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RIAA Says "No More Warnings," Should You Be Scared of Them or Is That What They Want?
By Omari Taylor

The last decade brought a technological boon to the music-buying public in the form of mp3. With the use of this file format and technology, music fans were able to save thousands of songs on their personal computers simply by downloading them from the Internet. First there were ftp searches, then download sites and now there are file sharing networks both public and private.

File sharing presents an appealing scenario to music fans, especially teens and college-aged youngsters, who often lack the funds to purchase CDs with prices ranging anywhere from $8-$30. This is especially appealing and easy to rationalize if the music fan is only really interested in their favorite song and not the whole CD - Why pay what many consider to be exorbitant prices for the cost of an entire CD when you are interested in just the single.

Today, these individuals [file sharers] are being held responsible by the Recording Industry Association of America [RIAA], the trade group which represents the U.S. recording industry, as being the main culprits behind lagging annual CD sales, which have dropped 26% since 1999, which was the year of Napster's inception. This constitutes an annual loss of about $4.3 billion for the recording industry and in face of these losses, the RIAA is hitting back, and hitting back hard. Bolstered by the June court victory in the RIAA vs. Verizon lawsuit, the RIAA is able to subpoena Internet Service Providers to obtain personal information about individual users of file sharing networks.

Members of the RIAA create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States. The RIAA stated goal is to protect intellectual property rights worldwide of musical artists. It views file-sharing as the most critical issue facing the music industry and is intent on showing that it will not tolerate any unauthorized downloading of music from the Internet, an act it considers to be thievery. In short, the RIAA strongly believes that downloading is [the] sole reason that music sales are down, refuting the argument that file sharing promotes CD purchases through the discover of new music.

According to the RIAA's Amanda Collins, "piracy affects everybody, not just the artists, but the people who work in the recording industry, from the music store owner, to the person driving the delivery truck that delivers the music to the stores. We have been educating people online about file sharing and how it disrupts the industry, and we've been warning them for awhile of the consequences. There will be no more warnings."

"No more warnings" means that the RIAA is taking legal action against individuals [and that could mean you]. Though Collins stresses that no one has been sued yet, things are definitely heading in that direction. Subpeonas have been issued and the RIAA is gathering evidence against people suspected of downloading music by the RIAA. Potentially, file sharers will not know that they are being investigated until a process server shows up at his or her door.

Jason Schultz, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization dedicated to fighting the RIAA on this issue, explains: "File sharing is a process by which any individual with a computer can gain access to music through a few simple clicks of a mouse. This is a network of 60 million people, it's the wave of the future, and they need to accept that. But instead of embracing that momentum that young people bring to music, the RIAA is trying to sue everybody into submission, by trying to protect a system that's older than the power grid in New York." Indeed, file sharers should feel good that the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF as it is commonly called, is out there fighting for their rights to share files. Others, including an organization called digitalconsumer.org, are also raising concerns of the dangers of the RIAA suing the general public over what has become common behavior. According to Schultz, "If we can work out a system where artists get paid, what would the problem be?" However, it seems that the RIAA's patience has worn out when it comes with working to legalize these systems - remember "no more warnings."

Collins states, "The RIAA is asking for damages of $750-$250,000 per infringement (song), as well as an injunction, but it's up to the courts to decide the amount the individual will pay. There are dozens of websites where artists license their work. Those sites inform people about what's legal and what's not about downloading. One of them, www.musicunited.org, is an influential organization, consisting of the members of the industry who have come together to answer the calls of fans."

Robin Gross is a spokesperson for IP Justice, a nonprofit organization dedicated to maintaining a balance of copyrights between authors and the public. "The problem with those sites is that they're so restrictive," she says. "You can't move the device you record with to another site, and use of the sites the RIAA sponsors is restricted." Gross is adamant about the futility of the RIAA position, and thinks that RIAA underestimates the public backlash of private citizens. "I don't see filling prisons with file sharers is going to help the RIAA's business model, unless their new business model is the litigation of 60 million people," she says. "We're not going to see anything positive until a new business model is enacted."

If you are concerned that you might be one of the people targeted by the RIAA go to the EFF info site http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/riaasubpoenas/, and check your username or IP Address against subpeonas issued to ISPs requesting info. However, it appears once you know you are on the hit list there isn't much you can do.


Omari Taylor lives in Seattle, Washington.

 





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