RIAA admits defeat??

[ninjageek]

At last, the music industry admits what we've known for years: That filing music-swapping lawsuits against teenagers, little old ladies, and corpses is a fool's errand (not to mention an expensive headache for the defendants). But don't worry—the RIAA has something new up its sleeves.

The new strategy (as reported by the Wall Street Journal): If the music industry finds out that you're swapping music files online, it'll send an e-mail to your ISP (agreements have already hashed out agreements with "some" unnamed service providers, apparently), which will in turn forward the message to you—probably with a little "P.S." asking you to stop. [update: CNET has a copy of the RIAA's form letter to ISPs.]

If you don't stop, well ... your service provider probably won't sue you, but it might slow down your broadband connection, or cut off your service altogether.

So, why has the RIAA changed the play? Well, maybe it's been looking at reports like this one from the NPD Group, which shows that U.S. CD sales continue to slide, while the number of tunes shared via P2P sites continues to increase, despite all the litigation.

And then there's the disastrous headlines, as the RIAA relentlessly tracked down and sued tens of thousands of alleged music pirates. Among them: Kids, octogenarians, and a few dead people.

Reaction to the news? Mixed. Engadget's headline reads (in part): "RIAA finds its soul," with the story noting that while the RIAA reserves the right to go after "heavy uploaders or repeat offenders ... it appears that single mothers are in the clear."

All Things Digital has a darker outlook, speculating that ISPs—which "care about the cost of moving lots of data around … [and] want to make money by selling, renting, or just offering up Hollywood's movies and TV shows to subscribers"—might be more than content to "cut off file-sharers … [or] simply [charge] heavy file-sharers a lot of money."

And here's another possibility, courtesy of yours truly: Say your ISP catches you sharing tunes via P2P. No problem—download away! But when you get your next cable bill, you'll find the itemized songs added to your monthly charge, kind of like an iTunes bill.

Call it the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" strategy.

P.S. Make no mistake—just because the RIAA has stopped filing new music-swapping lawsuits doesn't mean that it's dropped the existing ones, according to the Journal. Quite the contrary.

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/31678/riaa-to-halt-lawsuits-cozy-up-to-isps-instead/

[zalternate]

Nice thing about Obama is he is revealing all sorts of back door dealings.. And keeps mentioning whats happening in Secret dealings with Canada.

People need to notice that what the Copyright Mafia does is illegal.

If no evidence to monitor you connection? A crime.

If no evidence to get a warrant to monitor your connection? A crime.

If no evidence to be able to create a 100% court case and instead demanding thousands of dollars in a "voluntary" penalty? A crime...

The CopyRight Mafia just acts like a thug and payoffs keep the Government from busting down their doors for Racketeering...

But Canadians are just too damn nice and complacent and allow our Government to do and create things that are illegal.

So lets raspberry cheer for the Sweater Vest party and the next election in January. and March. and June.. And what a freaking joke the government is here.....

Heres the link from the Electronic Frontier Foundation...And a part exert...

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/12/mpaa-obama

    "MPAA has identified the following countries for priority trade policy attention in 2009: Canada, China, India, Mexico, Russia and Spain.

Translation: Not satisfied with wrecking the internet for US citizens alone, the MPAA would like the US government to pressure foreign governments to adopt the same harmful measures. This is made explicit by a look at, for instance, the International Intellectual Property Association's 2008 one-sheets on Canada [PDF] and Spain [PDF]: The MPAA wants these governments to institute mandatory internet filtering and three-strikes laws. Canada is being singled out by the MPAA because of its sensible rejection of the Canadian version of the US's deeply flawed Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

         

[tommie gorman]

Well needless to say it is in the right direction in my opinion. I can deal easier with the ISP, than the RIAA mobsters.

[ninjageek]

I have always believed a warning should be issued first and foremost. Many would stop at the first warning. The riaa wanted to shoot first and ask questions later. They have lost more than a few cases.

The second part is I am sure the Riaa is starting to get nervous about what and how they will distribute all this money collected. I have yet to see any of it returned to the artists. Just nice to see the whole "pay us x amount of dollars or risk the courts making you pay us even more" is hopefully done.

[Ryan314]

Sure, suing some kid for 10,000 dollars or more is gonna make him crap himself and SURELY stop sharing files, but that's one kid. They can more effectively stop the illegal transfer of music by issuing warnings and working with the broadband companies to help stop pirating. It would be much easier and effective to send out notices through the broadband companies... If I got a letter from Comcast saying I was under suspicion of pirating id surely stop.. especially if i knew there was a risk of losing internet.

Whats this? Can It be true? The RIAA making a step in the right direction?!

[mudmanc4]

Sure, suing some kid for 10,000 dollars or more is gonna make him crap himself and SURELY stop sharing files, but that's one kid. They can more effectively stop the illegal transfer of music by issuing warnings and working with the broadband companies to help stop pirating. It would be much easier and effective to send out notices through the broadband companies... If I got a letter from Comcast saying I was under suspicion of pirating id surely stop.. especially if i knew there was a risk of losing internet.

Whats this? Can It be true? The RIAA making a step in the right direction?!

So you admitting it .  :haha: Sorry man, had to 

[tommie gorman]

So you admitting it .  :haha: Sorry man, had to 

Admit what? 

[Ryan314]

So you admitting it .  :haha: Sorry man, had to 

haha I was never trying to be secretive about it, or hide it. 

[mudmanc4]

haha I was never trying to be secretive about it, or hide it.

Right on~

[Sparticus]

It's about time, it's ridiculous how they sue people for massive amounts of money. 

[xs1]

It's about time, it's ridiculous how they sue people for massive amounts of money.

ya! sue for cookies! 

[mudmanc4]

[quote author=☻ ◦

[xs1]

Or Marz bars , now that would piss me off !

marz bars... lmao.. paydays! id be SO pissed. i loves my payday bars.

[MttFrog13]

i don't think they admit defeat but i think their new strategy will actually be more effective in stopping the actual violation of copyrights instead of suing a few old ladies and some college students. They don't sue everybody because they would have to sue half the population. But they can use the isp's more easily to penalize people who copyright. I have several friends who have received letters from their friends for pirating and none that have been sued. But guess what, none of them pirate anymore.

[mudmanc4]

i don't think they admit defeat but i think their new strategy will actually be more effective in stopping the actual violation of copyrights instead of suing a few old ladies and some college students. They don't sue everybody because they would have to sue half the population. But they can use the isp's more easily to penalize people who copyright. I have several friends who have received letters from their friends for pirating and none that have been sued. But guess what, none of them pirate anymore.

Right, and in the long term, this will inevitably raise the cost of a connection across the board.

[tommie gorman]

Right, and in the long term, this will inevitably raise the cost of a connection across the board.

No doubt on that one. We always lose anyway.

[coknuck]

I'm paying for a connection with my ISP not an internet cop. I think if your abusing the bandwidth of your ISP, they got the right to tell you to slow down. 

[mudmanc4]

I'm paying for a connection with my ISP not an internet cop. I think if your abusing the bandwidth of your ISP, they got the right to tell you to slow down. 

In this case there should be standards within individual contract as to the monthly bandwidth usage, when you reach it, your connection should be slowed.  There should be no term (abusing bandwidth) You get what you pay for, and thats that, run it out in a day, and there you have it.  Easy enough. Right ?

My forecast of the internet  ( or in the future, life-net I like to call it ) , everything we do will be on a connection as a whole, there will be nothing that isn't.  Hell, they have been working on pacemakers that are controlled by the doctor ( I think we discussed this in the past ), think of the possibilities. We have the technology, we just need to break through this whole  ( it's mine thing ) . Sire what we create is essentially ours, but why did we create it ? To better people, or to make money and restrict access to it.

[biker9075]

In this case there should be standards within individual contract as to the monthly bandwidth usage, when you reach it, your connection should be slowed.  There should be no term (abusing bandwidth) You get what you pay for, and thats that, run it out in a day, and there you have it.  Easy enough. Right ?

My forecast of the internet  ( or in the future, life-net I like to call it ) , everything we do will be on a connection as a whole, there will be nothing that isn't.  Hell, they have been working on pacemakers that are controlled by the doctor ( I think we discussed this in the past ), think of the possibilities. We have the technology, we just need to break through this whole  ( it's mine thing ) . Sire what we create is essentially ours, but why did we create it ? To better people, or to make money and restrict access to it.

So then what about the people that download legally and reach there limit? They would also be slowed down. If I am paying for a fast service, then I expect to be able to utilize it. By slowing down people who download a lot seems to be taking a step back in technology in my eyes.

[mudmanc4]

So then what about the people that download legally and reach there limit? They would also be slowed down. If I am paying for a fast service, then I expect to be able to utilize it. By slowing down people who download a lot seems to be taking a step back in technology in my eyes.

I think you misunderstood what I said, there is a difference between speed bandwidth, and the amount of bandwidth used in GB.

For one thing , saying people who download illegally, or steal from others, should be coddled to is ridiculous. That is what were talking bout here.