LOS ANGELES — The music industry filed copyright infringement lawsuits against 482 computer users Tuesday, the latest round of litigation by recording companies against suspected online music file-swappers.

The cases were filed against 213 people in St. Louis, 206 in Washington D.C., 55 in Denver and six in New Jersey, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the Washington-based trade group that represents the major recording companies.

As in previous complaints brought by the industry this year, the lawsuits were filed against unnamed "John Doe" defendants, identified only by their computers' Internet protocol addresses.

The tactic is used when the defendants' identities are not known because it allows plaintiffs to ask the court to subpoena Internet access providers to reveal the names of their customers.

"Illegal downloading continues to cause enormous harm to the entire music community," said Steven Marks, the RIAA's general counsel. "We must stay on the path of education, enforcement, and offering great legal services."

In all, a total of 3,429 people have been sued by the recording industry since its legal campaign against individual computer users began in September. At least 600 of those cases were eventually settled for roughly $3,000 each. None of the cases has yet gone to trial.

The recording industry blames lagging music sales in recent years on the rise of online music piracy.

While some surveys have shown the number of people engaging in file-sharing has declined since the RIAA began its legal assault, other data shows millions continue to share music, movies and software online.

um.. maybe there should be a new law in which you can't sue over let's say 10 people a year, that would hamper the RIAA's actions, i mean what kind of a dumb ass is going to try to sue thousands of people a year, oh yeah we're talknig about the RIAA here.

That wouldn't be a bad idea. If you're suing 10 or more people a year, you're probably an idiot.

I'm looking forward to the day when someone has the money to take one of these lawsuits to court; and also has the legal knowledge to take the RIAA on. The org. needs a swift kick in the a@@ in court.

Sherm, this reminds me of an old news story I saw on tv years ago, by 60 minutes I think, where this cranky old fart just went around suing people here, there and everywhere. Now that I think about it, he was one of the nastiest people I ever seen. He was intelligent but he was, as most sue-aholicts are, moral idiots. He would find someone and sue them practically into financial ruin.

"a total of 3,429 people have been sued"

3,429 sued/60 million users = 0.00005715% of users have been sued.

well everytime they do this they always say that they have sued up to 3429 suits since last september how do we know this has anyobe verfied this or is this just comming from the riaa we already know they lie about p2p usage going down who's to say each time they do this they really only sue 60 and say 482. how may of those suits have just been dismissed for what ever reason and how many people have chosen to fight. I wish a independemt group would look into this for the truth!!! another point this is all just a scare tatic well everytime they do this it's gets less and less coverage by mass media only on websites like this does it get reported most file sharing are not into whats going on so if it's scare tatic i see being less and less effective, one more thang they always say the lawsuits started last sept, if memory servs me it started last june

What's going to happen with anonymous wi-fi hotspots, when you can sit in a park with 80 gigs and let it go? Who will they sue then?

A small correction to TheSherminator's calculation: It seems like the chance of getting sued is 0.00005715 of 1 - which means 0.005715 %.

I don't even think that 3429 suits are out there, how many have been dismissed? Oh...they dont publish that part.

Maybe they are just fudging these numbers like they are with the sales.

They say only a few hundred settled, so whats everyone else doing

Well, considering that the appelate court has found that the RIAA has no legal recourse for turning "John Does" into living people, I don't see how any of these will mean anything. Also, there will be no more settlements until they can identify the people they are targeting.

They can start listing thousands of people, until they get the courts to force the ISPs to turn over their logs, it's meaningless.

Ironic, considering some ISP's are corporate buddies with RIAA members (take AOL and Warner Bros records, for instance)

Just for comparison, what are the lottery odds? I cant remember exactly how many balls there are, but I worked it out once. My calculator ran out of digits. Yet people still play. Why? Because people dont understand the math of tiny odds. There is a certan level of unlikelyness beyond which most people just cannot think.

porkins, you pose an interesting question.

Maybe they would try to sue the park for allowing folks to sit down with their computers in the wi-fi hot spots.

please what a damn exuse
the riaa just doesnt have a damn clue
::llegal downloading continues to cause enormous harm to the entire music community," said Steven Marks, the RIAA's general counsel. "We must stay on the path of education, enforcement, and offering great legal services." :::

what kinda bullshit is this
a;ll the people have to do is deny they have mp3s
how will they prove this for the suit to work
his is really funny they have ips but no proof
thats why they havent got any of these cases to court yet

without burden of proof they cant make you do shit
and hey look at oj fucking simpson even he was found liable for the death of nicole kidman
has he paid a dime,,
hell no
what makes anyonethink that the riaa will get anyone to pay(exept the cattle and retarded people)
to pay even if they go to court
(not criminal court so gathering lawsuit claims is harder for non criminal suits than it is for criminal fines)
even if i get surd ill never give a damn dime to them
theyll have to find my ass i live gypsy lifestyle and my ips change daily
how will they sue a person theyll never find
as for this this is no different than enronn cooking their profit potential;
the riaa are exxagerating the loss of profits in the music industry
i have a lawyer in the family that says that the riaa will lose more money than gained in an attempt to file lawsuits against their own customers
i for one will fileshare no matter what that ghestapo riaa says
so riaa, kiss my ass
btw jack valenti is a cow fucker too
l8r

you are more likely to win the lottery at a million doolars than get sued by the riaa
the riaa has taken many loans and gone bankrupt in its attemt to riuse legal muscle
they dont even have the legal power to even get this to court
people say ohh music exec will loose their jobs.
well i dont care if they are abusing their position suing poor people for they cannot defend themselves they dont deserve that job no more than grey davis deserved his
so franky the riaa can go out of buisnesss for all i care

Dubbsakk, it's Nicole Simpson (Nicole Brown). Kidman was Tom cruise's wife and she is very much alive.

Btw, for the lawyers in the crowd, how many cases can an individual (or entity) issue in a year? Are there any limits at all? If the RIAA was doing a last hurrah and sued 10 million John/Jane Does at once, would there be any complaint from the courts?

Can file as many as you want (can afford) as long as they are not frivolous lawsuits which waste the court's time.

The more I read this crap, the more I am determined NOT to buy CD's.

I'll go to even greater lengths to secure music via the many open and closed sites I know of. Kazaa, WinMX, eMule, IRC, Usenet, private FTP servers, Bad Blue, and other P2P programs.

Just sign up with a news server like Easy News or Giga News and there is more free music available than you can download. There isn't a song out there I can't get on Usenet wihtin a week or two.

When they stop their insane tactics, I may start buying CD's again. Until then, they don't get my $$.

RIAA - you are pissing people off and making things much worse. You are driving sharing networks underground, to secured sites that require a login, you will not find us.

oops nicole simpson
not kidman
sorry i was watching the optehrs just as i was typing
im kinda `e'ttarded today
(yes i rolled last night with 4 chicks an somefriends)
yea nickole simpson

but any way
if the cant get oj to pay his debits for wrongful death
how the fuck are they gonna get us to pay if we get sued

Well, if you're the same kind of deadbeat that OJ is, then you won't have to pay a judgment against you. However, most of us have jobs.

Dubbsakk, it's Nicole Simpson (Nicole Brown). Kidman was Tom cruise's wife and she is very much alive.

he mustve had a brain fart. i mean, kidman wouldnt give oj the time of day.

someone told me the odds are 1 and 120,000...chances of getting sued!!!!

Every time the RIAA sets up a new lawsuit round they advertise for the very thing they are against. It gets carried in the papers, the news, the tv time, you name it.

Now that it is starting to get the attention of the conservative public who are asking questions that require data. Data that the RIAA has not been willing to supply in hard figures. Because of that reluctance to supply those figures people are beginning to poke and pry into it to see if such is the case.

We are starting to see those studies and figures that deny the RIAA really has a case in that they are losing money to p2p. The RIAA looks at every song d/led as their money they didn't get. Worse to inflate the figures they would rather count that as an album they didn't sell.

Newsflash...
Not everyone d/ls a song that would have bought it if they didn't have that oppurtunity. Not everyone will buy that cd full of trash just because of that one song. The product is overpriced and artifically held at that level to squeeze as much money from you as the traffic will bear. I don't want it. Not the DMCA, not the latest trash on the air waves that have been manupilated in play time to juggle the figures for what is popularly played the most, not the cd that won't play in every player because it is defective merchandise with the anticopy protection that is unmarked on the cd case.

They are very much afraid to tell the consumer that it is on the cd for fear of customer backlash and with good reason. No one wants it. If they mark it as such that too will be noticed. There is no truth to buying a cd today. You don't own anything but a peice of plastic when you buy a cd. Good luck to the music industry, with the latest brainstorms to sell music, you are going to need every day you can get to survive the upcoming customer protest against your method of selling your product.

Btw, Carla, I live pretty close to OJ, and for a deadbeat he lives in a pretty nice neighborhood, sends his kids to private school, and gets busted every so often just to give the cops a break in their routine. The man is made of teflon--nothing sticks to him!!

That's just it -- he has a pension that can't be touched (garnisheed), he can't lose his house in FL becaue he's a custodial parent. And he said in the recent interviews that he's not going to work because the money would go to the Goldmans. And he golfs every day. He's scum imo.

OJ scum? Oh yeah! I hope his "murderous-ass" burns in hell, along with the members of the RIAA! They are all scum, that's a fact!

Another small drop in a HUGE bucket. Maybe the RIAA will kill itself in court fees? One can only hope.

I hope pirates set up shop in the Middle East so the RIAA can go there.

Good Grief No !!!
That would give legitimacy to the
P2P = Terrorism equation that they have already tried to promote.

Bye Bye rights

Sue me RIAA, please? I am begging ya!
I know, I know, hard to sue me when I don't promote your music by refusing to host your files on my hard-drive... but I am one of the ones you are REALLY targeting because I host as many music files as I can of the NOT-RIAA variety.

c'mon, RIAA, admit it, you hate ME worse than your advertisers. You call me "illigitimate" and you have convinced the world that the non-drm infected (and thus not YOUR) pay services are somehow "illegal" even when they are not.

Shmoo, of Electic Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music

Shmoo has got heart and the right idea... its what they really want..