Learn why record companies are bringing lawsuits against people who upload and download music illegally

"MUSIC INDUSTRY SUES CAMPUS FILE-SWAPPERS"
"12-YEAR-OLD SUED FOR MUSIC DOWNLOADING"
"80 MORE P2P USERS SUED"

Headlines like these began splashing across the front pages of newspapers and magazines in 2003 and are still being fueled by the last round of lawsuits occurring in December 2005. This makes a lot of people confused, angry, and wondering about a lot of things. Why are music companies suing music fans? How do they choose who they are going to sue? And most important: am I going to be sued next?

The lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade and lobbying group that represents the biggest record labels, are a way of discouraging people from using illegal file-sharing networks, known as P2P. Illegal file-swapping has had a big impact on the music industry and the livelihoods of the people who work in it. The music labels interest is in protecting the copyrights they have on the music they produce, as well as protecting the copyrights of the artists they represent. It's generally against the copyright laws to download, copy, or distribute songs without the permission of the artist or the record company that created them.

In P2P Rewind you can learn more about the actions being taken against the P2P networks but meanwhile, the RIAA is still suing individual file swappers. However, they aren’t suing just anyone who experiments with downloading. The lawsuits are aimed at people who store a large number of music files on their computers for others to download. On average, the people who are sued each made more than 1,000 music files available to other users on P2P networks such as Gnutella. One swapper had shared more than 3,000 files!

We are not anonymous online, as some file-swappers may think. The RIAA identified users of P2P networks by their "Internet Protocol" (IP) addresses, which is basically a numeric code that "names" us online. The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provided the names and contact information of the various IP addresses to the RIAA, so the RIAA could file the lawsuits. Recently, the courts ruled that ISPs did not have to give the RIAA the contact information of their customers who are downloading; however, the RIAA can still identify users of file-swapping sites using other means, even on school computers.

The majority of the people who have been sued or issued a warning about possible legal action have chosen to settle their cases out of court instead of facing legal fees and civil penalties, which range from $750 to $150,000 or more per violation.

This site is operated by The Recording Academy, which has nothing to do with the lawsuits. The Recording Academy created What’s The Download^® as well as the What’s The Download Interactive Advisory Board^® in order empower consumers with accurate information about digital music by creating dialogue between music fans and music makers so we can address current issues and find solutions to benefit all parties.

Does Suing Work?
Some critics have accused the record industry of abusing the copyright laws to scare people and threaten the legal rights of all Internet users. Besides stirring up controversy and sparking dinner-table conversation, the lawsuits have had some real impact. Entertainment Media Research findings from the new 2006 Digital Music Survey claim that "around 35% of music consumers now download tracks legally via the Internet and the percentage will soon pass the 40% who have pirated music."

Can I Be Sued?
A lot of people who download music from the Internet are asking this question. Here are a few things we should know in order to help us figure out the answer:

If we download music from any Web site that isn't legal or licensed, we could be at risk for a lawsuit. Our safest bet is to use legal music downloading sites (click here for a great up-to-date list).

Generally, it's illegal to download or upload any music that we don't have permission to own (click here for more information about what's legal and what's not). Right now, the RIAA is not currently suing people who only download - the lawsuits are targeted at people who swap (upload and download) music online. However, if we download just one song from a file-swapping site, we are still at risk for being sued because this is illegal. Turning off the file-sharing option of our P2P software or uninstalling the software will reduce the likelihood of a lawsuit. To do this we must visit the P2P site where we downloaded the software and follow the instructions for turning off file-sharing or uninstalling.) Keep in mind: if the RIAA recorded our IP address (our individual Internet address) before we deleted the software, we could still be at risk for a lawsuit if we shared a large number of files online.