James Delahunty
17 Dec 2004 10:05
The Recording Industry Association of America has continued its battle against file-sharing by suing yet another 754 U.S. file swappers it alleges to have distributed Copyrighted tracks through P2P networks. Among the 754 people are 20 students the RIAA accuses of using University networks to distribute MP3. This brings the total number sued to 7,704 since September 2003 when the RIAA first launched its campaign against unauthorized file sharing. European lawsuits did not follow until about a year later.
The RIAA is confident that this "sue em all" tactic is working and is slowing down file-sharing. However, latest studies have indicated that the RIAA's tactics have not effected P2P use overall, but that P2P use is growing at a huge rate. In order to issue a subpoena against the user's ISP, the RIAA first must gather evidence of the user's P2P activity. They can then retrieve the identity of user from the IP address that was being used for infringement from the ISP. In some cases in the U.S. the RIAA have to file a "john doe" lawsuit against the defendant before they will even learn the true identity of the user.
Source:
BBC News