RIAA sends subpoenas to ISPs to reveal indentities of pirate

[Jo]

Reuters reports that the RIAA is currently preparing for a real war against music pirates. The Recording Industry Association of America has now send subpoenas to the ISPs requesting them to cooperate in revealing names of their customers. The customers, according to the article, several hunderd of heavy users, will be sued by the RIAA.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Filing information subpoenas is exactly what we said we'd do a couple of weeks ago when we announced that we were gathering evidence to file lawsuits," said a spokeswoman for the RIAA, the music recording industry's leading trade body. Sharply escalating the industry's battle against online piracy, which had so far focused on shutting down peer-to-peer services themselves, the trade group in late June said it would track down the heaviest users of these services and sue them.
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ISPs are required to provide copyright holders with such information when there is a good-faith reason to believe their copyrights are being infringed, according to lawyers for the RIAA.


The RIAA seems to be pretty clear in their policy, if you are now downloading copyright music while not paying (to the correct people), you are in danger of being sued. Discuss subjects like this in our Livingroom

[House de Kris]

"The Recording Industry Association of America has now send subpoenas to the ISPs requesting them to cooperate in revealing names of their customers.....Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ISPs are required to provide copyright holders with such information when there is a good-faith reason to believe their copyrights are being infringed, according to lawyers for the RIAA."

Funny thing is, the RIAA doesn't own these copyrights. It's Sony Music, et al. that does. How can the RIAA subpoena this information?

[The village idiot]

Copyright holders or its agents (representatives)!

See.... I told you it was coming!

Soon it will be anyone serving up files.

Then it will be those of you downloading from one of Riaa's servers, or from an international server. (please check your IP at the door)

In other words, if a way can not be found to anonymise your idenity, you will be screwed!

Next you will hear about the MPAA doing the same thing.

And then it will spread to Canada and Mexico.

[painkiller]

Don't think it's just this industry, folks.
If any of you are familiar with The Register - I suggest you read the following link as well.

DirecTV dragnet snares innocent techies
By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus
Posted: 17/07/2003 at 09:54 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31793.html

And for a little more to add to this mix, I also suggest the following on the same site.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31812.html

Congressman pocketed $18,000 for RIAA 'lobbying trip'

[Styro]

These potential lawsuits, if brought to criminal court, should be interesting to watch. The prosecution has to provide irrefutable proof that the defendant was violating the law and at the same time educate a judge and jury about the internal process of the p2p application used and the IP (as in TCP/IP) protocol internals. I can see a VERY big uphill battle for the RI-/MP- AA if they continue this policy.

-- Styro

[txpharoah]

DirecTV is currently losing it's ass in court (excuse my term, but I couldn't think of a better way to say it). But that's a great set of cases, keep watching.

As far as the ISP tracking, call your ISP. I called mine and talked to the legal department earlier this week, just out of curiosity after reading some of the stuff on this site. Interesting, interesting, interesting. What a bunch of wimps. Don't count on your ISP to help you out, that's all I have to say.

However, they are not the ones tracking you, in fact they keep little records. And even then, burdens of proof and accuracy of information may prove difficult.