Legal Research

Comcast and AT&T: Music Cops?

Last month I posted about how the Recording Industry Association of America planned to enlist Internet Service Providers to battle music-sharing. Today comes the news that AT&T and Comcast reportedly are interested in participating in the RIAA’s “graduated response program”. According to the article:

“It’s important to note that none of the half dozen or so ISPs involved has signed agreements. The companies are ’skittish’ about negative press and could still back out.”

I can’t imagine why.

Anyway, the ISPs apparently won’t be inspecting your packets for illegal activity:

“Sources told CNET News that the RIAA hasn’t asked any ISP to peer into packets or be responsible for monitoring their networks for piracy. The RIAA will continue to identify alleged copyright violators and report them to their ISPs.”

… And we all know how good the RIAA is at identifying bandwidth pirates.

On a somewhat related note, this month’s Wired magazine has a great article about Comcast: “The Dark Lord of Broadband Tries to Fix Comcast’s Image“.

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on January 28, 2009 (boomark / email).