Music Industry to End Mass Lawsuits Against File-Sharers

[Prrkitty]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,470039,00.html

Quote: After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.

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Ain't much else to say except... It's about time!!!

[Russ]

So does this mean I can go download illegal music now? :D

I'm actually surprised. I would never have guessed they'd do that.

[Archibaldo]

Arrggh. Pirates win again! Let's celebrate with rum!

[Trevelyan_06]

Arrggh. Pirates win again! Let's celebrate with rum!

That's the whole reason the recording industry lost right there. Who doesn't want to be a pirate? When they call you a pirate not only do you get cool songs for free you get a cool title. If they really wanted to fight illegal music downloads they should have called it something like kitten punting.

[ctrl-alt-delete]

Arrggh. Pirates win again! Let's celebrate with rum!

I've been celebrating everyday for years and I didn't even know it!

[rocksfan13]

I heard that they intend to get the ISP's involved in this to monitor users and cut their service off at the request of the recording industry.
Personally, I think that's an invasion of privacy.

[Nicholas Steel]

I heard that they intend to get the ISP's involved in this to monitor users and cut their service off at the request of the recording industry.
Personally, I think that's an invasion of privacy.
it says that at the of of prrrkitty's link.

[rocksfan13]

I still think it's an invasion of privacy.

[Glitch]

You can thank the mom that posed as a boy on myspace and eventually led to her daughter's classmate committing suicide.

[Revfan9]

The saddest thing is? "We" didn't win. They did. Their goal was to scare the public and spread FUD, and they accomplished this goal.

Tell anyone "File Sharing is illegal" and they won't really care, but dare say "Photocopying is illegal" or "Taping that football game is illegal"? You'll get weird stares. They succeeded in making a technology, in the public's eye, appear to be synonymous with a crime committed using that technology.

The saddest thing? What they're going to do now is a hell of a lot worse than suing individuals. Now they're just going to shake down ISPs and force them to do their dirty work. The RIAA (Or one of the many organizations I suspect will soon sign with them in a dictatorial conglomerate) doesn't like you? They send a letter to your ISP, they assume you're guilty, and blacklist you from every ISP under agreement with them (and they'll likely push for legislation to require ISPs to follow their orders, and they'll likely get it).

If they're lucky, they'll ban P2P protocols altogether and start forcing ISPs to monitor and log HTTP and FTP packets. Dare encrypt your network traffic to maintain your privacy? They'll just flag you guilty (with or without evidence) and blacklist you.

This system will work so much better for the RIAA than just suing individuals because now silly things like constitutional rights can't get in their way.

[ZeldaFan001]

Interesting, I also recently heard a story that the FCC slapped Comcast recently for slowing down a user's internet access if a P2P protocol was in use during the user's session to upload. (I knew this was taking place, the telltale signs included very slow to no internet while uploading using P2P.) I'd hate to think this will eventually be legal for an ISP to perform. The uploaded material could be legal, like a distribution of Linux, for example and slowing down one's internet is very irritating. I guess we'll see what happens.

[Maverick_Zero]

The saddest thing is? "We" didn't win. They did.
The saddest thing? What they're going to do now is a hell of a lot worse than suing individuals. Now they're just going to shake down ISPs and force them to do their dirty work. The RIAA (Or one of the many organizations I suspect will soon sign with them in a dictatorial conglomerate) doesn't like you? They send a letter to your ISP, they assume you're guilty, and blacklist you from every ISP under agreement with them (and they'll likely push for legislation to require ISPs to follow their orders, and they'll likely get it).

If they're lucky, they'll ban P2P protocols altogether and start forcing ISPs to monitor and log HTTP and FTP packets. Dare encrypt your network traffic to maintain your privacy? They'll just flag you guilty (with or without evidence) and blacklist you.



That's a little big brother-ish. I don't think there will be many senate sub-commitee hearings on that in next few years, there's a few bigger government type problems to worry about.

[Link 101]

I just download my music and what-not from places like Megaupload and Mediafire. I don't know if they'd have any way of telling I was illegally downloading music or not this way.

I stopped using Limewire because it is a waste of my computer's space and a waste of my time.

[Aegix Drakan]

Invasion of privacy? YES.

Better than getting dragged out to court and sued up your ass? YES.


...Honestly, I'm pretty neutral about this.

[AtmaWeapon]

Revfan's pretty much right.

They quit because they've had a few close calls where there court cases almost fell apart. It takes warrants and lots of other due process to properly prosecute someone, and I have a feeling that whatever it took to prosecute people on the shoddy evidence they had was starting to cost them more than it was making them.

Now, instead of having to ask your ISP, then threaten with a warrant, then send a lawyer, they just have to say, "This IP is infringing. String 'em up.". No investigation required.

I'd have much rather have them continue suing people until they got wrecked by a judge that understood what was going on. If your service gets shut off as the result of one of their letters, the burden is on you to talk to your ISP, figure out what happened, and possibly file a case against the ISP to clear your name. Notice you don't file against the RIAA; they didn't say "Shut off so and so's internet", they just said, "This IP did something suspicious and you might be liable."

It's always nice when you can put a meat shield between you and the bullets.

[Link 101]

I don't see why they persist. Honestly...piracy is going to continue, with or without the internet. People burning copies of CDs is also piracy. You don't even need a COMPUTER to do that either. They're wasting their time.