<b>RIAA Plans to Sue Music Swappers
No More Warnings to Individuals</b>
By Mike Musgrove
<i>Washington Post Staff Writer</i>
Thursday, June 26, 2003; Page E01
The music industry's chief trade group said yesterday that it is preparing a wave of civil lawsuits against people who use music-trading software, after months of threats failed to slow the practice.
No longer will the industry just go after those running programs that allow users to exchange song files, the Recording Industry Association of America warned. Nor will users simply be sent cease-and-desist e-mails or other messages. Hundreds or even thousands of such users may soon be sued on the basis of evidence the trade group said it plans to begin gathering today.
"The public has been educated and re-educated and re-educated again. People now know this is illegal," said Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA. "People can no longer count on just getting a warning."
Sherman said the RIAA has not determined what file trading will be challenged legally, but the group plans to go after the biggest offenders first. Still, he said, "even offering one file without permission is one too many."
The recording industry said music sales have declined 20 percent since 1999 and has blamed mostly what it calls music piracy. The recording industry succeeded in closing Napster, one of the original file-trading programs, in 2001, but newer file-trading programs such as Kazaa and Grokster are more decentralized and technologically harder to shut down.
In a conference call to announce the RIAA's legal attack yesterday, Nashville songwriter Chuck Cannon said that when people trade his songs online and don't pay for it, "they've effectively broken into my house and stolen my paycheck," he said.
The RIAA said it would use the public directories of peer-to-peer software programs and issue subpoenas to Internet service providers to track down people trading music files. The trade group has a precedent in its favor: Verizon Communications Inc. was compelled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia this month to give the RIAA the names of four customers suspected of illegally distributing music files.
A major software industry association, the Business Software Alliance, released a statement supporting the RIAA's hardball approach yesterday. Consumer and artist groups generally gave it mixed to negative reviews.
"I don't think it's either a good thing or a bad thing, honestly. We've been expecting this for a long time," said Jenny Toomey, founder of the Future of Music Coalition, a group that fights for artists' rights. "If file trading is cutting in on legitimate sales, then that's a problem . . . but I go back and forth," on whether it is, she said. "We welcome the public discussion."
"I think this really suggests that the recording industry dinosaurs have completely lost touch with reality," said Fred Von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization that lobbies on civil liberties issues related to technology. "Over 57 million Americans are using file-sharing software today. That's more than voted for President Bush."
Phil Leigh, digital media analyst at Raymond James & Associates, said that he thought the RIAA should have held off on threatening lawsuits until people who use the Windows operating system have a successful, for-pay alternative to file-trading software. There are many for-pay music services available on the Web, but none has gotten much attention except for an online music store from Apple Computer Inc. -- which only people with Apple computers can use.
"I understand why they're doing it," said Joe Kraus, founder of DigitalConsumer.org, a consumer rights group. "But it's not going to be effective if there are not legitimate alternatives that consumers are excited about."
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