Folks it seems the fraudsters at the RIAA are at it again and have set out to ask ISP's to actively mislead their customers in the extortion racket they are currently running.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070213-8832.htmlAccording to a letter recently leaked to P2P attorney Ray Beckerman, the RIAA lays out its vision for how it would like ISPs to cooperate with its efforts to identify and sue those accused of sharing music over P2P networks. This includes communicating a standing offer of a $1,000 settlement discount should the subscriber settle before a lawsuit is filed against him or her. The letter also discloses plans for a settlement web site that will launch later this year.
MediaSentry, the RIAA's investigative arm, typically identifies suspected copyright infringers by IP address. One of the record labels whose music was discovered in a shared folder then becomes the lead plaintiff in a John Doe lawsuit. Via the discovery process, the ISP is then forced to turn over the name and address of the account owner who was using the IP address at the time of the alleged infringement. At that point, the John Doe case is discontinued and the label sues the individual fingered by the ISP.
The RIAA wants to do an end run around this process, getting ISPs to start the collection agency work by sending out letters to the owners of IP addresses allegedly used for infringement. If the recipient of a such a letter contacts the RIAA, the labels get their positive ID and the chance to extract a sizable settlement without having to resort to the legal system.
The last request contains a troubling admission by the RIAA: "We are taking this step to address the occasional problem we have had where an ISP does not maintain the log files and cannot later exculpate a subscriber who claims to have been misidentified." In other words, the RIAA has targeted the wrong people in the past due to its heavy reliance on US ISPs to accurately identify people with shared music folders on Kazaa or other P2P networks.
Later this year, the RIAA will launch a new web site intended to "facilitate" early settlements.
Once www.p2plawsuits.com - which was just registered on January 23 - comes online, it will provide consumers with information about the RIAA's lawsuits and how to enter into a costly settlement in order to avoid litigation.
We contacted the RIAA to determine if the letter was indeed authentic and they declined to comment.
This highlights how desperate the RIAA extortionists have become, while they claim to have sued thousands the real figure is nothing like this , their claim is based on
threatening to sue thousands, many of their claims are left unchallenged by any court as they target the poor and others unlikely to be able to afford to fight their often fraudulent claims, they have been clearly seeking to use these victims in their sick publicity drive to scare file sharers.
If you receive a notice from your ISP that mentions a copy of your reply will be passed on to anyone other than your ISP, ignore it, to reply is to allow the RIAA to gather your information without having to go to court and that's the only thing that slows down their "protection" racket, each file sharer they accuse costs them money if they do things legally and more in the cases where people have fought and won cases against these extortionists.
Remember if you settle with the Cartel and you haven't uploaded their members music as they claim you have done then you are branding yourself a thief.
