RIAA Attacks Usenet

Continuing their fight against online music piracy, the Recording Industry Association of America today announced that they have discovered a new foe: Usenet.

"Whenever brand new and up and coming technology such as Usenet is created, we are committed to ensuring that it is utilized in a lawful, copyright-friendly manner," said Hilary Rosen, President of the RIAA. Rosen, who stumbled upon Usenet while surfing the internet yesterday, believes Usenet was likely created recently as a response to the RIAA's lawsuit against Napster.com. Like on the music-sharing service Napster, many Usenet subscribers trade MP3 files. A single Usenet post can make one file freely available for download to millions of other users. "This is an affront both to record companies and to artists," Rosen said.

Unlike with Napster, the RIAA has had difficulties determining who, exactly, owns the Usenet service. "We posted messages to several Usenet discussion groups, we asked who is in charge of this Usenet thing, and we called several ISP's. Our questions were met with laughter and derision. Obviously, there is some sort of conspiracy going on to keep secret the identity of Usenet's controlling authority."

Rosen said that the RIAA will, if necessary, take legal action against the owners of Usenet. The RIAA has previously defeated web sites such as MP3.com through litigation, and they are confident that a lawsuit can and will shut down Usenet.

"Record corporations have always been at the forefront of the development of new technology," Rosen said. "I don't understand why people keep calling us 'clueless AOLers'."


This was forwarded to me by email. Author unkown.

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