The Recording Industry Association of America has sent letters to 204 individuals saying that they are in line to be sued for copyright infringement. Unlike the last
time where the RIAA had issued lawsuits against 261 individuals, this time they have sent out warnings and if the RIAA receive no word back within a period of 10 days, they will be sued. This is to give any individuals that were miss targeted a chance to prove their innocence and others a chance to make a settlement rather than facing a lawsuit in court.
The letter states what the user has done wrong, the minimum damages of $ 750 they would be subject to for each infringed copyright recording and warns them not to destroy any evidence such as any MP3 files stored on the computers that may relate to the lawsuits.
In the RIAA's first round of individual lawsuits more than 50 people have agreed to settlements. The RIAA have said that from this point on, they will start rolling out lawsuits on a weekly bases rather than just targeting a large group now and again as they have done so far.
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Unlike with the previous wave of suits, the record labels' trade association is giving the lawsuit targets warning this time around, offering them a chance to settle before the suits are filed. The change in tactics comes after considerable criticism from federal lawmakers and others concerning the group's first batch of court actions against 261 individuals last month. "We take the concerns expressed by policy makers and others very seriously," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement. "In light of the comments we have heard, we want to go the extra mile and offer illegal file sharers an additional chance to work this out short of legal action." The advance notification preceding this second wave of suits marks only a small concession to critics of the RIAA actions, which have been the most controversial tactics taken by copyright holders in years of fighting piracy online. The first round of suits, launched early in September, targeted 261 individuals whom the RIAA said had been identified as the most "egregious" file swappers, often offering more than 1,000 songs for download over peer-to-peer services such as Kazaa and Morpheus. But as the identities of those individuals hit the press, criticism arose. The case of a 12-year-old girl living in New York public housing quickly became emblematic of what critics called the RIAA's excessive enforcement action. A 60-something Boston woman, accused of offering hardcore rap songs for download through the Kazaa service, was dropped from the lawsuit lists after it emerged she actually used a Macintosh computer, which did not support Kazaa. A Los Angeles area man is also challenging his lawsuit, saying that the RIAA's suit identifies him as using an Internet address that was not his, and that he can prove it. |
The RIAA is really asking for trouble now. It does not take much for individuals begin boycotting the RIAA by simply refusing to purchase any CDs, pass this on to friends and relatives and get them to pass this on. Also, their tactics are basically asking P2P software developers to make more secure file sharing services and applications such as proxy based systems were IP tracing cannot be as easily done.
It will also be interesting to see if there are any more 'miss-targets' this time round. For example, it does not take much time for someone to quickly ditch their PC equipment and put in a 2nd hand used Mac in place to make it appear that they never had a PC.
Source: CNET News
