Verizon Must Reveal Internet Song-Swapper
from the there-goes-that-protection dept
Another bad legal decision for those of you who believe in privacy protection and the question of whether or not ISPs have any liability for the traffic that runs over their network. Back in October we had the story of how the music industry was suing Verizon to get the name of one of their customers who they said was downloading plenty of music. Verizon refused, saying that it wasn't their responsibility to do the work for the music industry, and it was a violation of privacy for the user. Today, the judge has ruled that Verizon needs to give up the name or face the legal consequences. This is bad news, as it means that the music industry is likely to start swamping ISPs with requests for names of their customers. It also makes it more likely that the RIAA will follow through on their ridiculous threat to sue their own customers. I'm actually wondering if this will become a negotiating point for the recently announced plans to get ISPs to pay for file trading. I can just see the agreement now... "RIAA says they'll stop pestering ISPs for names, in exchange for $5/user/month fee..." Update: Declan McCullough, over at News.com has a good analysis of what this means.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
*sigh*
[ link to this | view in chronology ]