[FYI] RIAA nails 1,000 music-lovers in 'new Prohibition' jihad

["Axel H Horns" <axel.h.horns@gmx.net>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31833.html

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RIAA nails 1,000 music-lovers in 'new Prohibition' jihad  

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco  

Posted: 19/07/2003 at 11:26 GMT  

The Recording Industry Association of America's attack on US culture 
has escalated at an alarming pace this week.  

On Friday the lobby group that works on behalf of the large, mostly 
foreign-owned, music conglomerates that own the music copyrights and 
distribution channels confirmed that it was serving subpoenas at the 
rate of 75 a day on US citizens for the crime of sharing the music 
they love.  

This signals a change of tactics for the RIAA: as now each individual 
file sharer is potentially responsible for thousands of dollars in 
damages. Once they were shielded by ISPs, but in the wake of the 
Verizon case, individuals are now exposed to direct intimidation. The 
RIAA is beside itself with glee: and boasted that a thousand music-
lovers had already been busted.  

The escalation in violence threatens to bring the US criminal justice 
system to an impasse: although the prison industry is already full to 
the brim, the RIAA's actions make new criminals out of tens of 
millions of ordinary US citizens. As Boycott-RIAA's founder Bill 
Evans notes, "there are more file-sharers than voters for either 
candidate at the last Presidential Election".  

[...]  

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