The music industry's trade group has ended a program that offered to prevent people from being sued by recording companies if the downloaders admitted to illegally sharing music online, according to court documents.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) launch-ed the "Clean Slate" program in September, when it embarked on a strategy of suing individual computer users for copyright infringement.
The program required individuals to acknowledge in writing that they shared music files online and then remove the files from their computers. In exchange, the RIAA pledged not to target them in its lawsuit campaign.
While hundreds signed up, critics dismissed the program, saying the trade group could not possibly guarantee that anyone who admitted to file-sharing would not be the target of a lawsuit.
Eric Parke, a Novato, California, resident, challenged the program in court, accusing the RIAA of fraudulent business practices for promoting the program and asking the judge for an injunction against the trade group.
In papers filed Friday, attorneys for the RIAA asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds that the case is now moot, because the trade group dropped the program earlier this month.
"The RIAA has concluded that the program is no longer necessary or appropriate, and has voluntarily withdrawn it," the RIAA attorneys wrote in the court papers.
In its motion, the trade group explained that it no longer deems the program useful because it considers the public educated or aware enough now to know that they could be sued for file-sharing.
The RIAA added that the number of people stepping forward to participate in the program has slowed "to a trickle."
In all, 1,108 people signed up for the program, the RIAA said.
The trade group said that it would continue to honor the terms of the program with those who participated.
The subsidiary of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in Kumamoto, Japan, turned a profit in the first quarter of this year, marking the first time the first fab of the unit has become profitable since mass production started at the end of 2024. According to the contract chipmaker’s financial statement released on Friday, Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Inc (JASM), a joint venture running the fab in Kumamoto, posted NT$951 million (US$30.19 million) in profit in the January-to-March period, compared with a loss of NT$1.39 billion in the previous quarter, and a loss of NT$3.25 billion in the first quarter of
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
RESOLUTE BACKING: Two Republican senators are planning to introduce legislation that would impose immediate sanctions on China if it attempts to invade Taiwan US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday reaffirmed US congressional support for Taiwan, saying the US and “all freedom-loving people” have a stake in preventing China from seizing Taiwan by force. Johnson made the remarks in an interview with Fox News Sunday on US President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last week. In an interview that aired on Friday on Fox News, just as Trump wrapped up a high-stakes visit to China, he said he has yet to green-light a new US$14 billion arms package to Taiwan and that it “depends on China.” “It’s a very good
US President Donald Trump yesterday said he would speak to President William Lai (賴清德) as his administration considers whether to move ahead with a US$14 billion weapons sale to Taiwan — a potential arms deal that has drawn criticism from China. “Well, I’ll speak to him. I speak to everybody,” Trump told reporters yesterday when asked if he had any plans to call his counterpart, although he did not offer a time frame for when such a conversation could take place. Trump previously said he would speak to the person “that’s running Taiwan,” without specifying who he meant. “We have that situation very
RSS