RIAA seeking Morrisville music pirates

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Feb 11, 2005 by Dickinson, Casey J

MORRISVILLE - The recording industry has again filed suit against anonymous, alleged music pirates it believes are located at Morrisville State College.

Eight record companies are seeking injunctive relief, attorney's fees, and damages against two alleged music pirates known only by their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. The addresses identified with the alleged copyright infringement are registered to Morrisville State College. An IP address is a unique number that can identify which particular computer performed particular actions on the Internet.

The complaint, filed in federal court in the Northern District of New York, alleges that the two unknown defendants made copyrighted songs available for downloading without permission. Many computer users illegally "share" copyrighted songs over "peer-to-peer" (P2P) networks that provide free music in MP3 file format to anyone who wants to download it.

Plaintiffs named in the action are Interscope Records; Elektra Entertainment Group, Inc., BMG Music; Arista Records, LLC; Warner Brothers Records, Inc.; SONY BMG Music Entertainment; UMG Recordings, Inc.; and Virgin Records America, Inc.

Several of these record companies filed a similar suit in October against two unknown music pirates operating from a Morrisville IP address. Those defendants remain unidentified. according to court records. A Liverpool resident named in another song-sharing copyright suit filed in December has reached a settlement with the recording industry, according to court records filed in the Northern District of New York.

The latest suit identifies the defendants as "John Does 1 and 2" and asks the court to allow it to serve Morrisville with a subpoena for its computer-usage records in an effort to identify the defendants. United States Magistrate George IT Lowe granted the companies' discovery motion Jan. 31.

"The college is complying with all legal requests in relation to this matter," says Jessica DeCerce, director of public relations for Morrisville State College.

Documents filed in the case identify an eclectic list of eight songs each defendant is accused of pirating. The list includes songs by Kenny G, Eminem, Wyclef Jean, Faith Hill, Busta Rhymes, Martina McBride, and UB40.

Investigators for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) downloaded copyrighted songs from the two unknown users at Morrisville, according to the supporting declaration of Jonathan Whitehead, RIAA counsel for online-copy protection.

"The RIAA could not, however, determine the physical location of the users or their identities," says Whitehead's supporting declaration filed with the suit.

Media theft is a factor in the growth of broadband Internet, Whitehead writes in his declaration.

"The infringers thus tend to subscribe to services such as DSL and cable modems, that are far more expensive than ordinary telephone services," writes Whitehead. "One publication recently estimated that 50 to 70 percent of the bandwidth of cable broadband network was being used for P2P file copying."

Morrisville State College is known nationwide as a technically advanced school. The college introduced laptop computers and wireless-computing networks before most other schools, earning accolades as the "most wired" school from computing magazines. The "wired" designation is an anachronism as Morrisville has even done away with its telephone lines, switching students to Nextel phones so they can Direct Connect when they're not using the college's computing network.

While song-theft is a popular online activity, legitimate music services such as the reborn Napster and Apple's iTunes offer legal music for sale.

The recording industry uses lawsuits to show infringers that stealing is wrong, says Steven Marks, general counsel for RIAA.

"The great music created by hard-working writers, artists, and technicians continues to be stolen at an alarming rate through illegitimate peer-to-peer services on the Internet," says Marks. "If the legitimate music services are to continue to grow and prosper, we must continue to let individuals know that they bear responsibility for illegally stealing the work of those who make the music and we need to educate them about the widespread availability of legal music sites on the Web."