In Depth April 24, 2008, 5:00PM EST

Does She Look Like a Music Pirate?

(page 5 of 5)

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What Pirates Want: The most popular content on the Web networks for sharing copyrighted material Week ending Apr. 18; Data: BigChampagne

An even bigger battle lies ahead. Andersen and Lybeck filed their own suit against the RIAA, the SSC, MediaSentry, Warner Music Group, EMI Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and Universal Music Group last year and updated it with an amended complaint this month. The record labels declined to comment for this story, referring questions to the RIAA.

Lybeck figures that with all the potential errors in IP addresses collected by MediaSentry, the RIAA has gone after thousands of innocent people. He thinks the addresses could be erroneous as often as 20% of the time, which would mean 8,000 people wrongly accused. He believes that many innocent people have been coerced into paying because they can't afford to fight the RIAA in court. (Although the SSC has stopped operating, an organization called Settlement Information Line Call Center now plays a similar role for the music industry.)

"SERIAL BAD FAITH"

MediaSentry declined to comment, deferring to the RIAA. Gabriel says there have been few instances of mistaken IP addresses. "MediaSentry's investigation isn't flawed," he says. "The proof is in the pudding. We have obtained judgments against hundreds and hundreds of people." He declined to specify the number of settlements.

The RIAA did win a partial victory this week. After a conference call on Apr. 21 with Lybeck and Gabriel, the court struck Andersen's complaint and asked Lybeck to refine the claims. As a result, Lybeck plans to drop charges of fraud and racketeering, which the judge thought would be tough to prove. "The judge understands what we believe, that there isn't any merit to these claims," Gabriel.

Still, Andersen's case is very much alive. Lybeck plans to file another amended complaint by May 1, including the charges of conspiracy, negligence, and abuse of the legal process. Shortly thereafter, he plans to start deposing officials from the RIAA and its affiliates in preparation for a jury trial. "The trick to making this case stick will depend on to what extent Andersen can show that the RIAA engaged in serial bad-faith lawsuits," says Richard C. Vasquez, a partner in Seattle at Morgan Miller Blair who is not involved in the dispute.

From her apartment outside Portland, Andersen remains involved in the broader case. She collects files on her suit and tracks other disputes with the RIAA online. One recent winter day, she sipped a Diet Pepsi and watched Tazz jump from the couch and settle on the floor. "You have to find some positive in stuff, too," she says. "For whatever reason, I have been given a unique opportunity to fight this. I feel a responsibility in a way and want to help others. That pushes me along."

"Does She Look Like a Music Pirate?" (In Depth, May 5, 2008) used the phrase "IP spoofing" imprecisely. The story used the term to describe the practice of hacking into another person's computer to assume its Internet Protocol address when illegally downloading music. "IP spoofing" normally refers to the practice of disguising a computer's address to send out spam or other harmful data traffic.

Green is an associate editor for BusinessWeek. With Susann Rutledge

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