Ok,

So the RIAA has claimed that they can sue up to 100,000 per illegal song on your computer (have yet to see these lawsuits). Lets say they can sue you right now for 50,000$$ per song. What are you worth:

me: $256,700,000.00

$0

I live in Canada.

Yeah, I'd owe about 200 mil or so.

Good luck. If the RIAA thinks for one second, they are getting anywhere near even $1000(much less $100,000) for every "stolen" song from the common user, they're only fooling themselves.

Lets see, 64 tunes at 50,000 apiece. Thats 3,200,000. Good Luck.

Nothin from nothin leaves nothin!

They aren't fooling themselves. They know they'll never get that much. It's more of a scare tactic than anything. And it'll work on a lot of people.

37500000 they thing they could get me for that they are idiots I wouldn't pay one cent even if they sued me

570 .mp3s is about 28,800,000

well at least they don't charge for porn files

$0

I don't live in Canada.

If they sued you and won, you would. Ah, garnishment...

Couldn't anyone just file bankruptcy? Not that I condone stealing music, but could they really MAKE you pay?

RIAA started sending subpoenas last week to ISP's. The shear number has caused a US district clerks office to bog down typing them up.

I copied the whole article from CNN.com incase they move it.

Saturday, July 19, 2003 Posted: 1:58 AM EDT (0558 GMT)  

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The music industry has won at least 871 federal subpoenas against computer users suspected of illegally sharing music files on the Internet, with roughly 75 new subpoenas being approved each day, U.S. court officials said Friday.

The effort represents early steps in the music industry's contentious plan to file civil lawsuits aimed at crippling online piracy.

Subpoenas reviewed by The Associated Press show the industry compelling some of the largest Internet providers, such as Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Cable Communications Inc., and some universities to identify names and mailing addresses for users on their networks known online by nicknames such as "fox3j," "soccerdog33," "clover77" or "indepunk74."

The Recording Industry Association of America has said it expects to file at least several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages within the next eight weeks. U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person's computer, but the RIAA has said it would be open to settlement proposals from defendants.

The campaign comes just weeks after U.S. appeals court rulings requiring Internet providers to readily identify subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music and movie files. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act permits music companies to force Internet providers to turn over the names of suspected music pirates upon subpoena from any U.S. District Court clerk's office, without a judge's signature required.

In some cases, subpoenas cite as few as five songs as "representative recordings" of music files available for downloading from these users. The trade group for the largest music labels, the Washington-based RIAA, previously indicated its lawyers would target Internet users who offer substantial collections of MP3 song files but declined to say how many songs might qualify for a lawsuit.

"We would have to look at historic trends, but that is a very high number," said Alan Davidson of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group that has argued against the subpoenas. "It doesn't sound like they're just going after a few big fish."

Music fans are fighting back with technology, using new software designed specifically to stymie monitoring of their online activities by the major record labels.

A new version of "Kazaa Lite," free software that provides access to the service operated by Sharman Networks Ltd., can prevent anyone from listing all music files on an individual's machine and purports to block scans from Internet addresses believed to be associated with the RIAA.

Many of the subpoenas reviewed by the AP identified songs from the same few artists, including Avril Lavigne, Snoop Dogg and Michael Jackson. It was impossible to determine whether industry lawyers were searching the Internet specifically for songs by these artists or whether they were commonly popular among the roughly 60 million users of file-sharing services.

The RIAA's subpoenas are so prolific that the U.S. District Court in Washington, already suffering staff shortages, has been forced to reassign employees from elsewhere in the clerk's office to help process paperwork, said Angela Caesar-Mobley, the clerk's operations manager.

The RIAA declined to comment on the numbers of subpoenas it issued.

"We are identifying substantial infringers and we're going to whatever entity is providing (Internet) service for that potential infringer," said Matt Oppenheim, the group's senior vice president of business and legal affairs. "From there we'll be in a position to begin bringing lawsuits."

A spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the clerk's office here was "functioning more like a clearing house, issuing subpoenas for all over the country." Any civil lawsuits would likely be transferred to a different jurisdiction, spokeswoman Karen Redmond said.

Verizon, which has fought the RIAA over the subpoenas with continued legal appeals, said it received at least 150 subpoenas during the last two weeks. There were no subpoenas on file sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation's largest Internet provider and also parent company of CNN and Warner Music Group. Earthlink Inc., another of the largest Internet providers, said it has received only three new subpoenas.

Depaul University in Chicago was among the few colleges that received such subpoenas; the RIAA asked Depaul on July 2 to track down a user known as "anon39023" who was allegedly offering at least eight songs.

There was some evidence the threat of an expensive lawsuit was discouraging online music sharing. Nielsen NetRatings, which monitors Internet usage, earlier this week reported a decline for traffic on the Kazaa network of one million users, with similarly large drops across other services.

Oh the Land of freedom to be sued...

Btw - they can sue you for sharing porn videos as well..

Funny how privacy it raped by that - you cant anymore keep sending/saying anything as they sppse to sniff traffic volume/stability - so what happens to data they getting but not intersted in? What happens to privacy data falling in wrong hands? Lovely time to live in.

Not the RIAA. Porn is not under their jurisdiction.

Eh? Its copyrighted material, isnt it. I thought they going after video/audio, not only audio.

If i "delete" my files when the Po Po come knocking.... i will have 0 dollars owed.... then i will just quick restore when they leave... dumb fucks

More than likely they confiscate your entire computer and probably any removable media near by as evidence and have experts go in and restore deleted files. They aren't as stupid as you look.

1,006 songs at $50,000 a piece would put me at being sued for $50,300,000. Nice chunck of change that is soon to only grow. Im a nut when it comes to ripping songs off the net.

if they came for me all I would do is remove my hard drives and hide them behind a false panel in my room. Nobody would ever find them cause it is impossible to tell that is is there

Unless They read this board, Mil.

RIAA is music/audio only. The movies would fall under the MPAA, I believe. Software under the BSA.

For those of you who don't know what they mean:

RIAA - Recording Industry Association of America
MPAA - Motion Picture Associatio of America
BSA - Business Software Alliance (might actually be SBA, I'm not positive. Ian would know)

You have a dick?

Not yet, anyway. CRIA is looking, too. They just aren't as loud about it (and haven't started going after individual users).

2,449 .mp3s
= 244,900,000 dollars

Well, they aren't all illegal. But I have no job, and no possessions :-)

It is happening in Denmark, The Music industry Filed a suit against a University where students used the internal network to swap Music and movies. 2 Students got convicted and now owe around $20.000 each, Don't say it can not be done.

deguasser

Of course, you loose everything else, too.