RIAA settles lawsuits as P2P United starts lobbying

The trade group also announced that a dozen other internet users have also agreed to pay unspecified amounts to avoid being sued, after they learned from their ISPs that the RIAA was seeking their names for possible lawsuits.

Reports suggest that settlements are likely to range somewhere between $2,000 and $10,000. Meanwhile, despite warnings from campaign groups, 838 people have signed up to the RIAA's amnesty scheme, which "guarantees" they will not be sued if they admit to illegally trading songs and delete them from their computers.

Last week, the RIAA was forced to drop a lawsuit against one US pensioner, who owns an Apple computer so could not even download the Kazaa software she had allegedly been using to download gangsta rap songs.

Meanwhile, a trade group called P2P United has offered to commence negotiations with the record industry and start lobbying Congress to prove the legitimacy of the P2P business model.

Formed of companies including Grokster and Streamcast Networks, P2P United met yesterday to determine a plan of attack, though Sharman Networks - which operates the popular Kazaa network - did not attend the event.

The RIAA said it was encouraged by P2P United's pledge to educate users about copyright infringement but added that "they need to do a whole lot more before they can claim to be legitimate businesses".

Despite the piracy prevalent on P2P networks, they are increasingly being used by games companies - including Atari and Eidos - as a new distribution channel. The music industry is expected to ultimately follow suit, assuming it can first resolve its uberbeef with the networks.

"It's long past time for the 'Tyrannosaurical' recording industry to stop blaming - and suing - its customers to cover up the industry's own glaring failure to adapt yet again to a new technology," said P2P United executive director Adam Eisgrau during yesterday's conference call.

"This new technology should already have been making millions for it and for the average artist whom it still hypocritically claims to speak for," he added.

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