- WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The US
recording industry today provided its most detailed glimpse to date into
some of the detective-style techniques it has employed as part of its secretive
campaign to cripple music piracy over the internet.
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- The disclosures were included in court papers filed against
a Brooklyn woman fighting efforts to identify her for allegedly sharing
nearly 1,000 songs over the internet.
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- The recording industry disputed her defence that songs
on her family's computer were from compact discs she had legally purchased.
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- Using a surprisingly astute technical procedure, the
Recording Industry Association of America examined song files on the woman's
computer and traced their digital fingerprints back to the former Napster
file-sharing service, which shut down in 2001 after a court ruled it violated
copyright laws.
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- The RIAA, the trade group for the largest record labels,
said it also found other hidden evidence inside the woman's music files
suggesting the songs were recorded by other people and distributed across
the Internet.
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- Comparing the Brooklyn woman to a shoplifter, the RIAA
told US Magistrate John Facciola that she was "not an innocent or
accidental infringer" and described her lawyer's claims otherwise
as "shockingly misleading". The RIAA papers were filed in Washington
overnight and made available by the court today.
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- The woman's lawyer, Daniel Ballard, of California, said
the music industry's latest argument was "merely a smokescreen to
divert attention" from the related issue of whether her internet provider,
Verizon Internet Services Inc, must turn over her identity under a copyright
subpoena.
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- "You cannot bypass people's constitutional rights
to privacy, due process and anonymous association to identify an alleged
infringer," Ballard said.
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- Ballard has asked the court to delay any ruling for two
weeks while he prepares detailed arguments, and he noted that his client
- identified only as "nycfashiongirl" - has already removed the
file-sharing software from her family's computer.
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- The RIAA accused "nycfashiongirl" of offering
more than 900 songs by the Rolling Stones, U2, Michael Jackson and others
for illegal download, along with 200 other computer files that included
at least one full-length movie, Pretty Woman.
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- The RIAA's latest court papers describe in unprecedented
detail some sophisticated forensic techniques used by its investigators.
These disclosures were even more detailed than answers the RIAA provided
weeks ago at the request of Senator Norm Coleman, who has promised hearings
into the industry's use of copyright subpoenas to track downloaders.
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- For example, the industry disclosed its use of a library
of digital fingerprints, called "hashes", that it said can uniquely
identify MP3 music files that had been traded on the Napster service as
far back as May 2000. Examining hashes is commonly used by the FBI and
other computer investigators in hacker cases.
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- By comparing the fingerprints of music files on a person's
computer against its library, the RIAA believes it can determine in some
cases whether someone recorded a song from a legally purchased CD or downloaded
it from someone else over the Internet.
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- Copyright lawyers said it remains unresolved whether
consumers can legally download copies of songs on a CD they purchased rather
than making digital copies themselves. But finding MP3 music files that
precisely match copies that have been traded online could be evidence a
person participated in file-sharing services.
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- "The source for nycfashiongirl's sound recordings
was not her own personal CDs," the RIAA's lawyers wrote.
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- The recording industry also disclosed that it is examining
so-called "metadata" tags, hidden snippets of information embedded
within many MP3 music files. In this case, lawyers wrote, they found evidence
that others - including one user who called himself "Atomic Playboy"
- had recorded the music files and that some songs had been downloaded
from known pirate websites.
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- An RIAA vice president, Jonathan Whitehead, said evidence
proved the Brooklyn woman was "hardly an unwitting or passive participant
in the events that involve her computer".
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- The recording industry has won approval for more than
1,300 subpoenas compelling internet providers to identify computer users
suspected of illegally sharing music files on the internet.
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- The RIAA has said it expects to file at least several
hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages as early as next month.
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- US copyright laws allow for damages of $US750 ($1,170)
to $US150,000 ($235,000) for each song offered illegally on a person's
computer, but the RIAA has said it would be open to settlement proposals
from defendants.
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- The campaign comes just weeks after US appeals court
rulings requiring Internet providers to readily identify subscribers suspected
of illegally sharing music and movie files.
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- The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act permits music
companies to force internet providers to turn over the names of suspected
music pirates upon subpoena from any US District Court clerk's office,
without a judge's signature required.
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- Copyright 2003 News Limited.
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- http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7089175%255E1702,00.html
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