Verizon Hears the Music
Judge orders company to release ID of online music swapper
COMBINED NEWS SERVICES
January 22, 2003
Washington - In a victory for the music industry, a federal judge yesterday ordered Verizon Internet Services to hand over the identity of a customer who had downloaded more than 600 songs from the Internet in a single day.
The decision by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates upheld the recording industry's power under a 1998 law to compel Internet providers to identify customers who allegedly violated music or movie copyrights by downloading or sharing files.
Bates acknowledged that the case was an important test of subpoena powers Congress granted to copyright holders under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The judge said that controversial law, which was enacted to uphold copyrights online, permits music companies to force Internet providers to turn over the name of a suspected pirate upon subpoena from any U.S. District Court clerk's office, without a judge's order. Some critics have argued for greater supervision of this process by a judge.
Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, said once the group identified the customer, it would "let them know that what they are doing is illegal."
But Verizon promised to appeal and said it would not immediately provide its customer's identity, nor would it change its Internet access to disrupt file-sharing. The ruling had "troubling ramifications" for future growth of the Internet, said Verizon's associate general counsel, Sarah B. Deutsch.
During a contentious hearing in October, the judge lamented ambiguities in the copyright act, saying that Congress "could have made this statute clearer." At the time, the music industry indicated that a ruling in its favor could result in reams of warnings to scare Internet pirates into taking their collections offline.
Verizon, the biggest U.S. local-telephone company, argued that the music industry doesn't have authority to obtain such information because the music isn't stored on the service provider's network.
The case began last summer when the music industry association served a subpoena on Verizon, seeking information about an anonymous user who had downloaded the songs through the Kazaa file-sharing network. The music association said it had been able to identify the Internet Protocol, or IP address of the computer, as well as the time of day the downloads had taken place.
This such a huge load of crap. The RIAA can't tell Verizon, a privately owned company what they can and can't do on their network. It's Verizon's duty to enforce things on their network. Not the recording industry.
I hope for the day that the recording industry will go bankrupt. They're nothing but greedy people who don't know a good song or good artist!
I think the reacording industy is getting way out of line. They should ask them selves a question 2. What are some other reason sells are down. The number one reason is there is just nouthing new out there. It is all the same. Also Kazaa and napster (when it was up) help me discover never bands that I never heard of and BECAUSE I like them I went out and bought there cds. I for one have spent more money this year on new cds that I have in the past because of program like Kazaa and winMX. Another reason sells are down is because they charge way to much for that peice of plasic. If the cost was more reasable I would buy more. Hell for the cost of a cd I can get a nice computer game that I would enjoy longer. For hte cost of 2-3 cds I can get my favorit computer games. I am a collage student I do not have the a large chunk of change to spend on cds and I only going to buy the ones of the groups I like.
Lastly I a lot of the music I download off kazaa are songs that can no longer be boughten on cds because they were discounted (Rockapella and some others). Or the songs are from cds that I can not find any where. A large chunk of it is from imported music that I can not buy here in the states yet and if I could buy the cds I WOULD DAMN IT. Like some of NIGHTWISH's cds, and some others from japan and what not. SO THERE. The record compains are cause tehre own problems in there pocect books not programs like kazaa.
Has any one else noticed that the companies the RIAA has asked to help them keep on giving a very firm "NO!"? I think if the RIAA wants any help they are going to have to give these companies a reason to help them (ie money).
aclauser wrote:Has any one else noticed that the companies the RIAA has asked to help them keep on giving a very firm "NO!"? I think if the RIAA wants any help they are going to have to give these companies a reason to help them (ie money).
They have no money to give. They've been loosing money for years.
Has anyone actually read any of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act? This act is actually an extenuation of the Copyright Act, Title 17 of the Revised US Code. This specific extension is basically protecting the digital form of personal expression from being misused. I only know this because I did a paper on Copyright Laws for a legal studies class this past summer.
I do not see a problem with downloading a couple of songs here or there from the internet, as long as it isn't being used for profit. If you use it in a similar way as the old idea of recording a mix of songs on a casette (seems like a long time ago, I know... ) then everything is ok.
But, for someone to download 600 songs in a day is ridiculous. By downloading that many in that short of a timespan leads me to make the assumption he is doing so to try to make a profit off of the music instead of for personal listening use.
And actually, the RIAA isn't the one telling Verizon what to do. Its the US District Court. If Verizon doesn't like the decision, they can appeal to the US Court of Appeals and then the Supreme Court if the appeal failed. I do not think they will win in either of the higher courts if they did appeal. That's just my own opinion though.
The diffrence with Napster is it was all on one server, making it easy to target. Kazaa is not all on one server so it is hard to attack Kazaa. As it is Kazaa shares the basic server with 2 other companies/programs.
Now with the 600 songs in one day that is a lot, and I agree odd that someone would download that much music all in one day for him self.
The court has told Verizon to share the infomation now... Yet they still refuse until they appeal the order. I think its intresting that Verizon is so against this to a point where they would so blatently go against the orders of the court.
aclauser wrote:The court has told Verizon to share the infomation now... Yet they still refuse until they appeal the order. I think its intresting that Verizon is so against this to a point where they would so blatently go against the orders of the court.
It's simple really. Verizon doesn't agree with the ruling, and until the appeal is denied, they aren't going to share information about their customers. It's nice to finally see a company that really watches out for their customers.
aclauser wrote:The court has told Verizon to share the infomation now... Yet they still refuse until they appeal the order. I think its intresting that Verizon is so against this to a point where they would so blatently go against the orders of the court.
It's simple really. Verizon doesn't agree with the ruling, and until the appeal is denied, they aren't going to share information about their customers. It's nice to finally see a company that really watches out for their customers.
More so if Verizon share it info it would look bad on them and it would hurt them in the pocket book because people will choose to stop using them.
Timelessblur wrote:More so if Verizon share it info it would look bad on them and it would hurt them in the pocket book because people will choose to stop using them.
To an extent yes. To me, Verizon doesn't want to look like the bad guy. They're protecting the little people--the consumers. They may take a bit of a financial hit if they hold out longer, but it appears that to Verizon, it's woth it as long as they can protect their customers.
Timelessblur wrote:More so if Verizon share it info it would look bad on them and it would hurt them in the pocket book because people will choose to stop using them.
To an extent yes. To me, Verizon doesn't want to look like the bad guy. They're protecting the little people--the consumers. They may take a bit of a financial hit if they hold out longer, but it appears that to Verizon, it's woth it as long as they can protect their customers.
I teand to disagree there. I would go a long the line that it only worth it as long as they come out with more money in the end. It the way capisim works. So if giving them the names would save them more money they they could loss I bet they would do it in a heart bet
Your right to a extent. In the short term this could cause them to lose money for holding out, but in the long run it might be better since they won't be lossing members because of this...
A. Hold out and get sued / Keep members
B. Give infomation / Lose members
Depending on the exact numbers A would be the best choice as far as I can see.
) then everything is ok.