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New RIAA Plan Going Nowhere Fast
ISPs in no rush to play copyright babysitter

Late last year, the RIAA boldly announced they would be ditching mass lawsuits in favor of ISPs sending offenders warning letters, while quietly adopting a three strikes system for repeat offenders. At the time, the RIAA stated that their partner ISPs for the plan would be announced "within weeks." Six months later, CNET notes that ISPs don't seem to be in any rush to sign up as copyright cops. Interestingly, one anonymous ISP executive tells the website the RIAA was too heavy handed in their efforts to force ISPs to play along:

quote:
According to the ISP executive who asked for anonymity because he's involved in negotiations with the music sector, the RIAA's tactics in dealing with the ISPs have been too heavy handed. The executive complained that the RIAA has tried to use Andrew Cuomo to push the ISPs into helping. But Cuomo doesn't have the kind of political muscle to sway the major ISPs when they are acting well within the law, the executive said. There's nothing in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that requires ISPs to send their own warning letters to subscribers.
Right now, it appears the ISP response-du-jour to RIAA pressure is to try and convince them that sending warning notices to P2P copyright violators will be action enough. Executives at several ISPs we've spoken to like citing a UK study that claims 72% of P2P users would stop with just a warning. However, since ISPs have been forwarding toothless DMCA letters for years with only explosive P2P growth to show for it -- that's unlikely.

ISPs clearly are wary of the PR dangers of palling around with one of the least popular organizations on the Internet, nor do they really want to start booting profitable users off of their networks because they downloaded a few episodes of House MD. It also costs money to implement content filtering technology, something that's been of particular concern to small ISPs who don't have one foot in the content industry.

AT&T has told us they're testing a letter notification system but isn't considering booting repeat offenders. Cox Communications is the only major ISP we know of that terminates repeat P2P violators -- but only after repeat notifications. Cox says they've actually only had to terminate the service of one-tenth of 1% of all users.

While some seem to think the RIAA's announcement last fall was simply about finding a PR way to back away from mass lawsuits, the reality is the agency is still consistently filing suits. It's more likely the RIAA really did think that New York AG Andrew Cuomo -- fresh of his dubious child porn ISP campaign -- could pressure ISPs into playing copyright cop. Now that this tactic has failed, you can expect greater pressure on the RIAA lawyer-stocked Obama Administration to pass new laws that force ISPs to play Internet babysitter.

Most recommended from 22 comments


Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL

2 recommendations

Mr Matt

Member

Music Industry mad can no longer overcharge consumers.

The music industry is angry because they can no longer overcharge consumers.

1) Before the commercial release of the first Compact Disc in 1983, several record labels announced the price for a Premium Digitally Mastered CD would be $12.98. A Philips representative I spoke to stated that the hardware side of the music industry believed that the cost of Compact Discs would decrease as manufacturing techniques improved to increase yield. In the early days of CD production 50% of CD's had to be discarded because of manufacturing defects.

2) In early 1983 the first Compact Discs were released.

3) By the middle of 1983, because of the tremendous demand, record stores placed a $4.00 Premium on Compact Discs. Compact Discs that had a catalog price of $12.95 now sold for $16.95. Record stores even charged $16.95 for Compact Discs that were intended to be sold for the budget price of $7.95 for $16.95. Who kept the extra profits? Non other than the record store owners.

4) In 1984 performers sued the RIAA because they were receiving copyright fees based on an MSRP of $12.95 when the record stores were actually selling the product of their work for $16.95. Performers prevailed and the list price of Compact Discs were raised to $16.95.

5) Unfortunately for consumers there were enough customers still buying Compact Discs at inflated prices to continue to support the inflated prices.

6) By the mid 1990's most record collectors had replaced their record collections with Compact Discs. The outrageous price for Compact Discs could no longer be supported.

7) Rather than lowering prices the record labels raised prices further cutting demand.

8) Fortunately for the RIAA the Internet and Computer CD Drives became available to be used as a scape goat for a decrease in Compact Disc sales.