Pirate of yesterday

Pirate of today

In the summer of 2003, RIAA announced that it would be suing individuals who downloaded free music from P2P networks. They issued subpoenas to internet service providers (ISPs) so they could get the personal information of individuals connected to IP addresses. This enabled the RIAA to locate thousand of individuals who could potentially be downloading free music. ISPs and public advocacy organizations tried to stop the RIAA from getting and using this information. Ultimately, the courts decided against RIAA, but this was after they sued 261 individuals including a 12-year old honor student living with her single mother and an older woman with a Macintosh wrongly accused of downloading hard-core rap music. However, these actions did not diminish P2P traffic by the end of 2004. (EFF 2005)