Stephanie Craig was flabbergasted two weeks ago when she came home from school to discover that her father had emptied her hard drive of downloaded tunes.
The 15-year-old sophomore at a Chicago-area high school considered herself a "light user" of the Kazaa music-file-swapping service. She felt that her father overreacted to news that nearby Loyola University was hit with a subpoena by the recording industry to divulge the names of students obtaining pirated music off the Internet.
"I probably had over a thousand songs downloaded," Craig said. "I would consider myself a light user. I know people who have a way lot more music than I do. Like maybe 75,000."
Eventually, she shared her father's concern and stopped downloading music. To this day, she remains ambivalent about doing so, even after the Recording Industry Association of America said on Monday it would go after "substantial" file sharers rather than "de minimis users" of music-file-sharing programs.
The RIAA's statement to Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, appeared to depart from previous statements in subpoenas against more than 900 file sharers, who appeared to be randomly named. The defendants included college students, unsuspecting parents, Internet service providers and even grandparents.
"I don't think I'll download anymore since we don't really know what they (RIAA) are going to do," Craig said.
It seems as if other file traders are in the same predicament. Because the RIAA has refused to quantify what constitutes a "substantial" amount of file sharing, file sharers are left to wonder whether they are vulnerable to litigation.
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,60110,00.html
The 15-year-old sophomore at a Chicago-area high school considered herself a "light user" of the Kazaa music-file-swapping service. She felt that her father overreacted to news that nearby Loyola University was hit with a subpoena by the recording industry to divulge the names of students obtaining pirated music off the Internet.
"I probably had over a thousand songs downloaded," Craig said. "I would consider myself a light user. I know people who have a way lot more music than I do. Like maybe 75,000."
Eventually, she shared her father's concern and stopped downloading music. To this day, she remains ambivalent about doing so, even after the Recording Industry Association of America said on Monday it would go after "substantial" file sharers rather than "de minimis users" of music-file-sharing programs.
The RIAA's statement to Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, appeared to depart from previous statements in subpoenas against more than 900 file sharers, who appeared to be randomly named. The defendants included college students, unsuspecting parents, Internet service providers and even grandparents.
"I don't think I'll download anymore since we don't really know what they (RIAA) are going to do," Craig said.
It seems as if other file traders are in the same predicament. Because the RIAA has refused to quantify what constitutes a "substantial" amount of file sharing, file sharers are left to wonder whether they are vulnerable to litigation.
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,60110,00.html