Recording Industry Sues Father For Daughter's Music Downloads

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Dave Bink was shocked when he learned last month that he was being sued by the recording industry for the downloading of hundreds of songs, including "All You Wanted" by Michelle Branch, "Eat You Alive" by Limp Bizkit and "U Don't Have to Call" by Usher.

Samantha Bink, 15, downloaded songs from the Internet two years ago on the computer in her family’s home in Racine. She thought downloading the songs was free and legal, but her father, Dave Bink, is now getting sued for his daughter’s actions.

It is critical for us to send a strong message to individual users that you can be caught and there are consequences for your actions.

I just thought it was really cool. You could listen to music and you didn’t have to pay for it.

Bink, 48, a motorcycle salesman from Racine, listens to nothing but Led Zeppelin and The Doors and can barely turn on the computer.

"I don't have anything with Usher or anything like that," Bink said. "And I've never downloaded music in my life. I thought it was a joke."

It's not.

Two years ago, Bink's teenage daughter downloaded more than 600 songs on their home computer through Kazaa, Internet software that allows users to swap music for free.

Since 2003, the recording industry has been searching the Internet for people who use Kazaa and similar software to share and download copyrighted songs. It has sued 11,000 users for copyright infringement, including 104 in Wisconsin.

Because the home computer was registered in his name, Bink is among the targets. He faces this choice: Pay $3,750 to settle or go to court, where he may be ordered to pay at least $750 per song.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/racine/may05/326357.asp

to start downloading more and more songs.

Please NOTE;

IT IS NOT DOWNLOADING MUSIC THEY GET YOU FOR!

It is SHARING MUSIC.

Weirdly the law is asymmetrical.

If you arrange to never share your music, you ought to be OK with respect to RIAA suits unless they get the law changes they want.

What the RIAA is doing is extortion, plain and simple. I do not condone rampant downloading of music from sites like Kazaa (which are riddled with spyware anyway), but suing kids is not right. It's not like any of that money that they make in the settlements actually goes back to the artists. Anyway, just one more reason why I have not bought a CD in 2 years.