RIAA Strikes a 'Three Strikes' Deal, Everybody Loses, Via Public Knowledge, 12/19/08

Via Public Knowledge: RIAA Strikes a 'Three Strikes' Deal, Everybody Loses:

"According to the Wall Street Journal, these deals between the RIAA and the ISPs were brokered by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who reportedly "wanted to end the litigation." While it's hard not to agree with that sentiment, you've got to wonder whether there might not have been another solution to the problem that didn't involve content companies and ISPs deciding who should and shouldn't have access to the Internet.

After all, if Cuomo had bothered to look across the pond, he would have noticed that the European Union saw fit to strike down "three strikes" policies with an amendment that referred to such agreements as "…measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of Internet access." Access to the Internet is increasingly becoming a necessity for ensuring full participation in our society, democracy and economy. Should we allow an industry trade group with a notoriously bad track record to serve as the gatekeeper to the Internet?

To be fair, not everything in the RIAA's outlined strategy is nefarious. Under the new regime, the RIAA will not ask ISPs to reveal the identities of their users. Rather, the association will identify users anonymously, using only their IP address...

There are other proposals currently on the table--EFF's voluntary collective licensing proposal being the most prominent one--that would address the issue of piracy without criminalizing users or stripping them of their right to access the Internet."

http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1918