Sisua Tupuola, 19, from Carson, Calif., near Los Angeles, found out about the
lawsuit against her and her family on Tuesday when informed by USA TODAY. "Oh, I'd
better call my father and tell him," she said...

Tupuola, has three sisters, attends a trade college. Her father is a truck driver. "We didn't know (file-sharing) was illegal," she said.

The RIAA obtained the Tupuolas' information from their Internet provider, via one of 1,600 subpoenas delivered over the past few months demanding personal data about suspected file-sharers. The provider alerted the family a month ago to the potential of a lawsuit. "We haven't downloaded anything since," Tupuola says. "My mom thought she handled everything. We don't use Kazaa anymore."

Janet Bebell, 54, from Colorado, told The Denver Post, "I am sure that a gray-haired, middle-aged woman going to court to defend herself from charges that she downloaded music by a band called Incubus is going to get a laugh."

"Ronna Leonard, 49, of Torrance, Calif., admits she has used Grokster. But in selecting her for a lawsuit, she says, the RIAA choose poorly: "I was injured at work two years ago and haven't worked since. In a week, I'll be homeless, with literally nowhere to go. If they want to serve me, they better do it fast, because otherwise I don't know how they'll find me. "

The picture that is coming out of the profiles of these victims of the "Sue the World" action of RIAA, is not of kids who sit and download pop music all day, but average , good people of modest means, many of whom claim that they didn't know this was illegal. Is this possible?

To many people, they find it incredible that so many people would say they didn't know it is illegal. Truth is , a lot of us here don't even understand all the legal nuances of this matter. People copy magazine articles without express permission of the author/copyright owner every day. People go around copying things every day that are copyrighted without permission, and they don't know that they are copyright infringing.

There is an old saying that ignorance of the law is no excuse. That's always bothered me, because if you don't KNOW something is against the law, how would you know not to do it. After reading the short profiles of many of these people who have been sued, I honestly believe them that they didn't know that this was not permitted. And, sixty million people doing filesharing, reminds me of the Prohibition situaton. Consuming alcohol, except with a doctor's prescription, was illegal for part of our history, but it was a law that most people thought was not right, and more than that, ultimately, it was unenforceable.

These defendants are probably each one, the worst case scenario for the RIAA, with each one seeming almost more sympathetic from the last.

It may be that the RIAA, will ultimately seem less like Darth Vader, and more like the gang who couldn't shoot straight.

~CodeWarrior

Crazy part is not even the courts or lawyers can make heads or tales of copyright law. For a really good read on copy right and "digital copyright" pick up a copy of "Digital Copyright" by Jessica Litman. She explains how the crrent copyright got so twisted. Her conclusion is that current copyright law is broken horribly, and about the only way to fix it, is to start over..It is an interesting read..

We have different laws applying to digital space and real world.

RIAA sucks at sueing people. Heck, give me their budget to find people out and their FBI powers, and I can almost guaruntee I could sue someone a little less probable to cause sympathy from the media and/or everyday households. I mean 12 year olds, unemployed people, grandparents, students who were out of the country... the list goes on. Next they will be suing animals or something absurd, like that.

so then basicly these court decisions are based on the bias of judge and jury as much as the written law.

yfoogsittam - "Next they will be suing animals or something absurd, like that."

I think you've got something there. Let's all sign up with our ISP's under our Pet's names!

I always thought that copyright infrigment came from some one reproducing something and commercially selling it for a profit...like a best of the 70s collection that you can buy off the 1-800 tv ads and that using something like file sharing was a nonprofit situation that wasn't a infrigement as long as nothing was paid for.
I'm not saying that this is right but it was my conception of the law. I can understand how these people said they didn't think it was illegle

In a way they kinda are correct; general file sharing is legal, that's why RIAA couldn't shut down KaZaa. I think that if everyone sat down and actually thought about the music files that were being shared, and pieced it all together they would realize that copyright laws do apply. Problem is everyone downloads music, everyone copies music, for so long RIAA has never gone after individuals, and there are no warnings (I think) when KaZaa is installed.

I figure there will be so many instances where the victims will honestly pleed ignorance, just because informed users took steps to protect themselves, either using the K++ software that blocks known RIAA & affiliates ip ranges, or have stopped sharing copyrighted music altogether. Only those unaware would be caught red handed.


On a side note too, from most of these stories posted here, the people all seem to think it was "downloading" that is getting them sued, but it is instead that they're offering songs for others to upload that RIAA is looking for, right?

Thumbtack is right. it's so darn confusing we need to scrap the whole system and start from scratch. It'll never happen though

Hmm, Just took a look at the text of current copyright law...I'm about a quarter of the way through, and not a law student, but it seems...well...overly complicated, a la tax law.
A few things I did pick up though. Apparantly, judging by the wording, My cable company/isp is infringing, Sony is infringing, by including the means in this computer of mine, and the owner/operators of every net spine between here and /wherever/ I provide to. If i'm openly sharing...doesnt that include EVERY open isp in the world? Right, lets see the RIAA sue them =D It wont happen, and why not? Because corporations and companies are so incestually intertwined with holding groups and subsidiaries that the only people not part of the overall money machine are the end users, and personal small business owners.

Socio-economic class revolution anyone?
-ps Take a look at the campaign contributions of the majority of our government, then joyfully add their names to the list of "first against the wall"

I noticed something about the subpoenas...unless I'm totally blind, none of them have been for users of WinMX. That got me thinking, "What might be a reason for that?"

IMHO, it almost seems that RIAA is anti-Kazaa, not anti-P2P. Think about this: Money is the motivation for everything RIAA does, of course, but who's really the target of these lawsuits? Is it the average user, who has little if any money to settle these suits with, and in most cases probably didn't realize exactly what they were doing? Nope.

If I were the RIAA, I'd want to go after Kazaa for daring to use "my" music as a means of indirect profit, mainly via banner ads and spyware in the client application. Unfortunately, I wouldn't have much of a chance of winning in court because all Kazaa would claim to be doing is providing a conduit from one user to another, with no control over what goes through that conduit. So, what would I do next? Hit Kazaa at the weakest point where it hurts the most...their users. Without users, Kazaa loses ad revenue, and eventually goes under.

The same general scenario would hold true for any other ad-supported P2P application, and I think RIAA will start working on the smaller ad-supported networks soon enough. However, since WinMX doesn't do ads of any type at all (except on their homepage), they really don't profit at all; therefore, RIAA doesn't feel the need to pursue anyone on that network for the time being. Am I way off base here, or what?

On the lighter side - I'm just waiting for some rich lawyer with a couple of teenage kids and a broadband connection to get sued...it'll happen, sooner or later, and then it'll be kick-ass and take-names time.

I love this article.

A LOT of people have no idea they are doing anything illegal. And hence the "education campaign" becomes nothing but more propaganda. They never educated any significant number of people anywhere.

The prohibition comparison is also a great one. The whole point behind electing representatives is so they may speak for the people within a society and create laws that are just and acceptable within that society. Obviously, there are laws elsewhere that Americans will object to, but people in other cultures see them as perfectly acceptable. When laws are passed that make alcohol illegal (or that criminalize P2P users), it does not matter in the slightest. "Breaking the law is breaking the law" are the words of a dictator, not something that should be spoken to describe anything occuring in a representative government.

Just as police officers may pull over someone for driving 5 over in another country, they may NOT do that here. They "can," and we must face punishment and deal with it. . . but 99% of police officers will not do it because it is almost universal within our society that it is acceptable practice to drive within 5 or so miles of the speed limit (regardless of it being above). So regardless of the will of the officer, you can bet he will be in trouble if he continually pulls people over for going 3 mph over the limit. Example: My previous hometown, the cops started pulling people over for doing just that. What happened? It wasn't acceptable, even though everyone was guilty of a crime. The Chief of Police of my town promptly began pulling over other squad cars for exceeding the speed limit by any margin.

Moral of the story: What is "law" does not matter unless you live under tyrranical rule. What matters is what is right and wrong in the eyes of the public.

So if prohibition is passed and the people find it to be unjust, then it becomes unenforceable. P2P use is also unenforceable. If people don't stop, then it's impossible to stop the because simply, the members of a society outnumber the resources that society has to stop them. That is the cynical alternative to saying "because the people have spoken and they find the law unjust and wrong."

This is exactly where we stand right now. It doesn't matter if it's illegal. If it was legal, do any of you think use would increase? Maybe a little (the people who gave it up will come back), otherwise I sincerely doubt it. The people of our representative government have spoken, and 60 million file sharers will not be stopped unless the way things work in this country begin to drastically change. That is exactly why we must all fight until the day we die against things like the DMCA, ACCOPS, and the Patriot Act (and it's sequel). "The people have spoken" loses every last bit of relevance once you take power out of their hands. That's what these laws attempt to accomplish. Case in point: As long as we remain a Democratic Republic, then the people have power over anything and everything, even if you feel like we don't. We have the power right now. The "law" says don't. But so many of us do. And they can't stop it. ACCOPS won't stop it. Hitler could. But ACCOPS can't.

I've had enough of the RIAA's crap.

http://www.geocities.com/mr_scayf/

I've been on (insert your favorite p2p here) for the past 3 hours 53 minutes, sharing my stuff. Bring it on, Cary-sue. Give it your best shot.

Now, why they put the tag on the end is beyond me...

CriticalError, you are somewhat right in your assumption that copying for non-commercial purposes isn't considered infringement. To get the low down on this argument you need to look at the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. You can find it here:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1008.html

After re-reading this, it's clear that the DMCA violates parts of this act, and that other parts were "beefed up" by the DMCA. In particular implementation of copyright controls and circumvention were both covered in the AHRA, and tend to benefit the consumer for non-commercial use .... I guess this is just an example of how screwed up and contradictory current U.S. copy-right law is....tossing it out and starting over may not be a bad idea, if we could guarentee a balance approach....yeah right! Like that will ever happen in todays current political climate.

Code's point is well said, but I would have to disagree on the prohibition point. I think a generally more accurate comparison is that to speeding on the highway: it's illegal in its own absolute, yet the majority do it. However, it is and always has been, a ticketable offense. In real life, on the highway, we only see the most extreme speeders get caught.

It's much the same with copyright infringement... but the confusion comes in when we talk about concrete vs virtual infringement. Frankly I'm shocked that the courts have agreed, after all the MP3 lawsuits dating back to napster, that "virtual" (meaning digital, physical copy-less) infringement can be held to the same consequences as physical infringement (code's example of running a xerox of an article, or selling a phony copy of a CD on the street corner). The difference here is that on the internet, your actions are widely visible thanks to IP addresses, whereas in an office or a library, your actions in front of a copy machine are not so visible.

Bottomline: enforcement of online infringement is easily done, else we wouldn't see 1,600 lawsuits. Enforcement of consumption of alcohol in one's home during prohibition was nearly impossible, quite like how enforcement of infringement is nearly impossible at your nearest copy machine in our times.

Other bottomline: Code states what's on all of our minds- copyright law reform is needed now. The current laws have been in place for generations, well before the computer age, and must be changed to reflect upon the times and to prevent confusion. The DMCA was written before p2p came about, and must also be reformed to give proper legal protection to the potential defendants.

All these people, except colorado, live right in my Back yard. Its sad to see the stupidity of these laws. We'll have to see how long this continues.

So are they saying you might as well sell the music if your going to go to jail for giving it away for free anyway? Jeesh! My question is how can you be sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars if your internet connection can not even physically transfer half that much music at 1 dollar a song in years? Millions? Someone should have told me my connection was that fast, I would have been hosting cnn.com a long time ago....

I have a feeling they are hand picking the people they are going after. Probably basing it on their ability to fight this to court. They can claim success by rolling over regular folks. I am still suprised that neither the EFF or the ACLU has not represented anyone. For that matter none of the P2Ps have not done anything either. The entities that are most able to fight this are doing the least.

ONE note for you P2Ps, If the RIAA wins, you better think about finding another profession. You have a stake in this too.

We all knew this was going to happen. If anything is going to change, it HAS to happen.

It is quite possible the RIAA really doesn't have any idea who these people are until they actually send out the papers. All they have to go on is a name and an address. Sure, an intelligent organization would certainly want to find out as much as possible about someone they want to take to court, but the key word is intelligent. These mass subpoenas are a bad idea, but we've said that all along.

The public is going to have a hard time supporting legal action against infringers who look and act *just like them*. Everyone can relate to the financial devastation one of these settlements represents, especially to someone who can't afford to lose that kind of money.

The RIAA may be counting on intimidation, but I have a feeling all they'll get is anger, and a stronger boycott. A bunch of bleeding cows walking around in the public eye is not going to make them any more friends, and will cost them the ones they have. IMO, the lawsuits are a gamble that will cost them everything in time.

I still think strongly worded cease-and-desist letters would have been a smarter way to go.

As far as I'm concerned, the artists are associated with this, and that's the tack I'm taking now. Silence is guilt from now on. They had better wake up and start taking public sides, because the ship is sinking, and they'll have to sell their Bentleys and multiple homes to pay the bills. Poor babies. Say what you want about their contracts, but you start to smell like your evil master if you sleep with him long enough. And I'm NOT going to forget this when it's all over.

The boycott is growing with each lawsuit. Keep up the pressure, and make new converts every day.

And for goodness sake, stop putting your heads on the block by sharing files right now. Do so at your own risk. Don't give them ANY airplay at all.

I agree AverageConsumer

BOYCOTT-RIAA is the name of this site. We should boycott ALL RIAA music and not download ANY of it! Nor should we EVER buy any of it! How is the RIAA going to explain when the stats show that downloading has decrease, but SO HAS SALES? It will point out the lie the RIAA has said from the beginning, that downloading has decreased sales. We here ALL know that is a lie. Let's prove it! Don't buy any RIAA Cd's AND don't download any RIAA music.

As for the artists, they are like the proverbial ostrich with their head in the sand. Those that supported the closing of Peer-to-peer networks (METALLICA for one) deserve a complete and total shutdown! Not only do you not buy their CD's ever again, but you never go to their shows or buy ANYTHING with their name on it!

The fans are what make the artists, and its about time they wake up and appreciate that!

Very well put, Code. There are tons of problems with the RIAA's tactics and soon the walls that prevent the public from viewing them are about to crash to the ground.

And INeedAlover, good point as well. Just separate yourself from ever having anything to do with the corporations. Ultimately, the consumers will all follow suit and they will be unable to hold onto their negligible budgets.

I truly agree with this article. There has been so much media about file-sharing, and announcing the iTunes programs, etc... that I'm sure a lot of people felt that it had become "okay" to do this, and everything had been settled.

CNN ran a really good piece on the whole thing and both of their guests agreed that the industry holds some of the blame for not really getting the message out about what is legal and what is not, and, more importantly, what they're doing to help the consumer out.

The best part was this girl Tracey Cobb who was on, without the benefit of being hidden by a black dot or anything, and openly said on CNN that she would continue sharing as long as it was there to do. I wonder when her subpoena will arrive?

INeedALover:

Awesome post. That's the exact message i've been spreading on the Yahoo! boards and everywhere I can. Boycott everything, don't buy and don't download anything by the RIAA. Then the message will really get sent that people are sick of their music and their poor business approaches.

The RIAA will never advance in it's "su 'em all" campaign. You can only go so far before enraging the public. Look at the site visitors coming to Boycott-RIAA!

We must continue our BOYCOTT and show the RIAA we mean business...if they keep up these tactics, they won't see a dime from us....

DOWN with the RIAA!

:-:~ PhantomGhost ~:-:

Time to start telling the artists what you think as well.

Their music is the root of all of this. If they have no fans, they have no career.

Boycott until they all see the light.

Two comments/questions:

If she is soon to be homeless, how come she has/had money for a fast internet connection?

I think the RIAA is being anything but smart. If they could pick who to sue and who not, they did a very poor job.

Hi,

I have a question.

How do I tell if a file is free speech or if it is copyright protectd?

This entire "Sue them all" tactic will only serve to further lower the Music Industry's sales. I now carry with me a print-out of all the labels that are RIAA members, I will NEVER buy another CD from those labels. I have sence began to buy music from Indy aritst that do not support RIAA. I want to thank the site creators for this wonderful site.


Down with the RIAA!

This young lady (19) in CA needs to immeditatly pursue a lawyer. (If affordable). I'm honestly a tad bit younger than her but my grandfather was a Manager of a factory for over 30 years! POINT: I know a lot about legal battles, and by paying your monthly fees for the internet, your ISP (Internet provider) cannot give out your personal data to anyone!! (Including the FBI and so on). THere is only one way that they can and that is if you sign a disclaimer saying that they can give it out to law authorities. But you DON"T have to sign one to get service from them. SO if you're like me and refused to sign a disclaimer, don't worry b/c u can sue your ISP for giving out your info to cover the costs of the RIAA(RETARDED INCONSIDERATE ASSHOLES OF AMERICA)

Don't fool yourself, these are handpicked lawsuits. Public opinion never mattered to the yoyo's and now that there is money to be had, devil take the hindmost. They have the money, they have the ability to send "investigators" to find out who lives at such and such address. Believe me, under the cover of "no one knows I am doing this", they know far more than they would care to admit. I am not a conspirarcy addicit but this I would believe. Time and again we have seen that 20 years later, when there is no need to hide it, that the facts come out.

Say what you will, this is most carefully designed to bring in the money. By the time they take on those with the money, those individuals will not have near enough to fight them.

I just came across something rather interesting, maybe some of you Peer Guardian users out there have experienced this...

I opened up my PG interface and noticed that just out of the blue that it blocked and logged 7 attempts by the RIAA, to access my computer. Keep in mind, I have no filesharing programs and my computer was idle at the time of these occurances...

So I called them and asked them why? The operator who answered sounded pretty jaded, I guess he's used to dealing with irate complaints from anti-RIAA individuals. So when I explained to him what I found and asked him why it happened, he was caught off guard by my questions and began to sound really nervous, I could tell he had no clue as to how he could answer my question. So I decided to ask a very direct question, "Why are you trying to invade my privacy and who authorized it???"... He said he was going to put me through to someone who could help me, but instead the line went dead, the bastard hung up on me.... Quite entertaining, but it makes on wonder.. Just what is the RIAA trying to hide??

"It may be that the RIAA, will ultimately seem less like Darth Vader"

Actually, I think they seem rather like Darth Vader. Remember that Vader was once a relatively-normal kid, who turned hideously nasty when he didn't get what he wanted!

Hey Bill Evans, I saw the TechTV show. It sounds like that guy from EMI, Ted Cohen isn't so keen on the RIAa's tactics.

Maybe a Q&A session between you and him would be interesting. Only as long as he dosen't spout that corporate RIAa drivl, it could be an interesting session. The thing I would like to know is are they even trying to resolve this issue or are they just lobbing turds at us and telling us that I-tunes is their answer to P2P.

Akira36 wrote, in part: "I opened up my PG interface and . . . "

I'm trying to understand this, but I don't know what "PG interface" is. Can someone help me out here?
TIA.

Akira36 - great way to be proactive..
props and high five...

LetLightShine- Peer Guardian=PG
Peer Guardian is a specialized firewall.
~code

peer guardian may be found at http://www.methlabs.org/methlabs.htm

Akira36, if your being scanned make a copy of the log entry and send a complaint to abuse at the isp provider traced back to the ip. TimeWarner states that scanning is against their user agreement and I could use my service if I do it so maybe all have provisions for scanning.

I haven't recieved an answer yet but I just started doing it. it could build up if the isps recieve enough complaints.

It makes me nervous how many people talk about the RIAA poking around their systems while not using P2P programs at all. Makes me wonder if their looking at me. Not that I have anything to look at but my system is personal. The most personal piece of property I own. Like someone siffing around my Journal.

On Topic I've just started the school thing again and am noticing how much is used that you know the teachers didn't pay to use. A certain amount of infringment just a part of life. Without it nobody would get anything done. Anything you do is breaking the law somewhere. Just because something is against the law doen't make it wrong. This "sue them all" crap is justified slauter.

Get used to it. I see attempts ranging in the 100's per hour at times. Aren't firewalls a thing of beauty when it comes to telling you of port scans and attempts to looksee at your hd?

Unlike most, I guess, I am curious where they come from. Guess what? Time-Warner and RIAA are the heaviest abusers of this. When a two hit a second doesn't work then they start off trying other ips and ports. When that doesn't work they try proxy's. Only some of those proxy's are transparent, meaning you can trace through them to the original source. If you are getting hit heavy with scans then a blocking proxy or a stealthy proxy shows up, guess what, they are the same folks.

Hey folks, I don't mean to turn this thread into a technical discussion but I haven't been scanned but I also sit behind a Linksys router. I have been told that is a pretty good firewall.

My 3 year old loves music. All the disney tunes and such. It's quite the hoot hearing a 3 year old "try" to sing-a-long to the Elvis tunes on "Lilo & Stitch".

Maybe I should show her how to open kazaa, get her to type "Lilo, Stitch, Disney, etc etc" and dl every song.

Then show her how to open winamp and play those songs.

Then if they come after me I can claim ignorance and actually prove that my 3 year old was able to dl those songs and play them...lmao

And if you think it can't be taught, well, she can already work the digital camera, vcr and enjoys a good game of cards, toddler style

Be careful scayf.

Hi,
I am really concerned about this scanning thing. Can someone tell me how to detect if someone is scanning my hardrive? Does this take specialized software? I have a Linksys router too and felt pretty secure until just a few minutes ago. Thanks all.

surfside6, the scans hitting me are getting stopped by my firewall also but they're still using the bandwidth I pay for for their personal reasons. I got a problem with that and wonder if we could start charging them for hits to our systems.

lol, I'll let them download a "copyrighted" invoice and get their names and addresses from their isp for copyright infrignment using the dmca in order to turn them over to a collection agency.

airider, you had a great point inside that link you had (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1008.html) but I had a thought that would break open any case... What does the DMCA do to the part that goes "the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings..."? Anybody?

While my brother still uses Kazaa, I shut it down, but I have been getting sometimes 10 - 15 attempted connects in 2 seconds blocked by Peer Guardian belonging to 'p2p bot' Some of those have been while Kazaa is no longer running, though I think they are less frequent. I will call their 1 800 number and ask about that as well. Can we file a class action lawsuit against the RIAA for costs of authorized use of our bandwidth?

huhtheman, be careful man, the isp's don't really have much of a choice in the matter of personal information. They are being hit by completely legal (for now)subpeonas, if they do not comply they could get in serious trouble. leave your isp alone and go after the main enemy, the law. Current law enables copyright holders to get subpeona of your info w/o informing you in any way w/o even a judges approval i beleive. Change that law, and then you can go after your isp if they relase personal information. no problem with bugging the hell out of your isp bout not giving warning to you though

in peergaurdian where are the logs

PG 1.97 does not support logging. PG 1.98 and 1.99 do. Under settings click "View Full Connection Log" and it will open the log file. It will also show rejected connections.

BrandonH
thanks just updated to 1.99

allright this is off topic but i gotta know what you all think. I was browsing files in kazaa and noticed an mp3 with the description AG# INsertRandomNUmberHere. After seeing this i did a search AG#. The result is RIAA controlled music with that discription. anybody know what this means?

If they start over it'll be ironclad for sure...no possible loopholes whatsoever, and things will be copyrighted forever from inception.

I am, sherminator. A bit cocky at times, but careful just the same.

...but curious as to why AOL would be scanning me? (Just checking my logs...)

I sit behind a LinkSys as well and have been scanned over 1,000 I'm keeping silent to build up evidence.