By Ted Bridis
Associated Press
Saturday, July 19, 2003
The music industry has won at least 871 federal subpoenas against computer users suspected of sharing copyrighted music files on the Internet, with roughly 75 new subpoenas being approved every day, U.S. court officials said yesterday.
The subpoenas show the industry compelling some of the largest Internet providers, such as Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Cable Communications Inc., and some universities to provide the names and mailing addresses of users on their networks known online by nicknames.
The Recording Industry Association of America has said it expects to file several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages in the next eight weeks. U.S. copyright laws allow for the awarding of damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person’s computer, but the RIAA has said it will be open to settlement proposals from defendants.
The campaign comes just weeks after U.S. appeals court rulings that required Internet service providers to readily identify subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music and movie files. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act permits music companies to force Internet providers to turn over the names of suspected music pirates upon subpoena from any U.S. District Court clerk’s office, without a judge’s signature required.
In some cases, subpoenas cite as few as five songs as “representative recordings” of music files available for downloading from these users. The trade group for the largest music labels, the Washington-based RIAA, previously indicated that its lawyers would target Internet users who offer substantial collections of song files but declined to say how many songs might trigger the filing of a lawsuit.
Verizon, which has fought the RIAA over the subpoenas with continued legal appeals, said it received at least 150 subpoenas during the last two weeks. There were no subpoenas on file sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation’s largest Internet provider and also parent company of Warner Music Group. Earthlink Inc., another of the largest Internet providers, said it has received three new subpoenas.
DePaul University in Chicago was among the few colleges that received such subpoenas; the RIAA asked DePaul on July 2 to track down a user who was allegedly offering at least eight songs.
There was some evidence the threat of an expensive lawsuit was discouraging online music sharing. Nielsen NetRatings, which monitors Internet usage, earlier this week reported a decline for traffic on the Kazaa network of 1 million users, with similarly large drops across other services.