RIAA Changing Tactics? no more lawsuits

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.