RIAA to harass ISP's

Now that the Recording Industry Association of America has finally figured out that its frivolous lawsuits accusing individuals of stealing music haven't yielded the results they wanted, the RIAA is employing a new anti-people tack.

The RIAA's 35,000 lawsuits targeted everyone from small children to little old ladies who had never used a computer in their lives. Even people who died before file sharing was invented were sued posthumously. When it became clear how bogus these suits were, it was a public relations nightmare for the record industry.

The RIAA's latest effort tries to avoid those humiliating woes. The industry association says it's made agreements with ISP's under which it'll notify the ISP if it thinks a customer is distributing music files.

If you think this will catch only people who are sharing music illegally, I have my doubts - especially after seeing how the lawsuits targeted people who had never even touched computers.

It also raises the question of how the industry will find alleged file sharers. Will they just log on to AltaVista or Google and type in "metallica" to see what comes up? Will they pressure the ISP's to spy on users? Will the RIAA place wiretaps?

I honestly have a hard time trusting the RIAA or some ISP's to do the right thing, so who doesn't believe the RIAA won't turn your ISP into its own private police force?

If they're worried about the decline in music sales, maybe the decline is because much of the music today is so unlistenable.

What's next? A taxpayer-funded bailout for the recording industry?

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122966038836021137.html)