[70597]

Recording industry stops suing song swappers - Los Angeles Times

The group representing the U.S. recording industry said Friday that it had abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and that it would work with Internet service providers to cut abusers' access if they ignore repeated warnings.

The move ends a controversial program that saw the Recording Industry Assn. of America sue about 35,000 people since 2003 for swapping songs online. Because of high legal costs for defenders, virtually all of those hit with lawsuits settled, on average for around $3,500. The association's legal costs, in the meantime, exceeded the settlement money it brought in.

I think that's pretty cool that all they're going to do now is try and cut people off. It was a ridiculous idea from the beginning to try and sue people; there's just too many. What do you think?

 

[Silenus]

Glad they found an alternative.

 

[Foxfyre]

Just wait till all the lawsuits where people were using someone else's wifi to download and that person gets their internet shut off because of it. Also what about free wifi? Wait till Starbucks gets their internet turned off! lol

IMO, this is no different than the traffic light camera's. They take a picture of your license plate (IP address) but can they prove you were the driver (user)?

 

[conquerall691]

RIAA just had it's just desserts. No more sueing 50 year old grandmothers for downloading porn since their wifi was unsecured.

 

[Exodus]

It was a ridiculous idea from the beginning to try and sue people; there's just too many.

Sounds like quite the lucrative business then.

 

[Kirby]

right.....when pig crap flying ****...

A snippet from the WSJ article:

Though the industry group is reserving the right to sue people who are particularly heavy file sharers, or who ignore repeated warnings, it expects its lawsuits to decline to a trickle. The group stopped filing mass lawsuits early this fall.

But low and behold!!! Ray Beckerman proves whatever these asshats say is a lie:

According to a report on Wired.com, the RIAA spokesman claims that the RIAA has not filed any new lawsuits "for months"; according to the Wall Street Journal report the RIAA stopped filing mass lawsuits "early this fall"; and the Associated Press was apparently told that the RIAA had stopped bringing new lawsuits in August.

Being very familiar with the RIAA's penchant for "misspeaking", even when under oath, I investigated the matter a bit, and learned that a large number of suits have been brought by the RIAA quite recently, one as recently as this Monday. Here are just a few. Those marked green were contributed by some of our great readers:

Atlantic Recording v. Williams 08cv01710 W.D. Pennsylvania 12/15/08
Sony BMG Music v. Linus 08cv14413 S.D. Florida 12/11/08
UMG Recordings v. Gulledge 08-cv-00973-MHT-TFM M.D. Alabama 12/10/08
Warner Bros. Records Kelley 08-cv-02295-CLS N.D. Alabama 12/10/08
Sony BMG Music v. Van Ornum 08-cv-04205-JLH E.D. Arkansas 12/10/08
Interscope Records v. Tabor 08-cv-03068-JLH W.D. Arkansas 12/10/08
BMG Music v. O'Brien 08-cv-02244-HRH D. Arizona 12/10/08
Priority Records v. Easterling 08-cv-08131-PA-JTL C.D. California 12/10/08
UMG Recordings v. Ibarzabal 08-cv-08136-R-SH C.D. California 12/10/08
Interscope Records v. Doe 4 08-cv-01880-JBA D. Connecticut 12/10/08
Arista Records v. Doe 2 08-cv-01874-CFD D. Connecticut 12/10/08
Arista Records v. Doe 3 08-cv-01876-SRU D. Connecticut 12/10/08
UMG Recordings v. Burmeister 08-cv-02295-MPM-DGB C.D. Illinois 12/10/08

Here are the most recent cases I found involving multiple John Does, which were filed the week before:

Warner Bros. Records v. Does 1-4 08-cv-01425-HA D. Oregon 12/5/08
UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Does 08-cv-00717-TCK-PJC N.D. Oklahoma 12/5/08
UMG Recordings v. Does 1-3 08-cv-00139-DLB E.D. Kentucky 12/4/08

The cases were filed 12/10/08 and are all from Central Michigan University. They are as follows:
Sony BMG v. Lugo 2:2008cv15102 Bay City Michigan (Central Michigan University-Mt.Pleasant Mich)
UMG v. Rivera 1:2008cv15101 Bay City Michigan (Central Michigan University-Mt.Pleasant Mich)
Sony BMG v. Mack 1:2008cv15104 Bay City Michigan (Central Michigan University-Mt.Pleasant Mich)
Capital v. Pogue 1:2008cv15104 Bay City Michigan (Central Michigan University-Mt.Pleasant Mich)
Filed on 12/5/2008, from Oakland County Michigan through the Federal Courthouse in Detroit Mi.
Psychopathic Records v. Anderson 2:2008cv15034

Recording Industry vs. The People

Last time I checked, beginning of Fall was around the middle of September.

So yeah....take anything serious the RIAA/MPAA says by the size of an atom (cause a grain of salt is way too big in this case)

 

[PCXL-Fan]

I was gonna post that this stunk like bunch of rotten balony even before I saw Kirby's post. They just wanna catch people with their guard down. If they were able to convince people they of this, downloaders might stop using various protective measures and more downloading methods that are more suseptable to getting caught.

I've heard from my uncle's friend's dog's cat that certain filesharing methods are safer from the prying eye of the RIAA then others.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

torrents with encryption no doubt.

 

[Phil]

i doubt this will work

 

[Exodus]

dog's cat

That's awesome. I should get my dog a cat too.

 

[Kaizen]

Illegal music downloading is too mainstream to be stemmed