RIAA Letter to ISPs

[richardwagner]

From Digital Media
Re: Letter CNet received from RIAA

December 19, 2008 8:55 AM PST
Copy of RIAA's new enforcement notice to ISPs
Posted by Greg Sandoval


The recording industry dropped some big news Friday, announcing that it will no longer take a broad approach to litigating against alleged filed sharers. The Recording Industry Association of America has enlisted the help of internet service providers to act as a sentry and help discourage customers from pirating music.

Below is a copy of the form letter the RIAA will send to ISPs to inform them one of their customers is accused of file sharing. The notification is similar to those the group has sent to college campuses for years and shows very clearly that the group retains the right to sue people for copyright violations.

    VIA EMAIL
    *ISP*
    *Date*

    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 XXXXXX@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

    List of infringing content
    ------------------------------
    *Infringing Content*
    -------------------------
    INFRINGEMENT DETAIL
    -------------------
    Infringing Work : XXXXXX
    Filename : XXXXXX
    First found (UTC): XXXXXX
    Last found (UTC): XXXXXX
    Filesize : XXXXXX
    IP Address: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
    IP Port: XXXXX
    Network: XXXXXX
    Protocol: XXXXXX

See also:
• RIAA drops lawsuits; ISPs to battle file sharing
• Sources: RIAA budget will shrink soon
• Lawsuits or not, the RIAA still doesn't understand us
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg.

[GhostShip]

Cheers Richard, Its my belief we are seeing a major strategy shift rather than a cessation of hostilities from the RIAA and ilk, perhaps they are merely wishing to ride up a little in the popularity stakes, stopping the law suits totally may achieve that but as that's not what they are proposing we can only assume its business as normal for their extortion teams.

[Trestor]

The RIAA may assert that the information in their notice is accurate, but that claim is dubious.

For example, in the third paragraph they say, 'We have a good faith belief that this activity is not authorized...', which is another way of saying, 'It may be not authorized but we are not sure', and then follow that by saying, 'We are asking for your immediate assistance in stopping this illegal activity.' It can't be known to be an illegal activity if they don't know if it is unauthorized. I know that, in one sense, this is straining at gnats, but it is a logical non sequitur, and as the RIAA is known for harassing people over copyright matters on which they have no claim of representation, I think this is a relevant point.

In the fifth paragraph they say, 'an historic 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision affirmed the unmistakable unlawfulness of uploading and downloading copyrighted works.' I believe this is a false statement, paraded as established fact. As I understand it, p2p sharing is illegal only if it has been prohibited by the copyright owner. There are some copyright owners who don't mind, or even give their blessings to p2p sharing of their copyrighted material. A statement that p2p file sharing of copyrighted works, without qualification, is misleading.

Also, last I heard, it is an offense to accuse a person of performing an illegal act without having evidence to substantiate the claim. Since the RIAA is notorious for making such accusations without adequate evidence, they are without excuse on this score as well. The mere desire by the RIAA to be the file share police does not, legally, entitle them to be so, and they can't compel anyone to co-operate with their investigations.

Then there is the matter of whether any ISP should pay any attention to RIAA 'requests' to notify subscribers of supposed copyright violations. I have not heard that any ISP has any legal responsibility to the RIAA, but they do have a legal requirement to protect the subscribers to their networks. In response to the RIAA respectfully requesting their help, the ISP's should respectfully decline, and not allow themselves to be bamboozled by a company that seeks to extort money from the defenseless by illegal means.