Music
sharing debated
By
Danielle Lagana
Summer Forty-Niner
The
Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) has brought hundreds of subpoenas
to the federal courts for copyright infringement
against people downloading music from file
sharing programs such as Kaaza and Limewire,
and your name could be among them.
"The
RIAA's targeting of downloads is based on
several things. An estimated 60 million
Americans are now trading music and
other files online. That's more than the
number that voted for President Bush in
the 2000 election. This means that the problem
is, to the RIAA, of significant proportion,"
said Dave McClure, president of the U.S.
Internet Industry Association.
According
to the RIAA, it "defends artists and
record labels from pirates who sell and
distribute fake copies of their music;"
however, many targets of the subpoenas are
file sharers that generally do not redistribute
the music files.
"The
content industry is well aware of the damages
that can be done even if there is no commercial
gain," McClure said.
A case a few years ago, involving a student
placing large amounts of software on a university
server for downloading, concluded that under
the laws at that time he could not be convicted
because he did not personally profit from
his actions.
"The
content industry therefore lobbied for and
got a change in the law, dubbed the No Electronic
Theft Act, which makes it a
crime to violate copyrights even if you
do not profit from the act," McClure
said.
Cal
State Long Beach students have felt the
fire. Copyright infringement has left some
students expelled and others under
investigation.
"We
are actively monitoring and managing our
campus Internet bandwidth based on network
applications," said Steve La, director
of Network Service. "Our university
does have computing user policy to address
copyrighted materials. In general, it is
illegal under the federal law and the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act."
La
says many students and peer-to-peer file
sharers are not aware of the spy agent,
known as spyware, that transfers the users'
information to an unknown site without the
user being notified.
"These
types of activities are more than a simple
annoyance; some may consider their privacy
is being invaded," La said.
Several
CSULB students refused comment on this issue
for fear of the federal law consequences
and campus policy.
Buddy
Clark, lawyer and drummer of Orange County
said he doesn't think any government agency
has the right to come into
private homes by way of computer.
However,
Clark feels differently about file sharing.
"I think it's great," he said.
"The more the [songs] are played, the
more the
band is known, the more people show at the
live shows and the more people buy all the
goodies the band sells. It's called
promotions, and all bands need it no matter
how big they are."
The
issues are many and can become confused.
"File
sharing itself isn't illegal," said
Greg Bildson, CTO of file sharing service
Limewire. "There is plenty of legitimate
content
out there. The RIAA tactics are heavy-handed
and we have major problems with them. Their
use of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA) to access account information
from the Internet service providers appears
to violate citizens' right of due process
under the law and users' privacy."
Because
of the DMCA Web site, owners are not liable
for providing portals that people use to
swap files.
"On
Download.com we list software in a way that
people can easily find but we neither create,
sell, nor host the files," said Wayne
Cunningham, senior editor for Download.com.
"We have no legal responsibility about
what software does or how it is used because
we merely point to it, which is an editorial
function."
The
lawsuits targeting file sharers and the
means to find these people are problems
that have yet to be solved. However, a recent
court decision in Massachusetts denied the
RIAA information about students from MIT
and Boston College. The senate is also investigating
the hundreds of subpoenas the RIAA has issued.
"The
issue is whether the RIAA should be able
to obtain the identity of music downloaders
without filing a lawsuit against the downloader
for copyright infringement," McClure
said. "The RIAA has gotten a judge
in the federal system to approve its use
of a shortcut in due process. The same judge
heard the appeal of his own decision, but
that decision now goes to a higher court
for a ruling."
Web
sites like boycott-RIAA.com encourage file
sharers to write to their local representatives
and provides electronic forms to do so.
Because
of the vast number of subpoenas issued to
file sharers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
has created a link in which file sharers,
past or present, can see if they have been
a target of the RIAA.
To
see if your name is on the list of subpoenas,
visit www.eff.org.
College
students seem to have a large number of
file sharers among them.
"We
recommend that students speak up about these
issues and that they help educate the general
public about what is going on," said
Bildson. "Laws are made to enrich citizens'
lives, not to empower permanent monopolies
for big media companies."
"Congress
is now facing the fact that is trying to
deal with the biggest disconnect between
consumers and the law since the days of
Prohibition," McClure said.
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