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RIAA sues 754 more file swappers
August 31, 2005 -
RIAA files new round of P2P lawsuits
November 18, 2004
The RIAA's actions follow a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June against P2P services provider Grokster and marks one of the first actions the recording industry trade group has taken against P2P services beyond Grokster. In a unanimous decision, the court said companies that build businesses with the active intent of encouraging copyright infringement should be held liable for their customers' illegal actions.
"Companies situated similarly to Grokster have been given ample opportunity to do the right thing," a RIAA spokesperson said. "Those businesses that continue to knowingly operate on the wrong side of that line do so at their own risk."
The letters were mailed to seven file-sharing companies, according to a RIAA spokesperson, who declined to identify the companies.
Companies such as eDonkey, Lime Wire and Kazaa were viewed as potential targets of litigation after the Supreme Court ruling because of their unrestricted file-swapping services. Under the court's decision, these companies could face the additional burden of demonstrating that they were not encouraging users to circumvent copyright laws.
In a copy of the letter obtained by CNET News.com, the RIAA states: "We demand that you immediately cease-and-desist from enabling and inducing the infringement of RIAA member sound recordings. If you wish to discuss pre-litigation resolution of these claims against you, please contact us immediately."
The letter, dated Tuesday, Sept. 13, goes on to say that the U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Grokster applies equally to the company and certain individuals at the company.
Other companies in the peer-to-peer file-swapping market include i2Hub, BitTorrent, WinMX and Free Peers, maker of file-swapping software BearShare.
BearShare, WinMX and Lime Wire were identified in a Wall Street Journal story as recipients of the letters.
Lime Wire declined to comment, and Free Peers did not return phone calls. WinMX representatives could not be reached for comment.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the RIAA has been diligently filing lawsuits against alleged copyright violators. Last June, RIAA filed lawsuits against 784 individuals and just last month issued another round against 754 individuals.
See more CNET content tagged:
RIAA,
WinMX,
Grokster Ltd.,
LimeWire,
P2P
I'm not condoning theft of intellectual property, I'm just sick of the recording industry crying about lost revenue when 99.9% of their product is ridiculously bad; I wouldn't listen to it if it was free! I wonder what percentage of the monies collected by from these strong-arm lawsuits actually makes it to the artist's bank account.
its all crap! And even it was not i would not use P2P way WAY to much spyware!
And I don't care what others say MP3's do not sound as good as a CD!
when P2P first come out I use to use it to try a song out, I bought cd's way back then if I herd a song I like...
I dont mess with Plses like Ituns becuse of the DRM CRAP! I tried iTuns had 12 songs from thme and then the pc crasheD and I could no longer access my songs ...and they would not reactavate them for me....so any thing with DRM is 100% CRAP...
The RIAA is just using lawsuite to make money they can nolonger get buy selling TRASH!
I saw we all Go on strike NO ONE SHOULD BUY A DAM SONG, CD, or DVD lets every one do it for a whole month say this NOV pass it out NOV is RIAA Boycot Month!
migraine@knology.net
RIAA is nothing but an corrupt organization infested with lawyers. But they do go hand in hand.
Look at the bottom of the page @ BitTorrent.com.
I read it in an article.
But of course, Bram Cohen and his BitTorrent crew do not encourage copyright infringement, in fact they've said that using BitTorrent to downloaded copyrighted material is a terrible idea that they don't recommend because BitTorrent doesn't in any way mask your IP address and anyone can log IPs in a torrent's swarm.
lawsuit -a company could be sued if their busisness model was
based on infringment. The case is now in the lower court where it
originated and has yet to be tried (the RIAA has to prove several
factors including that the business model relies on infringement).
The RIAA could still lose.
But not having won anything yet doesn't stop them from initiating
lawsuits against everyone else.
god I wish I had their real email to right to them a real email letter and tell them what I really think of them instead of that f'n webmaster email
what a bunch of f'n morons!!!!!!!!