh Prestwood, who has worked with Randy Travis, Tricia Yearwood and Jimmy Buffett, likened the effort to a roadside police officer on a busy highway.

    "It doesn't take too many tickets to get everybody to obey the speed limit," Prestwood said.

    Critics accused the RIAA of resorting to heavy-handed tactics likely to alienate millions of Internet file-sharers.

    "This latest effort really indicates the recording industry has lost touch with reality completely," said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Does anyone think more lawsuits are going to be the answer? Today they have declared war on the American consumer."

    Sherman disputed that consumers, who are gradually turning to legitimate Web sites to buy music legally, will object to the industry's latest efforts against pirates.

    "You have to look at exactly who are your customers," he said. "You could say the same thing about shoplifters _ are you worried about alienating them? All sorts of industries and retailers have come to the conclusion that they need to be able to protect their rights. We have come to the same conclusion."

    Mike Godwin of Public Knowledge, a consumer group that has challenged broad crackdowns on file-sharing networks, said Wednesday's announcement was appropriate because it targeted users illegally sharing copyrighted files.

    "I'm sure it's going to freak them out," Godwin said. "The free ride is over." He added: "I wouldn't be surprised if at least some people engaged in file-trading decide to resist and try to find ways to thwart the litigation strategy."

    The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against piracy. The RIAA has previously sued four college students it accused of making thousands of songs available for illegal downloading on campus networks. But Wednesday's announcement was the first effort to target users who offer music on broadly accessible, public networks.

    The Motion Picture Association of America said it supported the efforts, but notably did not indicate it plans to file large numbers of civil lawsuits against Internet users who trade movies online.

    MPAA Chief Jack Valenti said in a statement it was "our most sincere desire" to find technology solutions to protect digital copies of movies.

    Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who has proposed giving the entertainment industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music and movies, said the RIAA's actions were overdue. "It's about time," Berman said in a statement. "For too long ... file-traffickers have robbed copyright creators with impunity."

    The RIAA said its lawyers will file lawsuits initially against people with the largest collections of music files they can find online. U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person's computer, but Sherman said the RIAA will be open to settlement proposals from defendants.

    "We have no hard and fast rule on how many files you have to be distributing ... to come within our radar screen," Sherman said. "We will go after the worst offenders first."

    The RIAA declined to estimate how much it expects to spend on the lawsuits.
    Just thought it would be an interesting read for all....

  2. File Sharing   -   #2
    iMartin's Avatar ♥Home Grown♥ BT Rep: +9BT Rep +9
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    Yeah....right, I'll bet you just about any thing that their just blowing steam out their asses, just to scare us.



  3. File Sharing   -   #3
    yeah maybe, but maybe its true also. does anyone think that there could be a way to protect filesharers from riaa, maybe someone can create a program or smth to do this.... well rite now i dont feel so threatened so i'll keep sharing

  4. File Sharing   -   #4
    iMartin's Avatar ♥Home Grown♥ BT Rep: +9BT Rep +9
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    Originally posted by bally@25 June 2003 - 15:06
    yeah maybe, but maybe its true also. does anyone think that there could be a way to protect filesharers from riaa, maybe someone can create a program or smth to do this.... well rite now i dont feel so threatened so i'll keep sharing
    Yeah......its called PeerGuardian Get It Here And click Here to get a whole list of Anti P2P people.



  5. File Sharing   -   #5
    Yeah Yeah .. this is just a different version of the same tune. So they launch their lawsuits (which I'm sure will be very highly publicized) and then WE launch an international boycott of their products..

  6. File Sharing   -   #6
    iMartin's Avatar ♥Home Grown♥ BT Rep: +9BT Rep +9
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    Originally posted by [-Crono-]@25 June 2003 - 14:45
    Yeah....right, I'll bet you just about any thing that their just blowing steam out their asses, just to scare us.
    I take back what I said, I just saw on TV, (Tech Tv's The Screen Savers) that they said bassicaly all of what Damnatory said, so they actually might try and go through with it, but then i could be wrong, they could just be saying it to scare us.



  7. File Sharing   -   #7
    The Recording Industry Association of America, citing significant sales declines,

    DUHH Its called a recission....No wonder sales are down...

  8. File Sharing   -   #8
    The only way to find out what you are sharing is to see all the files you have, right?

    Can't you just check the options category box, for kazaa lite users, where it says:

    Prevent other users from getting a list of all your shared files.

    If that's the case, it would make it much more difficult to find the users' sharing mass amounts of music files.

    Just a thought.

  9. File Sharing   -   #9
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    Originally posted by ultramagna@4 July 2003 - 16:10
    Can't you just check the options category box,  for kazaa lite users, where it says:

    Prevent other users from getting a list of all your shared files.
    Unfortunately, the methods they may be using to check for long lists of shared files may not be blocked by "Prevent other users from getting a list of all your shared files."

    They are almost certainly using specialized tools to scan the network and generate file lists -- these may act as supernode searches, running as a special supernode which logs the lists of shared files of every node (that's you) that connects to them, or something stranger still.

    They are assuming we are stupid, but if we assume the same about them we will probably lose. If we can figure out their methods, we may be able to find even better blocks/workarounds. B)

  10. File Sharing   -   #10
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    Originally posted by ricochet@27 June 2003 - 04:32
    The Recording Industry Association of America, citing significant sales declines,

    DUHH Its called a recission....No wonder sales are down...
    Also what they forget to mention is that last year less albums were released compared to the years before.

    Not to forget the abnormal prices they dare to ask.

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