Recording Industry Asks ISPs To Shut Down Accounts Of File Sharers
from the will-they-have-any-customers-left? dept
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI, the UK equivalent of the RIAA) apparently is taking a slightly different position on going after people who share unauthorized files online. Rather than suing them, they're now presenting evidence to ISPs and asking those ISPs to cancel user accounts for breaking the ISPs' terms of service. This actually seems like a fairly reasonable policy, so long as they don't demand that the ISP automatically remove these users. It certainly beats suing everyone for thousands of dollars and suggesting they drop out of school to pay. There's nothing wrong with giving the ISP evidence and then letting the ISP investigate, as long as they also give the user a chance to make his or her case in response as well. If the customer is actually breaking the terms of service, then its fair game for the ISP to decide how to deal with that subscriber. The BPI, though, suggests in the article that the evidence they've given the ISP is "unequivocal," which is hard to believe given the number of false accusations the industry has made -- and the important fact that an IP address does not identify a specific user. So what will be most interesting is seeing how the industry responds if the various ISPs don't follow their marching orders and shut these accounts down.