Recording industry faces backlash from piracy war

The recording industry's legal assault on music file-swappers is a dramatic effort to survive after resisting online digital distribution even as music fans grew increasingly disaffected with the soaring cost of popular CDs.

But some observers say record companies now risk a backlash that could damage far more than their financial results, while still not making a significant dent in music piracy. Others contend the public already has so little regard for the major record labels that the lawsuits probably won't make much of a difference.

"They're probably going to get the results they want, but I think it's kind of silly to go after individuals," said Jason Rich, a music fan from Watervliet, New York. "There are so many Web sites out there, people don't know necessarily they're doing anything wrong."

A day after firing off 261 copyright lawsuits against individuals it accuses of each sharing hundreds of music files online, recording industry officials fielded a few calls from defendants eager to avoid paying thousands in damages.

The Recording Industry Association of America said it settled the first of the suits for US$2,000. The defendant was Sylvia Torres, the mother of 12-year-old Brianna LaHara of New York, who was accused of downloading more than 1,000 songs from Kazaa.

"I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love," Brianna said in a statement.

The effort by some to make it all go away may bode well for the industry, but some observers and lawmakers began to question the tactic. Several accounts emerged that some of those caught in the industry's piracy net were young children and seniors -- hardly the perfect poster image of a hard-core music pirateer. That led some to question whether the industry might be making its problem even worse.

During a Senate Judiciary Hearing Tuesday, Senator Dick Durbin alluded to whether the industry wasn't going too far while questioning Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

"Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" Durbin asked Sherman.

Sherman told Durbin the industry is merely trying to get the message across that sharing music is illegal and that people may be caught.

"Yes, there are going to be some kids caught in this, but you'd be surprised at how many adults are engaged in this activity," Sherman said.

The accounts of those sued bolstered the view that music fans of every ilk have taken to downloading music directly to their computers, not to mention being able to do so for free, as a preferred method of getting their music.

"The real hope here is that people will return to the record store," said Eric Garland, CEO of BigCampagne LLC, which tracks peer-to-peer Internet trends. "The biggest question is whether singling out a handful of copyright infringers will invigorate business or drive file-sharing further underground, further out of reach."

There are signs some people have stopped file-sharing since June, when the RIAA announced its lawsuit campaign, and also have moved to other file-swapping networks perceived to be safer than the market leader, Kazaa.