Posted on 05/27/2004 12:57:50 PM PDT by jjm2111
Tammy Lafky has a computer at home but said she doesn't use it. "I don't know how," the 41-year-old woman said, somewhat sheepishly.
But her 15-year-old daughter, Cassandra, does. And what Cassandra may have done, like millions of other teenagers and adults around the world, landed Lafky in legal hot water this week that could cost her thousands of dollars.
Lafky, a sugar mill worker and single mother in Bird Island, a farming community 90 miles west of St. Paul, became the first Minnesotan sued by name by the recording industry this week for allegedly downloading copyrighted music illegally.
The lawsuit has stunned Lafky, who earns $12 an hour and faces penalties that top $500,000. She says she can't even afford an offer by the record companies to settle the case for $4,000.
The ongoing music downloading war is being fought on one side by a $12 billion music industry that says it is steadily losing sales to online file sharing. On the other side, untold millions of people — many of them too young to drive — who have been downloading free music off file-sharing sites with odd names like Kazaa and Grokster and who are accusing the music industry of price gouging and strong-arm tactics.
Lafky says she doesn't download free music. Her daughter did last year when she was 14, but neither of them knew it was illegal because all of Cassandra's friends at school were doing it.
"She says she can't believe she's the only one being sued," Lafky said. "She told me, 'I can't be the only one. Everybody else does it.' "
A record company attorney from Los Angeles contacted Lafky about a week ago, telling Lafky she could owe up to $540,000, but the companies would settle for $4,000.
"I told her I don't have the money," Lafky said. "She told me to go talk to a lawyer and I told her I don't have no money to talk to a lawyer."
Lafky said she clears $21,000 a year from her job and gets no child support.
The music industry isn't moved. It has sued nearly 3,000 people nationwide since September and settled with 486 of them for an average of $3,000 apiece, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major and minor labels that produce 90 percent of the recorded music in the United States.
"Our goal in these cases and in this program (of lawsuits) that we're trying to achieve is to deliver the message that it's illegal and wrong," said Stanley Pierre-Louis, senior vice president for legal affairs for the RIAA.
Since the music industry began its lawsuit campaign, awareness of the illegality of downloading copyrighted music has increased several-fold this year, Pierre-Louis said.
"And we're trying to create a level playing field for legal online (music) services," he added.
These services sell music for under a dollar a song, and some have become well known, like Apple Computer's iPod service, which advertises heavily on TV. Others are just getting off the ground.
Pierre-Louis said the RIAA does not comment on individual cases like Lafky's, but he said the music industry typically finds its targets by logging onto the same file-sharing services that the file-sharers do. Its agents then comb the play lists for names of songs that are copyrighted and that they believe are being illegally shared.
The record companies follow the songs when they're downloaded onto computers, and they also note how many copyrighted songs are stored on that computer's hard drive memory, because those songs are often "uploaded" or shared with others through the file-sharing service.
Since January, the industry has filed 2,947 lawsuits, most against "John Does," until the record companies went to court to get names of the downloaders from their Internet service providers. Last month, the music industry filed 477 lawsuits nationwide, including two "John Doe" lawsuits against users at the University of Minnesota whose identities have not been revealed.
The industry is particularly keen on stopping people who keep their computers open on the Internet for others to share. On Lafky's computer, for instance, record companies like Universal Music Group, Sony and Warner Bros. found songs by groups they publish like Bloodhound Gang, Savage Garden and Linkin Park. Also found were songs by artists Michelle Branch, MC Hammer and country stars Shania Twain and Neal McCoy, which not only were downloaded but also available to others to upload, according to the lawsuit.
Federal copyright laws allow for penalties that range from $750 per infringement or song up to $30,000 per infringement, Pierre-Louis said.
If a defendant is found to have committed a violation "in a willful manner," he or she can be fined $150,000 per song, he said.
The record companies are willing to negotiate cases individually if someone says they cannot afford the penalties. So far, no case has gone to trial, the RIAA said.
Pierre-Louis said the RIAA isn't afraid of a consumer backlash. "We're facing a daunting challenge and we have to face it head-on," he said.
Tammy Lafky is facing her own challenge. She said she doesn't know what she'll do. "I told her," she said, referring to the record company lawyer, "if I had the money I would give it to you, but I don't have it."
Hasn't anyone here ever heard of REAL Rhapsody---I came upon it by accident as a popup when I downloaded REALPlayer for something. A 14 day free trial, for 24 hrs. a day access to 700,000 songs and/or pieces of recorded whatever.
After the trial you can purchase full access for $24.95 per quarter, about $8/month. I've found some incredible stuff on it, especially jazz. You can't download but you can burn any tune onto a CD for 79 cents each. But you also have a Playlist which is there on the left side of the screen that you can access anytime you want: all the songs you've listened to wind up on the playlist, unless you remove them. So you can continually add to this playlist, and listen to it anytime you want. I guess burning a CD would be for the convenience of carrying around your favorite CD mix with you when you travel, or are away from your computer. I LOVE it!!!
I don't know about the others, but I know that Kazaa is quite advanced in that it can download the same file from multiple users at the same time (if there are other users who have the same file that you do, which is likely to be the case for anything you download from Kazaa).
So it is indeed quite possible to share files on a dialup connection, and if someone is downloading on a dialup connection, Kazaa will probably upload the files from users who are on dialup connections (those who are on DSL or cable connections are likely not going to be patient enough for that!).
It blocks certain IP addresses that are hostile. The RIAA can ESOD.
"..........Never mind. I don't want to get banned."
I'm sure I've been insulted worse than what you had in mind. It's part of the private investigation work we do and there's nothing wrong with it. I have no problem with tracking down people who've stiffed all their creditors, run out on court judgements and left accident victims with no compensation, and so forth. I'm not talking about a kid who downloads music - I'm talking about the dregs of society who go through life screwing everybody and never having to account for anything. Those bums cost all of us...right?
I think Orrin Hatch knows his days are numbered. A couple of days ago he actually supported legislation against illegal aliens, instead of that which makes their life easier.
I have served process ONE time. I was working as a paralegal and my boss had me do it as a favor to one of his beer-buddies. (It was a divorce case.)
The look of horror on the poor woman's face took me by the heart. I sat down with her and told her how she had to get her own lawyer double-quick.
I went back to the office and told the boss that he would have to hire someone else to do that dirty work.
Strangely enough, he did not fire me, he respected me.
If you want to make your money serving process, by all means do so.
It's real hard to shower off the FILTH afterwards.
That might not be as smart an idea as it seems. When I got my freebie iTunes from the Pepsi promotion (my family drinks a LOT of Diet Pepsi) I immediately ran Total Recorder while playing the songs on the iTunes application. I could save them as MP3's, and transfer them all over the house on my wireless network. I never bought, and never will buy an iPod, and there are millions like me.
As soon as others figure this out, iTunes becomes a loss, not a loss leader. Online music sales have to make sense from a profit standpoint if that delivery method is to become viable. I just don't see it happening with technology always one step (or more) ahead.
Zone Alarm will do the same as Proto Wall? Or will ZA allow them to pry?
Firewalls like Protowall (or PeerGuardian, another popular firewall of this type) have a list of known RIAA, FBI, and other IP addresses, which they block from seeing your Kazaa shared folder/rest of your computer. Zonealarm(which I do use as my firewall), doesn't have this type of list; the RIAA can still see your shared folder if you have Kazaa & Zonealarm running. The protection Zonealarm provides is differnet - it prevents people from port scanning, and seeing if your machine is open, and it prevents programs you don't authorize from making internet connections. But if you allow Kazaa to connect to the net with zonealarm, then anyone will be able to see what you are sharing.
You should! They're great!!!
You can "tune in" to Internet radio stations and it will record them and save each song to your hard drive as an MP3. It figures out what the song is and saves the file with the artist and song title as part of the filename!
You can record multiple stations at once, so you can build up a collection of songs rather quickly. Also, there is no way for the RIAA to "track" you since you are simply streaming audio, not sharing files. Besides, I don't see this as any different than recording FM radio to tape, which I used to do occasionally.
All this for $17.95 -- a far cry from the thousands of dollars you are risking by using P2P networks to download songs! And a lot cheaper than $0.99 per song.
My kids download a few..........a FEW..........songs here or there. If the RIAA tried to hand me a bill, I'd tell them to go f**k themselves.
WHY did the RIAA select this particular individual for suing? I have been following the music download battle for a while and it seems to me that the RIAA's selection of the "pirates" they decide to go after is completely arbitrary. If three people walk into a corner grocery store and shoot the clerk, the police don't try to apprehend just one of them.
Also, HOW are downloaders identified? Is there some kind of spyware used?
You're right. My husband is a physician, and when he sees a patient that he knows has no means to pay, he just writes it off. Doesn't even bother to attempt to collect past 90 days. If they don't have the money, then suing, contacting credit agencies, etc. is just a waste of time and money/resources
Why the heck was my first comment removed? Did someone get their panties in a twist over a blanked out swear word?
Copywrights should have an expiration, just like patents.
You can try to avoid service, but there are other ways you can be served. Let's face it, if it were that easy, no one would ever be sued....
They obtain the IP address and use it to track to the ISP and then to the user.
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