In a first step towards protecting themselves from unauthorized use of their material, the tech news site TechFocus (whom I also work part-time for) has banned the RIAA and MPAA from accessing the site.

Bill Royale posts: “Effective immediately, the RIAA and MPAA will need to find another way to get to Techfocus. In response to their legal targeting of individual file-swappers, access from their known networks to this site has now been blocked.”

This is in direct response to the RIAA’s unauthorized and out of context use of a TechFocus interview with the EFF’s Fred Von Lohmann that was used as a media catalyst for their rights to sue P2P song-swappers.

I look at it this way. If the RIAA and MPAA has a right to protect their member’s content from unauthorized use, so does the journalism community.

Kudos, Bill!