RIAA Targets Cloud-Storage Company Box.net

The Recording Industry Association of America has filed legal action against Box.net, a company that provides cloud-based storage for businesses, with the allegation that its users have been pirating music. In a declaration filed on Wednesday, the RIAA requested a subpeona of Box.net to investigate specific users believed to be abusing the service by hosting pre-release music files.

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This marks the first time that that RIAA has targeted a cloud-based service. Though the trade group has won several battles with peer-to-peer file sharing services – including a recent $105 million settlement with Limewire – battling legitimate companies such as Box.net, which is marketed as a secure method for businesses to share content, may be more of a challenge.

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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