Recording Industry Association of America news stories on Newser

Illegal Downloaders' Punishment: Slow Internet

Rob Quinn — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:19:05 CDT

Media companies and Internet providers have agreed on a system to put the brakes on the service of users of illegal file-sharing services. The ISPs have agreed to alert customers up to six times if they believe their account is being used to illegally download music and movie, Reuters reports....

Judge Kills Off LimeWire

Rob Quinn — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:50:00 CDT

File-sharing site LimeWire has been effectively killed off by a court order. A federal judge has issued an injunction ordering the service to permanently disable its software and to end the sharing of unauthorized music files, the Wall Street Journal reports. The popular site was found liable for copyright infringement...

2 Live Crew Didn't Make Kagan 'So Horny'

Nick McMaster — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:55:00 CDT

The search through Elena Kagan's work history has yielded an amusing nugget: She went to bat for notoriously sexual rap group 2 Live Crew. In a 1990 brief for the RIAA when she was an associate at a DC law firm, Kagan argued As Nasty as They Wanna Be "does...

To Save the Music Industry, Ban Music—and Whistling

Rob Quinn — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:38:56 CDT

The music industry wants royalties for the 30-second previews on iTunes—which is "bullshit," writes Nicholas DeLeon for TechGear. It's yet another foolish move in the battle to save the music industry, complains DeLeon. Luckily, he has a "foolproof" way to do just that: Ban music, "shut the whole damn...

Student Must Pay $675K for Illegal Downloads

Will McCahill — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:22:01 CDT

A Boston graduate student must pay $675,000 to the music industry for illegally downloading 30 songs, a federal jury ordered today. Joel Tenenbaum, 25, essentially admitted yesterday to grabbing the music via file-sharing network KaZaA. The fine averages out to $22,500 per song—significantly less than the $80,...

File Sharing Lawyer's Stunts Shock Peers

Kevin Spak — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:29:00 CDT

Charles Nesson has thrown out the standard playbook in his defense of a Boston University student being sued by the RIAA for file sharing. The storied Harvard Law professor is posting everything related to the case online, including a secretly taped conversation with the judge and opposing counsel, and even...

Pirate Act to Take Senate Floor, Again

Zach Samalin — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:55:57 CST

Legislation that would enable the Justice Department to prosecute those who partake in peer-to-peer copyright infringement is coming before Congress—for the fourth time—now sponsored by Senators Patrick Leahy and John Conryn. But while it's popular among lawmakers and corporate copyright holders alike, the Pirate Act hasn't seen too...

Oregon Moves to Quash RIAA Subpoenas

Zach Samalin — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:08:02 CDT

The University of Oregon will support 17 students the RIAA accused of illegal file-sharing. Represented by the Oregon Attorney General's office, the university requested a federal judge invalidate the RIAA's subpoena seeking the students' names. The school argued the subpoena puts an undue burden on it to "create documents that...

Campaign Against Music Piracy Goes to First Trial

Caroline Zimmerman — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 11:42:36 CDT

The recording industry has initiated over 20,000 lawsuits against individuals since it launched its zero-tolerance copyright campaign against file-sharing in 2003, but never before has one gone to trial. Now a jury will decide whether a young mother illegally distributed 1,702 audio files on the peer-to-peer network Kazaa.