ISPs vs Big Four record labels
p2p news / p2pnet: "If industry rumblings are correct, the recording industry may be preparing a legal assault against ISPs," says Paul Resnikoff in Digital Music News.
“Multiple industry sources to Digital Music News have pointed to the possibility, and recent comments by IFPI chairman John Kennedy correlate with the chatter,” he declares.
Internet service providers, "may soon find themselves in court unless they cave in to record label demands that ISPs become cartel cops, acting against customers believed to be using the p2p networks," p2pnet suggested last Friday, referring to remarks in the latest IFPI disinformation piece..
Members of the Big Four record label cartel said they needed, "support for Digital Rights Management" as the, "key enabler of digital music services allowing new and flexible uses by consumers," as well as, "more cooperation from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in protecting music from piracy on their networks".
The observation came from Kennedy in the most recent IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industries) puff piece. In it, "It’s been a year since I asked for (the ISPs’) cooperation, and I’ve effectively had zero response," he says.
Supporting the contention that ISPs might soon join their customers as victims of EMI, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and Sony BMG, was the Financial Times which also had Kennedy calling for, "ISPs to monitor and limit access to users that trade files illegally, while leaving the door open to litigation if negotiations are unsuccessful".
But Resnikoff spells it out.
The MPAA and RIAA have been, "diligently pursuing lawsuits against individual file-sharers, and the RIAA alone has targeted 16,000 swappers," he says. "Still, those efforts have failed to reverse record levels of piracy, and they are yet to revive a sagging physical CD sector. That lack of progress could be creating pressure to target the ISPs, who are supplying users with the pipes necessary to share files ad nauseam.
"A Supreme Court victory [Grokster vs MGM] is nothing to sneeze at, though the opponent was a relative lightweight compared to the internet access industry. While their affect on the overall music industry has been profound, P2P companies are essentially minor league players in terms of overall earnings. Revenues mainly come from low-CPM banners, and most companies are forced to deliver spyware and adware just to keep the lights on. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – which represented Grokster and Morpheus in the case – is certainly a formidable opponent, but still one that the RIAA could defeat. Overall, the P2P industry simply has less weight to throw around, and file-sharing companies have a shelf life of only a few years at best."
Against that, "ISPs are multi-billion dollar corporations that dwarf the recording industry in terms of legal firing power, spending ability, and political clout," says Digital Music News, adding:
"If the recording industry was actually able to win a battle against the access providers, the effects would be momentous," says Digital Music News.
"Overnight, an industry would change, and ISPs would lose a critical component of their subscriber relationship. But if the ISPs prevailed, then the door could close on any future cooperation. While collective P2P licensing plans are unthinkable in major label quarters currently, they could become more attractive in a few years. The basic concept – which some access executives are reportedly open-minded to – would include a small surcharge on ISP monthly charges in exchange for unlimited file-sharing. These surcharges would then be redistributed to content creators, publishers, and labels. The details of implementing such a plan are more than intimidating, but ISPs will be less likely to entertain the possibility following a drawn-out legal battle. After all, olive branches are less meaningful after an aggressive swordfight, and ISPs will probably be resentful after pouring millions into a distracting legal defense. Perhaps that is thinking too far ahead, but a defeat at the hands of the access industry could have severe and far-reaching implications for an already-battered recording industry."
Also See:
Digital Music News – Resnikoff’s Parting Shot: Battling the ISPs, January 23, 2006
cartel cops – Record labels threaten ISPs, January 20, 2006
puff piece – IFPI file sharing report, January 19, 2006
Financial Times – Music groups and ISPs at odds over illegal downloading, January 19, 2006
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:03 pm
hmmm, do our work for us or we are going to sue you….. why cvan’t I get away with this??
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:25 pm
The ISP’s should cut off all RIAA related outlet’s for three months, then we can see how tuff the RIAA is.
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Man, this is getting surreal. The RIAA/MPAA sue kids and grandparents, the little people who can’t fight millions of dollars arrayed against them.
But the ISPs are the 800 pound gorillas, and here’s why: the new music download sites DEPEND on them for for their very existence. What if all the ISPs block Itunes or the like? With physical media sales falling, and no accesible legal download sites, the end for the RIAA and the like could be near. Who would sign with them if they knew to do so would stifle their sales this way ?
And though I’m no lawyer, it doesn’t seem even remotely certain to me that the Big 4 could win a court case. The free speech implications are enormous, but more pragmatically, think of it in this light. Can you sue a lighter company because someone lit a house on fire with a lighter they made ? Can you sue a car company because a drunk driver crashed one of their cars into oncoming traffic and caused injury ? Is the telephone company liable if you make a threatening phone call ?
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:17 pm
The RIAA/MPAA is like a chicken with it’s head cut off. It will run around crazy and with no real direction, But eventually it will die.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:34 am
lets not forget the gun manufacturers…
January 24th, 2006 at 1:19 am
re: /story/7703
Thanks for the news, but could we get a dateline on it? There’s no point-in-time context.
Thanks.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:20 am
Will newspapers and other publishers start going after blogging, because it can (and sometimes is) used for plagiarism?
Will they attack ISP’s if they don’t police blogs, looking for copyrighted material?
Will they push Congress for laws that regulate blogging, all in an effort to stop the average person from having the ability to compete with the publishing houses directly?
Will Congress pass those laws, thereby essentially crippling the Internet?
I guess we can all be thankful that publishers don’t behave like the corrupt, greedy bastards in the music business. It would be exceedingly nice, however, if artists started becoming actively involved in this fight, if they want to keep their ability to avoid the middleman.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:25 am
…I can see ISPs fighting this tooth and nail. If they take on the responsibility of policing people’s activities online, that opens a huge can of worms for the ISPs, legally speaking.
I can see them avoiding that sort of thing, if possible.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:54 am
Don’t forget about the gun manufacturers, but you shouldn’t shield industries from lawsuits. (Especially since the shielding is a contradictory [real] republican idea – Free markets anyone)
January 24th, 2006 at 5:24 am
“would include a small surcharge on ISP monthly charges in exchange for unlimited file-sharing”
I always said they would try and do that after everything else fails.
They can kiss my arse, i’m not paying to subsidise their dying industry.
January 24th, 2006 at 5:29 am
Their business model should read: “If you can’t beat them, TAX them!”
It’s a complete joke. Do you any other industries getting mass subsidies by goverment lobbied taxation? Apart from farmers(france) that is.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:43 am
The RIAA and music cartels are playing with fire with this one.
First off, the ISPs know that there isn’t much use for broadband by anyone other than businesses and internet sites. Should they be forced to police all the connections they supply, the manpower alone or the software required for such monitoring isn’t going to come out of the RIAA’s pocket.
The next thing is that should they violate the privacy that their customers expect, either they will lose accounts or face a customer revolt. Should this passage of monitoring come to be, I have no compuntion of terminating my internet. Now how the cartels figure that is going to draw me into buying music, I haven’t a clue. Certainly I won’t be buying physical cds, learned that lesson already from the Sony fiasco.
In my opinion it would be cheaper on the ISPs to just terminate the problem of the cartel access and the access to their payfor sites and let them sit on it a while to determine whether they really want to do that.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Shame it’s not like a chicken with its head AND leggs cut off!!
January 24th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
First let me state that I am Pro P2P.
Some questions that have not been anwsered :
1. What do the owners of most ISP’s really think about file sharing.
2. Would ISP’s benfit at all by some sort of agreement or self monitoring. IE: Lose a few costumers (maybe). But less traffic means less power comsumtion , not as many servers , less repairs to equipment , likely a lot less employees also. A little here and there = Big savings.
3. Really!!! how many people are going to give up their Internet. People who have duel or more ISP’s solely for P2P yes, anybody else Not Likey.
4. Don’t you think the Big Four will throw ISP owners a little subsidy check. I would expect so.
5. Taking everything into concideration and I mean everything, can the ISP’s benifit MORE by siding with and Joining the RIAA fight or stay netural. Remember one important fact, the internet is here to stay,and only one way for most people to access it,You guessed it , a local ISP. So do you really think they care a whole lot if they piss you off by controling what you download.
All in all don’t be to sure the ISP’s will be on our side.
January 24th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
…nevertheless holding a company liable for misuse of their product is completely wrong.
ViC Phoenix
January 24th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
sure and the ISP should get the same lawyers/lobbiest as the gun manufacturers.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
I’m sure they already have their own contingent of lawyers and lobbiests. I will second the comment that industry should not be responsible for idiots and criminals who misuse their products. Suing gun companies had nothing to do with safety, it was a cheap, backdoor gun contol effort from people who could not push their ideas through congress. Why not sue the whiskey manufacturors as well every time some drunk crashes his car. If some moron drinks Old Granddad and shoots someone do you sue both the gun and whiskey companies? Do we need Jack Danials?? If we could save the life of just ONE(sob sob weep weep) child, wouldn’t it be worth giving up hard liquor?