The RIAA today showed a new tactic that they will be using in the war against music piracy. Asking internet service providers (ISP) for their help in tracking illegal downloads. The RIAA will be sending out emails to ISPs stating that they believe one (or several) of their customers are illegally distributing music through peer to peer sites.
The email reads as follows:
Sir or Madam:
I am contacting you on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA) and its member music companies. The RIAA is a trade association whose member companies create, manufacture, and distribute approximately ninety (90) percent of all legitimate music sold in the United States.
We believe a user on your network is offering an infringing sound recording for download through a peer to peer application. We have attached below the details of the infringing activity.
We have a good faith belief that this activity is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. We are asking for your immediate assistance in stopping this illegal activity. Specifically, we respectfully request that you remove or disable access to the unauthorized music.
We believe it is in everyone’s interest for music consumers to be better educated about the copyright law and ways to legally enjoy music online. The major record companies have actively licensed their music to dozens of innovative services where fans can go to listen to and/or purchase their favorite songs. A list of many of these services is available at www.musicunited.org.
It should be made clear by this letter that downloading and distributing copyrighted songs via peer to peer networks is not an anonymous activity. Not only is distributing copyrighted works on a peer to peer network a public activity visible by other users on that network, an historic 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision affirmed the unmistakable unlawfulness of uploading and downloading copyrighted works. The website www.musicunited.org contains valuable information about what is legal and what is not when it comes to copying music. In addition to taking steps to notify the network user at issue about the illegal nature of his/her activity, we strongly encourage you to refer him/her to this helpful site.
Please bear in mind that this letter serves as an official notice to you that this network user may be liable for the illegal activity occurring on your network. This letter does not constitute a waiver of our members’ rights to recover or claim relief for damages incurred by this illegal activity, nor does it waive the right to bring legal action against the user at issue for engaging in music theft. We assert that the information in this notice is accurate, based upon the data available to us. Under penalty of perjury, we submit that the RIAA is authorized to act on behalf of its member companies in matters involving the infringement of their sound recordings, including enforcing their copyrights and common law rights on the Internet.
Thank you in advance for your prompt assistance in this matter. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail at antipiracy2@riaa.com, via telephone at *Phone Number*, or via mail at RIAA, 1025 F Street, NW, 10th Floor, Washington, D.C., 20004. Please reference *Case ID* in any response or communication regarding this matter.
Sincerely,
RIAA
Although this might seems like a good attempt to stop illegal download (compare to suing grade school kids and grandmothers), it’s really not going to fly very well with the ISP. The main reason is because the IP address the RIAA is going to be providing to the ISP can’t be verified 100% because it is so easy to falsify it. This means that even if an ISP decides to investigate a particular IP address and finds that it is being used to download music illegally, they can’t prove it was a particular person.
Here’s an example: You have a Wi-Fi system in your home that you and your family use, however it’s not locked so anybody within 300ft can use it, including your neighbor’s 17 year old teenager whose been downloading through LimeWire every song ever recorded. The RIAA discovers your IP address illegal activity and shoots the information over to your ISP. They confirm the illegal use and then what?
As a songwriter I’m all for stopping the illegal distribution of songs over the web, but the RIAA needs to come into the 21st Century and come up with a better, more consumer friendly approach. The “carpet bombing-like” procedures they’ve used in the past have not worked. This approach may be a little friendlier in the sense that they’re not going directly for the throat of the public, but you can also argue the fact that it may also appear as if they’re passing more of the responsibilities to the ISPs.
