07-27-2005, 05:08 PM
Four Acadiana residents are facing a federal lawsuit from record companies for illegally downloading copyrighted music from artists such as Jon Bon Jovi, Outkast, Korn and Usher onto their computers.
They are part of the latest wave of lawsuits filed in June by the Recording Industry Association of America against 784 people across the country. The unknown downloaders were originally listed as John Does until the RIAA was able to subpoena Internet service providers for their names.
Named in this week's suits are two Opelousas residents, Delonda Batiste and Frederick Campbell, and two Eunice residents, Jason Paul Castro and Glenn Credeur.
All four used Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file sharing network, to download hundreds of songs, according to court records.
The record companies are demanding that the four stop downloading and sharing the music files. The defendants could be forced to pay thousands of dollars in restitution.
Previous settlements in similar cases have reportedly been between $3,500 and $4,500.
These new cases follow the January lawsuit against Opelousas police Officer Cleveland Thomas, who allegedly downloaded more than 2,000 songs from Kazaa. Thomas, Acadiana's first named defendant in a downloading lawsuit, said at the time that RIAA representatives had offered him a chance to avoid a lawsuit by paying $3,000, but he didn't have the money.
The RIAA has filed a total of 12,500 such lawsuits across the country since September 2003, said spokeswoman Jenni Engebresten. At least 141 of those have been against Louisiana residents.
To date, about 2,800 cases have been settled.
Engebresten said there is no specific number of downloaded songs that can prompt attention from the RIAA.
"Under the law, uploading or downloading even one song is illegal," Engebresten said. "That said, our efforts to date have primarily focused on the egregious offenders - those who are downloading hundreds or thousands of files and offering them to millions of anonymous users."
Two of the downloaders, Batiste and Credeur, had fewer than 1,000 downloaded files, according to court documents. Several of the files listed, however, were not music files.
Castro and Campbell had more than 3,000 downloaded files, but many of those were also not music files.
Their musical tastes spanned across several genres. Batiste had many songs by American Idol contestants, including Fantasia Barrino, LaToya London and George Huff. Credeur favored Dashboard Confessional and punk rock bands.
Castro's and Campbell's playlists included hip-hop and rap artists such as Missy Elliot, Janet Jackson and Ice Cube.
None of the four named in the lawsuit were available for comment by phone Tuesday.
They are part of the latest wave of lawsuits filed in June by the Recording Industry Association of America against 784 people across the country. The unknown downloaders were originally listed as John Does until the RIAA was able to subpoena Internet service providers for their names.
Named in this week's suits are two Opelousas residents, Delonda Batiste and Frederick Campbell, and two Eunice residents, Jason Paul Castro and Glenn Credeur.
All four used Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file sharing network, to download hundreds of songs, according to court records.
The record companies are demanding that the four stop downloading and sharing the music files. The defendants could be forced to pay thousands of dollars in restitution.
Previous settlements in similar cases have reportedly been between $3,500 and $4,500.
These new cases follow the January lawsuit against Opelousas police Officer Cleveland Thomas, who allegedly downloaded more than 2,000 songs from Kazaa. Thomas, Acadiana's first named defendant in a downloading lawsuit, said at the time that RIAA representatives had offered him a chance to avoid a lawsuit by paying $3,000, but he didn't have the money.
The RIAA has filed a total of 12,500 such lawsuits across the country since September 2003, said spokeswoman Jenni Engebresten. At least 141 of those have been against Louisiana residents.
To date, about 2,800 cases have been settled.
Engebresten said there is no specific number of downloaded songs that can prompt attention from the RIAA.
"Under the law, uploading or downloading even one song is illegal," Engebresten said. "That said, our efforts to date have primarily focused on the egregious offenders - those who are downloading hundreds or thousands of files and offering them to millions of anonymous users."
Two of the downloaders, Batiste and Credeur, had fewer than 1,000 downloaded files, according to court documents. Several of the files listed, however, were not music files.
Castro and Campbell had more than 3,000 downloaded files, but many of those were also not music files.
Their musical tastes spanned across several genres. Batiste had many songs by American Idol contestants, including Fantasia Barrino, LaToya London and George Huff. Credeur favored Dashboard Confessional and punk rock bands.
Castro's and Campbell's playlists included hip-hop and rap artists such as Missy Elliot, Janet Jackson and Ice Cube.
None of the four named in the lawsuit were available for comment by phone Tuesday.
