Yet Again — Lawsuits

Posted by Daniel Stout on Wed 18 Feb 2004 at 9:51 PM

I have been dutifully reporting when the RIAA files against blocks of individuals. Well, oops, they’ve done it again. As cited in Edupage via Educause:

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed another 531 lawsuits against Internet users accused of illegally trading copyrighted music files. Because of a court decision last year, the RIAA can no longer subpoena the identities of alleged copyright infringers without filing a lawsuit. The RIAA’s strategy to deal with the potentially enormous cost associated with filing so many suits is to file individual lawsuits against groups of users who appear to be customers of the same ISP. Thus, in January, the RIAA filed four lawsuits against 532 individuals; this time the group filed five lawsuits. This approach appears to be effective, as the courts have so far approved three of the four suits filed in January, allowing the RIAA to subpoena the identities of users targeted in those suits. The RIAA has now filed more than 1,000 suits in 2004. CNET, 17 February 2004

Be careful out there people.

BoingBoing is carrying a story that one of the people sued is bringing a RICO suit against the RIAA charging that the RIAA is effectively engaged in extortion. Read more here.

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