Tag Archives | RIAA

The days of the thousands of lawsuits against music downloaders may just be over. RIAA has apparently struck deals with ISPs which would now serve as the watchog for the industry group, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. What this seems to amount to is an admittance by RIAA that suing with wild abandon did little for its cause.

Altogether, its estimated the group has sued about 35,000 individuals. Obviously the legal costs associated with fighting so many cases simulatenously must be staggering. I’d willing to bet finances also played a large part in deciding on the new strategy.

ISPs would now serve as the eyes and ears of the industry. When a user is detected to be downloading pirated files, he would no longer receive notice from the RIAA. Instead, the ISP would contact the user and asking them to stop. If users continue, their Internet access could be crippled and eventually cut off altogether.

Chairman Mitch Bainwol says that it hopes the new strategy helps it to reach more people. He said he wants the public to realize that their actions on P2P networks are not anonymous. I’m wondering why they didn’t try this before, rather than make themselves look like unreasonable bullies.

RIAA is declining to specify who it has agreements with. It also said it would continue to sue heavy file sharers, but the lawsuits certainly wouldn’t come at the speed they had been previously.

This doesnt get those who were prosecuted under the old policy: outstanding lawsuits would still be litigated.