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Disconnecting music piracy

BY FRED MANN AND DEB GRUVER

The Wichita Eagle

Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle

Photo illustration for story on online music piracy.

DISCONNECTING MUSIC PIRACY

Recording industry targets illegal downloading

The Young family owned one of the first high-speed Internet connections in Salina, so local teenagers often used their computer to download music.

Illegally, as it turned out.

"I think thousands of songs were downloaded," said the family's attorney, Dick Blackwell, who admitted his own children may have been among those who downloaded music from the computer. "They didn't have an understanding of what the risks were."

Music companies came after the mother, Nancy, because the Internet connection was in her name, he said.

The recording industry has been targeting Kansans and thousands of others around the nation for lawsuits in recent years, claiming consumers have been pirating music through illegal file-sharing.

Recording companies filed a suit against Nancy Young in November 2004, claiming copyright infringement. She settled for $2,780 plus $220 in plaintiff's court costs in June 2005, court records show.

Blackwell said he wouldn't take another such case. He agreed to defend her only because the Youngs were family friends.

"The penalties are so high that they get you into a situation that just scares the clients to death," Blackwell said.

35 Kansans sued

Since 2004, the industry has filed about 35 suits against Kansas residents. Nationally, it has sued about 26,000 people since 2003.

And last month, the record companies filed suits against unidentified students at Wichita State University and the University of Kansas as part of a new wave of legal action against college students nationwide who the industry claims pirated music using university computer networks.

The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major record labels, filed "John Doe" suits against 22 WSU students and 14 KU students in U.S. District Court in Wichita for music copyright infringement.

The suits don't name the students because the association doesn't know who they are. It only knows the Internet protocol addresses they used to share the files, and is relying on the schools to match the addresses to the users.

It's only the latest wave of lawsuits by the association aimed at halting what it considers the rampant stealing of copyrighted music on the Internet.

So far, only one suit hasresulted in a verdict. A Minnesota woman last week was required to pay $220,000 to six music companies after being found guilty at a jury trial of illegally downloading and sharing 24 copyrighted songs.

Stunned and frustrated

Most people who are sued are stunned, scared and settle out of court for a few thousand dollars to avoid attorney fees.

Many aren't aware they did anything illegal. In some cases, the people sued aren't even the ones who downloaded the music.

Joe Kohake of Centralia said his daughter, Karen, was a student at Washburn University when a case was filed against her last April. The family didn't find out until they saw the lawsuit listed in a Topeka newspaper.

His daughter lived in a dorm, and her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend used her computer, Kohake said.

"But everything was under her name," he said. "I think each of them thought it wasn't hurting anything."

At first, his daughter and her friends didn't take warnings seriously, he said.

Eventually the Kohakes settled for $4,150 and paid $350 in court costs, according to federal court records.

The experience was frustrating because "lawyers didn't want to touch it. So we were basically at their mercy," Kohake said.

Blackwell said the cases start with a demand letter.

"You start getting phone calls from what appears to be kind of a collection agency," he said.

WSU, KU get letters

This summer, the Recording Industry Association sent WSU and KU what it calls "pre-litigation" letters offering to settle the claims against the students at reduced rates prior to filing lawsuits.

It sent WSU 22 letters in June, and KU 14 letters in July, said an association spokesperson. WSU was among 19 universities that received letters in June, and KU one of 23 in July. The association has sent hundreds out each month since it started its campaign against students in February.

The letters ask schools to forward the letters to the appropriate users. Some do; some don't.

Ted Ayres, vice president and general counsel at Wichita State, said that the violations cited in the letters were so old the school couldn't find out who committed them. The school's technology didn't allow it to go back far enough in time, he said.

"They were way back in the past, and there wasn't any way we could document anything," he said.

Ayres said the school will work with its technology people to see if the technology has improved.

"It's my obligation as a representative of the university to do the best we can to comply with this court order," he said.

Ayres said the university terminated access to a computer port students were using, and if somebody tries to reconnect to it, the school might be able to identify a student who illegally copies music.

Ayres said he explained the university's actions to an attorney for the record industry, but the attorney thought the lawsuits were necessary.

The litigation isn't against the school, but is aimed at finding out who the John Does are, Ayres said.

"We will attempt to comply with this order of the court as best we can," Ayres said. "We're just not going to be able to provide any names. However, we will again make a good-faith, full-fledged effort to see what can be done."

Ayres said the university will notify any student it identifies as a violator about the association's action, and those students are on their own to deal with it.

'We're not in that fight'

The University of Kansas takes a different approach. Spokesman Todd Cohen said the university doesn't forward the association's letters to its users, nor will it identify the users to the association. But it will let any violators know they can lose their computer privileges in the residence halls.

KU this summer adopted a zero-tolerance policy aimed at curbing illegal sharing of music, movies and games, he said. Students caught sharing files illegally will be kicked off of the residence hall network, although they would still be able to use campus computer labs.

Students agree to those terms when they enter university housing, Cohen said.

KU formerly had a "three strikes" policy that included warnings, Cohen said, but that didn't reduce the incidences of misuse.

Ayres said universities are caught between the recording industry's need to protect its artists and students who believe that anything they can find on the Internet belongs to them.

"On the one hand we want to be a good citizen, certainly. Secondly, we don't want to inappropriately infringe or limit people's access to the Internet. I feel we've got a delicate line to walk," he said.

The dispute is between those copyright holders and their industry representatives, and alleged violators.

"We're not in that fight," Ayres said.

WSU policies specifically provide that its equipment not be used inappropriately or illegally, he said.

The university can shut off access to a port if it finds illegal activity, and it would be able to identify somebody who tries to connect to it.

If that student illegally shares a file, that person would be on his or her own to deal with the recording industry, he said.

"I think that's consistent with the way other cases are being handled around the country," Ayres said.

Targeting students

The Recording Industry Association of America has said it is targeting students because they are responsible for a disproportionate number of music thefts compared to the general population. More than half of college students download music illegally, the organization has said. A market research firm shows that college students accounted for more than 1.3 billion illegal music downloads in 2006, it said.

It claimed that global theft of sound recordings cost the U.S. economy $12.5 billion in lost revenue and more than 71,000 jobs and $2 billion in wages to U.S. workers.

Its suits don't always succeed. This summer the industry was ordered to pay about $70,000 in legal bills to an Oklahoma woman after a judge dismissed its claims against her.

Opponents accuse the association of intimidation and bullying tactics, and claim the lawsuits haven't helped solve the problem of pirated music.

The lawsuits actually have encouraged music fans to use other readily accessible technologies that the association can't easily monitor, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization of lawyers, policy analysts, activists and technologists that has opposed the association's legal tactics.

People can copy music through iTunes over the campus LAN, swap hard drives and USB flash drives, burn recordable DVDs and form ad-hoc wireless networks, the foundation said.

That's the sort of technological jargon that overwhelms some of those who've run into trouble with the recording industry on their computers.

The wife of a Great Bend man recently sued by the Recording Industry Association said their teenagers use the computers and download music all the time.

But her husband, who is named in the suit, has never done that, and neither has she.

"We don't even know how to turn a damn computer on," she said.

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