RIAA Continues Pressuring ISPs For Information

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been relentlessly fierce in its pursuit of individuals it deems as “criminals” by filing numerous lawsuits over the past several years.

It looks like the RIAA is trying to do all it can to encourage ISPs to be more forthcoming with identifying information in order to fuel their tactics which amount to little more than a legal means of extorting money from everyday citizens.

In a Ray Beckerman outlines some of his initial thoughts from the RIAA’s letter:

While we have not had time to analyse the letter in detail, some of its interesting features are:

-creation of a new "Pre-Doe settlement option";
-it will only make the "Pre-Doe settlement option" available to customers of ISP's who agree to preserve their logs for 180 days;
-the "Pre-Doe" option will supposedly allow settlement at a reduced amount, with a discount of $1000 or more, if they settle before a John Doe lawsuit is brought;
-the RIAA will be launching a web site for "early settlements", www.p2plawsuits.com;
-the letter asks the ISP's to notify the RIAA if they have previously "misidentified a subscriber account in response to a subpoena" or became aware of "technical information... that causes you to question the information that you provided in response to our clients' subpoena";
-it requires ISP's to notify the RIAA "as early as possible" as to whether they will enter the 180 day/"pre-Doe" plan;
-it mentioned that there has been confusion over how ISP's should respond to the RIAA's subpoenas;
-it noted that ISP's have identified "John Does" who were not even subscribers of the ISP at the time of the infringement; and
-it requested that ISP's furnish their underlying log files as well as just the names and addresses.
Ars Technica’s Eric Bangeman posted a template letter that the RIAA is requesting that ISPs send to those the RIAA have identified as wholly and utterly evil and of no intrinsic personal value… uhm, I mean those the RIAA considers to be pirates. Yeah, that’s what I meant to say.

Here’s the

If you have any questions regarding why the RIAA is interested in your account, please contact the record companies' representatives by phone at (913) 234-8181, by facsimile at (913) 234-81812, or by email at info@SettlementInformationLine.com

Please be advised that if the RIAA follows this notice with a subpoena, we will forward a copy of that subpoena to you but we will be legally obligated to provide the requested information.

Our purpose in sending you this letter is to provide you with advance notice of the RIAA's request. <<ISP>> is not taking any action against you, and there is no need for you to communicate with us regarding this issue.
Why yes, I’ll be glad to cooperate with the RIAA in every way. I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t take a $1000 discount off of my settlement, other than the fact that even offering such a deal is completely dirty and underhanded in every way.

It’s more of the same from our friends the

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