Record Industry Sues 532 More U.S. File-Sharers

Patik writes "The RIAA today issued 532 new subpoenas for music file swapping, many of them college students using their campus networks. They will not say which ISPs or colleges were involved, but that the users were sharing "substantial amounts" of music files. This brings the total number of subpoenas to 1,977. The RIAA has been averaging $3,000 per settlement so far." Readers Digitus1337 and Warpedcow point to stories respectively at Wired and Reuters.

Comments

KLite

[fodi]

C'mon guys !! use Kazaa Lite, not the full version!! At least give yourselves a chance. And the best place to get Kazaa Lite these days is... yep, Kazaa !!!

Re:KLite

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont forget oldversion.com
You can also pick up AOL 1.0 while your there.

List of Colleges

[Anonymous Coward]

The list of colleges was included in the RIAA press release:

The individuals included in today's legal action were on the networks of the following universities (listed in alphabetical order of state or name): University of Arizona; University of California, Berkeley; California State University -- Northridge; University of Colorado at Colorado Springs; Drexel University; George Mason University; George Washington University; Georgetown University; Indiana University; University of Indianapolis; Loyola Marymount University; Marquette University; University of Maryland; University of Michigan; New York University; University of Northern Colorado; University of Pennsylvania; University of Southern California; Stanford University; Vanderbilt University; and Villanova University.

http://www.cpwire.com/archive/2004/3/23/1540.asp

RIAA Radar

[Lord of Ironhand]

For those who don't know it yet: RIAA Radar is a great solution for anyone who still wants to buy CD's but not support the RIAA.

Remember: spread the word, but don't sound like a fanatic.

Re:Great....

[Drantin]

Maybe they used a computer to print out seperate forms for each one? The restriction was against all-in-one subpoenas IIRC...

Re:Time is against them

[Niten]

The American Heritage Dictionary's definition of the word "terrorize" includes:

terrorize n. 2. To coerce by intimidation or fear.

And that, essentially, is what the Recording Industry is achieving with these lawsuits. Right or wrong, they cannot possibly sue everybody who illegally redistributes their music over the popular file sharing networks; the best they can hope to accomplish is to file suit against enough people to scare the rest into submission. I believe that this is what the grandparent poster meant by calling the RIAA's methods "a weak terrorist-like tactic".

(I do agree with you, though - the word "terrorism" is unbelievably overused nowadays.)

RIAA to host online chat with college newspapers

[noindiecred]

I'm an editor at the my college's newspaper. I received this in my inbox today from The Collegiate Presswire:

EDITOR'S NOTE: The president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is hosting an exclusive online chat with college editors and reporters this Wednesday, March 24, at 5 PM Eastern. The conference will focus on issues of music piracy on college campuses, and will have an interactive Q&A session.

Registration is free. To attend, go to http://cpnewslink.collegepublisher.com at the specified time, and click on "Enter Chat Room". Your email address can be used as your login name, and the conference password is "music".

Looks like the new lawsuits are just a part of a well-planned campaign to strike fear into us immoral college students. I guess this "conference" will consist mostly of the RIAA spewing propaganda with the hope that the editors and reporters in the chat will carry it back to their publications.

This news is very depressing. Shame on the RIAA for suing students! They could at least go after people who can afford the court fees.

I've found this site to be a good source of free downloadable MP3s. Gotta go grab more in light of this recent news ;)

Re:do these guys fight back?

[Calvinh0560]

Most of these people can't fight back. It takes alot of money just to hire someone and show up in court let alone all the time needed before hand. $3,000 is cheap compair what it will cost to fight this and in the end you may still end up owning the RIAA.

Re:$3000 per settlement???

[kaden]

Eh, having worked for a law firm, costs are considerable. They have to hire local counsel for various reasons (for example, bar membership), so there goes the "attorneys on retainer" theory. I can't imagine why an attorney would take this kind of a case on contingency, so the RIAA is paying them whether they recover or not. Each suit has to be drafted, then courts charge $50-$250 for every suit filed, then I imagine the local counsel has to appear and ask the judge for permission to subpoena the ISP for the Defendent's name, then there's the cost of getting the defendent served, then the time the attorney or a paralegal spends hacking out a settlement. All of that really adds up, then there's the money the RIAA has to invest in picking out people to sue and hiring local lawyers, then tracking the payments (I doubt many people can pay a $3,000 settlement out of their pocket, they have to pay in installments).

They might break even if everyone settled, but again, having worked in a law firm, I know there are a lot of people who just can't pay or be tracked down.

OBVIOUS TRUTH is mp3 is a LOSSY CODEC

[bechthros]

Well God knows, time was you could actually hear good music for free on the radio. But the RIAA took care of that already.

But that's beside the point. I'm assuming you know the difference between MP3 and PCM. How can you say that one is "re-getting" something when the two codecs are so dissimilar? Is one "re-getting" something when you buy a CD of something you taped off the radio? No, because you are buying it in a different and superior format. And yes, I now own *dozens* of CD's that I wouldn't were it not for P2P. I can't speak for anybody but myself.

You know what I wonder? I wonder how many of you "stealing-is-stealing" people have had dual cassette decks.