AfterDawn: News

More P2P lawsuits from RIAA

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Wednesday filed yet another 754 lawsuits against P2P users it alleges to be illegally uploading copyrighted music on the networks. This is not surprising news anymore as the RIAA continues to believe that these sue-em-all tactics are actually working. They were filed in district courts all across the U.S.

On the RIAA hitlist to date have been some strange candidates for pirates, including a 12 year old girl and a dead grandmother (83). This has made many experts uneasy and sceptical about the tactics the RIAA is using to gather the information required to file a lawsuit. Some legal experts even believe that an IP address is simply not enough evidence to sustain a lawsuit, and that's all the RIAA has to go on while filing these John Doe suits.



There has also been numerous concerns raised about privacy and whether spying on people's shared folders on P2P networks is actually legal. Nevertheless, the RIAA's infamous lawsuits against 10,000+ Americans have never been challenged by even 1 single person who was sued.

Source:
Reuters

Written by: James Delahunty @ 1 Sep 2005 14:05

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• 27 comments

• Lethal_B

  blah blah blah blah blah. this is the most painful ongoing saga. i'n not going to rant on because ive done it so many times before. but with 14000 sued with the millions upon millions of users, its no wonder no one gives 2 $hit$ xcept for the people that get sued

  1.9.2005 14:29 #1

• Neviar

  dont give in people - if they can humble us, all the more fuel to them and other corporations in choosing a fear and control method over reason, logic, and fariness in solving their problems.

  1.9.2005 16:39 #2

• nonoitall

  I really hope someone gets them into court soon. This is pure idiocy.

  1.9.2005 20:41 #3

• gamepro1

  

  1.9.2005 22:51 #4

• sisph

  I don't think you guys are getting it. Maybe its just me and my parnaoia. The RIAA knows EXACTLY WHO THEY ARE TARGETING. They're getting the people they know won't fight back. The dead grandmother aside they're targeting children, probably the poor and people who won't go try and go against them. That way they gain court precedents and try to create deterrence among the rest of the P2P community. They would never try and sue say a head member of afterdawn.com that is well versed in P2P politics and who has money to fight the case. They would never risk having another major win for the pro P2P users.
  
  But it could just be me.

  1.9.2005 23:42 #5

• benjers

  Quote:Maybe its just me and my parnaoia. The RIAA knows EXACTLY WHO THEY ARE TARGETINGhow? can they see them?? they dont know who is behind the i.p. remember only adults can order an internet service. if an AD admin was caught p2ping... would that make a difference?? the RIAA wouldnt know where they live.
  
  they are trying to scare us, and with you its obviously working.

  2.9.2005 02:32 #6

• Spiridon

  Quote:how? can they see them?? they dont know who is behind the i.p. ah, indeed... they only have a IP number that they can link to ISP X, they will first have to ask ISP X to give up the personal information of customer Y who uses IP Z.
  
  Now maybe it is just me, but are the ISP in the US that easy and careless about their customers and just give up they name, adress, phone number, and what else we have?
  
  where I live they will have to get a court order, and for that they will need alot of proof. not just the usualy "yeah this IP downloaded some songs" because the ISP here in the netherlands would fight back with "well maybe they got hacked, we will notify them to check their system with some tools, so for now stop bugging us about giving up their personal information with that little proof"
  
  But I guess that the ISP's in the US are just too pussy to even stand up and prefer to lose a few customers then getting a good name and defend their privacy.

  2.9.2005 03:08 #7

• S2K

  ade vre spiro,
  I hope you are not refering to Greece with the "where I live" as the ISP's there are not better than the US and the laws even less protective of te subscriber

  2.9.2005 16:24 #8

• DTrainer

  [Q]Now maybe it is just me, but are the ISP in the US that easy and careless about their customers and just give up they name, adress, phone number, and what else we have? [/Q]
  
  
  Just a thought but AOL - Warner Bros???

  2.9.2005 17:40 #9

• slower1

  if say u live in Britain and use say Tiscali (Italian)
  ISP and u download USA films, can u still get sued and if so, who or how would they do it. As recently a judge said it was ilegal but only made British ISPs hand over the IDs.
  concerned.
  Slower.

  3.9.2005 03:52 #10

• necronite

  Quote:Now maybe it is just me, but are the ISP in the US that easy and careless about their customers and just give up they name, adress, phone number, and what else we have? yeah. i got a letter form my ISP for uploading hotel rwanda to an mpaa agent. they say that if i do this again, they will have no discourse but to revoke my broadband and hand me over to the authorities. i suspect the RIAA will act with the same bullying tactics.
  
  the bad thing about this is that I've become a total leecher. i would not survice 1 day on those sites that ask you to maintain a ratio. it sux, i know.

  3.9.2005 04:31 #11

• Toiletman

  What's with the 754 magic number?

  3.9.2005 10:01 #12

• Spiridon

  S2K:
  No if you read my comment 1 line more you would have found out that I like in the Netherlands.
  
  DTrainer:
  AOL, I heard it sucks, I have no idea who owns it or whatever... To me, it is just a name... But if you say WB owns AOL then I will take your word for it :)
  
  necronite:
  I got an email before as well, I think from leeching off kazaa because Bittorrent wasnt very populair yet at the time... Ah well, of cource nothing after that happened, I think that the ISP employees in the EU have more balls >:D

  3.9.2005 13:34 #13

• laenld

  If someone would start a legal fund for the person willing to take on RIAA I would donate.

  3.9.2005 17:48 #14

• DTrainer

  Spiridon,
  Don`t take my word for it take a look here,
  http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/timewarner.asp
  Would never use it myself either but according to my web logs there are a lot out there who do.

  4.9.2005 03:43 #15

• gr8jeep

  Hmmm, i use an isp which is owned by Time Warner and have yet to be hassled at all , i also noticed that my ip address randomly changes , do they do this to protect their users or is this common practice ??? I am a frequent user on teamspeak for online gaming and if i connect to a friends ip on teamspeak their ip is always the same , why would mine change , any ideas??? By the way this is a greatsite , keep up the great work Afterdawn!!!!!!

  5.9.2005 05:53 #16

• Spiridon

  gr8jeep:
  It is notthing to be afraid of... You just have a dynamic IP, most likely it changes every time you reboot your computer, or every few hours.
  
  Why they do this I don't know, maybe to make it harder for people to run a server at home. And I guess that in some way it also prevents from hackers reconnecting to your machine if you would ever be hacked.
  
  My ex-gf had the same with her ISP, it not all that interesting.

  5.9.2005 08:26 #17

• nonoitall

  Dynamic IPs make little difference. The ISP keeps logs of who has what IP at what time.

  5.9.2005 12:30 #18

• necronite

  Quote: gr8jeep:
  It is notthing to be afraid of... You just have a dynamic IP, most likely it changes every time you reboot your computer, or every few hours.
  
  Why they do this I don't know, maybe to make it harder for people to run a server at home. And I guess that in some way it also prevents from hackers reconnecting to your machine if you would ever be hacked.dynamic ips are cheaper. If a company has like 10k dynamic ips, then can have like 15k users. When one person logs off, that ip will be reassigned to a new person logging on.
  
  a company can also 'lease' an address for a certain amount of time, and so you get the same address for let's say 1 month. you can log off and on within that month and it will stay the same, but next month it will be different.
  
  I run a server at home which is almost always connected, so I will usually have the same ip. But if I want to host anything, I will have to use a site like dyndns.org to track any changes to my address.

  6.9.2005 06:39 #19

• Sheariah

  The dynamic IP's are not to protect; it's to save $$ for the ISP so they don't have to have as many IP's to hand out as they have customers. They figure not everyone will be using the IP's all at the same time.
  
  I also have serious concerns about ISP's handing out the personal info on their customers. I don't believe an ISP should provide any information without a Court order and I don't think a Court Order should be issued unless someone's life is could be in danger (terrorist activities, abduction of minors, etc.) but certainly not for downloading music or movies. I think our privacy is of more concern than whether the RIAA might be losing a few cents (or a lot of sense). They are not losing any money and people are still buying music and going to movies and renting DVD's.
  
  The music I download is stuff I can't find in the stores. I've downloaded a few movies and I can tell you, they are not of a quality worth burning to a DVD, but I have been so disappointeed witht he movies I've paid to see lately that I'd like to know if they are worth paying for and if OK for the kids/teens to watch.

  6.9.2005 06:45 #20

• DTrainer

  gr8geep,
  I advise you change your IP as soon as possible and check out any future provider before signing.
  
  Hey, do I sound anti-AOL or what? lol. Shouldn`t really they just sent me a new dvd case bless `em.
  
  But from what they are saying they probably already got you on a list, just deny, deny, DENY. Something like, "What up/downloads?". "I have no idea what you are talking about! Must have been that private LAN party, held an open invite. We played <insert MP game of choice> , it was AWESOME didn`t even know half of the peeps there!!".
  

  6.9.2005 16:37 #21

• S2K

  Ironically, IPS in the Netherlands are more likly to have to give up your info than those in the U.S.

  10.9.2005 14:49 #22

• S2K

  Ironically, ISPs in the Netherlands are more likly to have to give up your info than those in the U.S.

  10.9.2005 14:49 #23

• fulmont99

  Hi,
  just reading this and thinking their is no real way around it. I dont know if any1 knows but i think you are tracked by your ip address(feel free to correct me, im all ears). If this is the case surely if i can find a way to have a dynamic ip addressing system i am almost untracable?
  
  If any1 knows a way of getting around this please post, then we can all steal in peace!

  6.10.2005 06:42 #24

• fulmont99

  surely even if your ISP knows its you it will look like a different person each time to these RIAA croud etc!

  6.10.2005 06:43 #25

• DTrainer

  Even a dynamic IP can easily be traced as the ISP basically has a bunch of IP`s allocated that it assigns to any of it`s customers who go on line. The ISP will then have logs as to which customer was using which IP at a given time so it`s up to them whether they offer such information to a third party. Therefore it makes very little difference dynamic or static it`s just a case of how quickly your ISP will offer the `confidential` information after being threatened.
  

  6.10.2005 10:25 #26

• evilh0ly

  i hate these isps they are corrupted and in my situation i live in fairfield county CT we only have two boardband providers one's cablevision and one's sbcglobal both over charge and both sux.
  
  cablevision uses to cap my bandwidth it sux i know.
  

  80 or less piz get the fxxk out of the left lane.

  6.10.2005 11:09 #27