RIAA Announces Plan to End Lawsuits

After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.

The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.

Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.

Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits 

I'm not sure if this is good news or not. While I'm glad to hear that they aren't planning on suing anyone besides heavy file sharers, I think it's bad for internet users in general. Having the RIAA team up with ISP's in an effort to stem copyright infringement opens the door for the RIAA to become even more heavy handed by circumventing the courts all together. Look how long it took for someone to actually take the RIAA to full trial. Only then did their tactics unravel and the holes in their plans become obvious. 

I think, as many others do, that letting the ISP's become content police is horrible. Should the US Postal Service be allowed to open the mail of people who have a high volume of mail? Should the postal service be inspecting every package to make sure people aren't sending anything illegal. Just because a package weighs 2.2 pounds, doesn't mean it's likely a kilo of cocaine or heroin. It certainly wouldn't be sufficient grounds for a search. 

Another question that comes to mind is why would the ISP's want this role? What's in it for them? Perhaps they envision enough of a drop in traffic (from throttling bit torrent etc) where they could further put off investing money into infrastructure that can handle the huge increase in traffic created by video, voip and file-sharing. 

The more likely scenario is that it's easier to play ball with the RIAA than it is to defend a huge lawsuit that challenges the "safe harbour" laws that protect them. One would think that the ISP's would want to remain neutral and not have the added expense of filtering and throttling. It seems like the RIAA is trying to put the ISP's directly in the crosshairs of consumer ire. Any way you look at it, this can't be a good deal for the ISP's bottom line.

FCC About to Spank Comcast...is Charter Next?

The Federal Communications Commission appears poised to take steps to punish Comcast for blocking access to file-sharing traffic. Three of the five FCC commissioners have voted in favor of an item saying Comcast violated federal policy by dialing down peer-to-peer traffic over its network. The news isn't much of a surprise, given that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has publicly criticized Comcast for the practice and recommended to the rest of the commissioners that they vote in favor of the decision.

FCC set to punish Comcast on P2P blocking News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

It appears that the only thing left is for the FCC to hand out punishment. Most media outlets are reporting that the FCC isn't expected to hand down any monetary damages. The most likely outcome will be an order requiring Comcast to cease and desist filtering of traffic and full public disclosure of its network management practices.

This ruling should cause a ripple effect through the industry. It sets a precedent, and one would think the next company caught throttling bandwidth for any reason would get a pretty stiff penalty. I would imagine there are many ISP's out there that are rethinking their network management practices. To be sure, Comcast isn't the only one employing questionable network practices. Charter Communications use a device from a Arbor Networks to restrict certain types of traffic. The device, an Arbor Ellacoya, allows them to throttle bandwidth from specific programs or protocols. It will recognize the different patterns used by each "offending" program and throttle them to a trickle by using deep packet inspection. For instance, your Emule or Bit Torrent program will seem to slow down to a crawl, but your YouTube videos of someone picking their nose will stream great.

It seems that this ruling will send a shot accross the bow of the ISP's. The FCC seems to be sending a message that they intend to protect the consumer before they will cave to the bullshit being spewed from the industry. Let's hope that they continue to set policy based on the premise of true neutrality.

RIAA Bastards Suing to Impose ISP Filters

The international wing of the RIAA mafia is suing an Irish ISP to force them to place filters on their network...Will this be the next step in the US?

IFPI Takes ISP to Court to Impose Music Piracy Filter

This is yet another angle in the file sharing debate. Do we really want ISP's to be the gatekeeper of all information that travels over the internet? Doesn't this go against all the principles the web was founded on?

I think this case is interesting in that the IFPI (international RIAA organization) is using the "making available" argument just as was used to bring down Napster. In a weird sense, I hope that they get some traction on this case as it brings a lot of attention to this aspect of the debate. I think this "made available" could be a dangerously slippery slope for the RIAA folks to perch upon.

Consider this scenario. An artist, who feels that the RIAA has not done enough to protect them from losses due to internet file sharing, decides to sue their (RIAA member) record label for "making available" a digital format of their work. One might consider the CDA format from the retail cd or a digital version from iTunes "making it available" for illegal filesharing. After all, the record labels are the ones responsible for the original distribution into the public realm. As I've said repeatedly before, "No one was filesharing vinyl!"

As more artists perform their own marketing and distribution duties, they will become more and more annoyed by how much the labels have been gouging them all these years. The recent internet release from Trent Reznor and NiN should really make a lot of major artists stand up and take notice. Perhaps some more major artists, like Prince, who are fed up with the industry's inability to protect their profits, may just decide to bring such a suit. It's only a matter of time....

Perfect Explanation of the Net Neutrality Debate

This video makes it very easy to understand the debate about net neutrality. It explains why everyone who uses the internet should be outraged at the government for not standing up to corporate greed. It also gives us great insight into the reason why the ISP's have been so slow to provide reasonable levels of service to rural customers. I would strongly recommend that everyone who has a voice should use it to contact their Congressional Representatives and demand that they stand up to corporate greed and keep the internet a beacon of free speech that is easily accessible to everyone. I would also encourage everyone to share this video with all of the people in their contact lists. If people sceam loud enough, with one voice, perhaps we can drown out the powerful Washington lobbyists who would like to gain control of the internet and impede on our freedom to communicate. It wouldn't be the first time they've tried....

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MIT Panel Trashes Comcast's Network Management

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Comcast has confessed to slowing down certain peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic, but is it being clear enough about what it's doing?
That's perhaps the key question that emerged by the end of a lengthy public forum convened by the Federal Communications Commission on Monday here at Harvard Law School.
While none of the FCC commissioners was willing to solidify an answer to that just yet, two MIT computer scientists on an afternoon panel accused the cable company of behaving badly on multiple levels.

As most readers of this blog know by now, I am in full support of net neutrality. While one has to understand the concept of the need to "manage" network traffic, it is incredibly naive to think even for a second that how to do this should be left to the sole discretion of the ISP's. The internet has flourished thus far as a communication medium that is unfettered by government interference. The ISP's were exstatic that they now had a whole new revenue stream to tap into and they gladly made the investment necessary to profit greatly from it.

With the advent of VOIP, video, bit torrent etc..., the internet has outgrown it's infancy stage and has reached the point of being a young adolesent. The ISP's should have seen this coming when the net was in its toddler stage, but they chose to favor immediate profits over long term viability. They've now come to a point where the existing infrastructure can't keep up with the demand needed for today's services. The ISP's seem to want to punish the consumer for their bad business choices. This stone age mentality seems to mirror the strategy of one of my other "favorite" subjects, the RIAA. Businesses that are unwilling to change, because they refuse to make necessary investments, should not be coddled by the government or further supported by the public.

Net pioneers trash Comcast's P2P traffic treatment Tech news blog - CNET News.com