RIAA sends subpoenas to ISPs to reveal indentities of pirates, WAR!

July 17, 2003

Reuters reports that the RIAA is currently preparing for a real war against music pirates. The Recording Industry Association of America has now send subpoenas to the ISPs requesting them to cooperate in revealing names of their customers. The customers, according to the article, several hunderd of heavy users, will be sued by the RIAA.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Filing information subpoenas is exactly what we said we'd do a couple of weeks ago when we announced that we were gathering evidence to file lawsuits," said a spokeswoman for the RIAA, the music recording industry's leading trade body. Sharply escalating the industry's battle against online piracy, which had so far focused on shutting down peer-to-peer services themselves, the trade group in late June said it would track down the heaviest users of these services and sue them.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ISPs are required to provide copyright holders with such information when there is a good-faith reason to believe their copyrights are being infringed, according to lawyers for the RIAA.

The RIAA
seems to be pretty clear in their policy, if you are now downloading copyright
music while not paying (to the correct people), you are in danger of being sued.
Discuss subjects like this in our Livingroom .

Source: Reuters.com