RIAA sues 717 file-swappers
Published: January 27, 2005, 12:32 PM PST
By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said Thursday that it had filed 717 new lawsuits against alleged file-swappers, including 68 unnamed people at universities.

The suits come several days after the record label group filed its arguments with the Supreme Court in a case examining the broader legal liability of file-swapping software companies. Movie studios also filed their own second round of lawsuits against individual computer users on Wednesday.

Last week of the month. Every month. What are we up to now? 8000?

This does require the obligatory disclaimer that we're still waiting for the RIAA to successfully prove the first one of those cases in court.

As well as the obligatory question of how long this will be allowed to continue. At this rate, they'll be filing lawsuits for decades, or at least until high-grade encryption becomes open source.

We also must not forget that the p2p people are going to do something serious... in April.

Does any of this really matter?

No matter what the courts say, the fact is that anything that can be done digitally can be undone. Hence, all efforts on the part of the RIAA, the MPAA, and any organizations will all prove fruitless because the Pandora's box (the Internet) has been open far too long and there's no eradicating the technology that exists that allows people to download. (If there is ANY tech person out there that is reading this that can state that there will someday be a technology to prevent downloading, by all means please tell me. But every tech person I've interviewed for the last five years has told me that no matter what will be created to stop these practices, they will be undone by other tech people who know how to get around such efforts)

Even if it were possible to shutdown every website around the world that offered film and music content, that would onlty create a host of Intranets and User groups that would continue to download anyway.

Whether it's Grokster, or any of the dozens (hundreds?) of other file-sharing websites out there that have music and film content on them, the issue should now be for the film and music industries to create new online revenue models ASAP because whether they like it or not the Internet is not going away, and neither is file-sharing/downloading. It's going to continue...and instead of wasting precious time on lawsuits and trying to find a "magic bullet" to solve the problem, the film and music industries need to realize they will have to co-exist in this new world.

If the industry thinks that though unthinkable...then I suggest they look at iTunes and the revenue and sales Mr. Jobs and company expect to gross this year. Online digital music sales are way up. According to the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), the number of legitimate online music sites rose to 230 last year, compared to 50 the year before. The catalog of music available online also doubled, to 1 million songs. The international trade organization also says that individuals in the U.S. and Europe legally downloaded over 200 million tracks last year, up from approximately 20 million in 2003. That amounts to online sales of about $330 million, or about six times 2003's take. (http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/library/digital-music-report-2005.pdf)

It's time for the music (and film) industry to realize they can reap the same rewards if they stop wasting time. Who knows...maybe Steve Jobs already has iFilms in the works.

Steve Meyer
President - Smart Marketing
Publisher - DISC&DAT - A New Media Newsletter
Las Vegas, NV 89141
E-mail: stephennmeyer@earthlink.net

Wow! What a sneaky, pandering, shameless self-promo, salesmans pitch!

(just kidding, lol)

...by that I meant, "hurray for the excellent points you made in our favor!"

------------------------------
WARNING TO ALL WHO TREAD IN THESE WATERS!!!

...Shmoo gets silly sometimes.

I'm almost surprised.

GET SOME NEW MATERIAL RIAA IT'S GOTEN OLD AND STALE

I'm wondering. Does anybody know to get a list of the ip's that are being sued?

Check over at EFF--they used to have a form to find out if your IP was on the list. I don't know if they still have it, but that's the only place I remember ever seeing anything like that.

Thanks, ShadowMom, but that list has not been updated in at least a year.

let DDos Itune for the next 6 months as a retaliation. As fare as I am concern I will make unsalable at least 70 CDs and will download and share 700 more RIAA crape on line with limewire, Emule and kazzaa-lite. By the way I am now pinged by Media Sentry, Overpeer, and MPAA. Come for me RIAA and you will have a BIG SURPRISE! See you in hell Shiitman! you have no clue!

Keep it up lawyers for the RIAA your gonna turn more people away and I'm glad you think thats the way to go soon alternatives to everything is going to be viable solution.

People are warming up to the fact that there is an alternative revolution in the making take open source software for example it now has a foothold such as mozilla firefox and we aren't gonna stop there nope this is only the beginning.

So lock it up, sue'em all to your hearts content because the future is
Independent music, Independent movies, Open source software.

"Does any of this really matter?"
I'd suspect that to the parents of the children facing potential million-dollar lawsuits (that they can conveniently settle for an average of $3000), yeah, this matters.

Thanks for providing the absolutely useless information from the IFPI (International F***ing Pirate Inquisition), which is even worse at math than the RIAA.

I suggest stephenmeyer look at iTunes and the revenue and sales Mr. Jobs and company have reported for 2004.

The IFPI says 20 million downloads were sold in 2003; 200 million in 2004.
Apple says they've sold 250 million.

What the hell are the other 229 "legitimate" music sites doing? Or, to put it more bluntly, someone is lying.

"The catalog of music available online also doubled, to 1 million songs."
Vivendi took down a million and a half songs when they closed mp3(dot)com, which was open at the beginning of 2003.

No matter how you add it up, the catalog of music available online has dropped, unless you're only looking at major label material which we DO NOT RECOMMEND because this is an insult to the other 18% of the market, the independents.

"maybe Steve Jobs already has iFilms in the works."
It's called iMovie. Been a standard Mac feature for years.

It is my suggestion the that MPAA and RIAA are using the lawsuits to try and get attention to what they deem as their plight with the political and legal mechanisms in our country.

This plight of theirs, has risen its head everytime some new recording method has raised to public knowledge and awareness. The "Sky is falling" routine is getting old. It is the first time that the likes of the RIAA and MPAA has been bold enough to sue individuals. They would much prefer to sue the roots of any new technology as a two fold reason. One thats where the money is, not these piddly suits against Joe Public, who doesn't have that sort of money to fling around. The other is that with the amounts they would sue for, it would effectively shut down the technology as bankruptcy tends to do.

Since they have been totally unsuccessful in having courts back up their requests for revisting the Sony Betamax decision, the only other way to get attention is sue individuals till such attention is gotten. This does have a long term effect resulting in those sued not purchasing again. Not only those sued but those in the close circle will also follow in these footsteps. As a solution it has no value and will have a net result in decreasing sales in the long haul.

However the RIAA has gotten its day in court one more time to have a review of the tentants of some of the Sony Betamax decision in an effort to once again hold those p2p companies responcible.

The best possible ruling would be to hold the p2p blameless and the individuals are protected by both first sale doctine and by the fact that many of the same songs that the RIAA protects are out there for free on public radio. This "for free" to the public has given rise to the idea that music doesn't have to cost the listener. In the past it was ruled that the listener didn't control the sequence of songs and therefore didn't have either choice or control over said playlist. The question arises that if you played at random, would you be able to claim the same? I mean if the computer selected from a random base without your control could you not claim the same clause? I suspect that if the random base wasn't something you had control on that it might well be the same. Something the RIAA would hate to see brought up. There are many assumptions in that line that have holes in it, I realize. However it is a line I have never seen come up.

stature of limitations will expire by the time they get thse to court
geez are these hollywood commies stupid or what... theyre just gonna dig theyre on financial grave...
nowonder why they suck
fuck the riaa.

Boo Hoo, Hey- Retarded. Idiot. Ass. Americans(RIAA) Get off your knees and get a real job.....Screw you and your talentless trash. Boo Hoo Great Great Grandma Madonna......I hope they try to sue me, the government already takes it all from my paychecks anyway....how can they sleep at night knowing how evil and greedy they are.
Do what you will Retarded Idiot Ass Americans You're not Invincible you are people just like us, pathetic people, but people nonetheless......American Terrorists........well I am going to go now, I have about 5 people who want me to make them some CD's...YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM!!!!!!!!!

I just don't see whre there is any difference between downloading a song (supposedly illegal) and taping it off the radio (legal) and then making a mp3 of it (also legal).

Suing again. Capitalism has taken greed and turned it into a right. The government is taxes and the companies are suing the people are forever going into debt. Terroism by the companies and our government is what's killing America . Now we have to see what happens when it the country dies from suicide.

But, but...the government is protecting us from tare-rism, and, and...the content cartel is protecting us from piracy.
With such dire threats to safety, we've got to think of the children!

8,000.. go RIAA... you're almost ready to be in a position where you're a long shot to even make a dent in p2p useage!!!!

dubbsakk, put down the dubsack.

Tare-rists, pirates . . . oh-my-gosh, even if we have to endure sacrificing freedom (in the ostensible interest of protecting freedom) and resorting to pre-emptive strikes (potential anti-technology rulings) . . . well, whatever it takes!
Wait, I forgot; we're already doing that.

It does not matter how many individuals are sued and fucked up by dirty Organisations like RIAA and others. Everybody there is telling to the world: "Look how great we are! We are the only one knows how to make things go the right way...". Bullshit! It is all a BIG LIE! 717 new lawsuits? Who gives a fuck? Do you think all people are now afraid and think oh yeah this RIAA is so wonderful and do the work. You are all liars. You and all the greedy Lawyers 'work' for you. You can tell to the world anything but there will be always people are not stupid and know what's going on behind closed doors. The way doing business with music is changing and no lawyers can keep it the stupid greety RIAA wants...