Lawsuits allege illegal downloads

Merri Board, a Richland, Wash., mother of four teenage daughters, is the 126th Washington state resident targeted by a recording industry lawsuit for alleged illegal music downloads.

Board is the second state resident sued in the past several weeks by the Recording Industry Association of America. In October the RIAA, which represents record labels and distributors, also sued Ellensburg resident Jessica Vanderschauw over alleged downloads.

So far the recording industry group has also sued three Idaho residents.

Those suits are a continuing effort by the RIAA to discourage computer users from downloading and sharing songs with other users.

Of the 126 sued in Washington, 79 defendants have settled the claims, said Jenni Engebretsen, an RIAA spokeswoman. Of the three Idaho residents, one has settled so far. The RIAA does not disclose the amounts of payments made by those settling the actions.

Only one of the 126 residents of Washington lived in Spokane, Engebretsen said. That person agreed to a settlement, she noted. The three Idaho residents lived in Boise and Mountain Home, she said.

Since 2003, the industry group has filed more than 18,000 federal suits for illegal downloads. About 5,200 of those cases have settled, usually involving agreements to pay monetary penalties and discontinue the downloading of music.

Engebretsen said the RIAA is unable to say how many lawsuits it dismissed, abandoned or has voluntarily withdrawn. She noted the RIAA has not yet gone to trial on any of the suits.

Even though the RIAA is pushing the civil lawsuits, the problem of downloading continues, she said. From 1999 to 2005 the recording industry saw the number of units of music shipped fall 35 percent, she said.

“That’s taken a tremendous toll on the industry as a whole, and not just the artists at the top of the business. It affects producers, recording engineers, songwriters and anyone in the business.”

Those targeted are named after the RIAA hires investigators who go online and look at well-known peer-to-peer music sharing networks, such as eDonkey. Once a user who appears to be sharing copyrighted music is spotted, the RIAA gets the user’s Internet Protocol address, then files a John Doe place-holder lawsuit.

That action can later be amended if the RIAA can obtain the name of the person associated with the IP address.

Lawsuits are not the first choice in most cases, Engebretsen said.

About two years ago, Board, the Richland mother, said she received a letter from Verizon, which provided her Internet account at the time. The letter said it had disclosed her name to the RIAA after an initial investigation of downloading.

She also received a letter sent by RIAA attorneys listing a dollar amount to settle the action. The suit, filed in the Eastern Washington U.S. District Court, alleged she unlawfully shared a group of downloaded songs, including tunes by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Michael Jackson.

The amount of the settlement was well beyond what she could afford, Board told the Tri-City Herald, without specifying that amount.

Board was also quoted saying it’s possible friends of her daughters used her computer to download the music. Reached by The Spokesman-Review, Board declined further comment on the lawsuit.

Recent court documents show she has not yet agreed to a settlement.

Attempts to reach Vanderschauw were not successful.

The RIAA drew loud criticism earlier this year when an MIT sophomore was sued for alleged illegal downloads. Cassandra Hunt wrote a column for the school paper saying she had been asked to settle for $3,750, or nearly $14 a song.

When Hunt said she couldn’t pay that amount in the required six months, a settlement representative for the RIAA suggested “students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford settlements,” according to the column Hunt wrote.

Her story inflamed sentiments across the country, turning – in the opinions of many – Hunt into a victim of a greedy recording industry.

Engebretsen said the goal of the effort is to protect the industry and provide a strong legal groundwork “so that we can help promote the next generation of recording artists.”

She added, “Without question, these suits have helped arrest the tremendous growth of illegal (downloads).”

The result of the RIAA suits has not been drastic reduction, she said. “Our goal all along has been to bring it to a level of manageable control.”