Ah. Cheap irony. Ain't it fun?
BILLBOARD: KaZaA Hits Back Against Record Labels: Turning the tables on record labels, makers of the most popular file-sharing network are suing the companies for copyright infringement. Sharman Networks, the company behind the KaZaA file-sharing software, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday accusing the labels of using unauthorized versions of its software in their efforts to snoop out users. Sharman said the companies used KaZaA Lite, an ad-less replica of its software, to get onto the network. The lawsuit also claims efforts to combat piracy on KaZaA violated terms for using the network. Labels have allegedly offered bogus versions of copyrighted works and sent online messages to users. [...] The Recording Industry Association of America called Sharman's "newfound admiration for the importance of copyright law" ironic and "self-serving." Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group declined comment on the lawsuit.
Well, yes, I daresay Sharman's reliance on copyright law in this instance is entirely self-serving. That does not, however, mean that it is entirely wrong to do so. Only that they're not afraid to appear to be somewhat hypocritical.
In any event, that wasn't the only bad lawsuit-related news that the RIAA received recently.
Download lawsuit dismissed,
RIAA drops claim that grandmother stole online music (SFgate.com, Thursday, September 25, 2003): The Recording Industry Association of America has dismissed a copyright infringement lawsuit against a 65-year-old Massachusetts grandmother who said she was wrongly accused of illegally sharing thousands of songs, including many hip-hop hits. Sarah Seabury Ward was one of 261 people who were sued earlier this month as part of the recording industry's crackdown on illegal online file sharing. [...] Through [Cindy Cohn, a San Francisco digital rights attorney who helped Ward with her case], Ward declined an interview. But Cohn said Ward's home computer runs on Apple's Macintosh operating system, and Kazaa is available only for computers that run on Microsoft's Windows. Ward and her husband use the computer only for e-mail and to check weather reports, had never downloaded music and did not have children or grandchildren at home who could have been using Kazaa without their knowledge, Cohn said. "She didn't really know what file sharing was,'' Cohn said. She and her husband learned the RIAA was suing them when a process server knocked on their door after they had gone to sleep, and eventually called the EFF for help, Cohn said. The case highlights the potential legal problems of the digital copyright law, which allows copyright owners to issue subpoenas without the review of a judge, Cohn said.
People are up in arms against the RIAA suing 12-year-olds for thousands of dollars, which, to be sure, is bad publicity. The plain fact is, however, that those types of cases in particular are doing exactly what the RIAA wants them to do. They know perfectly well that their target audiences for downloading are people from, roughly, 12-25; the prime ages for people who buy music on impulse, and people who are much more familiar with computers as a general rule. The idea behind these suits is that if they can get enough of these people, their parents, or the colleges they attend caught in the dragnet of these suits, they can sharply restrict the availability and use of downloading services. The RIAA isn't naive enough to believe that they can completely eliminate free downloading; they are hoping, with a certain amount of justification, that they can intimidate users into not using the services in any significant amount, for fear of being sued into fiscal oblivion. In fact, the RIAA pretty much says as much in another article about this case:
She Says She's No Music Pirate. No Snoop Fan, Either (NY Times, September 25, 2003, registration required): ..... Ms. Weiss of the recording industry association said that the strategy was, in fact, working as planned. "This is a campaign of deterrence," she said, "and we want to send a strong message that this activity is illegal and there are consequences." Therefore, she said, "we are casting a wide net."
Lawsuit mistakes, however, stand the potential of doing serious damage to both the RIAA and its ability to conduct these types of search and seizures. With enough mistakes -- and there will almost certainly be more -- what is likely to happen is that a court will rule that the subpoena power contained in the DMCA constitutes an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment, especially if it leads to continued abuse of innocent people. (Less likely, but not entirely impossible, is that Congress will take notice of the abuse of the administrative subpoena contained in the DMCA and revoke it. However, Congress are craven corporate cowards, and are highly unlikely to do anything against the interests of the well-paying companies who paid for the DMCA.)
Elsewhere, SBC -- long loathed by its customers for its own, "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company," attitude -- is fighting the RIAA subpoenas.
SBC fights record industry request (St Louis Post-Dispatch, September 24, 2003): While Charter Communications Inc. said Wednesday that it will cooperate in the music industry's hunt for computer users who share copyrighted music, another major Internet provider here is fighting for the privacy of customers. SBC filed a lawsuit in California in July to block 208 subpoenas that the Recording Industry Association of America issued seeking identities of computer users. "We think the standards that they're using here are so incredibly low to obtain personal information on people that it's an invasion of privacy," said Selim Bingol, a spokesman for SBC at its headquarters in San Antonio. "It's chipping away at personal privacy and using kind of a meat ax to get at it," he said.
It's not a lawsuit likely to succeed -- after all, Verizon has already lost that argument a few times. Still, it may delay things long enough that the information is moot by the time the RIAA can get around to trying to serve subpoenas on people. Additionally, if one or two more of these high-profile mistakes come to light, the courts may come to feel that, at the very least, the notification of these subpoenas needs to be handled differently, that people should perhaps be given a chance to answer them or at least know about them before the information is handed over.
The future do look interesting, don't it?
Posted by iain at September 25, 2003 04:06 PMComments
