Each time
the RIAA sues another round of suspect copyright infringers the number of lawsuits per round also seems to go up, this time being 762. As the music industry is trying to get schools to take on Napster, they are also focusing their lawsuit campaign at students that prefer to stick to their old habits of using P2P software.
In this
round, the RIAA is suing 32 students across 26 colleges throughout the US in
order to make its message more widely heard and clear. The RIAA President
Cary Sherman states that legitimate online music services such as Napster offers students
high quality content as the alternative to risking legal action from using P2P services. He claims this is a win-win situation.
Despite his claim, the Napster music service does have several major drawbacks such as students not being able to carry their music with them or access their music on a Mac. Even if a student chooses to pay for a download to keep, it will not play on an iPod. Finally, Napster also costs students an extra surcharge on their tuition fees even if they choose not to use the service. Quakester2000 used our news submit to send in the following news:
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Several record companies say the individuals used university networks to illegally distribute material on file-swapping services. The industry is sueing individual users in an attempt to thwart piracy, which it blames for a downturn in sales. The move comes despite figures which show the industry is recovering. "We want music fans to enjoy music online but in a fashion that compensates everyone who worked to create that music," said Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) president Cary Sherman. Members of both the high tech and copyright industries are currently in talks to get a bill through called the Inducing Infringements of Copyrights Act. The bill would make companies liable for enticing people to violate copyrights but technology companies and several consumer groups are worried the legislation will go too far. Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah, who is chairing the meetings, said he hoped the parties would be able to vote on it next week, after an earlier vote was postponed due to disagreements. "If I have to, I will lock up all of the key parties in a room until they come out with an acceptable bill that stops the bad actors and preserves technological innovation," he said. Read the full story here. Fore more info, check this article at The Register. |
Generally students tend to have the lowest income since they often have to fork out for large tuition fees as well as books, rent, food and so on. However, it looks like the RIAA see that if students can also afford to go out for a few pints, then surely they can afford to purchase music as apposed to freely download it.
Many companies struggle to make profit, especially when
there is fierce competition. The last thing most of these would think of
is creating new
laws to block out the competition in order to keep running. The music industry on the other hand is worth $ 13 billion and has successfully been running despite all the previous threats including the radio, cassette recorders and CD recorders. However they still see that even the slightest dip in its income as a severe threat that must be resolved. What makes matters worse is that they are going after students who are least likely to afford music, even if the pressure of study is not enough to worry about: What may seem like Entertainment one day could turn out pure Torture the next day.
Source: BBC News - Music Entertainment
