ISP owner refuses to be music industry’s unpaid dogsbody
Last week the music industry decided it would stop targeting individual downloaders over copyright infringements and instead tell internet service providers to crack down on offenders. The owner of one small ISP says that’s no problem – but he doesn’t work for free.
Jerry Scroggin (pictured), who owns Bayou Internet and Communications in Louisiana, is speaking out in response to the news that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is no longer going to the effort of suing individual users in an attempt to deter others from downloading copyrighted music without permission.
The RIAA will instead now send a form letter to the ISP of any individual it knows to be downloading such material. The letter asks the company to contact the user to tell them of the offense and direct them to a Web site detailing the relevant laws. The ISP is also asked to “remove or disable access to the unauthorized music”.
Scroggin says he’s only willing to do so if the ISP foots the bill for his time and effort. He told CNET that his logic is “”They have the right to protect their songs or music or picture. But they don’t have the right to tell me I have to be the one protecting it”.
According to Scroggin, he’s got no problem cooperating with authorities over serious crime such as online security attacks. But he doesn’t believe copyright violations are serious enough to foot the bill.
While the RIAA gives the impression ISPs will simply have to send a letter (or even just an e-mail), there could be more to it than that. It appears the RIAA plan means service providers will be the ones who have to do the work of linking an IP address to an individual users – and take responsibility for getting that identification right.
Scroggin also argues that it’s unreasonable to expect him to take actions which will likely lose him a paying customer, particularly when the evidence of their crime is often far from certain.
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December 22nd, 2008
If the music and movie business think that everyone is going to wreck the internet just so they can prop up their failing out-of-date business models they can get stuffed.
Downloading for personal non-commercial purposes is sharing, not pirating.
Most of us already pay & have paid plenty for the same material.
Just like we used to be able to tape off of the radio or record from the TV, it’s no different – and if the law now says it is then the law has been corrupted and perverted (by the interests of big business and not the people) to a meaning that was never originally intended.
Those greedy b@stards can go screw themselves.
December 22nd, 2008
I doubt it will be long before the RIAA is told in no uncertain legal terms that it isn’t the ISP’s responsibility to search out inappropriate activity amongst their users. Just like it isn’t the phone company’s responsibility to seek out if someone is using a phone on their service to conduct inappropriate activity. What is it about the RIAA and MPAA and etc. that makes them insist on discarding “innocent until proven guilty” and “probable cause”? If they are so all fired sure that so much illegal activity is occurring, seems to me it’s up to them to PROVE it.
December 23rd, 2008
And it turns out RIAA was just flat out LYING (surprise!). Dozens of lawsuits have been filed in the past couple weeks despite them saying they stopp months ago!
http://techdirt.com/articles/20081221/1519113180.shtml