Good Morning Silicon Valley: Thursday July 17, 2003: RIAA subpoen as a prelude to "Shock & Awe":

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

RIAA subpoenas a prelude to "Shock & Awe": The Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) is preparing to made good on its threat to sue
those who illegally distribute music over the Internet. Last week the
association issued subpoenas to Verizon Communications, Earthlink,
<http://www.nypost.com/business/795.htm>  and DePaul
<http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-depaul17.html> and Loyola
universities <http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6311463.htm> ,
forcing them to reveal the identities of suspected file-swappers. "This
should not come as a surprise to anyone," said a spokeswoman for the RIAA
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;cid=582&amp;ncid=582&amp;e=
2&amp;u=/nm/20030716/wr_nm/media_riaa_dc> . "Filing information subpoenas is
exactly what we said we'd do a couple of weeks ago when we announced that we
were gathering evidence to file lawsuits." Critics were quick to lambaste
the RIAA for its heavy-handed methods. "This latest effort really indicates
the recording industry has lost touch with reality completely," said Fred
von Lohmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/14/tech/main563234.shtml> . "Does
anyone think more lawsuits are going to be the answer? Today they have
declared war on the American consumer."

If von Lohmann thinks the RIAA's offensive is, well, offensive, wait until
he gets a load of some new legislation making its way through Congress.
Introduced by representatives and entertainment cartel sock puppets John
Conyers and Howard Berman, the Author, Consumer and Computer Owner
Protection and Security Act of 2003
<http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/20030716_conyer-berman.php> , or ACCOPS, would
make uploading a copyrighted file to a peer-to-peer network a felony
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;cid=582&amp;ncid=582&amp;e=
3&amp;u=/nm/20030716/wr_nm/congress_internet_dc>  punishable by up to five
years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each uploaded file. Great work
guys... 

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