James Delahunty
28 Jan 2005 10:16
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed another 717 lawsuits against P2P users in the United States it alleges to distribute copyrighted music for free on P2P networks. These users include 68 university students that used 23 university networks to trade music online the trade group stated. The RIAA said it is stepping up enforcement of copyright violations on college campuses. Among the universities targeted in this latest round of RIAA lawsuits are Georgetown University, Harvard University Medical School, Old Dominion University, Ohio State University, the University of Kentucky, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
As usual the suits were filed mainly against the users of Kazaa, eDonkey2000 and Limewire. The total number of lawsuits from the RIAA is not over 8,400 P2P users. Defending themselves, the RIAA claimed that Internet users now have over 230 online music sellers to choose from. However, they forgot to mention that a lot of kids don't have credit cards or don't use PayPal accounts etc. and find it very hard to pay for music downloads. The RIAA and MPAA believe that if they keep up a steady lawsuit campaign they will crush P2P networks. However, this is not the case as studies have shown increases in the number of people using P2P networks for their music and movies.
Source:
InfoWorld