RIAA

The Free Software Foundation and DefectiveByDesign have been working with attorney Ray Beckerman to help fight for victims of the RIAA's baseless intimidation campaign. The RIAA recently took notice, calling our position -- and by extension the position of many other anti-DRM activists -- "virulent" and "baseless."

We've responded to these accusations in an article published at TorrentFreak. Fighting these lawsuits is an important part of defusing Digital Restrictions Management -- the more of these suits that the RIAA wins, the more ammunition they will claim to have in their repeated efforts to shoot holes in our digital rights and control our technology.

Executives like Rolf Schmidt-Holtz of Sony Music Entertainment should get the message and back off. Although they claimed in December that they would stop filing lawsuits against individuals, the RIAA filed 62 more in the month of April alone. Citizens are tired of watching their governments squander their freedom to enrich this handful of corporations, and they are tired of being intimidated. The FSF and DefectiveByDesign will continue our work to support this opposition to the War on Sharing, on all fronts.

• Read the full article at TorrentFreak.
• Give it a digg and vote for it on reddit.

The RIAA has changed its tactic. No longer will they sue random people for file sharing. Now they're going after the ISPs. While many of the large media company ISPs such as AOL, Comcast, etc., will almost certainly comply, what will the smaller, independent ISPs do? How will large telcos like Verizon react?

Internet News reports:

A music industry official, who asked not to be identified, said the proposed ISP infringement notice is intended to send an early warning to downloaders. Since a large of percentage of music downloading is done by teenagers, the RIAA hoped the notifications, which were to be sent to the account holders, might tip off parents as to their children's possible copyright infringements.

One ISP, Bayou Internet and Communications, has told the RIAA that he wants compensation for this work. The ISP owner, Jerry Scroggin, serving around 12,000 customers in Louisiana, has said if the RIAA wants his help, it'd better bring its checkbook and leave the legal threats at home.

Take action

Call the RIAA and have your say!

• Brad Buckles RIAA USA -- +1 (202) 857-9607
• Mitch Bainwol RIAA USA -- +1 (202) 857-9651
• Cary Sherman RIAA USA -- +1 (202) 857-9632
• Mitch Glazier RIAA USA -- +1 (202) 857-9673
• Neil Turkowitz RIAA USA -- +1 (202) 857-9647
• Steve Redmond BPI UK -- +44 (0)20 7803 1324
• Peter Jamieson BPI UK -- +44 (0) 20 7803 1311
• Matt Phillips BPI UK -- +44 (0) 77 3951 4963
• Michael Haentjes IFPI Germany -- +49 (30) 59 00 38-0
• Peter Zombik IFPI Germany -- +49 (30) 59 00 38-0
• Jean never Foitzik IFPI Germany -- +49 (30) 59 00 38-23
• Herve Rony SNEP France -- +33 (1) 44 13 66 66
• Graham Henderson CRIA Canada -- +1 (416) 967-7272 ext. 102