Topic: Music Industry to End Mass Lawsuits Against File-Sharers

[jualdeaux]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,470039,00.html

Music Industry to End Mass Lawsuits Against File-Sharers

Saturday , December 20, 2008

WSJ

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 e-mail to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop.

If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more e-mails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider.

Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

• Click here to read the rest of this story in the Wall Street Journal.

• Click here for FOXNews.com's Personal Technology Center.

[Czar Mohab]

On the plus side, this lowered the chances of some people that I know of being sued for this stuff.

On the minus side, it sunds as if ISPs will get a bunch of finger wagging done and that's about it. What are they going to to when they discover that someone's been using the wi-fi hotspot at starbucks for these dastardly deeds? How about when someone catches their neighbor's unsecured wireless network late on a clear night?

The whole thing is a joke. I'm all for people who write, sing, etc.. songs having their share. But continuing to hound something that won't go away for a very long time seems like a bigger loss of cash than shared songs. And now who's going to pay the ISP's their increased costs for doing their part in this? Probably not the industry. Darndest thing is, there really isn't much stopping anyone from torrenting from a rest stop bath room. And as soon as features like that start drying up, there'll be whiners fighting to bring 'em back... the entire thing, one end to the other, is lose-lose.

Czar "Wonder how the ISP's know you're a pirate," Mohab, who adds, "Its not like the (internet) pirates fly a flag anymore."

[Vipre]

The RIAA says piracy would have been even worse without the lawsuits. Citing data from consulting firm NPD Group Inc., the industry says the percentage of Internet users who download music over the Internet has remained fairly constant, hovering around 19% over the past few years. However, the volume of music files shared over the Internet has grown steadily.

The old "It would have been much worse" argument. Isn't it slightly possible music file sharing reached an equilibrium on it's own.

[Centurus]

I wouldn't be surprised if the ISPs eventually come under fire for terminating service to paying customers, and then end up defending themselves in a court room against quite a few angry people.

You know the recording industry and the RIAA aren't going to help defend the ISPs.  They've got enough problems trying to clean up their public relations mess as is.

[Lloyd007]

The RIAA has so many self inflicted wounds I don't think they'll ever recover. And good riddance when they do fail.

[jualdeaux]

have you all noticed that a lot of the big selling bands have moved to having wal-mart distribute their stuff? It seems to me they are doing this to skip right over the "major labels" and the RIAA. What does that tell you...

[Vipre]

"Major Labels" and the RIAA are bigger dinosaurs than the Big 3. They all need a meteor.

[Nemesis]

The RIAA claims that the lawsuits are to "educate the public" so one of their opponents has volunteered to help them do that.

Link to full article

Information is the currency of democracy, sunshine laws open government. The federal court is open not only as a court of justice but a forum of civic education. WE the PEOPLE are the ultimate check in our constitutional system of checks and balances, we the people of the integrated media space opened and connected by the net in a public domain. Net access will allow an intelligent public domain to shape itself by attending and engaging in a public trial of issues conflicting our society.

Net access to this litigation will allow an interested and growingly sophisticated public to understand the RIAA’s education campaign. Surely education is the purpose of the Digital Deterrence Act of 1999, the constitutionality of which we are challenging. How can RIAA object? Yet they do, fear of sunlight shone upon them.

What are the odds that the RIAA opposes this?