p2pnet.net News Feature:- Here’s a quote from a Washington Post story on the fact French ISPs have done a deal with Big Music under which they effectively become both paymasters and cops for the Big Four record labels, one of which – Vivendi Universal’s Universal Music Group – is based in France:

"Record labels have also won thousands of example-setting lawsuits filed against U.S. Internet users who downloaded copyrighted tracks," says the WP

In fact, although the music industry has sued literally thousands of men, women and children in a what amounts to a blackmail campaign to force people around the world to continue to buy their grossly over-priced ‘product,’ they haven’t won a single case in open court.

That’s because not one of the people pilloried by Big Music’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has ever been found guilty of anything.

And that, in turn, is because not one of them has ever appeared before a judge because the RIAA makes victims an offer they can’t refuse: ‘Settle out of court and this will all go away.’

The RIAA victims are ordinary men, women and children, and rather than chance the huge financial penalties losing to Big Music’s limitless resources and expert legal teams inevitably would entail, they always settle out of court for around $3,000 – at the low end.

"The charter set the goal of doubling the number of music tracks available on French-language sites to 600,000 by the end of the year," says the Post report, adding:

"The signatories also agreed to study music industry suggestions that Internet service providers offer "peer-to-peer filters" to users, allowing them to block their own – or their children’s – access to file-sharing sites like Kazaa and eDonkey."

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2004 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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