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Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Jun 25th 2003 12:03pm





RIAA Plans Lawsuits Against File Traders

from the sue-your-customers! dept

It appears that the music industry really does mean to go through with their plans to sue all their customers. They are getting ready to file hundreds of lawsuits against people they say are trading illegal files, and plan to keep filing the lawsuits until people stop. That the people they're suing are the biggest "fans" of the music they're producing doesn't seem to occur to the industry. That this might be an opportunity for a business to make money doesn't seem to occur to the industry. Instead, the lawyers in control have convinced them that antagonizing their customers is the way to build a business. As the head of Grokster points out, this is "nothing short of lunacy." It also brings up the quote we posted last week: "When your product is stolen by thieves, you have a police problem. When it is stolen by millions of honest customers, you have a marketing problem." Studies show that 57 million people use file trading software. Those are 57 million fans of music, who are about to hate the music industry. This is a monumentally backwards move by the industry.

6 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jun 25th, 2003 @ 1:24pm

    On the flip side, if these file-sharers aren't buying any music to begin with, what does the music have to lose ? Nothing,,, and everything to gain. Good lawyering.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    Chris, Jun 25th, 2003 @ 2:10pm

    But they are buying music. File traders buy lots of CD's. Granted, a certain subset of students prefer to download over buy - but if MP3 didn't exist theose students still wouldn't be buying. They are poor college students - they don't have the money anyway. What the music industry is doing is alientating their future customers.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: No Subject Given

    icon
    Mike (profile), Jun 25th, 2003 @ 2:42pm

    Not only that, but they are also making sure that music fans agree not to spend money on peripheral things like concerts and t-shirts.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    easy fix for the average joe:

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jun 25th, 2003 @ 5:40pm

    ...go buy a wireless access point *TODAY* and configure it for open access, lower your MTU on all non-filesharing machines and NAT heavily. Make sure that you share from a wireless computer that is well hidden.

    It's all about resonable doubt (or Plasuable Deniability as the CIA calls it).

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re: No Subject Given

    identicon
    satarc, Jun 26th, 2003 @ 5:52am

    lol, phoo!

    ;p

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    Re: easy fix for the average joe:

    identicon
    CHIA GARCIA, Jun 26th, 2003 @ 2:25pm

    I usually proxy in from cuba or some weird country like that.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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