Duck Season

RIAA Goes After File Traders With Hundreds Of Subpoenas:

Thought the music industry was bluffing when it threatened to sue Internet pirates? Then maybe you're one of the 871 file traders hit with a federal subpoena this month.

And with 75 new subpoenas being approved each day, according to a U.S. District Court spokesperson, the figure is expected to crack four digits any day now. The court orders, levied on Internet service providers and colleges, are one of the first steps in the Recording Industry Association of America's promise last month to sue the most fruitful file swappers (see "No More Warnings: If You're File-Sharing Illegally, Expect A Lawsuit").

"This should not surprise anyone," an RIAA spokesperson said. "Filing information subpoenas is part of the evidence-gathering process that we announced a few weeks ago in anticipation of the lawsuits that we will be filing against people who illegally make copyrighted music available on P2P networks. We're doing exactly what we said we'd do."

A few comments:

1) The penalties proscribed by Federal Copyright law are excessive and ridiculous when applied against a single individual. Downloading Chrisinta Aguilera is going to potentially cost me $150,000.00, but doing 35 m.p.h. in a school zone is only worth a $150 fine?

2) I can't believe these copyright laws were originally written to be applied to someone committing petty theft of a few songs. More likely they were targetted at organized crime and those who seek to distribute copyrighted material for profit illegally.

3) In response to an earlier MTV News report on the stiffening of copyright law, John McCain comes out against this bill. McCain does not support "criminal penalties for the person who just shares music files." My favorite senator agrees with the need to fight organized crime, not the home user. "If there's some kind of organized and orchestrated organization that does this as a profession to make a profit, then that probably would be appropriate. Look, these artists deserve a return for their talents and their abilities; we've got to try and make that happen. But to throw people in jail because they file-share, in my view, is a terrible overreach" says McCain.

4) Cable companies are deeply opposed to these lawsuits. This whole mess reminds me of an anecdote I heard on TV around the time of the AOL/Time Warner merger. Supposedly AOL made some music files available on their network for download, shortly after which they received an angry phonecall from Warner Music.

"What're you doing?" They asked. "Why would you give our content away? How do you think we make money over here?"

To which the AOL person replied "Well, how do *you* think *we* make money?"

Authentic or not, the anecdote rings true to the nature of high-speed internet companies. If they can't sell their customers on all the great content available to be downloaded over the internet, what are they going to sell them? No one is lining up to spend $49/month to send e-mail without delay.

5) It's because of this I believe home users will not fear banishment from the ISP for file-sharing in the near future, but you better believe that any university that hasn't already blocked these services will be shutting them down in the fall. Unfortunately, most universities not only shut down P2P networks but they over-reach and prevent access to most internet ports, making several extremely popular CD-ROM game's multiplayer functions totally unuseable.