RIAA Abandons Mass Lawsuits in Favor of ISP Deals

coupons — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 23:34:48 +0000

The RIAA has attempted to sue approximately 35,000 people since 2003 – some of those suits being downright heartless: suing single mothers, children, and and a dead person. They are now abandoning this backwards policy and striking deals with ISPs – but the devil is in the details, and the fine print that cannot be ignored.

These deals include the RIAA no longer requiring the identities of those found to be sharing files; instead, the RIAA will now send their emails to the ISP and no longer demand identity information. They will effectively be expecting the ISP to be the enforcers. This new system really is just a different way to do the same old thing. Only this time, the ISP will be doing the dirty work. The new policy that the RIAA has brokered with major ISPs is that of “three strikes and your out” – your ISP may now be able deny Internet access you if you are found guilty by the RIAA.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) suggested that the RIAA support a legal Peer-to-Peer Network in their “Let the Music Play” whitepaper. Users pay a small, monthly fee to legally share music files in whatever method suits them. The EFF states that the fee should be less than $10 per month, based on the fees charged by services like Rhapsody and Napster. “The money collected would be distributed among rights-holders based on the popularity of their music.” As long as users pay for the service, they are free to continue to do what they are doing, legally. This type of system has been done before; radio stations pay a fee for a license to broadcast music with whatever equipment works best. ASCAP was created based on these same premises.

I’m a Rhapsody subscriber for a reason, folks.

Do you support this idea? In what ways do you think the fee for this service could be collected, and would you pay it?

Comcast Makes Me Gag

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 21:25:44 +0000

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (or EFF) has found Comcast guilty of traffic shaping. This is a practice where Comcast intentionally slows down your internet connection. The program they used to detect this shaping is an open-source application called WireShark. Apparently, Comcast feels that they need to interrupt some of their customer’s connections a bit if they think the customer may be using lets say BitTorrent to download perfectly legal Linux Distros. Or, maybe the customer is like me and sends tons of data up and down… legally and legitimately… in the course of business.

This is kinda sad. It’s kinda scary. It’s kinda sickening. Well… it makes me…

Yeah. It’s “Comcastic”.

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Chris Pirillo » EFF

RIAA Abandons Mass Lawsuits in Favor of ISP Deals

Comcast Makes Me Gag