Record Industry Sends Individual Warnings to Online Song-Swappers

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 29, 2003 - 9:47am.

Los Angeles -- The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade group representing major record labels that has served as the industry's voice against online music piracy, has stepped up its campaign against file-sharing services by sending individual instant messages to users of Kazaa and Grokster, warning them of the penalties of criminal copyright infringement. "When you offer music on these systems, you are not anonymous and you can easily be identified," reads part of the message sent to around 200,000 file-sharing service users on Tuesday. The RIAA told Reuters that at least one million users will receive the message by the end of the week. "We're going to be sending messages to the very people who are offering music, in real time, as they do it," RIAA president Cary Sherman told CNET News.com. "The hope is that this way we'll be reaching the people who need to know that they are not anonymous, that there are risks of legal consequences if they continue, and also that there are risks to privacy and security."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=2652931
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-998825.html?tag=fd_top