RIAA to drop the use of Lawsuits

Downloaders rejoice, ok well maybe not but those of us that are tired of the RIAA and its strong arm tactics can almost feel good about a recent decision that RIAA announced to the Wall Street Journal.

RIAA has decided to drop the lawsuits with their huge judgments and have instead decided to work with ISPs to keep an eye on what people are doing. If a user is discovered to have illegal material available for download (Sharing music etc) then RIAA will send a note to the ISP and the ISP will take over "correcting" the issue.

Of course you have to wonder how RIAA will find out that a certain user is doing this, will they staff a center to scour the Internet looking for these violations? Or will they employ other and shadier means.

Read the WSJ article here.

Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones. But ISPs, which are increasingly cutting content deals of their own with entertainment companies, may have more incentive to work with the music labels now than in previous years.