ISPs Ready to Assist the RIAA?
How does the Recording Industry Association of America plan to stop illegal file sharing? Perhaps by turning two of America's largest Internet service providers into stooges. Last year, after a round of very public defeats over its plans to sue individuals for illegal file sharing, the RIAA unveiled a new plan to have ISPs do its dirty work. Now, AT&T and Comcast may have signed on to do just that.
There is nothing in writing yet, and both companies are reportedly very tentative about jumping into bed with the RIAA, but according to CNET news, the three parties are close to an agreement. Under the arrangement, the RIAA would identify illegal file sharers and then the ISPs would issue take down notices.
If these take-down notices don't work, the ISPs would follow their own tiered response system, which could include suspension or termination of service. Right now, nobody's from either AT&T or Comcast is commenting on this agreement, but an AT&T spokesman did say to CNET that, "consumer education is a key component to enabling customers to find and use legal methods to access the content they want...we [AT&T] have also consistently said that automatic cutoff of our customers is not something we would do." We'll see.
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