RIAA Plans to Stop Suing Music Fans

After suing over 35,000 people since 2003, the RIAA has reached agreements with undisclosed ISPs to throttle or shutter subscribers' internet connections if they ignore warnings to stop sharing music. The process would replace a "subpoena, settle or sue" process that has been expensive for the RIAA, since it requires the organization to go through the country's legal system in order to pressure those it suspects of sharing music without permission.

If RIAA agents notice that you're sharing music without permission (usually by conducting its own P2P searches), it will e-mail your ISP alerting them to that activity. Depending on the nature of the agreement, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, the ISP will either forward the e-mail to you or send you another communication to the effect that your music sharing is not permitted. If you continue to share, you'll receive one or two additional warnings, after which the ISP will slow your connection. If the allegedly infringing activity persists thereafter, you may find your internet connection stops working altogether.

Music fans may feel some relief that sharing music will no longer put them at risk of a lawsuit, assuming their ISP is one of those that has agreed to the plan. However, the biggest beneficiary of the new deal is the RIAA itself, which has seen its investigative techniques questioned and suffered key setbacks in court while paying extensive attorneys' fees to pursue cases through the normal legal channels.

Due process has been prohibitively expensive for the RIAA. The organization has long sought a more efficient way to exert pressure on suspected file sharers, and these new agreements will grant it that wish, saving it money and allowing it to pressure far more suspected file sharers, all without filing a single subpoena.

Normally, the RIAA normally must A) note a music sharer's IP address, B) file a "John Doe" subpoena with his or her ISP (or university) to find out who was using that address when the music was shared, C) begin settlement proceedings once the name has been determined through these legal avenues and D) sue the alleged file sharer if they refused to settle.

Yet despite all of this time and money being spent suing file sharers, the RIAA has never successfully sued a single alleged file sharer whose the case went to trial.

The plan is similar to one the RIAA tried to employ with universities, in which the schools would forward letters from the RIAA to allegedly-infringing students. However, some balked at the plan, claiming that it circumvents due process.

"My understanding is that the University [of Kansas]'s best practices viewpoint is to protect its students and show compliance to the rules, but not to act as a legal agent,' said the school's director of university relations Todd Cohen last summer.

Contrary to what the Wall Street Journal reports ("After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet," our emphasis), nobody has ever been sued for downloading music in this country, and I have yet to hear of another such suit being brought elsewhere. Instead, the RIAA targets those who are sharing music with other users -- not "stealing" it themselves, as countless publications have erroneously reported since the lawsuits began in 2003.

The RIAA plans to continue pursuing currently ongoing file sharing lawsuits.

By Eliot Van Buskirk for Wired.com