The US recording industry's campaign against downloading entered a new phase yesterday as the Recording Industry Association of America issued a string of civil lawsuits against individual downloaders.
As previously reported, the trade organisation issued 1500 subpoenas earlier this summer forcing internet service providers and universities to release the identities of individuals they suspect have been sharing 'substantial' numbers of illegal tracks online. Despite some ISP's and colleges procrastinating on technical grounds, some of that information has now reached the RIAA, so yesterday they began legal action against 260 of them. Those people, if found guilty, could face fines of up to $150,000.
Keen not to appear the bad guys in the equation, RIAA President Cary Sherman was in PR spin mode yesterday telling journalists: "We simply cannot allow online piracy to continue to destroy the livelihoods, not only of songwriters and recording artists, but also of tens of thousands of less celebrated people in the music industry."
He continued: "If a 14-year-old brought home a CD that they've shoplifted from Tower Records, the parent is unlikely to say, 'Oh, how cute that he loves music!' There's no reason why they should be accepting illegal downloading any more than they would accept shoplifting. You would expect them to take some action. We expect to hear people say, 'It wasn't me, it was my kids'. Well, if they would prefer that the lawsuit be amended to include the name of the kid, we can certainly do that. But somebody has to assume responsibility for illegal activity."
Sherman also confirmed that the RIAA was offering an amnesty for downloaders who were willing to delete illegally obtained files and pledge not to download any more tracks in the future. This offer, however, does not apply to the 1500 consumers the organisation is already targeting.
It will now be interesting to see who wins the PR war as those lawsuits slowly work their way through the courts - and whether the scare tactics will genuinely tackle the download problem.