[2003] Music Industry Wins Approval of Subpoenas

[boogieordie]

Music Industry Wins Approval of Subpoenas
By TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer

WASHINGTON - The music industry has issued at least 871 federal subpoenas against computer users this month suspected of illegally sharing music files on the Internet, with roughly 75 new subpoenas being approved each day, U.S. court officials said Friday.

The effort represents early steps in the music industry's contentious plan to file civil lawsuits aimed at crippling online piracy.

Subpoenas reviewed by The Associated Press show the industry compelling some of the largest Internet providers, such as Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Cable Communications Inc., and some universities to provide names and mailing addresses for users on their networks known online by nicknames such as "fox3j," "soccerdog33," "clover77" or "indepunk74."

The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) has said it expects to file at least several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages within the next eight weeks.U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person's computer, but the RIAA has said it would be open to settlement proposals from defendants.

The campaign comes just weeks after U.S. appeals court rulings requiring Internet providers to readily identify subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music and movie files. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites) permits music companies to force Internet providers to turn over the names of suspected music pirates upon subpoena from any U.S. District Court clerk's office, without a judge's signature required.

In some cases, subpoenas cite as few as five songs as "representative recordings" of music files available for downloading from these users. The trade group for the largest music labels, the Washington-based RIAA, previously indicated its lawyers would target Internet users who offer substantial collections of MP3 song files but declined to say how many songs might qualify for a lawsuit.

"We would have to look at historic trends, but that is a very high number," said Alan Davidson of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group that has argued against the subpoenas. "It doesn't sound like they're just going after a few big fish."

Music fans are fighting back with technology, using new software designed specifically to stymie monitoring of their online activities by the major record labels.

A new version of "Kazaa Lite," free software that provides access to the service operated by Sharman Networks Ltd., can prevent anyone from listing all music files on an individual's machine and purports to block scans from Internet addresses believed to be associated with the RIAA.

Many of the subpoenas reviewed by the AP identified songs from the same few artists, including Avril Lavigne (news), Snoop Dogg and Michael Jackson (news). It was impossible to determine whether industry lawyers were searching the Internet specifically for songs by these artists or whether they were commonly popular among the roughly 60 million users of file-sharing services.

The RIAA's subpoenas are so prolific that the U.S. District Court in Washington, already suffering staff shortages, has been forced to reassign employees from elsewhere in the clerk's office to help process paperwork, said Angela Caesar-Mobley, the clerk's operations manager.

The RIAA declined to comment on the numbers of subpoenas it issued.

"We are identifying substantial infringers and we're going to whatever entity is providing (Internet) service for that potential infringer," said Matt Oppenheim, the group's senior vice president of business and legal affairs. "From there we'll be in a position to begin bringing lawsuits."

A spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the clerk's office here was "functioning more like a clearing house, issuing subpoenas for all over the country." Any civil lawsuits would likely be transferred to a different jurisdiction, spokeswoman Karen Redmond said.

Verizon, which has fought the RIAA over the subpoenas with continued legal appeals, said it received at least 150 subpoenas during the last two weeks. There were no subpoenas on file sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation's largest Internet provider and also parent company of Warner Music Group. Earthlink Inc., another of the largest Internet providers, said it has received only three new subpoenas.

Depaul University in Chicago was among the few colleges that received such subpoenas; the RIAA asked Depaul on July 2 to track down a user known as "anon39023" who was allegedly offering at least eight songs.The recording group sent two subpoenas to Boston College to identify "TheLastReal7" and "Prtythug23."

There was some evidence the threat of an expensive lawsuit was discouraging online music sharing. Nielsen NetRatings, which monitors Internet usage, earlier this week reported a decline for traffic on the Kazaa network of one million users, with similarly large drops across other services.

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found this over at www.watchfarscape.com/forums/

$750-$150,000??? You have got to be kidding me. That's an insane range for sharing one song. They're sueing people who can't really afford to go buying the music in the first place - college students. That's a good way to make sure that neither them nor their parents will ever be able to afford to let them finish college.

They're going after a guy who has "at least 8 songs"??? What about the people who have thousands of mp3s uploaded to servers? That's really crazy. They continously attack the little guy, the route they're taking makes no sense. They're just being greedy when they do that, 8 songs is hardly breaking an industry - especially not the largest music industry in the world.

Ashley

[boogieordie]

This ones more bias
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RIAA nails 1,000 music-lovers in 'new Prohibition' jihad
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 19/07/2003 at 11:26 GMT

The Recording Industry Association of America's attack on US culture has escalated at an alarming pace this week.

On Friday the lobby group that works on behalf of the large, mostly foreign-owned, music conglomerates that own the music copyrights and distribution channels confirmed that it was serving subpoenas at the rate of 75 a day on US citizens for the crime of sharing the music they love.

This signals a change of tactics for the RIAA: as now each individual file sharer is potentially responsible for thousands of dollars in damages. Once they were shielded by ISPs, but in the wake of the Verizon case, individuals are now exposed to direct intimidation. The RIAA is beside itself with glee: and boasted that a thousand music-lovers had already been busted.

The escalation in violence threatens to bring the US criminal justice system to an impasse: although the prison industry is already full to the brim, the RIAA's actions make new criminals out of tens of millions of ordinary US citizens. As Boycott-RIAA's founder Bill Evans notes, "there are more file-sharers than voters for either candidate at the last Presidential Election".

When Evans dubs the 'Recording Incarceration Industry of America' he's only half-joking. If the RIAA was to be indulged in its whims, the statistics suggest that the USA would rapidly become a vast, continent-wide penal colony. And that's hardly a beacon of liberty to shine on the rest of the world. Particularly when, with the backing of the much-maligned US military, the RIAA is ripping up liberal social copyright laws and replacing them with its own.

Not surprisingly, this has provoked a deep counter-reaction which is finally, and belatedly, taking to the streets. On August 1 and 2, Boycott-RIAA and affiliated groups will be holding anti-RIAA rallies across the country.

Well, here's your alarm call. While it may seem to be invincible, the RIAA is desperately vulnerable: and it knows it. It's under threat of anti-competitive lawsuits, its key DC placemen are under fierce scrutiny ... and the mass criminalization of innocent US citizens is a most coercive step citizens have seen since the Prohibition era.

But can you compel your neighbor to give up lawnmowing, or weblogging, for long enough to make a real difference? Well, read them this attack on family values

I cannot accept that the "Land of the Free" is accepting the nonsense propounded by the RIAA.

This desire to fine and litigate is becoming pervasive and foolishly assumes that you can modify normal human behaviour with LAW.

Firstly - all art forms are like children in that the creative urge is similar to the urge to reproduce. If we accept this analogy then it follows that as you do not own your children for their entire life you cannot expect to own your art for it's entire life. In fact, if the rules currently in force where in place in the earlier part of the last century then many films could not have been made and much music could not have been produced. Music belongs to us all.

... so wrote Jean Barnard.

From: Gene Mosher
To: ashlee.vance@theregister.co.uk
Subject: RIAA

My great grandfather was born in 1870. He learned to build crystal radio sets to listen to the earliest radio broadcasts in the 1920's. He would invite the whole town of about 500 over to listen to them.

My grandfather was born in 1899. He purchased one of the earliest tape recorders to make copies of radio broadcasts for his friends in the late 1950s.

My dad was born in 1924. He had a collection of 78's that he passed around for many years until he died last year.

And now I am using the Internet to assemble an MP3 collection of all the tunes on all those LPs, cassette tapes and CD's that I've been buying since 1959.

I'll be damned in hell before I accept the notion that I and my ancestors who love to listen to the audio arts are in any sense guilty of anything that is illegal, wrong, evil, immoral or improper.

Gene Mosher

With so much at stake, I can't see how Americans can fail - except through apathy. But can you and your neighbor make a difference? ®
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Also found that over at www.watchfarscape.com/forums/

Ashley

[mika]

[boogieordie]

Music Business in Misery
Layoffs and retail closings amid falling CD sales

Grotesque sales

When the record industry announced in June that it would begin filing individual lawsuits against hundreds of illegal file-swappers, it was not just a bad PR move, it was a signal that the music business is more desperate than ever. Halfway through 2003, sales continue to slump, down eight percent from the first six months of last year. Three of the ten best-selling albums so far this year were actually released in 2002, and only three artists -- 50 Cent, Norah Jones and Linkin Park -- managed to sell more than 2 million copies between January and June. 50 Cent, who has sold 5.2 million albums, had the best first-half numbers of any artist since 'N Sync in 2000, but there have been few other blockbusters.
During the same six months, at least 1,300 label staffers lost their jobs, and around 600 record stores closed. Many retailers say the labels are too focused on combating downloading and not focused enough on lowering CD prices. "We've got a bad economy, and we're still trying to sell records for $18.98," says Don Van Cleave, president of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. "People's perception of the value of music is all messed up right now."

Retail has felt the brunt of the slump. At the start of 2003, Wherehouse Entertainment filed for bankruptcy and said it would close 190 stores. Best Buy-owned Musicland shut down 107 stores. Trans World Entertainment Corp., owner of FYE and other chains, planned to shutter twenty-five stores. And Tower Records, reportedly in danger of bankruptcy after losing more than $13 million this spring, is for sale. Van Cleave notes that as CD sales decline, retailers have been forced to devote more space to DVDs, video games, books and, increasingly, toys and "lifestyle items" such as SpongeBob SquarePants dolls and Manic Panic hair dye. "That stuff is so much more profitable than music," he says. "Selling toys allows us to price music lower."

Retailers are also asking the labels to commit to releasing more CD singles. The American Idol CD singles by Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken, available in most stores for less than five dollars, have sold more than 1 million units combined in five weeks.

The recent success of Apple's iTunes Music Store may be the best news the industry has had lately. Since iTunes was launched in late April, it has sold more than 5 million songs for ninety-nine cents apiece - even more impressive considering that Mac users constitute less than four percent of computer owners. "iTunes has shown that there is a real business potential for selling downloads," says a source at Warner Bros. "It has been encouraging from a symbolic standpoint even more than a financial standpoint." Amazon.com and other online retailers now plan to launch their own download programs.

In the interim, the labels have had to cut costs and consolidate staff to almost skeletal levels. Earlier in the year, BMG fired 300 employees, and Sony let go 1,000. When RCA and J Records were combined -- under the leadership of Clive Davis -- about fifty people were given pink slips, and RCA's roster was whittled down to a lean forty acts. And in June, legendary label MCA Records, home to Blink-182, Shaggy and Mary J. Blige, was dissolved and folded into Geffen Records.
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Also found this over at www.watchfarscape.com/forums/

The thing is... the economy has been bad and the quality of music has been bad. Is this all really attributed to online music sharing? Probably not. And The RIAA is too busy crucifying Jimmy and taking his college fund to develop something like iTunes.

Someone over at Frell Me Dead pointed this out -

I like how they also try to equate this to stealing the CD from a store- If you get caught stealing a CD, you get charged with shoplifting- you don't get fined $2,000,000 (13 songs X $150,000 ea.)

Ashley

[isaac hiew]

They are going too far....... may god crucify those maniacs.

[Unimatrix Prime™]

This issue is just... so sad to me. As I've said in the other RIAA topics, it's sad what the RIAA is trying to do to make up for lost sales. They believe that p2p networks are the only reason that sales are lagging, and rather than target the shoplifters, the pirates that sell things on the street, the million-file mp3 servers... instead, it's poor Jimmy with his "whopping" 8 songs! Oh no! The industry's ruined! Geez... get a life! I think that analogy that AyuRocks pointed out is perfect for how this is all viewed as:

I like how they also try to equate this to stealing the CD from a store- If you get caught stealing a CD, you get charged with shoplifting- you don't get fined $2,000,000 (13 songs X $150,000 ea.)

They'd go after someone with 8 songs and charge him $150,000 for each songs??? WTF! That really angers me to see that some kid who goes to a store and steals a CD isn't "a big deal", but having an mp3 is equal to... having something like marijuana! I don't even think that marijuana users have such a stiff penalty as this! I'm angry at this not because of the idea of "going after offenders", but the "targets" they're going after makes no sense at all! And the "charge" they're setting on people... $750-$150,000?? Sure... let me go write out a check to the greediest people in America!!

The recent success of Apple's iTunes Music Store may be the best news the industry has had lately. Since iTunes was launched in late April, it has sold more than 5 million songs for ninety-nine cents apiece - even more impressive considering that Mac users constitute less than four percent of computer owners. "iTunes has shown that there is a real business potential for selling downloads," says a source at Warner Bros. "It has been encouraging from a symbolic standpoint even more than a financial standpoint." Amazon.com and other online retailers now plan to launch their own download programs.

At least Mac users are smart about this issue. The makers of iTunes actually saw a profitable market for mp3s, and for 99 cents each (a bit high when ordering 20+ songs), it's not really a bad idea. And like the topic about finding a solution, the RIAA shouldn't punish mp3s to be the only reason sales are lagging, but instead, mp3s seem worse than stealing a car!


So beware, everyone, because at the moment, you are a bigger target than druglords and shoplifters!

:music

[boogieordie]

Good point, Jose!! Seems nowadays it's worse to distribute mp3s than to distribute drugs.

Ashley

[bulmasman]

Originally posted by AyuRocks
Good point, Jose!! Seems nowadays it's worse to distribute mp3s than to distribute drugs.

Ashley

There's our answer then... Start selling drugs now so we can afford to pay our mp3 fines and actually buy an album or two. LOL.

[Flashman]

LOL at the Prohibition analogy in the second article. Hopefully there will be just as much public outcry as there was back then... "tar and feather" the RIAA bosses, anyone?

Originally posted by AyuRocks
the RIAA's actions make new criminals out of tens of millions of ordinary US citizens... If the RIAA was to be indulged in its whims, the statistics suggest that the USA would rapidly become a vast, continent-wide penal colony

Had to agree with that point... though the author exaggerated a bit, it would be true that most computer users in the world would be considered criminals under this new act.

[appears]

Originally posted by bulmasman
There's our answer then... Start selling drugs now so we can afford to pay our mp3 fines and actually buy an album or two. LOL.

hahahahahaha... but after having read about that kid who was only 12 and selling }{ and smack, it wouldnt shock me if ahs became corrupted by drugs for the sake of music [...?] :p

[Unimatrix Prime™]

Originally posted by bulmasman
There's our answer then... Start selling drugs now so we can afford to pay our mp3 fines and actually buy an album or two. LOL.

hahaha

I could see the headlines now:

"Local teen sells drugs to pay for mp3 addiction"

[Piccolo]

Man, that is a lot of money. I don't see how anyone can afford it, that fine is insane. I agree there should be something done about some of the file sharing going on, but this is ridiculous. Good thing I'm selfish and don't share files

[boogieordie]

Pop icon Michael Jackson comes out against locking up music pirates
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AFP Photo

Pop superstar Michael Jackson on Monday hit out at a proposed new US law that would make the musical piracy on the Internet punishable by a possible jail sentence.

The self-styled "King of Pop" feels that, while he would like to see the practice of stealing music off the Internet stamped out, the legislation against the downloading of copyrighted material was too harsh.

"I am speechless about the idea of putting music fans -- mostly teenagers -- in jail for downloading music," he said in a statement from his Neverland Ranch in the western state of California.

"It is wrong to illegally download, but the answer cannot be jail. Here in America we create new opportunities out of adversity, not punitive laws, and we should look to new technologies ... for solutions.

"This way, innovation continues to be the hallmark of America. It is the fans that drive the success of the music business," the "Gloved One" said.

Jackson's spokesman in Los Angeles said the 44-year-old singer felt that lawmakers are tackling the problem in the wrong way in the proposed law.

US lawmakers on July 16 introduced into the House of Representatives the Authors, Consumer and Computer Owner Protection and Security law that makes illegal downloading of copyrighted materials a felony offence.

But while the illegal downloading of music does represent a major problem for the ailing industry, Jackson feels the solution proposed by the legislation is "absolutely inappropriate," Backerman told AFP.

"He doesn't want to see jails piled up with teenagers. He is proposing a win-win situation for both the audience and the music fans," he said.

Jackson, who has seldom been out of the gossip pages this year amid a series of very public lawsuits against him, is himself a victim of the music industry's declining fortunes that it blames largely on musical piracy.

His superstar image has waned since his 1980s heyday, with sales of 2001's "Invincible," which reportedly cost 30 million dollars to produce, pulled in only around five million dollars worldwide.

The US music industry blames the easy and free availability of download-able music on the Internet for plunging record sales which have prompted industry bosses to urgently seek to crack down on piracy.
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Again... found that over at www.watchfarscape.com/forums/

Ashley

[ayuzilla]

this is so ridiculous...might as well arrest everyone in the nation

[ALARM]

I think it's funny how the music industry always appealed to teens by being sexy and violent and they had no problem with it. I mean they didn't care when their music was accused of causing bad behavior in teens.

So they don't care if their artists lyrics are violent or offensive, or if what they're advertising is turning teens girls into barbie dolls, but as soon as they lose some money, they're ready to lock their whole audience up.

I wonder how many times that lyrics in US albums condoned stealing?

edit: oh old thread.. someone revived it 2 and a half years later? all the teens are in jail by now ^^;