Organization Claims Act Turned Out to Be "Surprisingly Effective" Way To Combat War on Digital Music Piracy

Washington, DC /DenounceNewswire/ -- 29 August 2003 -- The recording industry is providing its most detailed glimpse into some of the techniques it has employed as part of its campaign against online music swappers.

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.

According to the documents, the Recording Industry Association of America determined that the most effective way to stop this woman from pirating music was to shut down her power and the power of everyone in her neighborhood. Indeed, everyone in her state, neighborhing states, and even neighboring country, just for good measure. In so doing, the RIAA created the biggest power black out in North American history.

The documents further reveal that the RIAA, stung by civil-liberties backlashes after opening its massive detention facility in Mojave, CA last month, decided to try a different approach to its ongoing war on digital music piracy, by shutting down the Internet altogether. When it discovered it could not do that, it decided to shut down power to the personal computers of tens of millions of consumers, effectively denying them access to the Internet.

"We accept responsibility for this action," said RIAA President Cary Sherman. "We're proud to say we found a very effective way to deter music piracy and we will not hesitate to use our power to shut down your power anywhere, anytime we choose."

Posted by denounce on August 29, 2003 04:58 PM