RIAA Secretly Tries to Get ISP Subscriber Info

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an attempt to change the rules of the game, the RIAA secretly went to a federal district court in Denver with an ex parte application. The goal was to get the judge to rule that the federal Cable Communications Policy Act does not apply to the RIAA's attempts to get subscriber information (pdf) from cable companies. Just to clarify, ex parte means that the application was secret, no one else — neither the ISP nor the subscribers — were given notice that this was going on. They were, in effect, asking the Court to rule that the RIAA does not need to get a court order to be able to force an ISP to disclose confidential subscriber information. The Magistrate Judge declined to rule on the issue (pdf), but did give them the ex parte discovery order they were looking for."

Comments

You don't understand.

[Grashnak]

If you aren't with the RIAA, then you're against them, and that means the pirates have already won. We need to surrender our freedom in order to preserve it. Don't misunderestimate the pirates. They hate us for our freedom. Fortunately they are in their last throes. Down with Oceania.

...not so much

[Skadet]

This is not a comment on the PATRIOT Act. It is a comment on how the RIAA now has more power than the FBI, CIA, NSA, and local police combined. I think you're misunderstanding the order. They don't have free reign now. As I understand it, the RIAA can go in with the order, the ISP says, "I don't think so; we're challenging this." And that's how ex parte is played.

Re:They shouldnt have to get it

[Jarjarthejedi]

...Have you been living in a cave? Your arguments would be valid...if the RIAA was only suing pirates. Since they're suing people who can't possibly have copyrighted or it would be absurd to say they've pirated anything ever they don't deserve any right to make their job any easier. If the RIAA was a good company who legally went after those who caused it damages and didn't use scare tactics, questionable legality, heavy lobbying, and attempts to get outright illegal things (e.g. pretexting) made legal for them then you'd be valid.

And whose to say that getyourfreewarez.com isn't a joke sight? Or webcomic? By your argument I could tell whatever ISP hosts /. that it's a repository of pirated stuff and they'd be obliged to check it out or just shut it down. Doesn't sound too bad, until you consider how many notices they could be receiving every day. Hey, that would be a new way to do DOS attacks wouldn't it? Send a couple thousand e-mails to the ISP instead of the server and wait for them to pull the plug.

The RIAA is a dirty fighting company who uses scare tactics and outright extortion to put an end to a business which costs them almost nothing and deserve no more aid from our justice system thank you very much.

Re:Monkey see monkey do

[fishbowl]

>This (I know it's a bit late) is the last straw. RIAA will never get another dime from me.

I made the controversial decision in 1994 to never buy another RIAA represented product.

Since then I have made a handful of exceptions, in cases where I have personally bought CDs directly from the artist, that is, it went from the songwriter's hand to mine, usually autographed, after his show. I have developed quite a large collection of independently produced and distributed music, and an even larger collection of things that have been released for public consumption by the artists with no intention of monetary gain.

Back in the day, I was a hardcore record collector. I basically started life with a collection of records from the 40s and 50s already handed down to me. I kept it up throughout the whole 60-70s rock era. I collected classical recordings, especially while majoring in music theory at university. For most of my life, buying recordings was one of the major expenses, usually right after rent and food. Since I'm a musician myself and had made a career of it, music purchases weren't merely entertainment expenses, and more than just business expenses. And granted there were lots of freebies. (When you have a lot of records, people give you records, you're making volume trades all the time, plus I worked in public radio, where I got to keep whatever was being thrown away, plus all the good promos.)

Anyway, long story short, I *stopped* buying RIAA-represented music because of the RIAA b.s., and I didn't ever start up again. Instead, I already realized that what was out there beyond the mainstream was far more interesting anyway, and I never looked back. Granted, I was already heavily into alternative and independent stuff to begin with, but the RIAA sent me all the way over.

Thanks RIAA.