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<b><i>Commentary</b></i> Is Suing Your Customers A Good Idea?
Four thousand two hundred and eighty lawsuits and counting.
That's how many lawsuits have been brought by the major record labels against music fans for using peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software (like KaZaA or Morpheus) to swap music over the Internet. The 1-year anniversary has just been reached in the recording industry's unprecedented litigation campaign against its own customers. The campaign appears to have hit its stride, with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announcing roughly 500 new suits each month.
Suing large numbers of “regular folks” is relatively unprecedented in the annals of intellectual property law. But we could be watching the makings of a new trend. DirecTV, for example, has in the last 3 years sent more than 170,000 demand letters to individuals who are allegedly “stealing” satellite TV. The letters deliver an ultimatum: pay $3500 or face a lawsuit. So far, DirecTV has filed more than 24,000 suits against people who have called their bluff.
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