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Tuesday, February 13, 2007
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RIAA to ISPs: Help Us Sue Your Customers Better. As if suing thousands of music fans isn't bad enough, now the RIAA wants to conscript ISPs into helping them streamline the shakedowns. The major record labels sent a letter to ISPs across the country asking them to trade away customers' rights and make the overzealous file sharing lawsuits more profitable -- and the RIAA even has the audacity to suggest that this all for your own good. ISPs currently have no obligation to maintain IP log files, and that's a good thing when it comes to protecting your privacy. Those log files can serve as Internet breadcrumbs -- your ISP and any third party that has access to them can retrace your online activities. But the RIAA wants ISPs to maintain (and disclose) a customer's IP logs for six months whenever the RIAA says the user may have infringed copyright. In exchange, the record companies will reduce its initial lawsuit settlement demands. Of course, the actual customer would have no say in the matter. The RIAA letter says it wants the information kept because it could "exculpate" the customer, but of course those same records can also implicate the user. Funny, the labels don't mention that.
EFF and others have long warned that copyright claims could become an altar on which personal privacy is sacrificed. Now the RIAA wants your ISP to voluntarily wield the knife, and there's no telling what else the RIAA might ask for once this cut has been made The RIAA also wants ISPs to keep customers in the dark about their legal options. Before the RIAA has even verified that the user is correctly identified, it wants ISPs to send along a note saying the user might be sued and can already settle potential claims. At the same time, the RIAA scolds ISPs for giving information to their customers that could help provide sound legal counsel. Instead, the RIAA wants ISPs to direct subscribers solely to the RIAA. In other words, the RIAA wants it to be harder for customers to find out that settling early might be a bad idea. Does the RIAA readily tell customers that parents are generally not liable for infringements committed by their kids, or that bankruptcy might be a last-ditch option for some, or that the record labels have occasionally sued the wrong people? Doubtful. The RIAA's letter notes that some people have been told that "the RIAA could have been incorrect in identifying your IP address" -- which of course is true -- and "directed the subscriber to certain websites, instead of having him contact the RIAA." We suspect those websites include EFF's resources as well as the Subpoena Defense website. It's possible that, after the fact, a given user might have preferred a cheaper, earlier settlement, but neither ISPs nor fans should have to make the remarkably perverse choice laid out in the RIAA's "offer." As we've pointed out repeatedly, the record labels could help forge a better way forward to get artists paid without suing fans or further endangering their privacy. The last time we checked, ISPs don't work for the RIAA, so until the major record labels come to their collective senses, ISPs shouldn't be handmaidens in their misguided lawsuit campaign. [EFF: Deep Links]
11:59:43 PM 
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Web Censorship Proposed For Norway. Aqwis writes "A Norwegian Web filtering system (link in Norwegian), comparable to the Great Firewall of China, has been proposed to the Norwegian legislature. It would, if enacted, block all Web sites and servers that contain hate material (racial hate, pro-Nazi sites, hate towards the government, etc.), most kinds of pornography (not only child pornography), foreign gambling sites, and sites that share copyrighted or other material that it is not legal to share (such as most BitTorrent sites and services such as LimeWire). Reactions have been mixed; however they are mostly negative." [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]
8:08:57 PM
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RIAA Admits ISPs Have Misidentified "John Does". NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has sent out a letter to the ISPs telling them to stop making mistakes in identifying subscribers,
and offering a 'Pre-Doe settlement option' -- with a discount of '$1000
or more' -- to their subscribers, if and only if the ISP agrees to
preserve its logs for 180 days. Other interesting points in the letter
(PDF): the RIAA will be launching a web site for 'early settlements,'
www.p2plawsuits.com; the letter asks the ISPs to notify the RIAA if
they have previously 'misidentified a subscriber account in response to
a subpoena' or become aware of 'technical information... that causes
you to question the information that you provided in response to our
clients' subpoena'; it notes that ISPs have identified 'John Does' who
were not even subscribers of the ISP at the time of the infringement;
and it requests that ISPs furnish their underlying log files, not just
names and addresses, when responding to RIAA subpoenas." [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]
7:33:16 PM
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Captain Copyright Expires.
The Canadian superhero Captain Copyright has finally expired,
not due to pirates or to the passage of 50 years after the death of the
author, but because "the current climate around copyright issues will
not allow a project like this one to be successful." The cartoon was
intended to provide an education in copyright law for children, but it
became a focus for criticism when even the Canadian Library Association
condemned it for lacking balance because it ignored issues like Fair
Dealing (Canada's version of Fair Use). Personally, I was hoping we'd
see them get sued by DC & Marvel, who claim to own the trademark on the word "superhero", and vanish in a puff of logic. [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]
7:29:37 PM
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Schneier: Why Microsoft Sold Out Consumers in Vista. Today, the PC industry needs Hollywood more than Hollywood needs the PC. Most consumers rely on traditional consumer electronics devices to view DVDs and TV content, but companies like Microsoft are betting on the converged digital home and desperately want a bigger piece of the media device market. Because of the DMCA, Microsoft has to get permission to build devices compatible with Hollywood's DRMed content. So when Hollywood demanded that Microsoft lard Vista with restrictions to access high-def DVD and digital cable content, the software giant was in a weak bargaining position.
But as Bruce Schneier explains in a recent editorial (via BoingBoing), Vista's DRM may also be a play to turn the tables and turn Microsoft's platform into a distribution channel on which Hollywood relies:
"[W]hile it may have started as a partnership, in the end Microsoft is going to end up locking the movie companies into selling content in its proprietary formats.
"We saw this trick before; Apple pulled it on the recording industry. First iTunes worked in partnership with the major record labels to distribute content, but soon Warner Music's CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. found that he wasn't able to dictate a pricing model to Steve Jobs. The same thing will happen here; after Vista is firmly entrenched in the marketplace, Sony's Howard Stringer won't be able to dictate pricing or terms to Bill Gates. This is a war for 21st-century movie distribution and, when the dust settles, Hollywood won't know what hit them....
"Microsoft is reaching for a much bigger prize than Apple: not just Hollywood, but also peripheral hardware vendors. Vista's DRM will require driver developers to comply with all kinds of rules and be certified; otherwise, they won't work. And Microsoft talks about expanding this to independent software vendors as well. It's another war for control of the computer market."
Schneier overstates his case a bit when he says Microsoft could have simply refused Hollywood's demands for DRM and Hollywood would have released today's high-def video content for Vista anyway. But he's right that Microsoft would very much like to lock content vendors into a distribution channel that it controls, including for channels like IPTV and digital downloads. And the more Hollywood depends on Microsoft, the more Microsoft may be able to limit competition from other tech companies' platforms and devices. [EFF: Deep Links]
7:19:17 PM
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MySpace to block unauthorized videos. Automated filter
MySpace will use software to monitor videos posted to the site in a bid to block unauthorised use of copyrighted content. The social networking giant will use technology to analyse videos' audio tracks to identify infringing posts. [The Register - Music and Media]
7:06:36 PM
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© Copyright 2007 Paul Hardwick.
Last update: 3/4/07; 3:32:28 AM.
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