Woman Silenced by Music Mafia

So that means she's ignoring me. Or she wants to talk to me, but can't, because the Recording Industry Association of America won't let her.

In December, Evelyn found out she had been targeted by the RIAA in its ever increasing crusade against children, mothers and senior citizens who don't uncheck the "share" option in their peer-to-peer downloading software.

The Daily Texan office received Evelyn's call on the last press day before winter break. She had received a notice from Time Warner stating that they were subpoenaed into releasing her personal information in a New York federal court.

Included in the document was a number to a settlement center where they told her they had counted 956 shared files. If she had 457 less files, then she might have been overlooked by the RIAA, she was told. The company was sending her a packet of settlement documents, and she had 90 days to respond, lest her "Jane Doe" case be upgraded to her real name in court.

Just as freely as she gave information, she was pumping me for information so she could get a better grasp on the situation before her. Other than former student Jason Gonzales, there were no other UT students who had revealed they were being sued by the RIAA, I told her. He opted to settle out-of-court, as countless others have, rather than face down the seemingly invincible army of Armani at the RIAA's disposal.

The only person to return my call that day was the person I assumed would be the hardest to contact. "We are always open to settlement discussions with anyone," said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy. "If someone prefers not to settle, they of course have the opportunity to raise their objections in court. We stand by our claims."

I promised Evelyn I would follow up on her story after the break. Once the semester began, I started digging.

The RIAA most likely sought her name under a provision in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows copyright holders to issue subpoenas to Internet Service Providers for the names of alleged offenders before filing a lawsuit. The DMCA subpoenas do not need the approval of a judge; instead, the law directs court clerks to issue the subpoenas.

It was an ingenious plan: Lawyers would pay around $200 in court fees to subpoena an ISP into revealing the owners of a list of IP addresses the RIAA had accumulated. Before November, the RIAA was able to gather around 50 identities per subpoena. Assuming each person received a letter with a phone number to a similar settlement center, and each person decided to pay a little now instead of a lot later by settling, and each person settled for the then-average $3,000, then for $200 the RIAA could make an easy $150,000.

In some federal courts, that is still the case. However, the federal courts in Austin decided that the RIAA may no longer file blanket-style subpoenas and must file separate paperwork for each IP address. This changed little except the RIAA's strategy and jacked up the average price of settlements from $3,000 to $4,000. After all, the RIAA had to now invest $10,000 instead of $200 to get their $150,000.

In January, the Big Music Mafia boasted it had launched another 717 lawsuits against people who share music online, bringing the total number of those victimized to a shocking 8,423. If each one of these victims settled at the pre-inflated average of $3,000, then the RIAA is set to make an easy $25,269,000.

A few ISPs in Washington, D.C., such as Verizon and Pacific Bell, have stood up to the RIAA cartel and have so far, successfully argued that these subpoenas were too easy to obtain and could destroy Internet privacy.

Unfortunately, in Austin there exist only cable companies with conflicts of interest.

Time Warner Cable is part of a media conglomerate that also owns a music label. Grande Communications makes $150 for every identity they release.

"I don't know why their policy is that way," said Mark Harrad, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable, referring to the ISPs opposing the RIAA, "But I suspect that a large publicly traded company would not want to have a public policy position contrary to the law."

Besides, while they're obligated legally to obey the subpoena, they aren't obligated to send out notices to the customers about to be reamed by the RIAA, Harrad said in less vulgar terms. Apparently, people should be grateful that, while Time Warner sends its customers up a creek, they're told two weeks ahead of time to start packing.

Andy Sarwal, vice president of corporate affairs at Grande, said his company was merely seeking compensation for Grande employees doing paralegal work for the RIAA.

"We've come to an agreement with the industries to set up standards in order to protect the privacy of customers who aren't at fault," he said.

In many instances, they have mistaken identities, particularly with college students in Austin, he said. When students receive Internet services there will be three-to-four people using it, and only one person will be tied to the IP address, Sarwal said.

I tried to call Evelyn. I left her multiple messages to no avail. It was too late. She must have settled. But not all was lost; I still had the phone number to the Settlement Center.

I found myself talking to a representative for The Settlement Service Center in Seattle, a business that conducts settlement negotiations with individuals who have been sued. I pretended to be a distressed student who just received a letter from Time Warner. I asked the man what the documents meant.

"There has been a John Doe lawsuit filed against your IP address. The letter you have received from Time Warner is an indication to you that the law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg, and Knupp in Los Angeles, attorneys for the record company, is seeking the personal information associated with that IP address."

"Time Warner will turn that info over to the law firm in a matter of days, and the letter is your opportunity to appear in court, if you wish to argue why or why not that information should be leaked. Nobody has won that argument, yet," he added.

Recalling what Sarwal said, I told him that it couldn't possibly have been me, that it was probably my roommates.

"If this is a roommate situation, you are still the one singled out, because you are the account holder for the Internet connection. You are responsible for activity on that account."

"You should settle with us and dispose of the situation, sir. If your roommates were the ones who actually did the downloading, and you never partook in downloading or listening to music or what not, you might be able to approach them and say, 'we have a problem, help me out here.' But at this point in time you will be the one who will remain on the subpoena."

He didn't mention that this was a fact I could bring up in court. He was trying to sell me on settling.

"And the roommates. We don't have any information pertaining to them, and they will not be pursued at this time," he said ominously.

I asked him if my credit would be affected. Would I be reported to any agencies?

"Not at this time; you are a John Doe. If the situation moves forward where I am not able to negotiate a settlement with you, it will go into a named situation, where you will be named in a federal lawsuit."

My shoulders felt heavier, and I felt my heart beat, panicked, even though I was just pretending to be sued.

"You will be served with a complaint and a summons to appear in court, and by that time your name will be public knowledge to all those people interested in who's being sued by whom."

"It won't affect your credit at this point," he continued. "But if you are named in a federal lawsuit, it could also affect your job opportunities, because on employment applications, many times they will ask, 'have you ever been party to a lawsuit?'

"And you would have to check 'yes' at that time, because that would be public knowledge," he said.

I thanked him for his time and said farewell, but not before he again assured me that I should settle.

If you're reading this, Evelyn, I can see why you didn't call me back. Having to put up with the RIAA's scare tactics to extort money from you, dealing with filed lawsuits intended to extract financial settlements, I can see why you'd want to put this whole ordeal behind you.

Tran is a philosophy senior. "Evelyn's" name has been changed to protect her identity.

Interesting choice of words.

I use ares, kazaa and Limewire. I have two folders in each. On is the "shared" folder and the other is the "not shared" folder. I periodically move stuff from shared to not shared to keep the number always below 100.

I also delete any files that turn out to be "bogus," if you get my drift. I had heard a song by Evenescence at a karaoke bar that I really liked and never head before. I tried to download it and other stuff on kazaa. Almost all the hits had blank spots, repeats of the first 10 seconds, or a bell ringing every 20 seconds or so. It was difficult to find a "non-bogus" copy. But I deleted them all to keep from propogating them. I left the good ones in the shared folder so others could sample as I did.

It resulted in me buying their DVD. And without file sharing I would never have done it. These guys are going for file sharers for one reason only: it is a new profit center. It has nothing to do with hurting sales. The lawsuits simply augment sales profit, like bad check fees and late fees augment a banks income - except the RIAA tries to hit people up $3,000 at a time.

Frankly, if they come to me, we WILL be in court.

And for the last time, downloading is completely legal, if it is for your own use.

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