The RIAA Sues 482 More People

An anonymous reader writes "Today the RIAA said they have sued another group of people, 482 to be exact, for copyright infringement. The RIAA used their 'John Doe' litigation process in this round of law suits, because they do not know the names of the copyright infringers. After appeals court ruled that Verizon does not have to provide names of customers to the RIAA, the RIAA started using the 'John Doe' litigation process." (Similar stories at Wired News and CoolTechZone).

RIAA faq.

[RobertTaylor]

"the RIAA started using the 'John Doe' litigation process"

For those wanting to know more about 'John Doe' processes etc here is the RIAA's FAQ [riaa.com].

Re:Overall total?

[mOoZik]

The total thus far is 3,429 [wired.com]. As for the number of pirates, it is in the millions and millions, for sure.

Re:Overall total?

[shadow099]

Cool Tech Zone says 3,429 total users..

Re:And the RIAA's site...

[Anonymous Coward]

And in lesser news, thank god for dynamic IP addresses...

you actually think that'd keep you safe? i can't speak for any other ISP, but the Comcast service in my area uses dynamic IP addresses, and ties the MAC address of whatever's connected to the cable modem to your customer name/etc. guess what shows up in DHCP logs?

Re:RIAA faq.

[Anonymous Coward]

For those wanting more FUD here is the RIAA's FAQ. For everyone else here [chillingeffects.org] is the FAQ from ChillingEffects.org.

Anonymous P2P

[KrisHolland]

Anonymous P2P will likely 'solve' these lawsuits, the technology is coming along nicely.

I think that I2P [i2p.net] and Mute [sourceforge.net] need some developers though if you are interested.

Re:We always here about initiating the suits.....

[Erwos]

The fact that you're not hearing much about the outcomes is primarily linked to the fact that settlements typically include gag clauses to prevent you from coming out and berating the RIAA.

You can probably infer from the fact that we've not heard much that 99.9% of the cases have been settled privately.

I'm not usually a guy to whine about spelling, but it's "hear", not "here". If you want people to take you seriously, spelling is important.

-Erwos

Re:Uploading is the key issue...

[Razor Blades are Not]

Quite correct. There is no such thing.

You *might* be able to make a fair use case at a very long stretch if you didn't keep the music. Essentially what you are doing is emulating a radio broadcast. You are listening to music being "broadcast" to you, which your computer made an automatic buffering copy of to your harddrive so you could listen to it without significant degradation of quality. Of course, if the software didn't delete the buffered copy, you're not really responsible :)

Whether that would stand at all is yet to be tested. It would certainly have some weight if it really was a function of the sofware to do so from a legal internet radio stream, but P2P doesn't really work that way. Most people know they're keeping the music, and deleting it in under 24 hours isn't going to be a magic escape clause.

In some peoples eyes this is equivalent to "I stole the money, officer, but I threw it away a day later"

I can only hope its a matter of time before the electric lightbulb of electronic distribution puts the Gaslamps of the RIAA out of business.

Instead of legislating protections for gaslamps, they should be buying up electric lightbulb factories.

Re:More info, please

[D.A. Zollinger]

You can, of course, read about how the process works from the RIAA website [riaa.com] or I can attempt to summarize: They log onto the same p2p networks using the same p2p software that everyone else can freely download from the internet. They look for songs from their signed artists, and if possible those who have large collections. They download several songs, documenting when, and from which IP address. They confirm that those songs are what they claim to be (artist, and title), then file a lawsuit with the IP address instead of the name of the person.

Once the lawsuit has been filed they can legally demand that the ISP connect the IP address and time of download to a name. Once they have a name and street address, they can send legal notice, and carry out their former scheme (settle for $3000, or be convicted and pay $MILLIONS later!). On their website, they bemoan this path in that they can no longer offer pre-lawsuit notification (less legal fees), so they are implying that with the court mandated extra steps, they have to spend more money to find the identity of the infringing party - which of course gets passed on to the infringing party as a higher settlement cost.

Re:This is old news. These people get what they ge

[platipusrc]

It has nothing to do with contracts, actually. There is no contract entered into when purchasing a CD. What prevents someone from being able to distribute RIAA members' songs is copyright.

or, IHBT, IHL.

Murderers, too!

[MacWiz]

Since suing people is too slow (not one of these cases has actually gone to court yet), the RIAA and MPAA are now having people murdered.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/2004 06 19/ap_on_re_us/police_shooting_piracy_3

What a country!

Re:More info, please

[Cecil]

Well, since they're somewhat chummy with the artists, they could allow the RIAA the rights to copy the music for that purpose.

You seem to have the mistaken impression that the artists own the copyrights. In at least 95% of cases, the artist is required to sign over the copyrights to all their music to the record label. The record labels can distribute whatever they want, whenever they want. They can modify it however they want, including adding copy protection wherever and however they want (something that has many musicians whom they have done this to up in arms).

List of IP addresses being sued

[Anonymous Coward]

This list is not up to date but it's all I could find.

EFF's database of IP addresses and KaZaA usernames being sued by the RIAA [eff.org]

Re:We always here about initiating the suits.....

[SoupaFly]

...where are the other thousands of cases? Have ANY of them gone to trial?

From the Wired link [wired.com]: "None of the cases has gone to trial. Hundreds of defendants have opted to settle with the industry for around $3,000 each."

Re:How long will this go on?

[MyHair]

SCO isn't suing its consumers. It's suing companies that use a competing product that they claim infringes on their property.

BZZZZZZZZZT. Wrong.

SCO wants the public to believe that, but it ain't true. SCO hasn't sued anybody for using Linux. They've sued IBM for breaking copyright and/or license contract with respect to their tech contributions to Linux, but IBM is a licensee of Unix; remember SCO "revoking" their AIX license? SCO is is suing Autozone because SCO claims Autozone--a SCO Unix licensee--is using libraries from SCO Unix in their Linux systems and violating the license and contract. They are suing DaimlerChrysler--a SCO licensee--for, uh...I forget.

But everybody they've sued is a current or former licensee of SCO's, and in at least the Autozone case they say they quit using SCO Unix over 7 years ago and aren't required to submit to the demands of SCO, yet SCO claims they never terminated the contract and must submit a list of processors SCO Unix is running on.

SCO has not sued anyone who is not their customer. They have not sued anyone for using Linux. They have not sued anyone claiming a Linux user owes them a license fee. They want you to think that, though.

Re:How long will this go on?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Act and other recent IP acts ...."

"NO BUSH IN 2004. Save our civil liberties!"

Oh the irony.

Re:And the RIAA's site...

[cens0r]

They can see the mac address in your cable modem. Of course, you could buy a new cable modem every few days, but that would be a bit of pain and may not work.

Harvard Business Review: Downloading Doesn't Hurt

[mandalayx]

The Harvard Business Review ran an article recently claiming that illegal downloads aren't hurting the music industry's bottom line. In fact is supposes that it may help, from an economic sense. I submitted as an article but alas rejection :)

Music Downloads: Pirates--or Customers? [hbs.edu]

Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and co-author Koleman Strumpf floored the disbelieving music industry with their findings that illegal music downloads don't hurt CD sales. Oberholzer discusses what the industry should do next.

Re:213 of the Suits in St Louis, MO

[writertype]

I'm not sure that's accurate. The AP story reports that:

"The cases were filed against 213 people in St. Louis, 206 in Washington D.C., 55 in Denver and eight in New Jersey"

...which could easily mean: "the cases were filed in a St. Louis district court against 213 people..."

If the cases were filed against a "John Doe" then there's a halfway decent chance that the defendants don't actually live in St. Louis or even the surrounding area. I'm no expert on geolocating IP addresses, but I don't think it's that precise.

Re:How long will this go on?

[fritz1968]

But everybody they've sued is a current or former licensee of SCO's, ....

Well, all except Novell. I believe that they are sueing (sp?) Novell because Novell now has a competing product with SCO (SUSE Linux). From what I understand, once Novell so SCO the rights to distribute UnixWare, Novell agreed not to distribute a competing product. Once SUSE was purchased, a competing product was being distributed, at least in SCO's eyes.

The only question I have is this: Isn't Netware a competing product to SCO's Unix product? Technically, I believe it is. When you think about it, it is really kind of funny. SCO could have sued Novell for having a competing product once they purchased UnixWare.