SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Federal civil lawsuits were filed in Sioux Falls this week against two women accused of illegally sharing music over the Internet.

The suits, filed against Andrea Mueller of Brookings and Cheryl Livingston of Yankton, are believed to be the first in South Dakota.

Five recording companies are listed as plaintiffs in the suit filed by a Sioux Falls attorney.

The women are accused of loading music onto Web sites for others to download at no cost.

It's part of a crackdown that began in September, when the recording industry started filing thousands of suits against computer identification numbers in "John Doe" litigation. In May, lawsuits began to be filed against named defendants for the first time, officials said.

Nearly 3,000 suits have been filed since September, and more than 400 have been settled.

The settlements include average payments of $3,000 and an agreement to stop distributing music.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=495&ncid=738&e=6&u=/ap/20040527/ap_en_mu/internet_lawsuit

hope they're two of the 24 and will fight

At least they framed the issue as 'illegally sharing music' and not that downloading crap.

Hmm I am curious here, did they just load them to a web server and leave it open for anyone to hit? It says web sites so I assume they aren't talking about P2P. If they just loaded them onto a web server and didn't have em un/pw then I see the problem. If they had un/pw then my question would be how did the RIAA find out about it?

I would have to say that by now, there is no saying that "I didn't know it was illegal" or anything along those lines.

I will download at my own risk, others will also. If you get caught, fight it! All it takes is a few folks to stand up to them and it will go away...

They don't have all the good lawyers on the payroll! I'd rather take a chance on giving a few thousand dollars to a lawyer than to the RIAA assholes.

If I lose, well then, "sorry, I have no more money to give, gave it to the lawyer to defend me against you assholes".

Tell 'em you believed it was fair use and not copyright infringement.

" would have to say that by now, there is no saying that "I didn't know it was illegal" or anything along those lines."

I completely agree with you, the problem is they are going after people as far back as June of last year. If they were to round up people file sharing this year given the fact that their amnesty program is out the door and they have been pretty consistent with their law suits monthly then I would have to agree. But one of the problems is the fact that last year many were still unaware of the law suits, even the RIAA has admitted this, that awareness has increased since the law suits in 2004. So think about it if you were sharing music as far back as last year and we are in the middle of 2004 and yet you still run a risk of being sued or enjoined then why would you delete your files, you just keep going if you get caught you fight it I guess. There is another issue, willfully or willingly since eve the RIAA admits that programs like Kazaa can open up files that you do not wish opened.

HammerofJustice and others:
Some good points here. For example, in LimeWire there is an option to "browse" computer files of a LimeWire or BearShare user, which in many cases can be done -- and I wonder if the person being browsed is aware of how the music he/she has on his/her hard drive can be downloaded even though it may reside outside of the so-called "shared" folder which we know is risky.

Clarification: By my saying "some good points here",
I was referring to points made by HammerofJustice and others, not my own.
Thanks.