RIAA Changing Tactics? no more lawsuits
 

"The good news is that the Recording Industry Association of America will no longer be directly going after pirates.

The bad news is that Internet Service Providers will now be doing the enforcing. "

It looks like the isp's will send you a letter if you've been caught downloading illegal songs, and if it continues they will shut you off. No lawsuits, no courts, none of that, but I think this opens up a ton more people to get the "letter".

I don't know if I like it or not. One in a million being sued or most likely a ton more being banned from teh net.

What do you people think?

Source

RIAA Changes Tactics in Downloading Fight | Hip Hop News > HipHopDX.com

I've definitely gotten notices from my ISP in the past regarding illegal downloads (from other who were using my connection, not myself). Nothing new there.

"Hey, stop downloading XXXX. We see you did so illegally." kind of things

It's nice to see that the RIAA has realized the error of its ways and has decided to stop making a fool of itself by bringing frivolous and dubious lawsuits against people who can't contend with their strong-arm tactics. Bravo.

did you stop downloading after you got these notices or just ignored em? Maybe now they will actually follow up with their notices.

It's a smart move on their part.

I'm not sure how ISPs determine this kind of thing, so it's hard to say how this will affect legit consumers, or whether and which programs will be blacklisted. Basically too early to call if it will be fair to everyone.

But it is a good sign, at least.

A good sign of what, exactly?

I don't have a problem with copyright holders trying to protect their assets, but the way the RIAA had been doing it was not working and I don't think this is much better. Sure, they won't be suing as many people, but now they're just going to assume guilt in all cases. If I remember correctly, Sass didn't even realize she had gotten a DMCA notice in her e-mail until two months after the fact.

No, they're going to send a cease and desist. And if you don't offer any viable defense and continue with the action, they'll assume guilt.

Different.

Isn't that how they handle things now anyway? "You didn't stop after we sent you these DMCA notices, so here's a C&D notice"?

Except now they don't look like devils suing 13 year old little girls for listening to Britney Spears. Now your ISP just quietly shuts off your service.

That, and they will also probably increase the amount of these letters sent out dramatically now that they aren't bothering with those petty lawsuits.

That's what's making me not like it.

Well as long as those "letters" are in e-mail form, what do the ISPs care? A few paragraphs of text amounts to, what, a couple of kilobytes? That's not even going to put a dent in most ISP-given e-mail accounts.

I would feel better if they sent out their notices on paper, snail-mailed to your mailbox. That way, not only is there something physical being sent, there's also a better chance you're actually going to read it (perhaps with your monthly bill statement?).

So. Let me understand, here.

The ISPs will shut off your service, subsequently losing your money/business? I mean, if an ISP shut me down, I'd switch. And their competitor gets my business. (I understand how it would be imposed on ALL ISPs but, you know, if I pay my bill and all)

It would behoove them not to be too strict about this. Unless, of course, the penalties imposed would be far more expensive than losing that kind of business. And really, how much would that take on behalf of the RIAA? It'll frustrate the hell out of the ISPs, I'd think.

But maybe I'm not understanding all the details, here. Or not THINKING of them. Not like this shit will stop anyone.

PS: I got the warnings because of Chris's need to download some NHL game

If it was a Bruins game, this is not a desire, or a whim, or even something as simple as a need. It is AIR. Necessary. Fuck the man, rave the empire.

Go black and gold.

I don't see why the isp's would help the RIAA without some sort of profit/pay. it just wouldn't make sense for them to take the time and people power to ban users from THEIR service just because the shitty RIAA asked them to. It's gotta go deeper down. Unless the RIAA are threatening the ISP's, but I don't know about that...

and some places only offer 1 isp, like where i live for instance. Oh well, Private servers ftw.

You're going to kill me, but isn't it "save" the empire? fuck yo sport, nigga

As far as the RIAA buying out ISPs for shutting down services - I wish them luck in that. They're going to need it.

Think of all the people who pirate. And all the people that will need to be shut down if the plan works without a hitch. That's a LOT of goddamn money.

Are these things often sent out in email form? I was under the impression they sent them via snail mail to make sure the customer sees them and doesn't just delete it as spam. I've never gotten one as far as I know, but I've long forgotten my ISP email login info since they wouldn't let me choose the password and it got more spam daily than my rarely used Hotmail account.

If I was really accurately quoting, it would have been Damn the man, Save the Empire.

Funny anecdote. In the movie Can't Hardly Wait, which came out before Empire Records, there is a scene wherein Ethan Embry walks down a flight of stairs towards a girl (Jennifer Love Hewitt) to Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet. It is mirrored almost exactly in Empire Records by Marc, also played by Ethan Embry.

Weird.

Pictured you saying this in Chappelle voice. Burst out laughing.

I think you'll find that illegally downloading files breaks the terms of service for your ISP. If they don't then remove your access, they become complicit in the crime, opening up avenues for the RIAA to sue them instead.

I'm pretty sure that when the BBC reported this about six months ago that's how they said it'd work anyway. It'll cost the RIAA nothing extra because the onus of responsibility is pushed down to the ISPs.

Let's say you had a company that made magic keys that would open any lock and you leased them out with a stipulation that the user wasn't allowed to use them to break into people's houses. If people were doing that and you weren't taking steps to stop them (By taking the keys back) do you think you'd avoid reprisal from the people whose stuff was getting nicked?

Also I imagine the process will be a fairly simple one for ISPs too. They'll have a big list of known pirate sites and track whether you visit them. If you do an email or letter will be automatically generated telling you to stop and if you don't they'll cut you off. They won't know if you're actively breaking the law but will be simply covering their bases, it'll be up to you to prove you're doing nothing wrong.

It's like the bullshit where they pretend there's detector vans that can tell if you have a tv license or not. The vans are empty, they just have a list of all the addresses that don't have a license and they drive past, looking out to see if they can see a tv on through the window.

They're going to make a big push on this, give it a good spitshine for public intimidation purposes to prey upon the fears of the uninformed. But at the end of the day, neither the ISPs nor the RIAA can still do a whole lot about piracy, and the concept of mass-punishment for suspected guilt is unconstitutional. This whole campaign will result in a lot of bluster, the kind that sets grandmas and twelve year-old girls straight, but little else. Here's why.

It has already been upheld in the Supreme Court that downloading music and movies is technically not illegal as long as it's done under the pretense of evaluation. You don't buy a car without a test drive; why would you purchase a CD or DVD without knowing if it's something you'll enjoy? Evaluation is a legal practice. It is implied that once you listen to the music or watch the movie/show that you will delete it from your hard drive within a reasonable period, say three days, and then choose to make a physical purchase if you enjoyed what you heard/saw.

The RIAA made its trade by seizing the hard drives of potential pirates and proving that they had illegal files. But the RIAA has handed off this responsiblity to a network of agencies that, for all intents and purposes, lack the jurisdiction to perform search and seizures. Yes, ISPs can track your downloads, but they cannot prove or disprove that you are keeping the pirated material beyond the evaluation period. Further, for an ISP to simply assume that you are not deleting "sampled" material is a violation of the most basic legal tenet in America: innocence until proven guilty. It would not stand in court, as the burden of proof is upon the ISP, not the defendant. ISPs have very little reason to police piracy in the first place other than keeping up appearances.

Any given ISP has no real incentive to cut you from its service. They will not make any money this way, nor will the RIAA be compensating them for each pirate terminated. The RIAA is no longer prosecuting directly, and nearly all law enforcement agencies have larger fish to fry than entering homes and poring over digital data. Their only interest is catching pedophiles, not people who don't feel they should have to buy a Metallica album that's been out since 1986.

In essence, this is the RIAA admitting that they've lost the battle without publicly declaring so. By handing the responsibility of prosecution and removal of service to the ISPs, they're washing their hands of the entire affair. Should the ISPs fail to control the situation - which is inevitable, as piracy is so common that enforcement would result in a loss of over 50% of its customer base - the RIAA can simply pawn off the blame for continued theft while saving face against people like Lars Ulrich.

So let this blow over for six months or so. It'll all result in a lot of lip service and very little else. A few people may lose service temporarily so that examples can be made, but in the long run, it's simply a piss poor business model. The RIAA lost. That's the story here.

THAT is a far more slippery slope, if that is the case.

Also, Peerguardian is our friend.

(Deni, I believe it was NHL 2004, the last EA NHL game worth even pirating.)

Slippery slope or unconstitutional it might be but let's face it, who the fuck is even going to really know that's what's going on? Even if it's fairly common knowledge the chances of anyone bothering to take their isp to court for unconstitutional letter writing are beyond slim. As Crash suggested, the letters will scare most people off, especially in the case of households where it's the kids downloading stuff and the parents paying for the internet and those that are hardcore pirates will just change isps (Until they're blacklisted after getting banned from a few, I imagine the names will be passed around).

The overall effect is a drop in piracy as casual pirates are put off, the RIAA can be seen to be doing something and the ISPs can't be accused of pandering to pirates. I'd hardly call that a failure for the RIAA.

It really wouldn't be hard to set a list of trackers that, if, the "accuser" visits he gets his letter. I mean just imagine how much they would get done with simply adding piratebay? And yeah It will definitely scare casual users, which are most of them.

Crash, I pray that you are right. I wouldn't know whether to say fuck it and keep downloading or to slow it down A LOT. I would die without my internet. Like you said the thought of them sending mass letters is much more likely than actually going thru with their threats and shutting everyone down. It's effective and cheap, like having a few fake cameras in your store if you can't afford the real ones. And they don't lose customers.

With that said, how much safer would a private tracker be? I doubt they are going to have a blacklist for undergroundgamer.com, or what.cd. And how would they track limewire? that's always confused me. Bit torrent has a tracker to connect to (and ip's), limewire is just ip's, and I doubt they are going to have an uber geek running around limewire all day taking ip address's.

This may be rather naive of me to say, and I may be completely assuming things here (since I just pirate, and don't pay attention to many developments), but for every catch-up step the RIAA makes to go after pirates with "new techniques," the Internet Dwellers have much more brain power, resources, and collective desire to outsmart the RIAA in numbers alone.

Unless they start recruiting from the internet and paying a LOT of people a LOT of money, there's not much they can do.

For every road block the RIAA tries to lay down, there's a new tool to go around the road block made by the pirates and their cohorts. Overwhelming in numbers alone, I figure.

I think what you said makes sense, it's just like pirated releases and the security that discs have. The pirates of the worl always find a way around new protection, even if you have to CALL IT IN. That, is just amazing.

I'm not sure it works exactly the same way as that with online doings, but it probably follows the same concept.

I imagine it's all about the collective desire.

Who doesn't want free shit?