Local music pirates paying price

David Kihara

Monday, April 18, 2005 | 10:59 a.m.

Southern Nevada residents are among those targeted in the music industry's recently stepped-up efforts to take action against people who illegally download and share music online.

In the past few months major record companies such as Virgin Records of America Inc., Sony BMG Music Entertainment and even Motown Records have begun cracking down on illegal music file-sharing in the valley.

At least four lawsuits against alleged music pirates have been filed in federal court in Las Vegas in recent months, according to court records, and more suits could follow, the Recording Industry Association of America said recently.

The suits are against Las Vegas residents who have been downloading and sharing music through programs such as Gnutella, KaZaA and Grokster -- programs that allow people to exchange songs person-to-person rather than through a network like Napster.

Greg Hair is one Las Vegas resident who felt the sting of the recording industry's recent crackdown on file-sharing. Before Christmas, Hair was sued by some of the biggest record companies in the world: Virgin, Warner Bros. Records Inc., Atlantic Recording Corp. and Sony BMG.

The suit claimed that Hair, 42, had shared more than 1,000 music files online with others. The record companies also threatened to seek fines of $750 per song -- or at least $750,000 -- if he didn't stop the file sharing and come to an agreement with the companies.

Hair knew his son Zak and daughter Jyl had been downloading and sharing music online through the KaZaA program and understood at least generally that it was illegal. But like millions of Americans, he didn't think he would become the target of a federal lawsuit alleging copyright infringement.

"I couldn't believe it. They hit me pretty hard," Hair said.

He said the majority of the downloading was done by his children, but since the log-in name on the computer was in his name, the suit was against him.

"It was something all their friends did. They were just listening to music," Hair said. "When I was young, we used to trade tapes."

Hair, a construction contractor and native Southern Nevada resident, said that he decided to settle with the record companies out of court rather than spend a lot of time and money fighting the recording industry.

He eventually agreed to pay a $5,000 fine and completed payment on the penalty on April 1.

"As parents, we always encouraged the kids to use the Internet, and they would listen to music while they were doing their homework," Hair said.

Hair's son Zak, 20, recently moved to Burbank, Calif., to pursue a career in the film industry. Zak, who had been downloading music for at least five years until the lawsuit, conceded that he and his sister had done most of the music downloading and sharing at the household and felt horrible that his father would be left with the $5,000 fine.

"It's not his fault," Zak Hair said.

He said he didn't understand why the music industry would choose to go after small-scale file-sharers like his family.

"Why does some multi-billion dollar industry care about us?" he said.

The Las Vegas-based attorney who filed the suits on behalf of the record industry, James Fairbanks of the law firm Morris Pickering & Peterson, declined to comment and referred all calls to the Recording Industry Association of America. The association's spokesman, Jonathan Lamy, said he could not comment about the specific Las Vegas cases.

The industry is targeting people like the Hairs because it wants to send a message that file-sharing is not tolerated and to steer people toward legal -- but not free -- downloading programs, Lamy said.

"This is not a victimless crime," Lamy said. "Piracy has led to a 20 percent decrease in sales in recent years." Those losses are felt by both the music industry and the recording-artist community, he said.

The recording industry usually goes after people who share upwards of 1,000 copyrighted songs with others, Lamy said. But, he added, the industry could conceivably bring a lawsuit against someone who shared even one copyrighted song.

"People now know it is illegal to file-share," he said.

Since September 2003, at least 9,900 suits have been filed in federal courts across the nation against individuals suspected of file sharing. Surprisingly, not a single case has ever been brought to trial, Lamy said, adding that 2,200 cases have been settled out of court.

The remaining cases are in litigation, he said.

The copyright infringement cases are usually settled for $3,500 to $4,500.