RIAA Declares War on File Swappers? (August 23, 2002)

US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT READY TO BUST FILE SWAPPERS... WAR ON MUSIC AUDIENCE TO INTENSIFY...

A few days ago, a group of Congressmen and two Senators sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft urging him to begin prosecuting anyone who downloaded or made available copyrighted music on the Internet. Ashcroft and company were apparently already getting ready to make war on some 80 million Americans...over a fourth of the U.S. population... that uses peer to peer technology to get and give music. Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Malcolm, in a speech this week at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual technology and politics summit, said only the war against terror had detoured plans to begin criminal prosecution against file sharers. Malcolm said that criminal prosecutions are now necessary to preserve value of America's content industries....more on the story here from ZD Net...

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2121102,00.html

US Justice Department ready to prosecute file-swappers

Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com

American federal authorities are turning their attention from terrorists to users of peer-to-peer networks, who could be jailed for up to five years

The US Department of Justice is prepared to begin prosecuting peer-to-peer pirates, a top government official said on Tuesday.

John Malcolm, a deputy assistant attorney general, said Americans should realise that swapping illicit copies of music and movies is a criminal offense that can result in lengthy prison terms.

"A lot of people think these activities are legal, and they think they ought to be legal," Malcolm told an audience at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual technology and politics summit.

Malcolm said the Internet has become "the world's largest copy machine" and that criminal prosecutions of copyright offenders are now necessary to preserve the viability of America's content industries. "There does have to be some kind of a public message that stealing is stealing is stealing," said Malcolm, who oversees the arm of the Justice Department that prosecutes copyright and computer crime cases.

In an interview, Malcolm would not say when prosecutions would begin. The response to the 11 September terrorist attacks temporarily diverted the department's resources and prevented its attorneys from focusing on this earlier, he said.

A few weeks ago, some of the most senior members of Congress pressured the Justice Department to invoke a little-known law, the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act, against peer-to-peer users who swap files without permission.

Under the NET Act, signed by President Clinton in 1997, it is a federal crime to share copies of copyrighted products such as software, movies or music with anyone, even friends or family members, if the value of the work exceeds $1,000 (about œ640). Violations are punishable by one year in prison, or if the value tops $2,500, "not more than five years" in prison.

Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), said his industry would "welcome" prosecutions that send a message to song-swappers.

"Some prosecutions that make that clear could be very helpful... I think they would think twice if they thought there was a risk of criminal prosecution," said Sherman, who was on the same conference panel.

Christopher Cookson, executive vice president of Warner Bros. and another panelist, said there was "a need for governments to step in and maintain order in society".

Swapping files in violation of the law has always been a civil offense, and the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have the option of suing individual infringers and seeking damages.

But, Malcolm said, criminal prosecutions can be much more effective in intimidating file-swappers who have little assets at risk in a civil suit. "Civil remedies are not adequate... Law enforcement in that regard does have several advantages," Malcolm said. "We have the advantage, when appropriate, of opening up and conducting multi-jurisdictional and international investigations.

"Most parents would be horrified if they walked into a child's room and found 100 stolen CDs... However, these same parents think nothing of having their children spend time online downloading hundreds of songs without paying a dime."

Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association, said he was sceptical about the view that peer-to-peer piracy should be a criminal offense. "If we have 70 million people in the United States who are breaking the law, we have a big issue."

The DOJ already has used the NET Act to imprison noncommercial software pirates, which software lobbyists hailed as "an important component of the overall effort to prevent software theft".

During his confirmation hearing in June 2001, attorney general John Ashcroft told Congress that "given the fact that much of America's strength in the world economy is a result of our being the developer and promoter of most of the valuable software, we cannot allow the assets that are held electronically to be pirated or infringed. And so we will make a priority of cybercrime issues".

The letter from Congress complains of "a staggering increase in the amount of intellectual property pirated over the Internet through peer-to-peer systems". Signed by 19 members of Congress, including Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, Representative James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, the letter urged Ashcroft "to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks".

See the MP3/P2P News Section for the latest on everything from MP3 players to the latest efforts to shut down peer-to-peer file-swapping services.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,,t287,00.html

Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the Napster Debate.

HERE!

Subject: File sharing is not hurting the recording industry and here's why.

File sharing is not hurting the recording industry and here's why.

Simple economics and public demand is the quick answer. People do not see the value of paying $15-$20 for a CD, packaging, distribution and marketing.

Just like the buggy whip industry, the old product packaging of forcing consumers to pay for the high costs of publishing just don't want to buy $15-$20 for a couple of songs. The publishing industry doesn't want to change its old fashioned business model of selling to the public. In other words, why go to the effort of giving the consumer the ability to buy what they want (music) when we can sell them CDs, packaging, distribution and marketing?

Thank about it, the publishing industry is selling CDs, packaging, distribution and marketing. The public wants to buy music. You think this is silly? When you go to the hardware store to buy a drill bit, you are not interested in buying the drill bit, you really want the hole the drill bit makes!

The answer is to change the way the industry distributes music. It's now possible for individual artists to make, produce and sell their music directly to the public. Oh my god! This virtually eliminates the big music publishing houses. They are only needed to distribute CDs and tapes to retail stores. That's it! That's what you and I are paying for: distribution and packaging. I don't want to pay for distribution and packaging. I want the intellectual art (i.e. music) that's encoded as ones and zeros. I don't care if that material is on a CD, a computer file, DVD, that's not what I'm buying! The computer software has gotten beyond the packaging and now sells software directly to the public. You can buy programs for as little as a $15 or even free in some cases. I expect to the entertainment industry follow suit in the next 100 years or so, until then, let's enjoy watching the entertainment industry scream and rant and rave about the next technology breakthrough. Does

RIAA asks court to expose music pirate

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t287-s2121179,00.html

The RIAA asked a federal judge for an order compelling Verizon Communications to reveal the name of a customer accused of illegally trading hundreds of songs. But it may be overstepping the law

In what may become a new legal front in its war against online copying, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has asked a federal court for help in tracing an alleged peer-to-peer pirate.

On Tuesday, the RIAA asked a federal judge in Washington, DC, for an order compelling Verizon Communications to reveal the name of a customer accused of illegally trading hundreds of songs. Citing privacy concerns and potential legal liability, Verizon has refused to comply with a subpoena the RIAA sent last month.

"It's not that they don't want to turn over the name," said Mitch Glazier, an RIAA senior vice president. "It's that they don't want to be liable for turning over a subscriber's name."

Until now, the entertainment industry has relied on civil lawsuits aimed at corporations, not individuals, to limit widespread copyright infringement on peer-to-peer networks. Now, however, the RIAA is revising its strategy and appears ready to sue individuals swapping songs over the Internet.

At issue in the RIAA's request is an obscure part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that permits a copyright owner to send a subpoena ordering a "service provider" to turn over information about a subscriber. It is not necessary to file a lawsuit to take advantage of the DMCA's expedited subpoena process.

Verizon says it complies with requests regarding material that customers store on its servers. But because these allegedly illicit files reside on a peer-to-peer node, the company says, this is a novel situation, and a DMCA subpoena is not sufficient.

"Verizon looked carefully at the subpoena. This is different from anything they had sent us in the past," said Sarah Deutsch, a vice president at the telecommunications company.

"It created a very difficult policy issue for us," Deutsch said. "We understand that RIAA has a problem and needs this information. At the same time, we have an equally legitimate concern that they comply with the proper legal process."

RIAA's Glazier said, "We believe the (DMCA) subpoena process applies." The DMCA defines service provider to mean "a provider of online services or network access".

The RIAA has not yet decided how to proceed with civil suits against individuals. "It's definitely on the table," Glazier said.

Also on Tuesday, a Justice Department official said the government was prepared to begin prosecuting alleged peer-to-peer pirates. A few weeks ago, some of the most senior members of Congress pressured the Justice Department to invoke a little-known law, the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act, against peer-to-peer users who swap files without permission.

See http://news.zdnet.co.uk/ For More Related Stories

Study: P2P not to blame for flagging CD sales

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t287-s2120801,00.html

The results of a new survey find that consumers don't see digital music downloads as an alternative to buying CDs

Video may have killed the radio star, but Forrester Research has said Internet piracy was not to blame -- as record labels have claimed -- for the 15 percent drop in music sales in the past two years.

"There is no denying that times are tough for the music business, but not because of downloading," said Josh Bernoff, principal analyst at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based research firm Forrester Research, who released a report on the digital music market on Tuesday.

Based on surveys of 1,000 US online consumers, Forrester said it sees no evidence of decreased CD buying among frequent digital music consumers and said the record labels could restore industry growth by making it easier for people to find, copy, and pay for music on their own terms.

Forrester predicts that by 2007, digital music revenues in the United States will reach more than $2bn (œ1.3bn), or 17 percent of the music business, from about $3m in 2001.

Forrester pointed to the economy and competition from other media for the music market's downturn, rather than the emergence of free song-swap services like now-idled Napster and several similar sites in its wake, which the recording industry has claimed in several copyright lawsuits have hurt sales.

"Plenty of other causes are viable, including the economic recession and competition from surging video game and DVD sales," Bernoff said.

The big five record labels, including Bertelsmann's BMG, EMI, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal and Sony, and several independent companies in the past year have launched several online music subscription services, called Pressplay, MusicNet, FullAudio and Rhapsody.

While makers of these services continue to improve their offerings to lure users, they are far from the point of mass appeal enjoyed by the unauthorised services.

Forrester said the labels will learn to fulfil Internet consumer demands in the next few years, predicting that by 2005, labels will endorse a standard download contract that supports burning and a greater range of devices.

Downloading will start to soar in 2005 as finding content becomes effortless and impulse purchases easy. Labels will make content available on equal terms to all distributors, while online retailers will become hubs for downloading, Forrester said.