RIAA To Stem Tide Of Lawsuits Against Individuals

The Recording Industry Association of America, which has sued thousands of individuals during the past five years in an effort to stop users from pirating copyrighted music and video, is finally giving up its legal strategy. Officials at the organization told The Wall Street Journal today that the organization has found a better strategy for enforcing copyrights that will work primarily through Internet service providers. The RIAA has sued an estimated 35,000 individuals over illegal downloads since 2003 in an aggressive effort to reduce the illegal copying and sharing of digital music and video. But apart from scaring college students and IT managers -- who worry that one of their employees might get nailed doing illegal downloads from a company computer -- the legal onslaught hasn't done all that much to reduce the piracy of recorded material, critics say. The association's new tack will be to send a message to the ISP when illegal downloads are detected, according to the RIAA officials. Depending on the agreement it signs with the RIAA, each ISP will then either forward the message to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether. The new approach would help eliminate the issue of exposing the identities of those who are downloading music illegally, the officials observed. The ISP would act as a go-between, and the RIAA would not know the identities of any of the individuals it sent messages about. The RIAA says it already has reached agreements with some ISPs, but it did not reveal which ones.