RIAA Orders File-Sharing Firms To Cease-And-Desist

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

20 September 2005

It emerged last week that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sent cease-and-desist letters to seven firms offering file-sharing services.

Although the RIAA declined to publicly name the companies in question, US media reports have identified three of the firms as BearShare, LimeWire and WinMX.

Suggesting that the file-sharing firms are likely to find constructing a legal defence difficult in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent ruling on the liability of Grokster for the copyright infringing activities of its customers, the RIAA announced in a statement that:

"Companies situated similarly to Grokster have been given ample opportunity to do the right thing. There is a right way and a wrong way to conduct a business. Those businesses that continue to knowingly operate on the wrong side of that line do so at their own risk."

The cease-and-desist letters reportedly call on the firms in question to close down their operations, or put in place technological measures designed to prevent copyright infringement.

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