RIAA files 262 lawsuits

[greenfreak]

Music industry sues swappers

RIAA says 262 cases pursued for illegal distribution of copyrighted music; amnesty program offered.
September 8, 2003: 1:03 PM EDT



NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The U.S. recording industry launched an attack Monday against the illegal distribution of copyrighted music, announcing the filing of 262 lawsuits as a well as an amnesty program.

The Recording Industry Association of America said the civil suits were filed against individuals who had each distributed more than 1,000 copyrighted files.

RIAA also said it is initiating the amnesty program for those who admit to have illegally downloaded files but who pledge never to do it again.

"For those who want to wipe the slate clean and to avoid a potential lawsuit, this is the way to go," said Mitch Bainwol, RIAA chairman and CEO. "We want to send a strong message that the illegal distribution of copyrighted works has consequences, but if individuals are willing to step forward on their own, we want to go the extra step and extend them this option."

RIAA said that individuals caught distributing copyrighted files on popular file sharing sites Kazaa, Grokster, and Gnutella, as well as Imesh and Blubster, were targeted in the first round of lawsuits.

After months of posturing, the RIAA formally announced in June that it was planning on filing lawsuits against individuals that were found to have illegally downloaded copyrighted music.

A report by research firm NPD Group released last month showed that the number of homes illegally acquiring and swapping music files over the Net has started to slow, in part due to fear of litigation.

http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/08/technology/riaa_suits/

 

[leslie]

* is happy to be in Canada

 

[Spot]

now we can sit back and watch the music industry collapse.
instead of adapting to new technologies, they slap lawsuits on the consumers and stick to an outdated business model.
idiots.

 

[Gonzo]

Who was it, Universal, that just lowered wholesale costs as well as MSRP on CD's to $12.98? That's how they beat the .mp3 crowd. $16, $18, $20. bucks is too damned much for a piece of plastic that costs $.27 to produce & $5. to cover costs.

 

[greenfreak]

Has anyone been following the success of Apple's music purchasing service? It's scheduled to launch for Windows-based pc's in a few months at 99 cents a song. I could go for that. It's already wildly popular among Apple users.

Apple Sells 10 Million Songs on Online Music Store
Mon September 8, 2003 12:21 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. said on Monday it has sold more than 10 million songs on its iTunes Music Store since its launch four months ago and announced a new iPod music player that can store as many as 10,000 songs.

Apple AAPL.O , which has earned praise for its easy-to-use online music store, said the new iPod, which has a 40-gigabyte capacity, costs $499 and is now available.

Cupertino, California-based Apple also sells a 10-gigabyte model for $299 and a 20-gigabyte model for $399. They can all be used with both Apple Macintosh and Windows computers.

Apple, whose music store is integrated into its popular iTunes music jukebox software, will offer a version of the music store that works on Windows computers later this year.

The music store lets customers sample 30 seconds of any song for free. Each song costs 99 cents to purchase. Customers can buy and download single tracks or entire albums.

Apple also announced on Monday faster versions of its iMac desktop computers, which have either 15- or 17-inch flat panel displays that float above the computer's lamp-base-shaped central processing unit.

The faster iMacs have PowerPC G4 microprocessors running at speeds of up to 1.25 gigahertz, or running at 1.25 billion cycles per second, and boast faster memory and graphics chips.

The new iMacs also have the faster USB 2.0 connection for linking devices such as digital cameras and iPods to the computer.

Reuters

 

[Kruz]

I've burned all my MP3's to disc. and use a version of kazaa that blocks your IP addy... but no...... I'm not worried

 

[Spot]

i keep less than 100 mp3's in my share folder.

 

[Professur]

They're only going after people with over 1000 songs traded to their credit (a feat that Kazaa performs for them). Someone passing one or two songs, nobody cares about. 1000+ is getting into the industrial levels, doncha think?

 

[greenfreak]

When Napster was in it's heyday, I was going to computer school with this guy who was unemployed. As long as he was going to school full time, he could collect unemployment. All his spare time was spent downloading and burning. He had over 2000 songs in his shared folder, and that wasn't counting all the other "files" he had downloaded and moved out of that folder.

He was already being sued by the local cable provider for having an illegal box, I wonder if he's one of the 262... It wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Spot]

They're only going after people with over 1000 songs traded to their credit (a feat that Kazaa performs for them). Someone passing one or two songs, nobody cares about. 1000+ is getting into the industrial levels, doncha think?

glad i switched from Kazaa.
i wont buy a CD of a new artist until i download 3 or 4 songs from the CD to see if its any good. i have gotten completely fed up with shelling out $15 and up for a disc that has 1 or 2 good songs on it and the rest is crap. if the music industry stopped making a product that panders to the lowest common denominator and actually put stuff of substance on the rack, i doubt that file swapping would be as big a problem as it is now for them.
file swapping is an excellent tool for them to market new artists that wouldn't get a lot of corporate radio airplay and who aren't MTV friendly.
suing consumers is just plain stupid IMHO.

 

[alex]

I've only got 10-12 mp3's in my folder. They're mostly from one hit wonders that I can't find a cd for. But I did find a cd for a couple of them. Most of the mp3's I downloaded sound good but a lot of them sound horrible. I don't see how anyone could even listen to them. I guess it's all in how you burn it. I'd rather have quality music over free music.