Aimster lawsuit filed.

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

from NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/25/technology/25MUSI.html
May 25, 2001 
New Suit Filed to Bar Trading Music on Net

Members of the RIAA suing Aimster:
"BMG, EMI, Universal and Sony, while a fifth,
              AOL Time Warner, sued separately, "

"...the major recording companies filed a copyright infringement lawsuit
yesterday against Aimster, a service that permits users of instant
messaging services to exchange music and other files... With Aimster, the
participants can send files back and forth to each other's hard drives,
effectively attaching a file to their message. About a million people use
the service each day."

Note 

Johnny Deep, the founder of Aimster makes a point in the article that
Aimster is more than "music files" and the files never reside on his
company's servers. This is true peer to peer file sharing, and from my
perspective it should be illegal to regulate/review each and every file
sent to someone else, which is in fact, I suspect what this is really
about.-can the copyright management industry legally watch every sent file
to see if you or I are sending out something they might possibly be able
to claim?

I am deeply worried about even the potential of such an intrusion. If I
make my own music, art, novel, poem, etc. and send it to a friend,
friends, a few hundred friends, is it really RIAA's business what the
content is? I sincerely hope the courts do not let RIAA dictate what
files, what is in those files, and who can "review" them to determine if
they are "copyright compliant" as defined by copyright owners.Librarians
have been saying that the commercial copyright management community wants
to put a stake into Fair Use in the digital enviroment. This seems like an
attempt to put a stake through the heart of fair use.

Even AAP ought to be more than a little worried about this lawsuit It's
not just fair use, it's ultimately about free speech.

FWIW

Chuck