[npc] Music Companies Sue 8,000 More in Anti-Sharing Fight

["Dennis Moore" <clayboy56>]

Music Companies Sue 8,000 More in Anti-Sharing Fight
Trade Group Files Cases in 17 Nations

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701289.html?referrer=email

By Jane Wardell
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 18, 2006; Page D10

LONDON, Oct. 17 -- The international record industry filed thousands
more lawsuits around the world Tuesday against people it accuses of
illegally sharing digital music.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry filed 8,000
cases in 17 countries, including its first in South America and
Eastern Europe.

The lawsuits, which are aimed at "uploaders," include criminal and
civil cases. Uploaders have put hundreds or thousands of copyrighted
songs onto Internet file-sharing networks and offered them to millions
of people worldwide without permission from the copyright owners.

The industry contends that such file-sharing has cost it billions of
dollars in lost revenue.

The London federation, which represents 1,450 record companies around
the world, said many of the people targeted are the parents of
children who shared music files.

The music industry has been criticized for targeting individual
Internet users in its legal warfare against piracy instead of the
Internet service providers that host file-swapping sites. The ISPs are
harder to pursue legally because they can claim to have no knowledge
of piracy occurring on their networks.

"Around the world many people have already paid a heavy price for
their illegal file-sharing," said John Kennedy, chairman of the
federation. "They all thought they were unlikely to be caught, but
teachers, postal workers . . . scientists and people in a host of
other occupations, as well as parents, have ended up having to dig
deeply into their pockets.

"There is no excuse. People should understand that they can be caught
whatever network they are using."

Legal action was extended for the first time to Brazil, where the
industry federation said more than 1 billion music tracks were
illegally downloaded last year and where record company revenue fell
to $395 million last year from $724.7 million in 2000. Lawsuits were
also filed for the first time in Mexico and Poland.

The federation said more than 2,300 people have been fined or paid
compensation averaging nearly $3,100.

The countries included in the new wave of lawsuits are Argentina,
Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong,
Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal,
Singapore and Switzerland.

The federation said it targeted uploaders using major unauthorized
services, including BitTorrent, eDonkey, DirectConnect, Gnutella,
LimeWire, SoulSeek and WinMX.

The group added that it was heartened by court judgments around the
world in recent months that it said establish the liability of such
operators for copyright infringement that they facilitate or promote
and from which they benefit.