- The music industry goes to court Friday to try to force an Internet service provider to identify a subscriber accused of illegally trading copyrighted songs, setting up a legal showdown that could indelibly alter the free-swapping culture that has been a signature of the Web's early years.
If successful, the suit against Verizon would pave the way for ailing record companies to send out reams of cease-and-desist letters to alleged music pirates, scaring them into submission rather than going through the long process of suing each one in court.
Verizon general counsel Sarah Deutsch said a record industry victory would harm the privacy rights of Verizon subscribers and force Internet providers to give up the names of its customers without judicial review.
"There are plenty of companies that have business problems that would like to write a letter-writing campaign to hundreds of thousands of people," Deutsch said. "We'll be a turnstile."
The case, which will be decided in U.S. District Court here, is the music industry's latest attempt to clamp down on illegal file sharing. Through programs like Kazaa, Morpheus and Gnutella ( news - web sites), a person can find virtually any song or movie — sometimes even before it's released in stores — and download it for free. On a typical afternoon, about 3 million people were connected on the Kazaa network and sharing over 500 million files.
Verizon has already agreed to hand over the subscriber's name if the music industry trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America ( news - web sites), files a separate "John Doe" suit against the subscriber. The RIAA refused. Top RIAA lawyer Cary Sherman said anti-piracy laws don't require a separate suit, which would require more time and expense.
"One of the things we're discovering is that people are not aware that they are engaging in conduct that is clearly illegal," Sherman said. "If you got a letter from RIAA saying we know that you're doing this, I'd say there's a pretty good chance that you would stop."
At issue is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ( news - web sites), passed in 1998 to protect copyright holders from piracy. It was created out of a compromise among Internet providers, technology firms and content owners. Now both Verizon and RIAA are saying the other isn't living up to the deal.
Most file-traders keep their music and movies on their own computer, only using their Internet provider as a pipeline to trade, and Verizon says RIAA only has an automatic right to know the subscriber's name if the copyrighted music sits on a Verizon-owned computer.
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