Comments on: Copy of RIAA's new enforcement notice to ISPs

CNET News has acquired a copy of the form letter the RIAA will send to ISPs that informs them one of their customers is accused of file sharing.

[treytakahashi]

Oh great, another little dance being put on by the large thugs at the RIAA. Its only a matter of time before the large brutes take the dance to far, beyond us being scared stiff... when they reach their climax, and trip all over themselves, and die...

[hassan_bin_sober]

Time to kill the lawyers! I do my part, whats your excuse?

[LuciferSatan666]

The facts are:
1) Music & Movie Machine has BIG $ and wants more BIG $.
2) Legal & Political Machine has BIG $ and wants more BIG $.
3) People are poor, apathetical and easily manipulated.

In 1979 I went to my local record store to purchase Pink Floyd's The Wall. A double album of arguably the best music ever produced and sold on vinyl for a whopping $12.95.

A few years later the MMM announced the switch to the Compact Disk format. The music buying populace were promised that not only would CD sound better than LPs it would also be nearly indestructible. Both of these claims have proven disingenuous.

The other proffered benefit was that since the CDs would cost less to produce the MMM would pass the savings along to us and this major alteration in the presentation of music would be a Win-Win for everybody.

Since that time CDs are significantly cheaper to produce and new arenas & methods of distribution have become available. The entire world now is an accessible market for the MMM meaning the total number of potential customers available in more than tenfold what it was in 1979; when I paid $13 bucks for a great double album.

On amazon.com today:
The Wall by Pink Floyd (Audio CD) New: $34.98 On-Sale $21.99
The Wall by Pink Floyd (MP3 Download) Download MP3 Album: $21.97

This is music that is 30 years old !!!!!

Most artists of the Classic Rock era have been cut-out of ANY royalty from the sale of their product as this medium of delivery was non-existent when they signed their marketing contracts. Therefore, the sale of this product is pure profit for the MMM.

An .mp3 version of The Wall requires a mere 467Mb of storage; that's all; so cost of deliver is entirely negligible at this point.

To date The Wall has sold 26.5 million copies worldwide for a total of between $344,500,000 to nearly 1 billion dollars. Incidentally this album cost no more than $25,000 to produce in 1979.

As far as an ISP cutting off your internet access, this is where the politicians come into play. On October 28, 1998 President Bill Clinton signed into national law The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 or DMCA which was to redefine United States copyright law for this century and cover the electronic world but good.

On page 9:

?In addition, to be eligible for any of the limitations,? (THIS REFERS TO THE EXCEMPTION OF AN ISP FROM BEING HELD LIABLE IN A LAW SUIT OR COURT PROCEEDING FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT) ?a service provider must meet two overall conditions:

(1) it must adopt and reasonably implement a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances the accounts of subscribers who are repeat infringers; and

(2) it must accommodate and not interfere with ?standard technical measures.? (Section 512i)). ?Standard technical measures? are defined as measures that copyright owners use to identify or protect copyrighted works, that have been developed pursuant to a broad consensus of copyright owners and service providers in an open, fair and voluntary multi-industry process, are available to anyone on reasonable nondiscriminatory terms, and do not impose substantial costs or burdens on service providers.?

That is the law. Period.

WHAT THIS MEANS IS THAT THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HOSTS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL ON THEIR OWN SERVERS IN THE FORM OF BIT TORRENT FILES. IF THE FILE YOU ARE DOWNLOADING IS HOSTED ON THEIR SERVER AND YOU ATTEMPT TO DOWLOAD IT THEY THEN HAVE YOUR IP ADDRESS.

The ISP doesn't have to do anything except accept the report from the MMM that you visited the servers of the copyright holders.

If the ISP is notified and fails to show proof that your account has been terminated then the ISP looses all protection under law from liability for your actions. I am sure that the MMM lobbied really hard and a lot of politicians made some BIG $ because they backed this law.

What can we do? In America, for now, the people still have the control of the government. These laws have gotten passed because of the three items mentioned at the beginning of this long winded epistle. My apologies.

Write your congress person, your senator, your city council (if your ISP is owned as a municipal trust), county supervisors, you name it. The more people who write letters the more the politicians will pay attention.

Tell them that you feel it is entirely inappropriate for your internet service to be disconnected. Tell them that access to the internet is a vital part of your employment, your education, your health, your well-being. Tell them that you feel it is WRONG for copyright holders and ISPs to pursue this course of action. Ask them to strike this section of the law.

Anything that inhibits the free exchange of speech is a violation of our Constitutional Liberties. To deprive anyone of internet communication is tantamount to silencing the individual.

Please prove me wrong on item 3 above or Ill guess I will see you all in Hell.

LS

[rezzin1]

this day and age every thing and anything is shared with out hesitation . sharing is careing thats the modo of the future . any thought can be shared instantaly around the internet . if people are so concerned about the thoughts and ideas being copied then they themselves need to come up with a plan that makes there thoughts creations and ideas more protected somehow. i cant think of any ways but until someone does then then its almosts free for all . that is the basis of the internet to be able to do mirror imageing of all digital information to be shared from one wire to anywhere in the world . if u take that away then its only going to stall inovation. im not advocating illegal activities but say a college student downloads a new awsome cd he likes . if he really likes it and has the money to buy it he probably will because he wants to support the band. or at least he might support the band in other ways who knows . word of mouth and all. my 2 cents