Music industry sues another 744 suspected pirates

[RedEarth]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The music industry announced lawsuits against another 744 suspected Internet pirates using peer-to-peer services including eDonkey, Limewire, Grokster and Kazaa.


The announcement marked the last wave of legal action by the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites), which over the past year has been targeting individual users because it has been unable to shut down peer-to-peer swapping services.


Of the latest round of lawsuits, 152 were filed against named defendants who were identified through prior actions and then declined or ignored an effort to settle the case.


The others were so-called "John Doe" lawsuits that use the Internet Protocol (IP) address rather than names of individuals.


"Just as enforcement strategies for street piracy adapt with changing circumstances, the same goes for combating piracy online," said RIAA (news - web sites) president Cary Sherman.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1509&ncid=738&e=6&u=/afp/20040825/tc_afp/us_internet_music

[bluestateguy]

1. I haven't bought a CD in over a year now

And this is the main reason why.

[Jack_DeLeon]

4. Same here...

I dont want my money to be funding thier legal scheming.

[mistertrickster]

6. Just got a car with satellite radio--dude, it totally rocks.

Ten bucks a month, less than one CD, and you've got some 150 channels.

I haven't figured out how yet, but I'm guessing there's some way to hook a satellite feed into a computer, store the songs you want, and burn to a CD.

You wouldn't necessarily get the exact songs you want, but you'd get a lot of songs that you like that you wouldn't have thought of. So it balances out.

It would be pretty hard to litigate against too.

[DS1]

8. You should look into Internet Radio, it's exactly what you're after

Get the latest winamp and a fast connection, browse 5000 independant channels at a time, and if you get bored with the radio, watch independant TV or movies, or of course Hollywood movies.

www.nullsoft.com

[mistertrickster]

9. Ah so, desuka . . .

Thanks for the tip--I'll check it out.

Is it a subscriber service?

(hehe, funny sig line too--from "Fight Club," excellent!)

[TroglodyteScholar]

5. Don't quit buying music altogether...

Just check the releases at the RIAA Radar site before you buy. It'll tell you who's a member and who's not. There are a lot of great artists out there who aren't a part of the RIAA family.......

[NashVegas]

7. Wow. Thanks for the Link!

It won't have the final say in what I buy, but it might affect the spending priority.

[depakid]

2. CD sales will continue to plummet for one very simple reason

if the artists don't get airplay, thanks to the generic programming of the Clear Channels and Entercoms- people aren't going to hear their singles! As it stands in cities all over the country- including my hometown, where just 5 years ago, we had a pretty decent mix of music- new artists don't stand a chance of getting played (other than through payola). A Beck could NEVER be discovered.

So it seems to me that going after file sharers is just insane from a business perspective. The internet is the only place left where people can sample music- and that generates buzz and results in sales well in excess of any "loses" that the industry might take on questionable quality MP3's.

[ChrisK]

3. Will all the monies spent add up to anything?

They (The RIAA) must be spending a ton on legal fees to sue the folks who download music...is there any pay off for them or are they hoping to scare enough folks away from using the services?

This seems to remind me a bit of the drug wars....when one drug ring is stopped another five pop up over night.

Too bad there missing the bigger point with music downloads and thats there CD's are costing the average person more then most DVD's and most of the music ( In my opinion mind you) stinks. Focus on better music and please have the respect to offer it at a fare and reasonable price and I'm sure you will see the piracy rate drop, Itunes seems to be doing very well too..To bad most music companies seems to old fashion when it comes to the Internet. There lose I guess.