As the record industry prepares to haul thousands of alleged music pirates into court, its biggest risk may be suing the wrong people -- and losing the support of leading members of Congress in the process.
Labels and artists are widely viewed on Capitol Hill as victims of rampant piracy by millions of users of file-sharing networks. And anonymous file sharers are easy to demonize.
But the real people sued this fall by the Recording Industry Assn. of America may have sympathetic stories to tell. That could turn sentiment on Capitol Hill at a time when some lawmakers are eager to narrow the reach of copyright law and expand consumer rights.
"I would guess that you would then see stories about the family
"That's the kind of stuff that would scare a politician."
Even Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-North Hollywood), a frequent ally of the entertainment industry, said the labels' standing in Congress would suffer if they "overreach and refuse to settle these issues reasonably." But, he added, "I don't think their goal is to collect a huge amount of revenue through the vehicle of lawsuits; I think it is to deter continued illegal conduct."
The RIAA can identify which computers are sharing songs, but it can't easily tell who's using them. The people it sues will be the ones who pay to connect those computers to the Internet, and could be unwitting parents and employers.
"Nobody wants to be the heavy," RIAA President Cary Sherman said. "Everybody is aware that there could be poster children. But the alternative, which is to do nothing about a problem which is getting worse ... that's much worse."
The RIAA plans to start by suing the several hundred "worst offenders," hoping that the opening salvo will deter the masses from sharing copyrighted songs. If it doesn't, Sherman said, the lawsuits will continue.
File-sharing networks attract an estimated 57 million Americans and about 80 million users worldwide, with Kazaa alone drawing at least 4 million people sharing more than 800 million songs, movies and other digital files at any given moment.
The rise of those networks has coincided with a decline in CD sales, which have fallen more than 25% since Napster Inc. debuted in 1999.
The one bright spot for the RIAA is that its educational efforts may be making some headway -- 50% of the 12- to 44-year-olds surveyed by Edison Media Research in May said it's wrong to download songs for free, compared with 39% last year.
