RIAA abandons the practice of suing Joe the Plumbers, will go after ISPs instead
In an uncharacteristically rational move, on the surface at least, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has decided that it will stop suing individuals caught downloading pirated music and will instead focus solely on asking the pirates ISP to either serve warning or kill their internet connections. This tactic is by no means new and is in fact standard practice in many countries across the world where, you guessed it, it makes little to no difference in levels of music piracy. But hey, at least the RIAA has finally realized that its spending $100,000 to sue a struggling single-mom diner waitress for $25,000 after catching her downloading a few pirated CDs is plain stupid, especially when there isn’t a hope in the world that it’ll ever collect a penny from her.
..and in turn, the ISPs will come after you now.
Sounds like this will complicate things for the ISPs. I mean, tracking down every possible pirate, upgrades in technology to block users (and what if the wrong users get blocked), and then there is the lost revenue. Whew! Sounds like a huge logistical nightmare for service providers who have done nothing more but provide access to its users.
owwww… it really hurts when i pee…
This is going to crash and burn. There will be thousands of people who are incorrectly flagged by RIAA and will have their connection killed. These people will then turn around and file a class action lawsuit against their ISP, then the ISP will start having to pay out money. RIAA will then be dumped by the ISPs!
RIAA, face it, youre fighting a loosing battle. Just give up and face the fact that artist are no longer going to be paid extraordinary amounts of cash for doing what they do.
Incorrect. The artists can still be payed well. The LABELS can’t force utter crap like Britney Spears new album down the public’s throat and expect it to be a top seller anymore though. Therein lies the problem, and why they’re so aggressive about this. Rather than give us quality music and quality artists, they’d rather shove regurgitated crap from 1999 into your ears. The big labels need to die. The internet is a powerful tool, and independent labels can still finance artists to make albums, which will sell very well via iTunes or other internet/digital methods which yield HIGHER PROFITS THAN THE BIG LABELS pay. The BMGs of the world know this and are peeing their pants and fighting it any way possible.
horay. another reason for comcast to throttle the hell out of random peoples internet. the RIAA should sue the U.S. Government for failure for (riaa insert excuse here)! hahaha
Enforcement FAIL.
Ridiculous. ISP’s will just claim (rightly) they are exempt from prosecution for the actions of their customers. RIAA should spend some time coming up with innovative ways to monetize rather than more ways to penalize the people spreading their goods and doing their sdvetising and distribution for them (and doing it for free!).
Ok, so your ISP terminates your account… Big deal. So I could then either go with Clearwire, Verizon DSL/FiOS, Roadrunner, Internet Junction, Earthlink, Sprint/Nextel, AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Direct TV, do I need to keep listing the different ways to get around their crap? CD’s should have never cost more than tapes. The recording labels are to blame. Karma is a bitch. Why not just sign up your pet with BMG/Columbia house if they still do that 10 cd’s for $0.01. Worked in middle and high school.
Yeah, I just got done pirating every song DJ Clue has ever made/collaberated on. Haw!
(Just kidding)
Iagree that they should start thinking of innovative ways to make money instead of wasting time and effort trying to sue Mommy and Daddy because their child downloaded a 50 Cent album.
Then my neighbor is really going to be surprised when her internet gets shut off. That is, if the RIAA can get past the anonymiser I set in place and the spoofed IP set to 31.3.3.7
Heh, I used to do that all the time when on IRC. My dial-up gave me 4 static IP addresses. I would choose one, set it to a subdomain, set the ttl to like 1 and then set the DNS of the sub to 31.3.3.7 and then log into IRC and It would be like MadMike (R00T@i.like.linux.tc) – but then after I logged in, the DNS would revert back to 31.3.37 and if I would piss someone off because I kick banned them from #hack or something they would end up DoSing 31.3.3.7
It’s time like that where I feel really bad for the actual owners of 31.3.3.7, 1.3.3.7 & foo@bar.com
What trips me out about the whole thing is that Sony, a member & supporter of the RIAA, faced similar lawsuits back in the day once they released Beta-Max VCR’s and they were a big part of creating the “safe harbour” laws that protect the ISP’s. So now they’re butt-hurt because they can’t force us to purchase crappy music because we have a new medium to acquire content. Freakin’ idiots. Innovate! Don’t litigate!
@CDMAUser:
Hey, how many of those ISP’s will provide a 16Mbps connection to my house like I have on my cable ISP (locality monopoly) I have now? Or the 100Mbps FIOS is promising? Maybe to you it is no big deal to lose an ISP, but to most of the world that has MAYBE 1 or 2 true high speed options, it IS a big deal! And wireless providers as alternatives to wired high speed? Ha, give me a break. For most of the world high speed wireless is a pipe dream for many years to come. And even then it won’t touch the speeds of the limited number of ISP’s that will pull wires to your house. So don’t be so cavalier just because YOU have so many “high speed” options; most of us are lucky to have ONE and it WOULD be truly bad to get kicked by them!
For more info on the subject:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20081219/0225073172.shtml
screw the fiaa and the isps and all of them. they are bitching about money that isnt even real movie 6 . net last 2 movies on the right. watch then tell these companies to go f themselves.
sorry.
A touch only G1 was reported a few weeks back as a gap filler product prior to a G2. It’s all rumor no mater what the source. http://www.iphonesavior.com/2008/12/tmobile-planning-a-touchonly-g1-handset.html