RIAA to Sue You Now

An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC reports that apparently the music industry feels so satisfied with going after file swapping software makers that they want to sue the pants off the file swappers themselves. Of course, you'll need to be a big fish with lots of illegal music to get their attention." This is what they should have done in the first place- go after the people who are actually doing it instead of making P2P seemingly illegal.

Comments

Where is this illegal?

[jmd!]

Say I own the "rights" to 500 songs. I bought the CD, tape, payed for an individual mp3 download, whatever.

How is offering them over napster servers any more illegal then what a library does? If user X downloads them, and keeps them permanently, or sells them, or otherwise violates HIS local copyright statutes, I don't see how that's my fault for simplying for having /tunes shared out.

Interesting Question...

[FatRatBastard]

Can they leagally go after the people with legitamate MP3s who happen to make them available on the internet or those who illegally download them?

To better explain: if I leave my doors unlocked and someone steals my CDs I may be a moron for not locking my doors, but I certainly didn't commit a crime (the thief did).

Also, if User A has a Old97s CD and legit MP3 copies of the disc on his machine and I also own the same Old97s CD and download his copies (instead of burning my own) did either of us break a law?

I am sorta hazy over both issues.

Ooooohhhhh!

[The_Shadows]

But many music executives, watching revenue sag as home compact-disc copying has soared, feel that they have little choice if they are to save their business. World-wide music sales dropped 5% last year, while global sales of compact-disc albums declined for the first time since CDs were launched in 1983. So far this year, U.S. music sales are down steeply from a sluggish 2001.

Or could it be because people are getting fed up with the latest crap from Britnay Spears and N'sync? I have bought 5 albums in as many years. They were all albums that I knew I would enjoy, start to finish (w/ maybe 1 or 2 songs as exceptions). I didn't buy the same album over, and over, and over again.

Hell, I download a few songs that I want to hear, but there's no way I'm paying for an album for one song. I know that argument has long been shouted loudly and proudly from our ranks here on /., but I have to say it again. If they would just realize that people WANT digital music that they can download and throw onto a custom CD/MP3 player/etc, then they could give this up now! Yes, there'd still be copying of CDs, and all that, but it would drop. If they have lost revenue because of filesharing, not their own lack of quality, then setting up a system where we can buy ONE song would do wonders for their revenues. They are, bluntly, idiots.

On a side note, RE: the article, I don't see how they can get someone beyond reasonable doubt. It's a simple matter to give the HD a complete wipe (7 times over, 1s and 0s) and users can just claim that they downloaded a song from Kazaa to hear it before they bought an album. The only way they could truly "get" someone is if the user had perpetually downloaded copies of the same song.

Anyway, that's my $.02

Later.

FreeNet?

[tbmaddux]

They sued Napster, it pushed people to true P2P networks like Gnutella. Now they go after the people on the networks, won't this just push people to something like Freenet? (Freenet masks users and files so it'd be more difficult to target specific people for trading specific things)