Posted by madcityradio.com on February 02, 2009 at 15:07:22:
RIAA backs off on illegal download lawsuits - but not in time for some University of Wisconsin-Madison students
By ED TRELEVEN | WSJ
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Celeste Lewis is in a pickle that could prove costly, all because of something she did mostly in high school, when it seemed like everybody else was doing it.
The UW-Madison junior said that back home in Chicago, she started using file sharing software to illegally download music. She said she did it briefly as a freshman in college until her conscience told her that downloading music for free was wrong.
"I wised up, but it was too late," said Lewis, 20. By then, the Recording Industry Association of America, in the midst of a six-year, nationwide lawsuit campaign to protect copyrights, had spotted her computer sharing files through her UW-Madison Internet connection.
The RIAA sued Lewis in September, making her among the last alleged illegal music sharers to be sued by the recording industry in a campaign that has swept up about 40,000 people since it began in 2003. Last month, the RIAA announced that it had ended the campaign, but the news is small comfort for Lewis and others like her whose lawsuits remain active.
"I just want it to be over," Lewis said.
While the RIAA won't comment directly on its actions, a letter that its chairman wrote to Congress on Dec. 23 indicates that the association will press on with the lawsuits already pending in court. But instead of new lawsuits, the industry plans to work closely with Internet service providers on programs to curb illegal downloads, RIAA Chairman Mitch Bainwol wrote.
"We are delighted that circumstances have evolved to the point where we can transition from lawsuits" to other programs, wrote Bainwol, whose organization represents the four major American record labels and their subsidiaries.
It's still unclear why the industry is switching strategies and which specific new measures will replace the lawsuits, said Ray Beckerman, a New York attorney whose blog "The Recording Industry vs. the People" closely chronicles the campaign.
"Whoever is behind the scenes making the real decisions, there's been a passing of the torch," said Beckerman, who has represented more than 15 people in the copyright lawsuits and criticizes the industry for suing its own customers. "The people to whom the torch was passed, they have their own interests trying to make it look like it wasn't a big mistake."
But if the RIAA has a plan to work with Internet service providers (called ISPs) or to curb downloading, they have not shared it with UW-Madison.
"We haven't gotten any formal communiqué from the RIAA or the (Motion Picture Association of America) or anybody else who represents them saying this is the approach we're going to take," said Brian Rust, communications director for UW-Madison's Division of Information Technology.
But on at least some college campuses, Rust said the RIAA is suggesting measures that include installing filtering software and updating policies and procedures.
"Basically, the music and movie industries want higher education ISPs like us to completely filter any kind of illegally exchanged music and movie files, which is very difficult to do without impinging on other network traffic," Rust said. "Our network engineers actually feel that's impossible to do."
The movie and music industry lobbies also won a measure of support in the recent reauthorization of the federal Higher Education Act. It requires institutions that get federal funding to protect the copyrights of the movie and music industries or face losing that funding. UW-Madison receives a tremendous amount of federal research money, second only to Johns Hopkins University, Rust said.
The university has made it clear, however, that "we do not filter content," Rust said, not only because UW-Madison believes in the free flow of information but because filtering could interfere with legitimate materials that would appear to software to be similar to illegal music and movie files.
"We think taking these other actions goes too far," Rust said.
For those still facing lawsuits, the stakes remain high.
Lewis, an only child whose mother is in prison and father is dead, is the first member of her family to make it to college. A dean's list student, she aspires to work in child development or in the juvenile criminal justice system when she finishes school.
But she fears that an expensive judgment against her could force her to leave school. Lewis pays for college through scholarships and said her family doesn't have the money to hire an attorney.
Judgments in similar cases have run at least $5,000, with some as high as $15,000. The RIAA has asked the court for a default judgment against her of $5,250 plus court costs because she didn't respond to the lawsuit in time.
"It's very stressful because I'm not a bad person," she said. "I'm not making excuses because I know what I did was wrong."
Kimberly Wilke, 20, a junior from Cudahy, found herself in the same spot. Like Lewis, she received a letter demanding payment for the music it claimed she had downloaded using her UW-Madison Internet connection. The RIAA sued Wilke in October, though she wasn't served with the lawsuit until Dec. 11 — the night before an important final exam.
It was "stressful to say the least," Wilke said.
Wilke also said neither she nor her family has money for a lawyer.
The RIAA should drop the lawsuit against her and others like it because, Wilke said, it doesn't work as a deterrent. Even friends who know she was sued continue to do it, and computer-savvy people can easily figure out ways to skirt detection, Wilke said.
"I think they're wasting their time," Wilke said. "It's been proven that it doesn't work. They're wasting their time, their lawyer's time, and they're wasting my time. I've got better things to think about rather than whether I'm going to owe them thousands and thousands of dollars for the rest of my life."
Also, she said, the lawsuit is a lousy "thank-you for all the CDs I've bought over the years."