Posted by fred-bloggs on 01/19/06 11:27

"Rob D." <Robde68@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:Xns96D9EB86AF2F9Earnmoresessionsbysl@216.196.97.136:

>
> Did I miss anything?

What you mean you didn't see we made the Washington Post?

<quote>
File-Sharing Firms Are Urged
To Protect Music-Industry Rights

By SARAH MCBRIDE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 15, 2005; Page D8

The Recording Industry Association of America has sent cease-and-desist
letters to several file-sharing companies, including BearShare, LimeWire
and WinMX, asking that they stop activities that allow users to download
copyrighted music.

The letters ask the companies to "immediately cease and desist from
enabling and inducing the infringement of RIAA member sound recordings,"
according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The letters are an attempt by the music industry to build on the
favorable ruling it received from the U.S. Supreme Court in June in the
so-called Grokster case, involving a file-sharing company that was
accused by the industry of facilitating copyright violations. In that
ruling, the court found that copyright holders could sue file-sharing
companies for encouraging people to violate copyrights. Now, the industry
is taking the first step toward enforcing the ruling against other file-
sharing companies.

"Companies similar to Grokster have been given ample opportunity to do
the right thing," said the RIAA, which confirmed sending the letters to
seven file-sharing companies.

The RIAA has long said it supports legal uses of file sharing. It wants
file-sharing firms to alter their software -- for example, by creating
filters to strip out copyrighted material or creating mechanisms to pay
copyright holders. In recent months, it has been working with several
file-sharing firms, including iMesh and Mashboxx, to create services that
wouldn't violate copyrights.

The file-sharing companies that received cease-and-desist letters can
shut down, fight the RIAA in court, or make changes that mollify the
RIAA.

Despite the Grokster decision, a court case based on other file-sharing
programs wouldn't necessarily be open and shut, says Ralph Oman, the
former U.S. Register of Copyrights and a Washington, D.C.-based
intellectual-property lawyer at the law firm Dechert LLP. The Supreme
Court found that Grokster and co-defendant Morpheus were actively
pursuing former users of the original Napster, a free file-sharing
service found to be illegal, and remanded the case to trial court for
further consideration. (A new Napster service offers paid, legal
downloads.) It might be harder to prove that for the newer services.

Mr. Oman said file-sharing companies would have to prove they had "some
credible rationale other than the promotion of illegal file sharing."

LimeWire confirmed receiving the letter, but declined to comment on any
action it would take. BearShare and WinMX didn't respond to requests for
comment. As of last night, these companies were still offering unchanged
file-sharing software programs for download.

<endquote>



--
fred

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