Music Firms to Forgive Song Downloaders

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Clearly this cannot be the intent of the industry. This child's intent was not to distribute. To hold her accountable and try her in court doesn't in my opinion make a statement to the public that they are protecting their rights. If this was a case of malicious intent I think the lawyers are making poor choices. Granted there are people who abuse the system and they deserve to be called on it.

Sued for a song
Tue Sep 9, 7:08 AM ET Add Local - New York Daily News to My Yahoo!


By SONI SANGHA and PHYLLIS FURMAN
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

A shy Manhattan schoolgirl who gets a kick out of nursery songs and TV themes was among 261 people sued yesterday for downloading music from the Internet.


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Brianna LaHara, a curly-haired 12-year-old honor student who started seventh grade yesterday at St. Gregory the Great Catholic school on W. 90th St., couldn't believe she's one of the "major offenders" the music moguls are after.


"Oh, my God, what's going to happen now?" she asked after hearing of the suit. "My stomach is all in knots."


Told she may have to go to court, Brianna's eyes widened behind wire-rimmed glasses and she said, "I'm just shocked that of all the people that do this, I'm on the list."


The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) said the suits filed yesterday included about 60 that targeted suspects in New York who downloaded more than 1,000 songs.


The group blames computer users such as Brianna, who use software programs to trade music with others on the Internet, for a 30% drop in music sales.


Each person sued yesterday could be liable for fines up to $150,000 for each poached track.


'Appropriate action'


Experts had predicted a large number of the suits likely would name youngsters.


"Nobody likes playing the heavy and having to resort to litigation, but when your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action," said Carey Sherman, president of the recording association.


Sherman warned that the group may file thousands more lawsuits against people who use programs like KaZaA, Grokster, Gnutella (news - web sites), Blubster and iMesh.


Brianna's mother, Sylvia, 40, director of a nurse placement agency, said her daughter was helping her 9-year-old brother with his homework when the Daily News arrived at their apartment on W. 84th St. with word about the suit.


"For crying out loud, she's just a child," the mother said. "This isn't like those people who say, 'My son is a good boy,' and he's holding a bloody knife. All we did was use a service."


The mother said she signed up for KaZaA, paying a $29.95 fee. "If you're paying for it, you're not stealing it, so what is this all about?" she asked.


She said Brianna downloaded music by Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey, along with the themes to television shows like "Family Matters" and "Full House" - and even the nursery song, "If You're Happy and You Know It."


"That's really threatening to the music industry," she scoffed.


"If this was something we were profiting from, that's one thing. But we were just listening and sometimes dancing to the music," said the mother.





She vowed to get a lawyer to fight the suit, which she termed "ridiculous." With Robert Gearty Originally published on September 9, 2003

I got a little twisted thinking - ok -
One division of Sony wants to sue everyone
One division of Sony wants everyone to buy an mp3 player to play stuff off the net???
and a whole bunch of other idea like that.

I can think of other variations - all for profit, no matter what happens.

1) If I sue you and win, you could be liable for damages up to $570,353,000,000,000.
Are you intimidated now? Is this good logic to toss around, or just a scare tactic?


2) The RIAA Offers Amnesty to File Sharers, *BUT* . . .
From http://au.news.yahoo.com/030904/11/lkfp.html

From http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60345,00.html

In other words, give us your full identity and contact information, everything we need to prosecute you okay? And give us a legally binding signature, so if we can't get you on file-swapping itself, we have everything we need to hit you with a larger fine, for violating a contract.


3) From http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/3074301


4) CNet has a handy risk assessment guide to help you figure out your chances of getting sued by the RIAA.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5073004.html

I wonder if this is a form of illegal wiretap? invasion of privacy? heck what if a person had a bank account open on another window?

Kazaalite and other "hacked" versions of Kazaa disable that feature. As far as I know nobody using Kazaa Lite was subpoenaed.

Well... let me say this about that. When I was in college I was habitually short of money. I was also the music director of the radio station... I violated lots and lots of copyrights. These days I'm buying CD's of tapes that I've had for years. Money going back to them's what deserves it...

More Stories and Info

Five related threads on A2K:

Apr 18 - Kazaa/etc MP3-sharers: What's your playlist?
Jul 28 - Subpoenas, File Sharing, Kazaa, Pornography = Scare Tactics?
Sep 3 - Google pulls Kazaa Lite from search results
Sep 8 - Music Firms to Forgive Song Downloaders
Sep 10 - RIAA sues 12 y/o girl