RIAA Confirms It Will Take Piracy Fight to ISPs

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Friday confirmed that it will abandon its practice of suing individuals for online piracy in favor of working with Internet service providers to track down offenders.The RIAA is partnering with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and several undisclosed ISPs in order to alert the ISPs rather than the individual customer when it finds people who are swapping pirated tracks online.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337294,00.aspRIAA shifts gears on music piracy, says it won’t file more suits
In a surprise about-face, the Recording Industry Association of America said today that it will no longer pursue its controversial legal strategy of filing large numbers of lawsuits against individuals for alleged music piracy.But the trade group isn’t throwing in the towel on its antipiracy campaign.In a brief document explaining its decision, the RIAA said it now plans to work more closely with ISPs to identify alleged copyright infringers and try to persuade them to stop. Under the so-called graduated response program, the RIAA would notify participating ISPs when it discovers their customers engaging in what it claims are illegal downloading activities.
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9124097
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/121908-riaa-shifts-gears-on-music.htmlTarget of RIAA lawsuit says music piracy case has been an ordeal
To hear Joel Tenenbaum’s version of the story, at least, it isn’t hard to see why the Recording Industry Association of America’s campaign against music piracy has earned the RIAA so many enemies — perhaps contributing to the trade group’s decision this week to stop filing lawsuits against people like Tenenbaum.
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9124118RIAA drops lawsuits; ISPs to battle file sharing
The music industry’s highly controversial strategy of suing customers for file sharing has mostly ended.The Recording Industry Association of America said Friday that it no longer plans to wage a legal assault against people who it suspects of pirating digital music files. What the RIAA should have said, though, is that it won’t go after most people who illegally file share. My music industry sources say that the RIAA will continue to file lawsuits against the most egregious offenders–the person who “downloads 5,000 or 6,000 songs a month is still going to get sued,” a source at a major record company told me.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10126914-93.htmlLawsuits or not, the RIAA still doesn’t understand us
Today is an important day for file sharers: the RIAA has abandoned its mass lawsuit policy. In fact, the organization claims it will stop suing individuals who pirate music (except for the most egregious offenders) and instead, lean on ISPs to battle piracy.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10127017-17.htmlMusic Industry Drops Effort to Sue Song Swappers [AP]
The group representing the U.S. recording industry said Friday it has abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and will work with Internet service providers to cut abusers’ access if they ignore repeated warnings.
http://nytimes.com/aponline/2008/12/19/technology/AP-Music-Downloading-Lawsuits.htmlRIAA’s New Piracy Plan Poses a New Set of Problems
The Recording Industry Association of America is taking a dangerous step with its decision to stop suing suspected music sharers and start cutting off their Internet access instead. While the discontinuation of the lawsuit practice has its merits, the move opens up a whole new can of worms — one that could have serious implications for our future rights as consumers of information.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/155820/.html