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RIAA MPAA stop suing customers, but get major ISPs like Comcast and AT&T to do their dirty work
How AT&T, Comcast, and others are helping RIAA & MPAA pursue suspected filesharers. It is interesting to note that while some ISPs claim they have duty under the DMCAi to pass on letters from RIAA and MPAA, others such as Verizon refuse to participate.
"At a digital music panel in Nashville this week, executives from AT&T and Comcast created a furor by saying they were passing along warnings to customers that the RIAA says are illegally uploading music files onto the Internet.
Later, the companies tried to calm the outrage erupting in the blogosphere by harrumphing they weren't cutting off Internet access to those people - or in Cox's case, hardly ever cutting it off. AT&T said it wouldn't cut off access without a court order.
So what is going on? For more than a year, the RIAA has been engaged in a major diplomatic effort to win over ISPs. "What we are trying to encourage ISPs to do is adopt some form of graduated response," says Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman. "It is our position that people who are repeat offenders merit an account suspension or something like that." He adds that any customer has a right to due process and should have the option to challenge the action if they think it is unjustified."
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I hope the RIAA's PR stunt doesn't fool anybody.
The RIAA and MPAA, having taken years of flack from devoted and intelligent consumers, and experiencing an increasing number of people fighting back and asserting their legal rights, finally figure out that their policies of litigiousness and blanket takedown notices are a public relations disaster and is costing far more than it's worth. Hurray! Unfortunately, the RIAA obviously isn't done trying to reach their ridiculous "objectives" by other, more sinister means. By getting service providers to do their dirty work.
How could this possibly work? Are the RIAA and MPAA threatening to sue the ISPs if they don't comply? What interest do ISPs have in alienating, restricting, and generally pissing off their customers? I can't think of any. Can you imagine that meeting?
RI/MPAA: "We can't take any more bad PR and losing lawsuits. ISPs, you be the bad guy from now on, take all the bad press, legal costs, and do all the hard work, okay?"
ISPs: "Why?"
RI/MPAA: ". . . Umm . . . because we asked nicely?"
I love the spokesman's response. Repeat offenders according to whom? The RIAA, of course. To be clear, the RIAA is saying that ISPs should suspend the accounts ("or something like that") of users the RIAA points fingers at. If the customer gets angry, he can always sue the ISP, of course, and bear the outrageous cost of litigating against a giant corporation. But the user can't sue the RIAA, because the RIAA didn't take anything away from anybody.
The acme of absurdity. Sorry for my vitriol. These sorts of tactics just really get my goat.
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