Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits
Found on Wall Street Journal on Thursday, 18 December 2008
After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.
The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.
Under the new strategy, the RIAA would forward its emails to the ISPs without demanding to know the customers' identity.
I'm not really sure if this approach is better or not. Delivering a pseudo-legal notice to every John Doe the RIAA can find is like walking on thin ice. Especially since in the past, they have often sued innocent people who didnt share any files at all. They will probably start scanning P2P networks and send every IP to each ISP who shared a single audio file, no matter if it's copyrighted or not.