Slashdot Mirror
AT&T, Comcast To Join RIAA Team
suraj.sun writes "AT&T and Comcast, two of the nation's largest Internet service providers, are expected to be among a group of ISPs that will cooperate with the music industry in battling illegal file sharing, three sources close to the companies told CNET News. The RIAA said last month that it had enlisted the help of ISPs as part of a new antipiracy campaign. The RIAA has declined to identify which ISPs or how many. It's important to note that none of the half dozen or so ISPs involved has signed agreements. But as it stands, AT&T and Comcast are among the companies that have indicated they wish to participate in what the RIAA calls a 'graduated response program.'"
Missing original CNET News article link :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10151389-93.html
http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed850 Text here to thwart the filter.....
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
You're probably right. I do quite a bit of consulting for K-12 schools; the watchword there is that once you attempt to filter content, you'd better filter perfectly, as you're responsible for anything that gets past. Does this translate into sanctioning your own users for inappropriate actions? I think it does.
This too shall pass. A couple of observations. First, P2P accounts for between one-third and four-fifths of internet traffic, depending on the entities collecting the data and the regions from where the data is collected. Either way, it seems like a lot. Second, internet usage continues to grow. People love YouTube, just wait until the quality improves. How many people are watching Netflix's Watch Now as a result of if being available on so many systems? Third, the economy will prevent many, if not most, ISPs from adding additional bandwidth. Thus, in order to keep up with increased legitimate demand without adding more capacity, it makes since that ISPs would want to reduce demand from file sharing. Simple, really.
Make love, not reality television.
As far as I can tell, this only increases their liability. Services providers have typically received immunity from the actions of their users, so long as there is a clear line between the service provider and the actions of their users.
What you are referring to is "Common Carrier" status. It prevents companies like UPS from being criminally liable for shipping cocaine, for example, overseas. It also prevents Telcoms from being liable for carrying information used to conduct criminal activities. If they actually get involved, though, they lose common carrier, and thus can become sued (or charged) for anything that occurs over their network.
Incidentally, ISPs are not Common Carriers. Their protection comes from the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions instead.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz