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RIAA To Stop Prosecuting Individual File Sharers
debatem1 writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, the RIAA has decided to abandon its current tactic of suing individuals for sharing copyrighted music. Ongoing lawsuits will be pursued to completion, but no new ones will be filed. The RIAA is going to try working with the ISPs to limit file-sharing services and cut off repeated users. This very surprising development apparently comes as a result of public distaste for the campaign." An RIAA spokesman is quoted as saying that the litigation campaign has been "successful in raising the public's awareness that file-sharing is illegal."
Dear Sir,
We are a group of UK film and TV producers, directors and writers. We are concerned that the successes of the creative industries in the UK are being undermined by the illegal online file-sharing of film and TV.
We are asking the Government to show its support by ensuring that internet service providers play their part in tackling this huge problem by giving us money. Lots of money. Just keep piling it in, we'll tell you when it's enough.
In 2007, up to (well, it could be) 25 per cent of all online TV piracy took place in the UK. Popular shows are downloaded illegally hundreds of thousands of times per episode, and some of them might even be ours rather than something American made with an actual budget.
It is true that in 2008, UK commercial TV broadcasters enjoyed the highest viewing figures in five years, that total TV viewing was up 10% year-on-year, and the valuable yet hard-to-reach 16 to 24-year-old demographic (the typical file-sharer) watched 4.9% more commercial TV and saw 12% more ads. But it's the principle of the thing: someone is getting money from something that touches something one of us once touched, therefore the money belongs to us. This is the style of corporate thinking that brought Britain its great economic gains from 1997 to 2007, after all.At a time when so many jobs are being lost in the wider economy, it is especially important that our gravy train be maintained.
Internet service providers have the ability to change the behaviour of those customers who illegally distribute content online. They have the power to make significant change and to prevent their infrastructure from being used on a wholesale scale for illegal activity. They have the power to stop people looking at the cover of Virgin Killer. They have a secret magic wand that will fix everything wrong with the media industry's income streams and they are refusing, with malice aforethought, to use it. If they are not prepared to give us all the free money we ask for and a bit more besides, they should be compelled to do so.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I mean, their current methods have apparently atleast been in breach of investigative laws in several states and they may still end up in mess because of it, but ending the thing will atleast lessen the exposure..
Alternative explanation is that they have actually understood that extortion is bad.. nah.. not likely.
"Meanwhile, music sales continue to fall. In 2003, the industry sold 656 million albums. In 2007, the number fell to 500 million CDs and digital albums, plus 844 million paid individual song downloads -- hardly enough to make up the decline in album sales."
Wow, so now that people are given the option of buying only the track they like instead of the whole album... album sales are dropping. Imagine that! I guess blaming it on piracy is easier than making all 12 songs on an album worth buying.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Working with the ISPs is an arms race at best. The ISPs block stuff, P2P devs come up with more and more devious ways to work around the blocks. Plus, in markets where competition is good, consumers will just vote with their feet.
Give it up, RIAA. Come up with better ways of making money. No one is willing to spend $20 to buy an album with 1 or 2 good songs on it. And few are willing to pay for what they will always be able to get for free.
My blog
For the individuals caught in them, the RIAA individual lawsuits really, really suck. Extortionate demands, no real ability to defend yourself(if your day in court costs you more than you can afford, it isn't your day in court), etc. On the other hand, though, the lawsuits as a tactic have been magnificently ineffective, and do very little to project RIAA power beyond those directly affected(and, indeed, the seem to project displeasure much further than they project obedience).
Focusing on the ISPs is potentially much more sinister. ISP user agreements, for anything other than expensive business accounts, typically have pretty broad service agreements, so they almost definitely won't even need to involve the courts to cut you off. If the RIAA and friends are successful, they could easily obtain de facto veto power over almost anybody's internet access, without any actually illegal conduct(unlike their present tactics). There is no reason to suspect that they would be any more discriminating or accurate in using such power than they currently are in filing lawsuits(probably less, in fact, since it will be cheaper than lawsuits), so the circle of the affected will be even wider. Not good.
Because they were starting to lose.
They were starting to get in trouble with the courts, because they were filing lawsuits, and they in many cases had insufficient evidence to prove wrongdoing.
There were many cases where they were prosecuting innocent people, and this would ultimately be seen as harassment/abuse of the courts, resulting in sanctions for the RIAA.
The new approach will be more expedient, and less costly, since their victims don't get any due process rights.
They just send a letter to your ISP, and your ISP assumes you guilty.
You no longer have a chance to prove your innocence. If the RIAA doesn't like you and wants your connection turned off, they'll now have the means to make it happen, if your ISP joins their program.
See the article:
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 emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.
The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones. But ISPs, which are increasingly cutting content deals of their own with entertainment companies, may have more incentive to work with the music labels now than in previous years.
"Banning repeat offenders will reduce your congestion issues and your costs." - RIAA
"That sounds good to us! We already impose limits on high-bandwidth users; if you back us up we can ban them completely!" - Comcast
"Excellent." - RIAA
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Hey, wait a minute! French fries allegedly come from Belgium. Both the French and the Belgians consider the term "French fries" to be grossly unfair: the Belgians feel they deserve the credit, and the French feel they don't deserve the blame.
Of course, there is the possibility that the first prototype fries were planted in Belgium by French agents provocateurs.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Should be interesting to see how they handle that whole FTP and HTTP stuff next. After all, it's not like anything illegal hasn't ever been transferred this way as well.
After that, maybe they can start suing carrier pigeons. You know you can't trust *those* little bastards... just look at New York!
8==8 Bones 8==8
It isn't like the rest of French cuisine is Richard-Simmons-Approved when eaten in the kind of quantities Americans typically eat things, so I don't see why they'd care about fries in particular.
I liked that period of time where we were supposed to call them "Freedom Fries". It made it easier to spot imbeciles.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
What's in it for the ISPs? If the RIAA is offering a carrot, then the size of the carrot is limited by the ever-diminishing money the RIAA has to offer.
Not necessarily.
The carrot could be the ISP's right to manipulate their user's traffic in other ways that make them money. If the RIAA can help them legitimize selective traffic management, then ISPs can start signing agreements with content providers.
Given the reputation that the RIAA has built themselves with the lawsuits, I'm a little skeptical of their ability to help the ISPs legitimize anything, but if it succeeded it could be a big moneymaker for the ISPs.
There may be other, less obvious, benefits to ISPs as well.
We need net neutrality legislation to ensure that the ISPs can't do any of this.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You are applying logic to RIAA's fanaticism? How amusing. ;-)
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I'm wondering how our friend NewYorkCountyLawyer feels, waking up to discover the legal war is over? Or is it? We're all suspicious of the RIAA but my mind harkens back to the pictures of the liberation of Paris in World War II. Wonder if NYCL feels that way?
Well my initial reaction is this:
If it's true... it's about time. Meanwhile, what about the unfortunates who are presently entangled already in these unjust lawsuits? Why won't the RIAA drop those cases too? If it was bad business to start them, why isn't it bad business to keep on throwing good money after bad? I hope consumers will remember this 5 1/2-year reign of terror, and will shun RIAA products, and I hope the legal profession will place a black mark next to the names of those "lawyers" who participated in this foul calumny.
If I have any additional thoughts I'll be appending them here in my "Editor's note".
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You say,
I say, "Just look for the Chinese restaurants." No, really, I'm being serious -- I've done some globetrotting, and everywhere I've gone, I've found Chinese restaurants. It's kinda funny, really, when even on remote tiny non-touristy islands in the Spanish-speaking part of the Caribbean, or on the tiny islands of the Pacific Northwest, you can find at least one Chinese restaurant somewhere.
This reminds me of a true story of a friend of mine. He's an interesting bloke -- his dad sounds like the punchline to a weird joke, as an Iraqi Jew living in Singapore and running a Cajun pork BBQ restaurant...
But anyway, let's call my friend Andy. He grew up partly in China, and speaks fluent Chinese and English. He was in Mexico City visiting some friends, and was walking across part of town to visit some other friends for a party. Only he'd gotten lost, and didn't speak a lick of Spanish. So what does he do? He finds the local Chinese restaurant. He walked up to the counter and asked, in flawless Chinese, how to get to XYZ address.
The Chinese proprietor and cash register girl just stood their with their mouths wide open for a moment, before finally getting out, "Why are you speaking Chinese to us?" To which Andy replied, "Because I don't speak Spanish." "Oh. Well, you take a right here and a left there..."
So seriously, knowing Chinese could also be extremely useful for international travelers. If you ever get lost, just find the local Chinese restaurant.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."