Mindcontroll

[M0nKeY]

When the recording industry said Wednesday it would sue heavy music sharers, it left one unnerving question unanswered: Just who would they consider a heavy sharer?

In a conference call with reporters, the Recording Industry Association of America's President Cary Sherman said the group will begin collecting evidence against those who offer "substantial" amounts of music online to others over peer-to-peer networks, then will file hundreds of copyright-infringement lawsuits beginning in August. But he declined to say specifically what "substantial" means.

"They may go after people who are on really large pipes and seem to be uploading a lot," said Bram Cohen, a P2P programmer who developed BitTorrent. Or, the RIAA could "find someone who is unimportant but typical of everybody out there, and just sue them to make their life miserable to send a message."

The vagueness seems to be a deliberate move by the RIAA to strike fear in anyone who trades, experts said. The intent is to scare everyone from prototypical pirates who share hundreds of ripped CDs through T-1 lines to teens who trade a handful of pop tunes.

Still, the heaviest sharers are a distinct bunch relatively easy to pick out in a crowd.

No definitive statistics of usage patterns exist for P2P services like Kazaa and Morpheus. But a Xerox PARC study about Gnutella in 2000 discovered that a tiny portion of users accounted for an overwhelming majority of file-sharing traffic.

For example, 50 percent of the responses for music searches came from just 1 percent of Gnutella's users. The researchers also found that 70 percent of the users shared no files. In other words, most people who use P2P networks tend to download, not supply, music, a phenomenon dubbed "free riding."

No current study of modern P2P networks has been done, but experts believe that the same patterns persist.

If the RIAA truly begins by pursuing the heaviest music suppliers, the first people they net will likely be those who have a high-bandwidth connection like a T-1 line, hoard thousands of files and keep their computer on all the time, said Kevin Lai, a scientist who studies P2P systems at Hewlett Packard Laboratories.

"The people who are sharing the most are generally people at universities," Lai said. "If you're living on campus you'll have something … that's between 100 and 1,000 times greater than your average DSL capability."

In addition, if the RIAA wants to pack the most debilitating punch to the network, it will target the "supernode" users who pass along the most files. On services like Kazaa, some users can agree to have their computers serve as supernodes, which are hubs that distribute files to people close to them on the physical network. Generally, these users have access to very fast telecom lines.

"If you want to cripple a network, you go for the nodes, which are highly connected and responsible for most of the traffic," said Bernardo Huberman, director of the Systems Research Center at HP Labs. "You would target the most active nodes. You wouldn't target those who are downloading every month or so."

Or, to freak everyone out, the RIAA could choose to sue a smaller offender. To sue people somewhat indiscriminately would "scare the bejesus out of everybody else," Cohen said. :finger:

Source: wired.com

[Suislide]

riaa sucks

[almostleah]

i had heard of this and had stopped using Kaaza b/c of it... but people can still upload from me? oh well...

[almostleah]

wanted to say something stupid again! ;-)

[M0nKeY]

almostleah wrote:
wanted to say something stupid again! ;-)

You can change it in <a href="http://www.mindcontroll.com/board/member.php?action=editprofile" target="_top">your profile</a>.

[M0nKeY]

The Recording Industry Association of America Inc. (RIAA) announced Monday that it has filed civil lawsuits against 261 people across the U.S. and will seek thousands of dollars in damages from the defendants, who have each allegedly uploaded an average of 1,000 songs to peer-to-peer networks. At the same time, the RIAA offered amnesty to music sharers who promise to stop uploading or downloading copyrighted songs.

The 261 lawsuits, the first lawsuits filed by the RIAA against peer-to-peer (P-to-P) users, have been filed across the U.S., and the RIAA will look for monetary settlements in most cases, said Cary Sherman, RIAA president. The RIAA has sent about 1,500 subpoenas seeking the names of music sharers, and it has already settled with a handful of file sharers for around US$3,000 each, but because the RIAA has taken the next step of filing lawsuits, it will likely seek more damages in these 261 lawsuits, Sherman said.

The lawsuits were filed against users of several P-to-P services, including Kazaa, Gnutella and Grokster, Sherman said, and the RIAA is planning more lawsuits against users of other P-to-P services. "There will be subsequent waves of litigation," he promised.


The lawsuits target music uploaders in an attempt to cut off the source of much of the unauthorized music available on P-to-P services, Sherman said. In April, the RIAA filed lawsuits against four students who allegedly set up file-trading networks on university campuses, but this is the first time the RIAA has sued individual members of P-to-P services.

"Nobody likes playing the heavy and having to resort to litigation," added Sherman, who was joined by a dozen songwriters and music executives in a telephone press conference. "But when you are being victimized by illegal activity, there comes a time when you have to stand up and take appropriate action."

Sharman Networks Ltd., the owner of the Kazaa P-to-P service, didn't have an immediate comment on the lawsuits.

In the RIAA's file-sharing amnesty program, called the "Clean Slate Program," P-to-P users who haven't yet been investigated by the RIAA can take all the copyrighted music files off their computers and sign an affidavit promising not to share unauthorized music again. In exchange, the RIAA will promise not to prosecute those people.

Asked why file traders would want to give their names to the RIAA, Sherman said the amnesty program offers them a clean slate for past file-trading activities.

"We have basically offered this amnesty program because we were contacted by people who wanted the assurance, who wanted the comfort of knowing that they wouldn't be subject to a lawsuit for their past behavior," Sherman said. "We wanted to offer those people a mechanism to gain that comfort. But if people would prefer to simply stop engaging in the illegal activity, we certainly encourage that."

People who make the promise and then continue to share music will likely be sued for willful copyright violations, Sharman added.

On Friday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) discouraged music traders from giving the RIAA their names, saying that other copyright holders could still file lawsuits even if the RIAA granted amnesty. Sherman said the RIAA has been the only music industry organization threatening lawsuits, so the amnesty would be a near guarantee against a copyright lawsuit against someone signing the pledge.

But the RIAA's amnesty program is offered only to people who haven't yet been investigated by the RIAA, said Jason Schultz, an EFF staff attorney. Because subpoenas allowed under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act allow subpoenas of Internet service providers, some file traders may not know if they have been investigated by the RIAA, Schultz said.

If you've already been investigated by the RIAA without your knowledge, you'd be admitting illegal action and opening yourself up to an RIAA copyright lawsuit, Schultz said. "If you don't know, you're doing all their work for them," Schultz added.

Schultz called the RIAA lawsuits an "unfortunate event" that won't result in the RIAA's ultimate goal of getting artists and songwriters paid for their work. "They've chosen to turn consumers into criminals, tried to litigate them into submission and somehow drag them back into the record store," Schultz said. "This is a desperate move, and it's just going to alienate more people."

Asked if any of the potential settlements would go back to artists, Sherman said it wouldn't. Instead, the money will go back into the RIAA's copyright enforcement efforts.

Hugh Prestwood, a country music songwriter who was part of the press conference, said some big music artists are worried about alienating fans, so they've been silent about music sharing. "I think the media has done an amazingly rotten job of communicating to the public that there is harm being affected on artists, particularly songwriters," Prestwood said. "I think the artists are entirely supportive of this thing, but many of them are reluctant to speak out in public at this point."

Sherman pointed to the RIAA's http://www.musicunited.org/ Web site, where artists including Brooks and Dunn, Dixie Chicks, Britney Spears and Stevie Wonder have supplied statements opposing unauthorized music sharing.

The RIAA lawsuits are filed against the Internet account holders where the music trading is allegedly being done. In some cases, parents may have been sued for their children's file-trading activity, Sherman said. The RIAA tracked the uploads by joining the P-to-P services and downloading files from people's hard drives, he added.

"We think it's a very good thing for parents to be aware of what their 14-year-old kids are doing in their rooms," Sherman said. "There's no reason they should be accepting illegal downloading any more they would accept illegal shoplifting, and you would expect them to take some action.

"We expect to hear people say, 'It wasn't me, it was my kid,'" he added. "Well, if they prefer that the lawsuit be amended to name the kid, we can certainly do that. But somebody has to assume responsibility for illegal activity."

[M0nKeY]

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (R.-Minn.), who earlier this summer questioned the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) subpoena process in its ongoing war against music pirates, is urging caution for those tempted by the music industry's new amnesty program.

The RIAA on Monday said it is offering an amnesty program for those who voluntarily identify themselves and pledge to stop illegally sharing music on the Internet. RIAA President Cary Sherman said the RIAA will guarantee not to sue file sharers who have not yet been identified in any RIAA investigations and who provide a signed and notarized affidavit in which they promise to respect recording-company copyrights.

"The newly proposed 'amnesty' is clearly a strategy by the industry to address some of the concerns I and others have had in this matter," Coleman said in a statement. "But, it raises new issues that require careful analysis and review. An amnesty that could involve millions of kids submitting and signing legal documents that plead themselves guilty to the Recording Industry Association of America may not be the best approach to achieving a balance between protecting copyright laws and punishing those who violate those laws."

At the same press conference, the RIAA also announced it was suing 261 individuals accused of illegally distributing copyrighted music through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Sherman said the lawsuits were the first of "subsequent waves of litigation."

"As I have stated before, the recording industry has legitimate copyright interests to protect," Coleman said. "The process they use to protect those interests remains a concern of mine. I will be announcing hearings soon to closely scrutinize the tactics, technology and laws used not only in the 261 lawsuits filed today, but also those that were used to target the more than 1,600 people subpoenaed to date by the RIAA."

In an August letter to the RIAA, Coleman said the RIAA may be in danger of abusing the broad-based subpoena authority it recently won in court to determine the extent of illegal file sharing in the U.S. and that its tactics may be creating "anxiety and concern" among many Americans who are "innocent or unknowingly guilty of violating copyright infringement laws."

According to Coleman, an analysis of the RIAA documents submitted to his subcommittee on Aug. 14 "clearly reaffirms" the industry's legitimate concerns over the "devastating economic impact of illegal file-sharing and copyright infringement."

But Coleman said he remains concerned about the potential for abuse of the subpoena process established in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and making sure the punishment for violators fits the crime. After an initial review of the RIAA documents, Coleman announced his intention to broaden his inquiry into how peer-to-peer file sharing networks operate. The hearings will examine the criminal penalties for file-sharing and the consumer protection issues involved in the usage of peer-to-peer networks.

Citing provisions in the DMCA, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ruled in January Verizon had to comply with an RIAA subpoena requesting the name of a Verizon Internet subscriber who allegedly downloaded more than 600 copyrighted music files in a single day.

Verizon immediately appealed the decision and asked Bates to stay his January ruling in hopes of maintaining the status quo until the appeal process is resolved. In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia supported the RIAA and forced Verizon to turn over the name. The case itself remains under appeal and is scheduled to be heard on Sept. 16.

Since then, the RIAA has issued a blizzard of the DMCA subpoenas. Unlike a usual subpoena, which requires some underlying claim of a crime and must be signed by a judge or magistrate, under the DMCA a subpoena can be issued by a court clerk without presenting evidence of a crime being committed.

The DMCA subpoena can compel an Internet service provider (ISP) to turn over the name, telephone number and address of a subscriber.