Online and In-Store: The RIAA Lawsuits Continue
On behalf of its member companies, the RIAA announced a new round of copyright infringement lawsuits against 751 new individuals on December 15, 2005. The new round of lawsuits, filed as part of an ongoing effort to level the playing field for legal online music services, included students at the college campuses of Drexel University, Harvard University, and the University of Southern California.
The “John Doe” lawsuits cite individuals for illegally distributing copyrighted music on the Internet via unauthorized peer-to-peer services such as LimeWire and Kazaa, In addition to the “John Doe” litigations, the major music companies filed lawsuits against 105 named defendants, filed in Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Wisconsin.
Nearly all of the cases filed by the RIAA have been settled for a few thousand dollars and a signed pledge from the accused to get their music from legal channels. However, Patricia Santangelo, a mother of five from White Plains, New York, has recently refused the RIAA's settlement offer, claiming that she is computer-illiterate and never took part in illegal file-sharing. The trial, set for later this year will determine if an “Internet-illiterate parent" can be held liable for her children's downloads.
The RIAA has also taken legal action as part of a program designed to deter a continuing piracy trend: the sale of illegal music at small, established businesses. The music industry’s anti-piracy efforts are part of a larger initiative recently launched by the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) aimed at protecting holiday shoppers from purchasing illegal copies of CDs and DVDs and reducing the amount of illegal product readily available to the public.
On December 19, 2005, the RIAA on behalf of the major record companies also sued five New York City retailers for flagrant violations of copyright law. The lawsuits, filed in federal court, specifically asked for an injunction and legal damages, based on the amount of pirated product being offered.
In addition to the five lawsuits, the RIAA sent a new round of demand letters to the owners of 20 retail establishments in New York City and parts of California. Since this program was first launched in 2002, some 50 retail establishments have either settled out of court or had sizable penalties rendered against them.
Pirated CDs can increasingly be manufactured and sold for less than the legitimate releases. As a result, some retailers -- such as the owners of convenience stores, small music stores, or corner markets -- are attempting to make a profit by selling illegal CDs, or even manufacturing counterfeit CDs themselves. In response, the RIAA has adopted an aggressive “zero tolerance” approach to retailers engaged in this activity.
“The end of the year is an especially important time for the music community, and an especially fortunate time for music fans, with a great slate of new releases in stores.” said RIAA President Cary Sherman.
The RIAA estimates that the U.S. recording industry loses more than $300 million annually to physical goods piracy.
TechNewsWorld.com, December 30, 2005
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/48068.html
RIAA.com, December 19, 2005
Read the press release: http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/121905.asp
RIAA.com, December 15, 2005
Read the press release: http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/121505.asp
IFPI Launches Worldwide Strike Against Illegal File-Sharing
On November 15, 2005, the recording industry unveiled the biggest escalation yet in its campaign against illegal Internet file-sharing, announcing over 2,100 new legal cases against individuals and extending the actions to five new countries in Europe, Asia and for the first time, South America.
File-sharers in Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Hong Kong and Singapore are for the first time at risk of criminal penalties and payment of damages in an international campaign that has already seen thousands of people - the majority of them young men between the ages of 20 and 30 - pay sums of $3,000 or more for uploading copyrighted music on peer-to-peer networks (P2P).
This latest wave of cases, takes the total number of legal actions against uploaders to over 3,800 in 16 countries outside the U.S. This is the fourth wave since the international campaign began in March 2004, and it targets users of all the major unauthorized P2P networks, including FastTrack (Kazaa), Gnutella (BearShare), eDonkey, DirectConnect, BitTorrent, WinMX, and SoulSeek.
The actions in Sweden, Argentina, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore join Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK and the US, bringing the total of countries involved in litigation to 17.
In Argentina, where actions were announced for the first time, four out of 10 people who have access to the Internet use unauthorized P2Pservices. These file-swappers are high-income people, mostly aged between 20 and 30.
In Singapore, the recording industry has filed 33 criminal complaints involving users of FastTrack and Gnutella. These follow the industry's “Don't let the music die” education campaign in hundreds of schools.
In Hong Kong, civil actions are being brought against 22 major uploaders. In November 2005, a man who uploaded three films on to the BitTorrent network was sentenced to three months imprisonment.
In Sweden, the music industry has announced 15 criminal complaints against music uploaders with more waves to follow in the future. Research shows that more than 1 million people are file-sharing illegally and one in every nine Swedes has been an illegal file-sharer at one time. In October 2005, an individual who uploaded a Swedish film was convicted of copyright infringement and required to pay fines.
IFPI Chairman and CEO John Kennedy said: “This is a significant escalation of our enforcement actions against people who are uploading and distributing copyrighted music on P2P networks. For the first time there will be financial and criminal sanctions for this activity in countries in South East Asia and Latin America. This reflects the sharply rising levels of Internet piracy in those regions. The message today is that, from Sweden to Hong Kong and from Singapore to Argentina, there are no havens for the theft of music on the Internet.”
IFPI.org, November 15, 2005
Read the press release: http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/press/20051115.html
Grokster Agrees to Shut Down
Grokster Ltd., which lost a Supreme Court fight over file-sharing software popular for stealing songs and movies online, agreed to shut down and pay $50 million to settle piracy complaints by Hollywood and the music industry. Coming just four months after the Supreme Court’s June 2005 ruling in MGM vs. Grokster, the owners and operators of the Grokster peer-to-peer network agreed to settle the three-year-old legal case with the nation’s major record companies, motion picture studios and music publishers.
The surprise November 7, 2005 settlement permanently banned Grokster from participating, directly or indirectly, in the theft of copyrighted files and requires the company to stop giving away its software. This included the immediate cease in distribution of the Grokster client application and operation of the Grokster system and software. Grokster's website was changed to say its existing file-sharing service was illegal and no longer available. “There are legal services for downloading music and movies,” the message said. “This service is not one of them.”
Executives indicated plans to launch a legal, fee-based “Grokster 3G” service before year's end under a new parent company. Mashboxx, headed in part by former Grokster president Wayne Rosso, has already signed a licensing agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
The head of the Recording Industry Association of America, Mitch Bainwol, described the settlement as “a chapter that ends on a high note for the recording industry, the tech community and music fans and consumers everywhere.”
RIAA.com, November 7, 2005
Read the press release: http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/110705_2.asp
Yahoo! News, November 7, 2005 (Ted Bridis)
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051107/downloading_music.html?.v=5
U.S. Copyright Office, June 2005
Read the MGM vs. Grokster Decision: http://www.copyright.gov/docs/mgm
See GrayZone Digest 3Q 2005: http://www.grayzone.com/705.htm
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Automatic Wireless MP3 Sharing? A Scary Thought for the Music Industry
The Viktoria Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden, is working on a concept they call Push Music, which is software that automatically shares music files with nearby users who have similar tastes.
The new technology monitors the listening history of the user, and develops awareness about what kind of new music they might like. The concept envisions Wi-Fi (wireless-enabled) music players that automatically establish a peer-to-peer connection, enabling people to either “browse” the music collections of others and take a copy of whatever they like.
This new technology would pose a serious threat to the music industry in their ongoing battle against illegal file-sharing. The anytime, anywhere, automatic wireless transfers of music would no doubt have the RIAA in a new bind in their efforts to protect intellectual property and thwart wide-spread music piracy.
The Raw Feed, January 5, 2005 (Mike Elgan)
http://www.therawfeed.com/2006/01/riaa-hell-automatic-wireless-mp3.html
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Quick Bits and Bytes
Companies Plagued by Counterfeit Drugs
Pfizer Inc., in a move to thwart counterfeit Viagra, has included special radio frequency identification tags on all packages of its anti-impotence pill to verify they are the authentic Pfizer product. The world's largest drugmaker said the costly new technology would create barriers “for criminals who might attempt to counterfeit our products.”
The tiny tags are small computer chips that have been affixed to the underside of labels on each bottle of Viagra, as well as on cases and pallets of the drug. The invisible tags relay an electronic code that verifies the product is real and authorized Viagra. Pharmacists and wholesalers can then use specially designed electronic scanners that communicate the code over the Internet to a secure Pfizer website for verification purposes.
Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer of Tamiflu, has also been affected by the counterfeit drug market. Customs agents have recently intercepted more than 50 counterfeit shipments of the antiviral drug that is being stockpiled in anticipation of a bird flu pandemic, marking the first such seizures in the U.S.
The first package was intercepted on November 26, 2005 at an air mail facility near the San Francisco International Airport. Since then, agents have seized 51 separate packages, each containing up to 50 counterfeit capsules labeled generic Tamiflu. According the Food and Drug Administration Office of Enforcement, the fake drugs had none of Tamiflu's active ingredients and initial tests indicated there was some vitamin C in the capsules.
CNN Money.com January 6, 2006 (Reuters)
http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/06/news/companies/pfizer_viagra.reut/
ABC News, December 19, 2005 (Brian Skoloff)
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Flu/wireStory?id=1420604
Microsoft Continues War on Counterfeit Software
As part of an ongoing campaign against piracy, Microsoft along with the Business Software Alliance (BSA) successfully shut down a Manchester based Internet retailer, Zoobon, for selling counterfeit Microsoft software.
According to Microsoft, it had received a number of complaints from Zoobon customers unhappy with the quality of the products they had been sold. In an investigation conducted over the course of a year with the help of eBay, Zoobon was found to have counterfeited nearly $5 million worth of software, according to Microsoft.
Following the investigations, an out-of-court settlement was reached between Microsoft and the individuals behind Zoobon under which they ceased trading and agreed not to sell counterfeit Microsoft software in the future. Zoobon's site on eBay has been closed down as well. The BSA has indicated that it prefers not to file lawsuits but rather presses companies to reach a settlement after determining there were violations.
According to the BSA, most investigations begin with a call to its hotline or with a report made through its website by a current or former employee of a suspected company. BSA attorneys then contact the organizations, who usually cooperate and conduct audits.
The BSA has also started a rewards program to intensify its fight against software piracy in the United States. In December 2005, the BSA began offering rewards of up to $50,000 for qualifying piracy reports.
RedHerring.com, December 8, 2005
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=14799&hed=Software+Pirates+Fined+%24500K§or=Industries&subsector=SecurityAndDefense
ZDNet UK,December 08, 2005 (Colin Barker)
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39240837,00.htm
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