Internet, Music Firms in Court over Digital Music
Tue Sep 10, 6:02 PM ET
By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former allies in the fight against music piracy, Internet access providers and the recording industry, are now headed to court in a dispute over how to target individuals who swap copyrighted material online.

The recording industry wants telecommunications giant Verizon Communications to reveal the name of a customer it believes is "a hub for significant music piracy" as it pursues the Internet song-swappers it blames for declining CD sales.

Verizon has refused, saying that such a move would violate customer privacy and force Internet providers to serve as the music industry's online policeman.

At issue is a 1998 digital-copyright law that protects Internet providers from legal liability in piracy cases if they cooperate with the industry's enforcement efforts.

The recording industry contends that the law requires Verizon to cooperate, while Verizon says the law only requires it to take down Web sites that host offending material, not monitor its customers' Internet use.

"We viewed ourselves as a partner with the content community," said Sarah Deutsch, Verizon's general counsel. "There's no other industry that has assisted them in this manner with their copyrights, but they've crossed the line here."

Now headed to trial, the dispute looks to be the next big battle between Hollywood and Silicon Valley as interest groups have picked sides.

The motion-picture industry filed a brief supporting the record labels last Friday, while a group of 300 other Internet providers backed Verizon last night. Online civil-liberties groups have told the court they support Verizon as well.

NAPSTER ( news - web sites) COMPLICATES COPYRIGHT LAW

Verizon and other Internet providers maintain that they do not support copyright violations, and the two industries have worked closely over the past four years to locate and take down thousands of Web sites and other unauthorized hubs of copyrighted material.

But the advent of "peer to peer" services such as Napster and Kazaa complicated the arrangement, as users were able to search for digital music on each others' hard drives rather than Web sites.

The recording industry was able to shut Napster down in July 2001, but has been unable so far to close the services that sprung up in its place.

Instead, the industry has begun to target individual users, hoping that lawsuits or sternly worded warnings will lead to a decline in use.

"We need to make it abundantly clear to people that they are engaging in illegal activity when they are offering their personal music collection, which they don't own copyrights in, for others to take," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America ( news - web sites).

Copyright violators could face penalties of between $200 and $150,000 per count, Sherman said.

While the RIAA is able to determine the numerical Internet address of computers trading copyrighted songs, it cannot find the name of the user without the cooperation of Internet providers, Sherman said.

The association asked Verizon over the summer to match a numerical address with a customer name, but Verizon said it would not cooperate.

Instead, the RIAA should sue the user directly and compel Verizon to provide the customer's name, Deutsch said.

"They can't just launch a mass-scale war on consumers without following the right legal process," she said.

Sherman said such an approach would be too burdensome as it would require the industry to file suit against music fans who might be persuaded to stop by a simple warning letter.

The RIAA's approach has other flaws, other Internet providers say. Wireless networks, public terminals in libraries and coffeepots, and pre-paid Internet access cards mean that numerical Internet addresses often do not point to the copyright violator, said David McClure, president of the U.S. Internet Industry Association.

"Even in a person's home, you don't know if it's that person, or someone related to that person, or one of Johnny's friends who's on the computer doing this," McClure said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=768&e=3&cid=769&u=/nm/20020910/music_nm/tech_copyright_dc

They are making one too many enemies. . .

Go ISP's!

The RIAA can't just view a list of files with an address and say that something illegal is going on. They don't have the right to just demand user information because they "think" they have been wronged. They are tyring to take a short-cut around long legal requirements.

Hail Mp3!!!

If all the RIAA wants the names of the users for is to send them a letter of warning to try to persuade them from sharing files then why don't they ask the isp to send a letter to the user for them? That way the RIAA gets what they (claim) they want and the isp hasn't revealed any personal information to them. Problem solved. Methinks there's a little more to why the RIAA wants the names of the users than what they're saying though...big surpise there huh?

Exactly, furball. The RIAA said recently they were going to start suing users rather than the technology. They can get the ISP to disconnect the user under the DMCA simply by accusing them, no proof needed. To ask for a users name, address and other information shows intent other than what the RIAA says they want "to stop filesharing" a simple Notiifcation letter to the ISP and the user is cut off. That's all it takes. Sounds like the the RIAA wants a public lynching.

Again, as I've said before . . . just another example of how copyright law has become nothing more than a tool of oppression and tyranny in the last few years, and how they truly believe "fair use" to be a mere privilege, not a right, and thus vulnerable to being revoked at their whim. We are just a few steps away from the RIAA proposing that those they (and they alone) deem to be copyright "violators" be penalized by execution, decapitation or whatever forms of torture and punishment are sanctioned in brutal, repressive dictatorships around the world.

Decapitation really doesn't seem all that bad when the alternative is living in an RIAA controlled world.

erm, if I get a DVD burner, I could fit my entire music collection on 1 or 2 discs, if worse comes to worse, you can always just trade the old fashioned way, or through the mail, i can send you a little DVDisc through the mail, and instantly, you got nearly 100 CD's worth of music. neet-o