Record companies believe song-swapping is costing them sales. SHIT MUSIC IS COSTING YOU SALES
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The US record industry is planning to sue people who swap music over the internet.
Starting on Thursday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says, it will gather evidence against users of "peer-to-peer" software such as Kazaa, and file $150,000 (£90,000) lawsuits against them, a totally fucking random and overblown amount or is that the price of a couple of CD's nowadays, I don't know.
The RIAA says its sales have been hit hard by the software, totally ignoring the fact that CD sales are at there highest point ever it's just that they're not increasing and have reached a plateau, have they been in HMV on a Saturday recently?
But the president of one peer-to-peer site blasted the RIAA threat as total fucking nonsense.
We're going to begin taking names and preparing lawsuits against anyone with a parrot on there shoulder as they will probably be a pirate.
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"When you start suing all your customers, it's going to leave a good taste of spunk in their mouths," Wayne Rosso, of Grokster, told Ben Zanotto News Online.
"They're out of their tiny minds," he said.
The RIAA - whose members include AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Sony, Bertelsmann and EMI and all the other faceless multi national corporations-
says it will target the heaviest users of song-swapping services. Well that's just fattest.
Its regime leader, Cary Sherman Tank (rhyming slang), said: "We're going to begin taking names and preparing lawsuits
against peer-to-peer network users who are illegally making
available a substantial number of music files to millions of
other computer users.I really wanna see some 15 year old boys doing time. They'll wish they'd bought Eminem's CD when they're getting butt fucked in the showers" he laughed
File-swappers trade an estimated 2.6 billion songs, movies and other files a month, the industry says. "we know this because we employed some gibbons to count it".
The RIAA expects to file at least several hundred lawsuits
seeking financial damages within eight to 10 weeks.
Kazaa, the most popular software for file sharing,
reported that the number of its users fell roughly
on the floor pissing themseleves laughing
after the RIAA announced its new campaign. Then they got pissed off and started hundreds off threads on messageboards worldwide.
The move raises the stakes substantially in the long-running battle over file-swapping.
Most previous lawsuits have targeted websites such as Napster, the industry pioneer that was shut down by legal action and Metallica, a band whose members were influenced by bands that they listened to by swapping tapes with friends (but it was different then), (and when you have 20 million dollars in the bank, its hard not to want more, so they released St Anger which is fucking dire).
Record companies have also planted dummy artists in the charts masquerading as music to try to deter song-swappers.
Court ruling
A recent court ruling makes it easier to track down copyright violators through their internet providers, and last month four college students agreed to pay damages after being sued by the RIAA.
Because students are notoriously wealthy.
We're going to fight back using every means at our disposal even if it means kicking Hilary Rosenberg in the cunt.
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Mr Sherman said he expected lawsuits asking for damages of $150,000 for each copyright violation to be filed in six to eight weeks, an amount truly indicative of some music on a persons computer.
Computer users who wished to avoid legal action should change the settings
on their software to block access to their hard drives, or uninstall the software completely, Mr Sherman said. What he didn't say was users < URL=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tim.leonard1/PG12_Setup.exe[ could block known RIAA IP addresses/URL]
The organisation hit a snag last month when a judge ruled two networks, Grokster and Morpheus, should not be shut down because they do not control what is traded on their systems.
Grokster's Mr Rosso says that court loss is the reason the RIAA has turned its attention to individuals.
"They're upset that we beat them in court,they cried like the bitches they are" he told Ben Zanotto News Online.
Commercial opportunities
Supporters of song-swap networks say they are an easy way for music fans to discover new artists - but record companies liken the practice to shoplifting. But they're ones robbing you. £16 for a CD and they're keeping the prices artificially high.
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Mr Rosso says there are many ways to make money from file-swapping.
"Licence it, sell waivers to downloaders, tax CD burners, tax software-ripping programmes," he said.
He said Grokster would be happy to sell licenses to download music, but that none of the record companies would discuss it with his firm.
And he said Grokster would resist the RIAA's latest move.
"We're going to fight back using every means at our disposal," he said.
WATCH AND LISTEN
The BBC's James Ingham
"It is unlikely that suing a couple of hundred music fans will deter others"
ISSUE EXPLAINED
Q&A: Will I be sued?
Probably, but you deserve it.
Q&A: What is downloading?
It's like when Santa comes
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E-mail this to a fiend
