Two Americans, two Indonesians, and one Russian have been indicted in an online child porn case the Feds call the first indictments to hit foreign child porn Webmasters "and their corrupt co-conspirators in the United States," according to U.S. Attorney Paul Coggins. The five are facing 87 criminal counts in the case, including sexual exploitation of minors and distributing child porn. Thomas Reedy and his wife, Janice, of Ft. Worth, Texas; R.W. Kusuma and Hanny Ingganata of Indonesia; and Boris Greenberg of Russia were indicted in the case. Landslide, Inc., a home-based business run by the Reedys, was also charged in the case. The couple was arrested April 12, while the foreign defendants are not yet in custody. Coggins tells Reuters he'll try to extradite them, but he didn't say if Indonesian and Russian authorities are cooperating yet. Landslide, Inc. is a credit card verification service the government charges also provided "an electronic gateway" for subscribers to get to photos and movies at Websites run by the three foreigners - with images showing children ages 4-12 engaged in sexual acts, Reuters says.
LOS ANGELES - The battle over MP3 trading has a new and heavy-hitting player - Metallica. The heavy metal quartet has sued Napster for copyright infringement, and the potential damages could amount to $10 million - roughly $100,000 per pirated song. Metallica has also named Yale University, University of Southern California and Indiana University, who are already trying to manage their own students' use of Napster. But the Metallica suit charges the universities' only interest in blocking Napster involves taking pressure off bandwidth use. "Napster has built a business based on large-scale piracy," the lawsuit says. "Facilitating that are hypocritical universities and colleges who could easily block this insidious and ongoing thievery scheme." The suit puts Metallica - James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich and Jason Newstead - in line with the Recording Industry Association of America, which has already sued Napster on similar grounds. A ruling in that suit is expected shortly. Napster says it doesn't host any music and is protected by a shield of Internet service providers from liability for illegal material sent over their services. A Napster user, student Wayne Chang, tells reporters it's a question of artists being in it for "the pure art of music" and others for the money. "Metallica," he says, "just showed which side of the line they're on." The quartet's newest album is S&M, a concert album on which the band performed with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. And they're not alone in going after the MP3 pirates - the lineups now performing as the Chambers Brothers, the Coasters, and the Drifters have sued MP3.com and various record labels over wrongful music distribution online.
--- Compiled by Humphrey Pennyworth
