I don't know how much truth there is to this but I felt that it could be quite a newsworthy bit of info it it does turn out to be true. Keep in mind that this was from a post in a web board but it was not anonymous nor was it a new user that posted this.

Record Labels on the Hunt

Tracking down pirates with the power of form letters
It seems one of the posters in this thread in our audio
visual forum is in trouble with the law, or at least Sony
Music. It appears that this particular user's ISP is
threatening to shut down his DSL line, and that Sony is
on the hunt, sending out letters to ISP's and individuals
who they believe have downloaded illegal material via
WinMX.
The letter reads like a parking ticket summons:

Tuesday, April 02, 2002

New Edge Networks
3000 Columbia House Blvd.
Vancouver, WA 98661 CA

RE: Unauthorized Distribution of Copyrighted Work:
Korn

Dear John:

As you may know, the musical group Korn is currently
subject to a recording agreement with Sony Music
("Sony") pursuant to which Sony is entitled to Korn's
exclusive worldwide recording services and the
exclusive, worldwide right to distribute all audio and
audiovisual recordings recorded during the term of that
agreement through any and all media, including
distribution via the Internet.

We have received information that an individual located
at 64.146.30.66 on your network has offered
downloads of the above-mentioned work(s) at the
noted date and time through your service. No one is
authorized to perform, exhibit, reproduce, transmit, or
otherwise distribute the above-mentioned work without
the express written permission of Sony., which
permission Sony has not granted to the user located at
64.146.30.66.

The attached documentation specifies the account or
username offering this infringing material, the name and
size of the file being offered, the number of repeat
violations recorded at this specific location, as well as
any available identifying information.

We are asking for your immediate assistance in
stopping this unauthorized activity. Specifically, we
request that you remove the site from your system or
(in the case of a peer-to-peer service) disable access
to this site; or at a minimum delete the infringing files
that have been downloaded.

In addition, we ask that you inform the individual(s)
involved of the illegality of his or her conduct and
confirm with us, in writing, that this activity has
ceased.

You should understand that under the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, if you ignore this notice, your
company/institution may be liable for any
resulting infringement.

As owner of the exclusive rights to the copyrighted
material at issue in this notice, we hereby state, that
we have a good faith belief that use of the material in
the manner complained of is not authorized by Sony,
its respective agents, or the law.

Also, we hereby state that we believe the information
in this notification is accurate, and, under penalty of
perjury, that we are is authorized to act on behalf of
Sony.

The foregoing is not a full recitation of the facts and
law pertaining to this matter, and all of our rights and
remedies, including the right to recover monetary
damages, are expressly retained.

We appreciate your assistance and thank you for your
cooperation in this matter. Please contact us at
anti-piracy@sonymusic.com should you have any
questions.

In your future correspondence with us, please refer to
Case ID 56327.

Your prompt response is requested.

Sincerely,

Anti-Piracy Group
Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
550 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022

------------------------------
Infringment Detail:
Infringing Work: Korn
Filepath: C:\My Music\Korn-Follow The Leader\
Filename: Korn -21- Reclaim My Place.mp3
First Found: 4/2/2002 6:06:01 PM EST
Last Found: 4/2/2002 6:06:01 PM EST
Filesize: 6,388k
IP Address: 64.XXX.XX.XX
IP Port: XXXX
Network: OpenNap
Protocol: OpenNap

Posted 04-03 17:42 See: legal

The proceeding news was a copy and paste from a web board it's legitmacy is in question but it isn't that far fetched.

scary idiotic stuff, wouldn't be surprised if it is real.
FIRST POST BABY!! I OWN ALL!!!!

Is that legal??? And why the ISP?

Well they request that the ISP attempt to filter out P2P's usability (is that a word?) Maybe there is a way for an ISP provider to build a filter to block out usage of a P2P program? Well they also asked the ISP to cut off that user. I guess it's the long way to do but it's a bit like boycotting... maybe blackmailing... ie:"stop advertising for this TV program or we'll boycotte your products(or sue you)."

blackmailing for sure

Congratulations Sony, you're well on your way to pissing off your listeners even more. Good job. Basically, until a court says otherwise, record companies will hold ISPs responsible for the actions of their users. The logic of this practice is flawed, but try telling that to the industry whores. In a nutshell, it's legal until the courts say otherwise. And it's not really technically blackmail. Blackmail is "do this, or I'll stop doing this" or "do this, or I'll tell such and such that". This is more like, "do this, or I'll sue you, your mother for birthing you, the horse you rode in on and the users that we find to be 'infringing'. The way I see it, two things are going to happen here:

1. This is just the beginning of a much wider effort to target individuals and their ISPs. The fact that IP addresses are so easily obtained (From an IP address, a particular user can be identified) makes it fairly easy to target individuals. A practice that will REALLY piss some people off. Perhaps Sony was looking for a way to further alienate their listeners...if so, this is a surefire way to do it.

2. IF this continues, we'll begin to see some serious backlash from the public. It's one thing to target the mechanism; ie. the file trading program, it's a WHOLE OTHER STORY to target its users. Sony is digging its own grave by taking actions like those described above.

Well, if there is one silver lining to this situation its that record companies don't have unlimited funds. They can sue all they want, but there's only so many lawyers they can pay...so many lawsuits they can engage in. I'm going to assume that the ISP that received this little love letter is a sort of 'rinky dink' ISP, that is, a small ISP. Good luck to the record companies if they decide to target users of major ISPs like AOL, CompuServe, WorldNet, etc.

Otra cosa (translation: One more thing)

If this works...if Sony does this and gets ISPs to comply, that is bad, bad news. I've not heard of any other record companies engaging in this sort of practice. I'm willing to be my left nut that the other labels are watching Sony like a hawk. If this comes out in Sony's favor, expect to see some sort of response from the other labels.

I have to give some credit to Sony...they've gotta have some balls on 'em to pull this shit.

ok, this analogy may be a bit off but isn't Sony nagging an isp to moniter a user's actions on her/his time on the internet sort of like invasion of privacy? If Sony do go after isp's like this then there could be a possibility of a countersuit against sony if not from the isp's then perhaps the internet users themselves as a class action for preventing them from using p2p if all the major providers are targeted affecting a majority of people especially if this thing blows up and kills the internet service of hundreds/thousands of users especially since not everyone whose sharing and downloading on these p2p applications would actually be performing "illegal" actions. This will just come back and bi+chslap sony a$$ backwards if they go through with this or if this encourages other greedy mofos to follow through.

follow the leader != new korn album

how can they get people for simply having ripped mp3s on their computer? thats BS.

Tp Frawgster:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think these record companies don't pay these law firms by the hour like normal people would do. I think they pay salaries to the firms or more precisely, contract these law firms for a period of time. Therefore, it does not cost the record companies any money to go "sue happy." with anyone they want. heh. So in essence, it does not cost the record companies a lot of money to sue people. Hence, they are not losing a lot of money through lawsuits since they contract these lawyers for a period of time. Granted however, you are right when you say their lawyers' can only spend so much time and effort on particular cases. To come to think of it, I bet their lawyers have never worked this hard since the times before Napster. I bet the record companies are getting their monies worth out of those "scumbags" now. heh. Peace out!

I will correct you I'm sure they do contract these firms. I'm sure they have these firms on retainer. I don't think they simply say "We'll pay you $X.XX per year and you'll do all of our work." It's probably more like, "We'll pay you $X.XX per month to cover XXX hours/fees. Any excesses will be charged at $X.XX per hour, $X.XX per copy, $X.XX per fax, $X.XX per phone call, etc, etc." At least, this is how the attorney's I work with and have dealt with in the past handle matters.

Looks like someone else is in a bit of trouble with Sony...

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1453230/20020402/korn.jhtml

What the... Korn's got a new album out ???
I can't believe the crapola that was constructed just to make people realize there's a new Korn album out... well it's started working already, but it ain't the way I'd promote my latest album... fools they is !

/me not liking any of this.

I do agree with Frawgster though, Sony has a pair that's for sure!

Sounds to me like Korn has a halfway decent publicity agent.

Sony has no shame. In fact, it's the most shameless label of the big 5, w/Universal a close second. Short of court judgements, the isp's can be expected to follow the money, like any other business. They will take the path w/the most profit (or least losses).

This is yet another sign that the arrogant, anti-consumer paranoia of the industry is reaching fevered pitch, or if you will, growing like a cancer. And then there's the little matter of the RIAA's going after Technicolor(!), alleging that that company is pirating CD's. We are fast coming to the point similar to the situation experienced by the priest in Germany during the Nazi reign of terror who didn't protest when the Nazis went after various groups because it didn't effect him, but then, when they went after him, "there was nobody left to protest."

In another way, this tactic in particular, and the industry's efforts to ram CBDTPA down everybody's throats in general, is reminiscent of the chokehold the Mafia had on the New York City waterfronts from the 1920's-'30's, and we all know what happened as a result of their control: New York all but lost its position as "the port of the world." That and the mob's control of the Fulton Fish Market, the concrete industry, etc.

I think people need to go to the news media [Local TV, Radio, Newspapers, etc] for this kind of stuff. The more bad press Sony and others get, the less they will do this.

What would be a good stunt, would be people sharing who are little children over NetZero, Juno, and other free services, whos parents are working class families. I bet they will NOT sue under these cases, because they have NO ASSETS, and WOULD NOT RECOVER THEIR LEGAL FEES.

I hopw that they realize that they have no choice but to surrender.

hahaha, sweet, i think i'll go download some songs from their new cd!!

hehe

Sony has a new 32X CD-R/CDRW writer on the market in Canada, at around $250 Can. plus GST and PST. It can rip a CD in less then 5 minutes.

So, they sell you a very efficient electronics device for copying CD's but they sue the pants off you if you use it to copy their own CD's!!

What a hypocritical company!!

don't forget their cd-mp3 player
Yeah it's pretty ironic that you don't hear about this on the news or anything. Not on nbc, msnbc, cnn, nowhere!!! Next to the "War On Terrorism" this should be a big story since more and more are turning digital and this crap relating & leading up to the big bill that may be passed is just screwing everybody numb n senseless

This country is run by the corporations. Welcome to a matured capitalist system.

Our freedoms mean nothing next to the dollar-sign.

who the fuck would want freedom when you can have a few bucks instead??

hehehe

About "yiuchan"'s post about Sony CD burners: It could be seen as hypocrisy, but I.M.H.O., it's also a case of out-and-out schizophrenia. The music division is so arrogantly negativist in their attitude towards consumers that they absolutely refuse to listen to the electronics division which, like Philips, has also been critical of the music business's increasing emphasis on "copy protectionist" CD's (Not CD's).

And as for fair use: It appears Sony's electronics division seems to recognize the fair-use rights, but the music division, like every other aspect of the entertainment industry, evidently sees fair use more as an abused privilege which, because of the MP3.com/Napster/"piracy" controversies, shouldn't even be in existence anymore.

In response to Psycluded's comment:

The corporations *do* run this country, thanks to Big Government. Big Governments have been, are, and will always be the finest instruments of the rich and powerful ruling class.

What we need is a tiny, minimalist regime that only protects our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property without violating them in the process, and does nothing else besides that.

This way, the rich could *stay* rich only by being "nice" and giving consumers and employees a good deal in an open marketplace, instead of being "mean" like they are today by using their favorite iron-fisted regime weapon to rule us.

Democracy cannot save us from the evils of Big Government. Only genuine individual liberty can do that.

Why don't winmx and other p2p programs use some kind of encription. So when you are tranfering files they can tell what your tranfering. They obviously were snooping around and watching what that guy was doing. They new the name and time he tranfered the file.