David

Attorneys for Verizon Communications and the music industry sparred in court on Friday over whether to disclose the identity of an alleged peer-to-peer pirate.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to order Verizon to turn over the name of a Kazaa subscriber who allegedly was sharing copies of more than 600 music recordings.

U.S. District Judge John Bates did not rule on the music industry's request on Friday, but because federal law emphasizes a speedy response to such requests, Bates is expected to make a decision soon. Each side argued for 45 minutes.

Read the full story HERE

Frodo301

If this guy is revealed by Verizion to the RIAA I'm sure he will be made an example of. You'll hear it on the tv news and the net, very high profile I'm sure. This is exactly what the RIAA wants, someone to drag over the coals and show the world what kind of power it has . Doubt it will stop the pirating of their music though.

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Gurm

The RIAA won't win this one. Why not, you ask? Well, it's VERY simple. No federal judge has yet declared peer-to-peer file sharing by individuals to be illegal. Yes, you read that right. Napster was found to have commited a crime - companies can't facilitate filesharing of this type directly. But forever and a day, it has been 100% legal for me to make a copy of a song I own and GIVE IT AWAY to a friend. And the judge isn't going to violate the privacy rights of an individual private citizen (and set precedent by doing so, by the way) unless that person has committed an actual CRIME.

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Shaith

No, actually, it's 100% ILLEGAL to make a copy and GIVE IT AWAY. It's called re-distribution. Whether you receive money for it or not isn't the deciding factor - it's whether the individual you "gave it to" had also purchased that music. When you buy a CD or tape, you aren't buying the music - you're buying specific rights to USE that music for your own personal entertainment, and these rights do not extend to making a copy for a friend - in fact they specifically limit you from doing so, which is why the RIAA has a case at all. If it were legal to make a copy for a friend and give it to him, the RIAA would have been completely unable to touch Napster. Think about it.

What you CAN do, however, is record programming on the radio and give THAT to your friends - provided there is no charge associated with the recording, no laws have been broken. This also extends to bootlegs of certain bands' concerts - most have no objection to these being distributed provided there's no charge associated, as that's a good way to get their music heard without it costing them anything. But I'd check with the website for that band before doing it - some bands don't even allow that, so your mileage will vary.

Vampyromaniac

Hehe, not in my experience. Every concert I go to, I get a cavity search for recording devices.


EDIT: BTW, shouldn't it be Veni Vidi Vici ? [SIZE=xx-small]....unless you're referring to something else entirely[/SIZE]

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