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Anti-Piracy Firm Offering ISPs Money For Outing File-Sharers

Posted by Soulskill on from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed,-open-the-checkbook dept.

mytrip points out news that an anti-piracy firm called Nexicon has been offering financial incentives to ISPs in exchange for having the ISPs police their own networks for copyright infringement. Nexicon would offer their services (for a fee) to help the ISPs pinpoint users who are illegally sharing files, and then give the users an option to "settle" through their "Get Amnesty" website. The revenue generated by such settlements would then be shared with the ISPs. Jerry Scroggin, owner of a smaller ISP in Louisiana, is still skeptical, saying, "I would still wind up losing customers. I would also have to pay Nexicon for this ... I have to survive in this economy but I don't have the big marketing dollars that bigger ISPs have. I have to fund 401(K)s and find ways not to lay off people. Giving free rein to the RIAA is not part of my business model."

4 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Huh, madness by someone1234 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A small ISP could fake the logs and sell out some of their customers.

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  2. great business model there jim by timmarhy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    pay us money, and we MIGHT give you a cut of any profits we make. fuck that, sounds like a pyramid scheme to me.

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  3. Re:they pitch an interesting plan by stranger_to_himself · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm betting NOT. Suing (or extorting, threatening to sue and selling "protection") your customers has never been an effective business model. You'd think they'd have learned that by now.

    True, but the average customer might never know or figure out that it was the ISP that sold them out.

  4. making money from illegal activity? by petes_PoV · · Score: 4, Interesting
    So they wait until they find someone doing something illegal[1]. They offer to allow them to atone (financially, of course) for their "crimes". They then share the proceeds with the very ISP which allowed them to perform these acts in the first place.

    Apart from the highly dubious moral position, this sounds like either a protection racket or entrapment, or both.

    [1] although it won't ever get to court - they'll hope people will just roll over and pay up. So the legality of this "sting" won't ever be tested.

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