The recording industry has threatened it for years: Stop downloading copyrighted music from the Internet without permission, or you’re in big trouble.
In apartments and offices across the country, people shrugged, looked sideways to see their office cubemate or neighbor doing the same thing and pulled down another song–to the tune of more than 2 billion files a month.
But with a federal court ruling last week, the recording industry moved as close as it has ever been to being able to reach into your hard drive and nab you.
In that ruling, a federal judge said that Verizon Online must comply with a Recording Industry Association of America subpoena asking it to identify a customer who’s allegedly been trading loads of copyrighted material without permission.
“Up until now, only the police and courts have had this power,” said Les Seagraves, chief privacy officer for Earthlink, another Internet service provider. “This erodes that perception that what you do on the Internet is protected, or that your privacy is protected,” he said.
Verizon has pledged an appeal, and other service providers are lining up for battle. They are concerned about the precedent set by putting names to customers’ previously anonymous Internet faces and handing over that information to another company.
Many so-called online pirates say it doesn’t seem like a crime to go on a legitimate-looking Web site and download an old TV theme song or a quirky remake.
Maybe if it was kiddie porn being downloaded, the possibility of cops busting in with an arrest warrant wouldn’t be so surprising. But to many office workers aiming to brighten their day with a rap track that’s yet to be released in stores, it seems far-fetched that they could be sued or prosecuted for file sharing.
“So many millions of people are doing it,” said Adeel Ahmad, 25, a medical student from Detroit. By the recording industry’s estimation, about 2.6 billion files are illegally downloaded each month.
“On a moral basis, it’s probably not OK to do–it’s pretty much stealing, but it doesn’t seem like stealing that much,” said Teddy Lyu, 27, a Chicago consultant.
Some consumers see it as taking a stand against the Man.
“Who are you really hurting? The big businesses that are ripping off artists themselves?” said Emmanuel Torres, 24, who works in retail sales.
Law experts say that Internet users shouldn’t assume that the future of file sharing on the Web is going to resemble the present.
“The general assumption has been that you can’t control peer-to-peer file sharing because there’s no way to reach the users with any threat serious enough to make them stop,” said Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. “This suggests the music industry isn’t prepared to accept that.”
But Earthlink officials say they are worried that anyone alleging copyright infringement could walk into a court office, and without much review, obtain a subpoena. “Without much due process, we have to turn over the name and address of our customer without being able to see what their evidence is,” Seagraves said.
The recording industry says the recent court decision will give them the ability to inform “online pirates” that what they are doing is against the law. An RIAA spokeswoman described file sharing as “illegal, plain and simple.”
The music industry sees these music downloaders as “rebels doing it for the purpose of stealing it,” said Sean Baenen, managing director of Odyssey, a market research firm. “But that’s not the case and never has been.”
Downloaders have turned to illegal trading sites, Baenen said, because they have access to all kinds of music there in the forms most convenient for them. Legitimate sites have been slow to meet customers’ demands, he said.
But some of the industry players seem to be catching on. On Monday, a group of music retailers that includes Tower Records, Best Buy and Wherehouse Music announced plans to make music downloads available online and eventually in stores.
While the music companies will have to change how they deal with consumers, many downloaders believe that they won’t be able to kill file sharing.
The record industry may try to “keep on crashing in on the users,” Ahmad said, “but they’ll just find new ways.”
The actual law
Under U.S. copyright laws, copyright owners can bring a civil suit against anyone who infringes on their copyright. They can ask for actual damages, any profits made, and statutory damages between $750 and $30,000. In some cases the figure can be raised to $150,000.
Criminal prosecution is possible if the infringement is considered willful and if it was done for private financial gain. Anyone convicted could face prison time and fines.
While federal prosecutors in Chicago could conceivably go after someone for downloading music from illegal sites, they haven’t yet. “It would have to be on a huge scale for us to do it,” said Executive Assistant U.S. Atty. Nancy Needles.
Defining `illegal’
The recording industry considers the following to be illegal activities:
– There’s the obvious: Joining a file-sharing network and downloading unauthorized copies of copyrighted music.
– E-mailing copies of a copyrighted song to your friends.
– Making a legal copy of a CD that you purchased, then putting the copyrighted material on the Internet using a file-sharing network.
– Burning copies of CDs for all of your friends.
Breaking down legal and illegal sites
The recording industry says that downloading copyrighted songs from the following peer-to-peer file sharing networks without authorization is illegal:
Kazaa
Morpheus
Grokster
LimeWire
BearShare
Instead, they say Internet users can download songs legally through a number of digital music services including:
pressplay
MusicNet
listen.com
