Whether or not you approve of the recent lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against people who allegedly are guilty of copyright infringement for having downloaded music from the Internet, a recent survey indicates that the lawsuits have had a chilling effect on free music downloading.
Legal background
The RIAA won an important case against Verizon in January, 2003, which required Verizon under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to release the names of subscribers who were suspected of copyright infringement. An appellate court upheld this result, and this led the way for the RIAA to begin the process of filing lawsuits against and extracting settlements from individuals accused of copyright infringement with respect to downloaded music.
The RIAA sent a first wave of subpoenas to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in July, 2003. After that, the RIAA filed more than 300 lawsuits against people suspected of distributing copyrighted music files for free. Some of the persons targeted by the lawsuits have settled. Some are fighting back legally.
More recently, an appellate court has overturned the Verizon ruling requiring the release of names by ISPs. This may force the RIAA to sue anonymous "John Doe" defendants while seeking subpoena approval from judges to ascertain identities.
The chilling results
According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project as well as Media Metrix, the percentage of people in the United States who download music files online has dropped by almost half – from 35 million people down to 18 million since the RIAA launched its lawsuits in September, 2003. In fact, the statistics reveal that the percentage of Internet users who download music on an average day has dropped between 1% and 4%. Moreover, even those people who still download music are doing so less often. Steep declines in music downloading were noted among college-educated people (61% decline), parents with children living at home (58% decline), and women (58% decline).
In addition to the foregoing, there have been steep declines in the number of people running peer-to-peer file-sharing applications on their computers. The declines in user base for certain applications were as follows: 59% decline for Grokster, 25% decline for WinMX, 15% decline for KaZaa, and 9% decline for BearShare. The percentage of Internet users overall who admit sharing music, video, picture or game files has dropped from 28% to 20%.
At the same time as the declining trend as in unpaid for music downloading, an increasing number of consumers has signed up for paid online music services. For example, in just November, 2003 alone, 3.2 million people in the United States visited the for pay re-launched Napster.com. Apple's iTunes, now expanded to serve Windows-based computer users, attracted 2.7 million visitors in November.
The point is...
The RIAA already has succeeded in large measure by virtue of its lawsuits. While the individual settlements it has extracted have been relatively small, and although the legal going for the RIAA might be a little tougher given the recent Verizon appellate ruling, the fact is that the lawsuits have had a deterrent effect. At the end of the day, the RIAA wants to see a decrease in unpaid for music downloading, and the lawsuits, at least for now, have achieved that goal.
This article first appeared on Law.com.
Eric Sinrod is a partner in the San Francisco of Duane Morris (www.duanemorris.com), where he focuses on litigation matters of various types, including information technology disputes. His Web site is www.sinrodlaw.com, and he can be reached at ejsinrod@duanemorris.com. To receive a weekly e-mail link to Mr. Sinrod's columns, please send an e-mail with the word Subscribe in the Subject line to ejsinrod@duanemorris.com.