By Elizabeth Armstrong

The Recording Industry Association of America has just filed 532 lawsuits against music file swappers who share an average of at least 800 songs with other online music fans, reports The Associated Press. It is the largest single sweep of lawsuits the group has made since it launched its campaign against file sharing last summer.

Currently, the RIAA knows the Internet protocal addresses of the 532 targeted file sharers, but not their names or addresses. It plans to discover the identity of each defendant through Internet service providers such as Verizon Internet Services Inc. Verizon successfully challenged the industry's use of copyright subpoenas in December. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the recording industry cannot use subpoenas to force Internet providers to identify music downloaders without filing a lawsuit.

Hence today's filing of hundreds of lawsuits. How Internet providers respond remains to be seen, though Verizon has been fighting to maintain the privacy of its customers since the RIAA's campaign to stop file sharing began.

The move comes on the heels of a report released by The NPD Group, a marketing research firm, which found that the number of people downloading music illegally increased in October and November after a six-month decline.

NPD's MusicWatch Digital service, which monitors household usage of peer to peer services, reports that the number of households downloading digital music files was up 14 percent in November 2003 compared with September, and that the number of people who report using P2P services rose from 11 million to 12 million in that same period.

"It's important to keep in mind that file sharing is occurring less frequently than before the RIAA began its legal efforts to stem the tide of P2P file sharing," Vice President Russ Crupnick said. "We're just seeing the first increase in these numbers. NPD will continue to monitor whether it's a temporary seasonal blip, or a trend that suggests that the industry should be more aggressive in capping the use of illegal methods to acquire digital music."

The RIAA announced Wednesday morning that after the identity of each defendant is determined, the group will attempt to negotiate a financial settlement with each person before updating the lawsuit with the defendant's name and transferring the case to the proper courthouse.

by Tom Regan

Internetnews.com reports that e-voting machine manufacturer Diebold has agreed to withdraw its cease-and-desist orders against privacy groups and several ISPs that had hosted or linked to sites that published internal e-mails discussing problems with e-voting technology.

"This is a huge victory that shows we have weapons on our side to protect free speech from overbearing copyright laws so that the Internet remains a forum for public discussion," said Electronic Freedom Foundation staff attorney Wendy Seltzer.

One of the people providing links to the Diebold e-mails is U.S. congressional representative Dennis Kucinich. Mr. Kucinich, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, says he wants a Congressional inquiry to be held into the actions of Diebold.

"Diebold's actions are representative of a growing body of abuses through which large and powerful parties unfairly intimidate ISPs to remove information those parties do not like," Kucinich wrote in a letter dated Nov. 21. "Powerful parties should not be permitted to misuse copyright as a tool for limiting bad press and barring access to legitimate consumer information."

By Elizabeth Armstrong

Oh, to be in college today. So much music, so easy to search for, so quick to download, so little to pay. Kids today can use peer-to-peer services to own music they aren't paying for, and they can feel pretty safe that the Recording Industry Association of America won't find them among the masses of fellow MP3 converts.

As if that wasn't enough, Penn State President Graham Spanier announced Thursday morning that the school has signed an agreement with Napster to provide digital music to students for free. Starting next year, Penn State will provide students with Napster's premium service, which costs $10 a month per user and includes unlimited streaming and tethered downloads, 40 radio stations, and an online magazine. If students want to download music permanently, thereby owning it, it'll cost them a dollar a song.

This service will "meet the needs of students who have demonstrated a voracious appetite for online music," announced Mike Bebel, president and COO of Napster. He added that Penn State is "paving the way for universities around the country to ensure that a legitimate marketplace for online music thrives."

He's right. This is one of those rare deals where everybody actually wins. Students don't pay the fee for the premium service, Napster has more subscribers and makes its reputation less shady, and Penn State ensures that all its students have an easy and direct alternative to oh-so-tempting services such as KaZaA, Grokster, and Morpheus. It doesn't mean students will refrain from using said services, but the temptation to just got smaller.

Penn State is the first of about a dozen universities expected to launch similar digital music pilot programs with various providers in the months ahead, reports Katie Dean for Wired News.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R) from Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on courts, the Internet, and intellectual property, announced in a statement that the agreement signals great changes to come.

Today's agreement establishes Penn State as a leader in the fight against the illegal sharing of songs on peer-to-peer networks. If other colleges and universities take similar steps, the widespread violation of intellectual property rights on campuses will be sharply reduced. A legal online music marketplace - one that compensates artists and offers listeners high-quality music - is what we all want to see flourish.

Penn State's pilot program, set to launch in January 2004, will initially be available to the 18,000 students who live in school dormitories. The university plans to expand the service to 83,000 students on its 24 campuses next fall, when faculty and staff will have access to the service, and alumni can expect an invitation to participate soon thereafter.

Excuse me while I write a letter to my own alma mater.

By Elizabeth Armstrong

The New York Times is reporting that the Recording Industry Association of America has warned 204 people suspected of swapping music online that it plans to file lawsuits against them. The RIAA began mailing the warnings last week, a month after launching its initial campaign against file sharers. The difference: This round of targets is being notified before the lawsuits are filed, as opposed to after.

RIAA President Cary Sherman makes it sound like hand-holding - "We want to go the extra mile and offer illegal file sharers an additional chance to work this out," he announced - but this "extra mile" may be little more than an attempt to avoid the embarrassment that followed last month's suits against a 12-year-old girl and a grandmother accused of sharing the latest hip-hop hits (the RIAA dismissed the lawsuit as a gesture of good faith).

So far, according to The Associated Press, 64 (out of a total of 465) suits have been settled at an average of $3,000 per settlement. That's $192,000, a tiny fraction of the millions the industry reports to have lost to file-sharers.

A couple questions that quickly come to mind: Does this mean there will be a minimum and maximum age for eligible file-sharing targets? And will seeming mismatches (a grandma with a penchant for P. Diddy, say) be dismissed "on good faith"? If so, I'll be sure to tell my 17-year-old cousin that swapping Brahms is OK, so long as he plays the part of a Goth freak who only touches Marilyn Manson.

Tom Regan

Now, this was an "in-your-face" session. David Martin on the "future of patents." Martin is the founding CEO of M.Cam, which developed the world's first international property auditing system to identify the commercial validity and value of intellectual property patents. Currently, Martin says, 37 percent of all US patents are forgeries –  often clever re-wording of items or ideas that have already been patented. Martin said there are lawyers who make millions for themselves, and for big Wall Street firms, writing these bogus patents. The result is that many companies are vastly overstating their worth by listing these bogus patents in their financial statements

He talked about one scam in particular. A big firm decides that a patent has no value any more. But the patent may have a paper value of, say $25 million. The firm donates the patent to a university's endowment fund, for which it received a tax credit for $25 million. The university, which is often aware of the bogus value of the patent, then uses it as a lever to raise money from alumni: "See, this big firm gave us this important patent, so you should donate as well." Martin said the US treasury has lost $35 billion in patent transfers and patient donations. He also said some universities (but probably not the firms that donated the patents) are going to be called on the carpet for these practices soon, and may lose their not-for-profit status within the next 18 months.

And in spite of what analysts have been saying recently, Martin believes the economy is not headed for a robust recovery. In fact, he said, we are probably going to see the "tech bubble burst again" very soon, with even worse results than when it happened in 2000, and 2001. And these counterfeit patents are going to be one reason why this will happen.