Rosen should know. In recent years, music companies and the RIAA have sued, among others, Web sites that serve up MP3 files, the individuals who used those sites, and a company that makes a popular Walkman-like device for listening to MP3s. For starters, because the application of traditional intellectual property law to the Internet is still unclear. In 1998, for example, the RIAA tried to have the Diamond Rio, a Walkman-like device made by S3 Inc. that lets people listen to MP3 files, declared illegal. Last year, however, a federal appeals court judge tossed out the suit, holding that the Rio was legal under the Audio Home Recording Act, a 1992 law affirming the rights of consumers to use digital recording devices.
Enforcement can also be a tricky problem.
Consider the prospect of suing teenage music hounds who are the major consumers of downloading software. Under copyright law, they are almost certainly guilty of theft. But it wouldn't be worth the industry's time or energy to go after them. Likewise, the industry has a strong legal case against the many pirate Web sites that give away MP3 files for free, but the effort is ultimately futile. Nobody is going to be able to bail themselves out through litigation,'' says William W. Fisher III, a professor of intellectual-property law at Harvard University Law School.