This article cites some of the recent anti consumer activity of the music Cartel groups to demonstrate a trend.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080311-year-of-filters-turning-into-year-of-lawsuits-against-isps.htmlThe recording industry has indeed seen a precipitous drop in revenues over the past several years, but piracy is arguably a minor factor. More significant are the record labels' decidedly consumer-unfriendly moves of the past decade, including hideous DRM schemes, unattractive subscription services, and high CD prices.
To their credit, the labels have made significant strides in the past year to make their offerings more consumer-friendly.
Even with the positive steps the industry has taken in the past year or so, the IFPI and its nation-specific counterparts believe that it's necessary to fight some of its battles in court. Recent European Union court rulings have made it difficult for record companies to identify individual P2P users by their IP addresses. As a result, the labels are turning their attention to ISPs.
With the IFPI continuing to inhabit a richly-detailed fantasy world in which filters are a cure-all for everything that ails the music industry, we're likely to see more ISPs snagged in the music industry's driftnet as the "year of filters" unfolds.
This will bring only a massive legal and consumer backlash, I for one am waiting for them to try this on in the UK so I can start legal proceedings against the Cartel for this breach of both UK national data protection laws and European data and privacy rights, the law is very clear, any reading of this traffic will ensure a general blackout of usable data for the intelligence services will likely swing into place as folks scramble to use heavy encryption, and also to do this will require a warrant issued by a judge under interception of communication laws already on the statute books, in short we are likely looking at another publicity stunt.
Perhaps P2P folks should generate a bigger one themselves by ensuring those who oppose the democratic rule of law are denied the same rights on the internet they wish to steal from others ?
Anyone for reading their emails and watching what they use their computers for online all day ? Gets you thinking eh folks.
