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ISP Bans RIAA to Protect Its Customers
fader writes "Information Wave Technologies, a northeastern (US) ISP has announced that "it will actively deny the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) from accessing the contents of its network". Apparently this is in response to the RIAA (and MPAA, but they don't seem to be blocking them yet) plan to actively attack P2P users. All I can say is, you go, guys! I hope more ISPs will follow their lead."
I'm curious what illegal things they have done? They maintain a private network and can give access to it to whomever they please, and most certainly do not have to allow another private entity access to it. Exceptions are in the case of a warrant for one of their customers where the FBI needs the equiv of a wiretap or something, but those are limited cases. I can't demand that AOL give me access to their mail server if I am not one of their customers, and this ISP can deny any incoming traffic they wish as long as doing so does not violate their contract with their customers.
What?
I'm not so sure about that. Since their network is a private one, they certainly have the right to blacklist anybody they want. Should they share that list with other ISPs, there may be some problems. But setting up their own list is not illegal. Furthermore, should they see this thing out, they may eventually have more business than they can even handle.
RIAA may be able to take them to court, but it would probably be worth the $$$ to fend them off.
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
That depends. If you just want to be able to leech away on any and all music, then it's not worth it.
If you just want your fair use, the RIAA off our backs and just want to use the network to discover new music that was put there by the artists themselvs, then it certainly IS worth it.
They're not putting up fake files of legal music, just fake files of illegal music. And that is quite fair in my humble oppinion.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
If you can do it to them, they can do it to you. Pretty difficult to argue otherwise.
An ISP that blocks or restricts RIAA use of the net is legitimizing the practice they purport to oppose. This is not the way to fight this particular battle.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It seems like it would be a good idea to implement this as distributed honeypots instead of one on ISP's network. Otherwise, what would stop the RIAA attack drones/bots from just blacklisting the blacklist and ignoring the honeypot.
riaa@informationwave.net
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Yeah, but by doing this, are they risking their status as a common carrier?
When the RIAA comes and demands they cut off access to warez.org, they'll be in less of a position to say they can't/don't do content-based filtering. In for a penny, in for a pound; this may be shooting themselves in the foot.
not so fast.
You must also deal with the RIAA's member companies, not just RIAA itself. It is technically the labels who own the copyrights and would be the ones to "enforce" those copyrights by hacking. Also, not all of the member companies are in favor of hacking consumer systems -- for example, AOL/TW & child company Warner Music are opposed to it.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
I want no one and no corp deciding what should be accessed across their backbones/routers/etc.
The highlighting was mine but goes to show that the ISPs own the equipment. Their network is theirs to do as they see fit. Would you want the federal government telling you that you were not allowed to block IP addresses from accessing your network? If you don't like the ISP's policies, use a different ISP.
Your argument reminds me of the spammers who accuse ISPs of censoring them and limiting their free speech.
Censorship is when the government limits what you can see and read. It's not when a private ISP makes a business decision to block IP addresses.
For a less abstract analogy, I know that my television has been stolen from me. I don't know who, but I know it had to be someone in my neighborhood. Using the RIAA as a model, I should be able to go into each of my neighbor's houses to look for this television, without their permission. And if I have a strong suspicion that I have found the violator, I am allowed to destroy the house. That's basically what the RIAA wants.
Actually it's even better. You still have your television, they just built one identical to yours,
no wait, they built one that looks and sounds almost exactly like your TV, only smaller.
Actually this is where capitalism doesn't work, and why we need government regulation. You're assuming an educated consumer. You're assuming a consumer that isn't apathetic about said issues. This consumer is the exception but not the rule in the USA, which is why the general quality of products has severly decreased over the last few decades while the costs of said products have increased (inflation accounted for). Finally, you have this new concept of an Ogopoly(sp?). This concept is almost proven within large industries where although there is no monopoly, you have duopolies or more. For example, who cares if ATT limits your usage to essentially web surfing and email? So you switch! Switch to who? Qwest DSL who does the same thing (for example)? Competition is great, but it doesn't always work when you have a few megacorporations following each others suit. Finally, the entire captilistic model puts the maximization of corporate profits above all other priorities. Long are the days where you have a business passionate about making a quality product while making a humble profit. Profiting isn't bad, but business in America is summed up as the following: Maximize profit at the expense of your employee's (compensation, etc.), customers, and product quality. It's true that competition keeps this in check, but only to an extent.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips