No More RIAA Lawsuits? Up Next: Blizzards in Hades

I am rather stunned and even more skeptical to hear form a P2Pnet article that the RIAA may be dropping its massive sham litigation campaign. The P2Pnet article references this Wall Street Journal article, which states the lawsuit campaign may end. So all is good now right?

I doubt it. As the P2Pnet article points out they are just changing tactics. I bet it is more likely a way to reduce their multi-million dollar legal expense (if I recall correctly it was 17 million on their 2007 tax return.) This paragraph in the Wall Street Journal best states what is up now.

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.

Now I am not an attorney and not too good with legal lingo but I think this means that rather than do the infamous xparte filing, unliscenced investigators and a total lack of hard evidence. Now they are just asking your ISP to rat you out. No need for an investigator, valid evidence or anything thing that need be examined by the courts.

The ISP will send, depending on the agreement, the accused an e-mail warning them. If they do not comply they will throttle service or even discontinue it.

This is brilliant. The expense is shifted to the ISP and you now pay your ISP to rat you out. Isn’t that a new and brilliant. With this neato new “agreement” you simply loose your service with out ever going to court. Isn’t that nice? The “agreement” makes our buddies at the RIAA the judge and jury!