UNINNOVATE / Engineering At Its Finest

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Recording Industry Association of America is abandoning lawsuits against file sharers who trade music online:

“The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.”

Wall Street Journal - Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits

We’ve previously covered some of the the reasons why suing your customer base may not be the best long-term business strategy.  But given that the music industry has a history of pursing any strategy to prevent piracy no matter how self destructive or pathetically futile, it comes as no surprise that they are launching a new anti-piracy strategy.  The RIAA is forming partnerships with internet service providers who will scan their customer’s traffic for illegal file sharing and then warn them, slow down their transfer speeds, or cut them off altogether:

“If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.”

Wall Street Journal - Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits

One alarming problem with this approach is that the RIAA has a horrible track record for identifying pirated material being transferred online.  As far back as 2003, the RIAA almost succeeded in having Penn State University’s astronomy and astrophysics department disconnected from the internet.  After a RIAA network scan found a folder called “usher” on an astronomy department server and assumed it contained pirated music by the musician Usher, they sent a cease and decist letter to the university.  The university threatened to cut off access to the department until they proved that the material had nothing to do with the musician Usher.

The RIAA has had to apologize for many other similar incidents over the years, including harrasing the Amigascne.org Amiga Computer fan site:

The RIAA’s form letter sent to Speakeasy last Thursday alleged the Amigascne.org site illegally “offers approximately 0 sound files for download. Many of these files contain recordings owned by our member companies, including songs by such artists as Creed.”

ZDNet - RIAA apologises for more mistaken warnings

Given the track record, it is alarming that the RIAA will be given power to cut off the internet access of individual users.  And given the RIAA’s history of continuing to litigate in piracy cases where there is no valid evidence, it is unlikely that they will be forgiving to users who are innocently caught in the dragnet.  Meanwhile, the large scale pirates will continue to use advanced tools that encrypted file transfers and are unlikely to be caught.

If you disagree with this move, let your ISP know how you feel.  If your ISP supports this program, switch to another provider who values user privacy.  Without full cooperation from the ISPs, the RIAA would have no ability to implement this program.