Following up on the 261 lawsuits filed in early September against illegal music file-sharers, the Recording Industry Association of America announced Monday that it had reached settlements with 64 offenders.
Of the 64 settlements, 52 came from the pool of recent lawsuits, while 12 were pre-litigation settlements from individuals who were aware they had been subpoenaed, but had not yet been sued.
Even as settlements begin to be reached in this latest round of litigation, the rolling process of finding illegal file-sharers, issuing subpoenas and filing lawsuits will continue, RIAA spokesperson Jonathan Lamy said.
"Even right now as we are filing and settling lawsuits, we are collecting more evidence for the purpose of filing the next round of lawsuits in October," Lamy said.
The recording industry followed through on its pledge to prosecute individuals illegally sharing copyrighted files over peer-to-peer Napster-like networks in July when it subpoenaed over 800 individuals in Washington, D.C.'s U.S. District Court. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online nonprofit group that opposes the lawsuits, 1,323 subpoenas have been filed in U.S. District Courts as of earlier this month.
Dartmouth has not received any of the RIAA subpoenas, according to College General Counsel Bob Donin.
Donin was unable to speculate as to how the College would react if served a subpoena, when interviewed in July, but said that "if the subpoena is valid and enforceable, then the service provider [or Dartmouth] would be required to provide the requested information to the party serving the subpoena."
Those subpoenas culminated in the first round of lawsuits in September with 261 lawsuits being filed against individuals sharing an average of 1000 files, according to Lamy. The next round of lawsuits should surface in October.
Immediately following the announcement of the lawsuits on Sept. 8, the RIAA announced its "clean slate" program through which individuals may be granted amnesty for previous illegal file-sharing transgressions.
Individuals interested in participating in the clean slate program are required to sign and notarize a two-page affidavit and pledge to "delete any illegally obtained music files and pledge to not download or distribute copyrighted works in the future," Lamy said.
Thus far almost 900 affidavits have been submitted to the RIAA, Lamy said. Those seeking the "comfort and peace of mind" of the clean slate program and who are "interested in resolving any potential liability" are directed to the RIAA's educational website, www.musicunited.org, where a copy of the affidavit can be found, Lamy said.
Though there is not an established punishment for continuing to share copyrighted music after signing the affidavit, Lamy pointed out that if someone were to violate the signed affidavit they would "face the possibility of criminal prosecution."
"We think that if someone is going to take our offer we are going to assume they are operating in good faith," Lamy said. "We are not going to monitor them."
Another recent program initiated to give individuals an opportunity to cease sharing files prior to lawsuits or subpoenas began in April over the popularly used AOL Instant Messenger.
"We developed a software program to identify people sharing songs illegally over Kazaa or Grokster, and send them an instant message which basically says 'Do you know that what you are doing is illegal?'" Lamy said.
To date the program has sent out 4 million instant messages. Almost all of those sued in the September lawsuits had received one or more of these "warning" instant messages, Lamy said.
Turning the tables on the recording industry, Sharman Networks Ltd., the operators of the popular file-sharing program Kazaa filed a federal lawsuit last week accusing the RIAA and other entertainment companies of using unauthorized copies of its software for the purpose of catching illegal file-sharers. The lawsuit accuses the entertainment companies of violating the terms for using the network by using their program to find illegal file-sharers.
Sharman Networks could not be reached for comment, but Lamy of the RIAA called the lawsuit "bogus," citing the "obvious irony of Kazaa suddenly invoking and becoming the defender of copyright law."
