Comments on: Verizon: Sleeping with the RIAA?

By: KBonam

KBonam — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:46:57 +0000

I too feel that the idea of letting ISPs regulate piracy is absolutely ridiculous. Simply put, it is not their job. Their job is to provide internet service to the users and nothing beyond that. ISPs can accuse users of illegal file sharing but can they prove it? How about innocent users who don’t even know how to secure their wi-Fi network. One such example is the case of Cathi Paradiso who was falsely accused of file sharing by Qwest. The ISP even went to the extent of telling her that they will let all other service providers know about her illegal file sharing. RIAA should deal with their own problem and stop pushing ISPs to trouble their users.

By: Trupti

Trupti — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:59:17 +0000

I believe this might be a huge burden on the ISP’s because the law will cause them to not only lose subscribers but also reduce the usage of their services. I wonder whether the RIAA will provide financial compensation to the ISP’s to make up for this loss.

Also I wonder if going after subscribers is the right approach. Would’nt it be better to instead target the sites that store unlawful content.

By: RHungerford

RHungerford — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:20:30 +0000

I think having ISP’s regulate piracy is ridiculous. Going to the point that Nick made in class about the analogy of the post office. The post office doesn’t regulate illegal sharing in the mail. It wouldn’t make sense.

Isn’t it enough to have the RIAA, the government, and anyone else with any kind of interest in copyright to be watching for infringers? The fines are so outrageously high for something so common. All I want is Comcast (or Verizon, or whoever) to give me the internet. After paying an arm and a leg for that, the least they could do is leave me alone.

By: ABhagwatwar

ABhagwatwar — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:06:15 +0000

I think that the war between the pirates (or whatever the term for people who crack softwares is) and software developers in a unending one. In fact, any active internet user can easily say that any a software today is cracked (or a movie is uploaded on the internet) faster than ever before. The decision to regulate illegal internet traffic should be definitely left to the will of ISPs. I also think the results expected out of this traffic regulation are a bit unrealistic. There is always going to be means using which the lock breakers are going to break the lock.

By: YChen

YChen — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:33:45 +0000

Personally, I am against any kind of censorship, so I don’t like the idea of being monitored by ISP or anyone else. True, piracy is a serious problem on internet today, but the history of piracy is much longer than internet, so how did people deal with it before? The whole internet business is still new and kind of chaotic, music, movie, ebooks…etc, etc. I believe give it some time, we will find a balance between illegal file sharing and profitable internet business model. I also like to believe people know how to do things right, not everyone of course, but we can behave ourselves as long as we know what the rules are.

By: Nick Malone

Nick Malone — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:53:55 +0000

That is a highly interesting topic. Personally, I think it’s a good thing to see ISPs kicking off thieves. I don’t think ISPs should be obligated to do this, but if they want to voluntarily regulate illegal (or at least immoral) activity on their networks, more power to them. File sharing copyrighted music is a civil infringement (if not a crime). I don’t do it, never have never will. I think that self-regulation is a good way to go for ISPs. There’s a pretty strong history of industries self-regulating in this country: movie ratings, software ratings, etc…
BTW, what on God’s Green Earth does that picture have to do with file sharing!?!