Bad pirates to good pirates

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" is reportedly the music industry's new modus operandi, and it's music pirates it was never quite able to beat. Though it certainly tried, with thousands of lawsuits and settlements out of court with file-sharers. "After years of futile efforts to stop digital pirates from copying its music, the music business has started to copy the pirates," the New York Times reports. "Free" music services offering millions of songs online and on phones are "set to proliferate" this year, it adds, bringing stiff competition to iTunes, whose music-sales growth ended last year. Customers' costs will be buried in mobile or Internet-service contracts. These music services are also different from file-sharing services like Limewire or eDonkey in that they're legal and provide revenue to the music companies. Two examples of the "free services": 1) Nokia's Comes With Music, which "lets users download as many songs as they want, from a catalog of more than five million tracks, when they buy certain Nokia phones" and 2) and the Isle of Man government's plan to require broadband Internet users to "pay a nominal monthly license fee" and thereby "legally download music from any source, even peer-to-peer services that are outlawed currently." At a music industry conference in Cannes, a Research in Motion executive predicted that "the music industry will be unrecognizable in a couple of years time," Reuters reports. Here's some background on the music industry in the Financial Times. Meanwhile, LimeWire - which has 70 million unique users and gets more than 5 billion queries a month - just added social-networking features to its service, CNET reports.

RIAA to stop suing 'pirates'

After suing some 35,000 people since 2003, the RIAA apparently has decided to stop going after individual file-sharers for pirating music - well, most of them. What the recording industry trade association "should have said," CNET blogger Greg Sandoval reports, "is that it won't go after most people who illegally file share. My music industry sources say that the RIAA will continue to file lawsuits against the most egregious offenders - the person who 'downloads 5,000 or 6,000 songs a month is still going to get sued'." The main strategy now, reportedly, is to get Internet service providers to do the policing. The RIAA says it has preliminary agreements with some ISPs but won't say which, the Wall Street Journal reports. "Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

Harvard prof on RIAA anti-piracy tactics

The number of challenges to the US recording industry's approach to copyright infringement is on the rise. But a new challenge, by Harvard law professor Charles Nesson, has "opened a new front" in the battle between the RIAA and music file-sharers, Computerworld reports. It challenges the constitutionality of the statute the RIAA has used in thousands of cases against file-sharers. Nesson argues that it's a criminal statute unlawful to use in civil cases. "He also challenged the constitutionality of the steep penalties for copyright violations that are provided under the act. The penalties range from $750 to $30,000 per infringement, with a maximum of $150,000 for certain willful violations," according to Computerworld. Nesson likens the tactics to the creation of a "private police force giving out million-dollar tickets ... using the courts as "collection agencies." So far legal challenges to the RIAA's campaign "have tended to focus on the constitutionality of the statutory fines provided under the copyright act," Computerworld adds. BTW, for your kids or students, here's a fun, animated explanation of fair use in copyright law, "A Fair(y) Use Tale" at YouTube. It's by Prof. Eric Faden of Bucknell University and, as he puts it, "delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms." See also "Defending remixers, future artists."

US's new IP law

What surprised me about this new law, just signed by President Bush, is that it creates a Cabinet-level position for intellectual property enforcement coordination, CNET reports. The "Pro-IP Act" also "steepens penalties for intellectual-property infringement [though the penalties against families of P2P file-sharers, who probably will also be affected, seem to have been stiff enough], and increases resources for the Department of Justice to coordinate for federal and state efforts against counterfeiting and piracy." The US Chamber of Commerce told CNET that American intellectual property is worth more than $5 trillion and "accounts for more than half of all US exports." The law was backed by the US Chamber, the Recording Industry Association of America, large media companies, and the AFL-CIO. Opposition came from, among others, the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge.

A mom sues RIAA back

Tanya Andersen, former target of a recording industry lawsuit for copyright theft via file-sharing, is suing back for malicious prosecution, ArsTechnica.com reports. Her suit, filed last week in a US District Court in Oregon, “accuses the RIAA of a number of misdeeds, including invasion of privacy, libel and slander, and deceptive business practices.” The RIAA’s case against her was dismissed earlier this month. Here, too, is a Wired blog post on the subject.