Hey Whatever Happened To Those Andrew Cuomo-Backed, RIAA Agreements With ISPs To Kick People Off The Internet?

from the still-waiting... dept

It's now been over a year since the infamous announcement, leaked to the Wall Street Journal, that the RIAA was going to effectively drop its strategy of suing individuals in favor of agreements, worked out between the RIAA and ISPs with NY AG Andrew Cuomo adding pressure, to kick people off the internet on a "three strikes" regime. The whole thing sounded pretty ridiculous at the time. Cuomo had absolutely no legal standing to pressure ISPs into such a deal, since the ISPs had every legal right to say no. And, since the "leak" many ISPs have insisted, quite vocally, that they have never made any such agreement with the RIAA and that they would never kick their customers offline in such a manner.

And so Greg Sandoval, over at News.com, smartly realizes that these "preliminary agreements" we were told about last year are still nowhere to be found and goes exploring to find out why. Reading between the lines, it appears the answer is that the RIAA flat out lied (no surprise, but...) and the Wall Street Journal bought it (again, no surprise, but...). Basically, with various record labels hemorrhaging money, they started to cut back on their allowance to the RIAA, such that the legal strategy of suing tons of people was getting too expensive. But they didn't want to make it look like they were just giving up.

So they concocted a myth: this idea that ISPs would cut people off. It was, in fact, what the RIAA and other international entertainment industry lobbying groups had been pushing for with little success (since then they have had a few wins on that front, but also many losses). But they couldn't wait for their usual process of pushing through legislation (*cough* ACTA *cough*) to complete before they had to cut back on individual lawsuits. So they brought in Andrew Cuomo, because he had successfully threatened ISPs to get them to cut off Usenet, despite no legal basis for doing so. But, that worked because Cuomo threatened (again, despite no legal basis) to shame them for offering access to child porn. When it came to unauthorized access to music, the moral outrage aspect isn't nearly as strong (not that the RIAA and their lobbyist friends haven't tried six dozen ways to try to link file sharing to child porn -- but most people realize how ridiculous that is).

Given that the ISPs seemed to have little interest (i.e., no interest) in moving forward with this plan, they leaked it to the WSJ, figuring that if ISPs thought others were doing it, then they'd start to sign up, and the whole thing would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Except they failed to account for the simple fact that people protested against any ISP dim enough to think that it's smart to kick off customers based on accusations (not convictions), and ISPs quickly stepped up to deny any such deal, shedding light on the RIAA's big lie.

So, here we are today, with no such agreements in place, and the RIAA back to trying to sneak through "three strikes" legislation through international treaties that they write (which the public has no access to). But, shouldn't someone call them on the fact that they blatantly lied last year? And also, shouldn't someone ask where the WSJ's correction is on that story?
Hide this

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

Filed Under: andrew cuomo, isps, riaa, three strikes
Companies: riaa


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. icon
    aguywhoneedstenbucks (profile), 23 Dec 2009 @ 1:31pm

    Ok, I'll bite

    Where is the Wall Street Journal's correction on that story?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    BearGriz72 (profile), 23 Dec 2009 @ 1:39pm

    Re: Ok, I'll bite

    HahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHaha
    HahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHaha
    HahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHahaHaha

    ok I've had my laugh

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Brian (profile), 23 Dec 2009 @ 2:09pm

    Re: Ok, I'll bite

    There won't be a correction since they don't print anything that isn't already typed up and given to them in advance, like all other big papers with their stenographers.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    aguywhoneedstenbucks (profile), 23 Dec 2009 @ 2:13pm

    Re: Re: Ok, I'll bite

    So I should send them a letter to print that says "Thanks for reading our paper. Remember that story about the telcos kicking everyone off the interbutts because it would stop teh piracy? Disregard that, I suck *explicative deleted*.

    I'm not above that sort of idiocy.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2009 @ 3:04pm

    Give up customers

    With a residential customer is worth $300 to $1500 revenue with a marginal cost of serving the customer ranging from $10 to $50, it is pretty easy to see why ISP's are not eager to cut off customers without compensation.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2009 @ 3:11pm

    Re: Give up customers

    Wouldn't it be cheaper for the RIAA to pay pirates not to pirate then it would be to pay lawyers to lawyer?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2009 @ 4:14pm

    Re: Re: Give up customers

    Not if they can win $30,000 per song or whatever the insane rate was.

    You know 2% of the American workforce is lawyers. They are all trying to earn millions.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Godric, 23 Dec 2009 @ 5:31pm

    Re: Re: Re: Give up customers

    You are missing the fact that people that have judgments against them would actually have to pay RIAA or the court.

    I don't know about you, but if I were to be dragged into court and some lame jury decided I owed RIAA 30k+ per song to the tune of say 500k. I would walk over to them and give them a handful of pennies and tell them not to spend it all in one place, because that is all they will ever see.

    That would be about the time I fall off the grid and my old identity would be dead. I refuse to be held responsible for their mistakes.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2009 @ 5:41pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Give up customers

    I'm not sure how ruining your life would teach them a lesson

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2009 @ 5:48pm

    Re: Re: Re: Give up customers

    I'd like to see a defendant that actually paid those judgments out.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Godric, 23 Dec 2009 @ 6:03pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Give up customers

    Why would it ruin my life. Maybe I live via a series of burn identities to prevent such bullshit?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. icon
    Travis Miller (profile), 24 Dec 2009 @ 8:17pm

    One ISP is doing this

    Insight Communications is doing something like this. When they receive an accusation they immediately "quarantine" a users internet access. All the user can access is an automatic redirect to a page notifying them of their account's suspension, along with a number to call to get more information and get the "quarantine" removed.

    As I understand it, the first three quarantines are just notices, so that they know you have been notified and so that they can talk to you about the dangers of file-sharing and unsecured wireless connections. You call them and listen, then they turn your internet access back on. The fourth accusation results in a thirty day suspension of the customer's internet access. The fifth accusation MAY result in permanent banning from that ISP. (They use the word "may", but I don't know what determines if one is or is not banned.)

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.