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The ISP Graduated Response Effort Against Piracy
By John Vinson
Expert Author
Article Date: 2011-01-07
Around two years ago, the RIAA announced a new effort to battle online piracy. Instead of threatening costly lawsuits, they would partner up with ISPs to tackle piracy with a 'graduated response' effort. This meant the ISPs would monitor their traffic better, and try to single out illegal P2P users. After 2 years, is the system working?
It's hard to gauge how many ISPs have been actively involved in rooting out online piracy. Companies have been pretty secretive about plans they've executed, as they don't want to be known as the company who boots its users. Not to mention the money which is lost from a customer.
Greg Sandoval of CNET has taken an interesting position, claiming the ISPs haven't done anything to come down on illegal downloaders/uploaders, "At the time, the RIAA said it would seek help in copyright enforcement efforts from Internet service providers, the Web's gatekeepers, which are uniquely positioned to act as copyright cops. Under a proposed RIAA plan, ISPs would first issue warning letters and gradually increase pressure on customers who illegally shared songs, and even suspend or permanently terminate service for repeat offenders....Two years later, we're still waiting."
While actually kicking members off their network is something ISPs don't want to do, they believe a warning system is enough to keep people from engaging in illegal activity. They support this strategy by hard data which shows a sharp decline in P2P sharing after issuing a warning.
There hasn't been a lot of disagreement coming from the RIAA, so the graduated response effort might be succeeding. There are some, however, who believe the RIAA and MPAA will continue to apply pressure to ISPs to hunt down these pirates. To the point that they could bring Congress into the equation, and institute new laws which would put even more pressure on ISPs.
All of this is hearsay at this point, as there has been no indication that any such law is being talked about. Though many writers in the blogosphere have this same prediction. It's tough to tell whether or not they're lobbying for this or not, as we still don't know how much of an effect the graduated response is actually having.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out in the future. ISPs are really starting to feel pressure from all sorts of organizations. Content providers are signing exclusive deals with certain carriers, and bandwidth pressures continue to increase. If the RIAA or MPAA become unpleased with them, they'll really being to feel the squeeze.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for WebProNews.
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