Comments on: One ISP says RIAA must pay for piracy protection

Owner of a small Louisiana ISP says he can't afford to be "HBO's free" copyright cop. Big media should compensate ISPs for tracking down suspected file sharers.

[Pete Bardo]

I just did not read in this article that Scoggins would sell his log data to anyone asking for it. All he said was that he would not comply with any requests that did not include a payment for the service. That's much better than the big guys who do it for free, without hesitating. ISP's are not and should not be cops.

[lonestarState]

The RIAA is nothing more than a corrupt organization powered by the laws of our very corrupt government. Screw the RIAA!

[gogoevo]

As soon has Scroggins accepts that first check he becomes liable.

[rturner2]

Yes.... He shouldn't have to work as the police if he doesn't want to and he should be paid for his time! No one works for free or should work for free.

[Imalittleteapot]

Look, this crap needs to stop. The world has changed. This is basically like the RIAA sells apples, but then someone figured out how to plant and grow apple trees so they wouldn't have to visit the store anymore for apples. The world had changed and the "apples" just aren't worth what they once were because they're so easy to make now.

Yeah I understand this concept of theft of digital property but digital technology and the Internet have basically changed the world we live in. It's changed the laws of physics if you will for digital information. The Internet wasn't designed to transport only good digital information. It wasn't designed so you can tag it as good and bad data. It really can't be policed. To go against that is to try to go against the entire design of the system. A system they could be making huge profit off, but they have to change their business plan to do so. Digital information has become so easy to acquire that it is no longer worth as much as it used to be. Just like apples wouldn't be worth as much if they grew on trees right? Wait a minute, all grocery stores sell apples and make money off them right? How is that possible? Apples grow in the wild? Something doesn't make sense here.

There's a lot of different fruits and vegetables that grow in the wild, yet stores still find a way to make money off these products and sell them even though I could very well go and pick my own. They do it by providing a service of easy access and providing different forms that you can consume the product in. What grocery stores don't do is think they can make money by suing everyone that picks an apple off a tree or banning them from using apple trees. There is a way for musicians to make money, but any digital products they make will basically be used as seeds for pirates to plant to grow more of their product on these "digital trees". If I buy a fruit at the store and plant a seed instead of eating it and grow my own so I never have to buy more from the store again and I share some with my friends then should that be illegal? Should I be put in jail? Well no, but when we do the same thing with digital property we try to make it illegal.

Look, the world has changed. We figured out digital farming basically. Yes the music industry can still make money, but they have to ask themselves how to do so when their product basically grows on trees. Yes we may lose some good artists because they'll basically ask, "Well why would I bother making apples when they grow on trees?" Well I don't know, but I think the Internet is more important than if Britney gets to put out another album cause she's out of coke money, and a true artist will make music whether they make any money or not because they have a passion to do so.

That's why this piracy stuff is all messed up. We're trying to ban gardens basically! It doesn't work! Some how grocery stores have found a way to make money off things that grow on trees. Now, lets get rid of all these stupid piracy laws and see if the recording industry can figure it out. They shouldn't be able to play by special rules. They don't have a right to make money. They should have to compete the same with every other company for our dollars.

[dargon19888]

The RIAA wants a free ride. However, any ISP that voluntarily starts to monitor their networks run the risk of heading down a slippery slope where they might lose their protection under the law.

Just say no to RIAA and say no to downloading music that is not yours.

[bhushan bhaagii]

Forget copyright, forget lost revenues, forgot the rights of "poor, innocent artists" who are done out
of their earnings. The RIAA wants to shore up an old, discredited business model, where they peddle plastic at exorbitant prices, with not much of a choice to the buyer. Just like the VHS case, the RIAA
is unable to come to grips with new technology, and unwilling to bring in a new business model.
Whatever maybe your opinion on Steve Jobs and Apple, the fact is that they, and subsequently Amazon.com have shown what this new business model is. All these stories about piracy,
loss of revenue are just the same old propaganda grind.

[magicmaster]

Yeah, Pay-Per-Search, Pay-Per-Takedown, Pay-per-Notice. Why should ISP assist RIAA for free?

[BLipman72]

This article brings up a good point. Am I responsible for people who piggyback on my connection and get a free ride for internet access go ahead and download 3000 songs and then the RIAA want to terminate my connection. Mabye this should be a wakeup call to those with unsecured networks to lock them down. Seems like the RIAA is also looking for a way to pass the buck and make the ISP the bad guys. Quite honestly i give this guy props asking for a billing address. In todays economy this is going to kill alot of small and medium sized isps who cant afford to lose the cost of turning off the internet to some or perhaps all of their customers. The RIAA should pay up to compensate for the loss of the customer.

[sobishop]

Nobody should worry about anything because you can fight the RIAA on this and win. Your not downloading music illegally, other "internet users" are giving access to their personal collections to anybody who is interested. It is no different than me borrowing a CD from someone else, it just happens to be on a much wider scale. If they[record companies] don't want people to be able to download music then disable the technology. The only way it is illegal is if the "internet user" charges you for it. It is called piracy. I don't see what the big damn deal is anyway cause musicians make all their money from concert ticket sales. CNN announced this morning that concert earning were in the plus even though we are in an "economic recession". Most musicians are all glam and no talent anyways so why should I throw my hard earned good money away on crap I can skip on the radio.

[hblauer]

Technically, if you borrow or lend a CD and a copy is made, the person making the copy is performing an illegal act.

[sobishop]

Only if they turn around and sell it.

[haphilli]

I am still confused as to how the peer-to-peer services can still be around. Are there so many loopholes in their cases that they are always able to continue services. All the torrent websites that host these illegal files, they never get shut down and in the case that they do, they just move along. I would rather the RIAA concentrating on shutting down the p2p programs and thier respective creators. Do you aggressively pursue the guy who bought the drugs or the organization selling them?

[sobishop]

The peer-to-peer sites are overseas where they are not governed by our laws. That is what makes this whole idea of governing the internet so ridiculous. Nobody owns the internet just the servers that the content resides on. So if I am able to access someone's server and "borrow" a song or two, why should I be punished for that? It is not my fault it is available for the whole world to access.There is a ***load of copyrighted porn on the net that is free but nobody is ******** about that.

[medezark]

Also, there are legitimate uses for p2p networks, especially for hosting large files for companies with few resources, as mirror downloads. Programs like OpenOffice, various Linux distributions, importanty distributions like project gutenberg cd's, blender, gimp, all use p2p networks, LEGITIMATELY, to offset the cost of distributing these wonderful programs.

[Imalittleteapot]

One other thing to consider is not all sharing technology was developed for piracy. Three things used for piracy are still Bittorrent, FTP, and HTTP and while I may be wrong about this, FTP has been around a long time and was invented for a totally different purpose. It was just created to transfer files. When it was invented though if you had told some that one day you'd be able to fit a whole song in a 3 meg file or a movie in a few hundred megs you would have been laughed out of the room, but then new technology came along and all of a sudden something like FTP becomes a pirates tool even though that's not why it was invented.

Bittorrent is kind of the same. From what I understand Bittorrent was designed for an entirely different purpose. To distribute the bandwidth load of high bandwidth files like software updates or for free operating systems like Linux or anything else someone needed to distribute. Yet again, even though it wasn't designed specifically for piracy, the pirates quickly found a use for something that can distribute the load of high bandwidth transfers.


HTTP was the same way. It was just designed to transfer web pages with a few hyper links. Then a few images and it evolved to carry more bandwidth at the same time movies and music started getting compressed to take up even less bandwidth. Next thing you know HTTP becomes a perfect medium to transfer not only web pages, but everything.

I don't know if Gnutella still works this way, but when it first came out only some of the song and search data went over P2P. The actual downloading of the files took place over HTTP and many Gnutella clients had their own little web server built in.

So, you may get made at the person that designed the network, but many times it isn't the networks fault. The network technology was designed for something completely different and pirates just figured out how to piggy back on it. That's why you can't just go shutting the networks down because they do more than piracy. Like you can't shut down HTTP because that would shut every web page on the internet down, yet if you leave it up the pirates can easily use it to transfer their goods.

So, what do you do? Shut down all the internet or none of the internet? Unfortunately there is no in between because of the way the internet works. It's all decentralized and there's no one point where you can really turn it off at. These network don't really have off switches if you will.

[jatstuff]

Is bandwidth usage an issue at all? If certain customers are file sharing to point that gets the attention of RIAA, wouldn't they be using significantly more bandwidth than the typical customer, so that disconnecting them would actually save the ISP money? None of the comments so far have discussed bandwidth costs, so I am guessing it is not a factor. Any comments on that?

[Imalittleteapot]

Kicking files sharers offline would save bandwidth, and I suppose that would help the ISP. Of course, the ISP could shut down completely and save even more bandwidth, but then they wouldn't make any money. So, they'd have to kick just the right customers off.

I suppose McDonald's could kick out skinny people and only serve fat people and perhaps make more money that way. Or, maybe they'd make more money off skinny people. I don't know, but I don't think that's the way to treat your customers. I don't care who walks through the door. I don't care what size they are or what color they are. The only thing I care about is the color of their money and if they got it they can buy whatever they want.

Of course, some users may use too much bandwidth, but if the ISP feels that way maybe they shouldn't have sold them all that bandwidth then tried to renege on it later when they realized that yeah, people really do tend to use the stuff you sell them. If don't want them to use it then why do they keep selling it to them? Oh yeah, the money.

Same thing with the RIAA really. Honestly they want to have full control over the music. From the way they've been acting I get the feeling they don't actually want anyone to listen to the music at all. I have to ask if that's the case why they even sell it in the first place? Oh, they'd lose money then. It's almost like they're both retarded, but just greedy enough to keep on breathing day after day.

[imotionsrt4]

I like what Mr. Scroggins is doing here, and I wish more people would stand up and tell the RIAA to shove it. Of course this issue will cause more problems with the smaller ISP because they have "limited" resources as well as a limitied customer base.

Now unfortunately (at least in my eyes), I don't see company's like ATT or Comcast requiring the RIAA/MPAA to pay anything. They are all in eachothers back pockets. Just look at the product placement in movies. James Bond uses Sony everything, and drives every Ford under the sun.


As far as file sharing goes, here is the way I look at it. We would all agree (i'm sure there are some smart A$$es out there that will say otherwise), that when I (or we) buy something, it is ours.

When I go to the store and buy Eggo waffles, they are mine.

When I go to the mall and buy a pair of shoes/pants and/or a shirt or two.....they are now mine.

If I buy a $5000 watch, it is mine, just like if I buy a $5 watch....I own it now.

If I go to the the local electronics store and buy a CD, I own that CD, and I can do whatever I want with it.

With all of these things, including the CD, if I want to go in the parking lot and destroy them, I can do that.
If I want to take the $100 pair of jeans I bought and resale them on Ebay, I don't have to pay Levis's for doing that and I don't have to worry about being punished. Why do I have to worry about it with a CD or DVD I bought?

Now I do realize (as well as most people) that if consumers are given quality legal options, most of them will follow through using those options. Sure there are going to be bad apples out there, there always will be. But give honest consumers a break. Stop trying to control every little thing we do with products that we bought from you......I PAID YOU YOUR MONEY ALREADY!!!

Ohh and take your DRM'd up music and shove it as well.

[medezark]

Well, it's actually a little more complicated than that.

With current technology, you can't take that watch you bought, or those jeans, and make hundreds of exact duplicates within minutes and give them away. You can't dilute the market to the point of non-existence.

I'm not saying the RIAA and other media interests are right, just that the technology has made their business model obsolete.

If Rep-Rap ever gets off the ground and running at full speed, you'll see the same arguments about watches, jeans, and other traditional manufactured items.

[SJ2571]

"With current technology, you can't take that watch you bought, or those jeans, and make hundreds of exact duplicates within minutes and give them away." -- He didn't say that. He said he should be able to sell that physical CD or DVD just like any other physical object.

[D3vildog699]

Take DRM off my music and Movies, and i'll be happy tom comply with most of what they want. My money pays for your product, after that exchange, what i do with said product is none of your business. I paid for a product, not a service.

[jameskatt]

That's interesting.

For ISPs, kicking a customer off means about $1500 over 3 years AND the overhead of paying for staff to do the tracking and policing work - which may cost $500 over 3 years.

Extended over 20 years (approximately one's career), then the cost to an ISP of kicking a single customer off can amount to approximately $15,000 - not counting inflation.

That's a lot of money to lose for an ISP for each customer it kicks out of its network.

[syberlink]

Both the RIAA and Directv sued a total of 60,000 people many of who were innocent. Even though they knew of their innocence, they collected money from them then locked them into an agreement not to tell or not to report them for the false court complaint. The US justice system refused to help those falsely accused and failed to stop the suits even though they knew the court complaints were bogus. To bring the justice system back into the fold of protecting innocent people, those falsely sued need to send a strong message. The next time they are a juror before a court, do just what Justice did to them. Ignore Justice. Cast your juror vote against justice. The next time you are a witness, do not come foreword. This way eventually Justice will learn what it is like to be ignored when crimes are committed against you by huge companies you never had a chance against. Huge corporations should not be immune from braking the laws just like the consumer.