Former Teen Cheerleader Defies RIAA Over $7,400 File Sharing Tab

The recording industry wants $7,400 from Whitney Harper for infringing 37 songs on the Kazaa file sharing network. Harper, shown here at age 14, was a juvenile at the time of the unlawful downloading. She is now a college junior fighting the case.

Former cheerleader Whitney Harper admits downloading pirated music from her San Antonio, Texas family's computer years ago, when she was barely in high school. She just doesn't think think she should pay $7,400 for it today.

"I would do homework on that computer and listen to music. I didn't know I was stealing or distributing it. I thought I was like listening to MTV on the internet," Harper said in a telephone interview.

Harper is now 20, a Texas Tech public relations junior, and represents yet another statistic in the Recording Industry Association of America's litigation campaign -- with some 30,000 copyright file sharing lawsuits filed and counting. It's not known how many of the RIAA targets are juveniles, but Harper is being pursued for acts she says she committed when she was 14, 15, or 16 years of age.

Now the Recording Industry Association of America wants (.pdf) $7,400 to settle a file sharing lawsuit stemming from her piracy of 37 tracks, including music by Eminem, the Police, Mariah Carey and others.

"I had no idea I was doing anything wrong. I knew I was listening to music. I didn't have an understanding of file sharing," Harper said.

For years, those tracks languished on the family's computer with the file share folder open, even after Harper moved to college two years ago. "I don't even remember what the password is," she said of her Kazaa account. "I think it is morally wrong to sue me for something I did that long ago. That it was being distributed to all of cyberspace, I didn't have an understanding of that at all."

Harper, who says file sharing is "morally wrong," is now a junior at Texas Tech.

Last year, the RIAA originally sued her father, Steven, but redirected its case months later to his daughter after she admitted she was the downloader.

"They contacted my dad, who doesn't know much about computers except for e-mail," she said. "He said he didn't know what they were talking about."

RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said via an e-mail: "As in every case, we strive to be fair and reasonable. However, it's disappointing that the defendant is apparently choosing to drag this out."

The woman's lawyer, Scott Mackenzie of Dallas, said RIAA lawyers told him, "'Come on, she knew better than this,'" he said.

For her part, Harper said downloading "is morally wrong for people that know what they are doing. I would not do it now. I would never do it. I don't steal from people. I'm not a bad person."

She is demanding a trial, and the RIAA in court documents last week called her "vexatious" for refusing to settle for $200 a song, the amount the Copyright Act allows for so-called "innocent infringement."

"I think it is wrong for them to sue me. I'm hoping I can win and don't have to pay anything," she said.

While most of the RIAA file sharing cases settle out of court for a few thousand dollars, one lawsuit has gone to trial. It resulted in a $222,000 verdict against a Minnesota woman last year for infringing 24 songs on Kazaa.

But a mistrial was declared last month after the trial judge ruled that merely making available songs on the internet for others to download does not amount to copyright infringement, a decision the RIAA is appealing.