Welcome to Nowhere

some of you may have been following the developing story about the Recording Industry Asociation of America (RIAA) trying to convince ISP’s to implement a sort of 3-strikes policy that would see people the RIAA believes were involved in downloading music kicked off the internet. They’ve been threatening that for two years or more, and at a few points, it looked like they might have had some pretty intense backing to implement it. Then the ISP’s chimed in. Suddenly, the RIAA found itself summarily flipped off.

It’s been a little over two years since the RIAA dropped its strategy of suing music fans for sharing files online — a strategy that was an unequivocal disaster for the record labels. Of course, when the news came out, the RIAA suggested that the reason they had done so was because of a backroom deal with various ISPs to implement three strikes plans. And yet, here we are, two years later with no major ISP having put in place such a policy. Greg Sandoval has been following this story closely, and his contacts at most of the major ISPs indicate no interest in putting in place such policies, and a widespread recognition that the ISPs have enough lobbying clout to push back on the RIAA if necessary.

And why would they? Nothing quite says screw the customer like kicking them offline because they may, or may not, have been involved in downloading music. Particularly when the may or may not relies almost entirely on whether or not the RIAA’s getting a little suspicious–which they’ve been doing way too often, and way too easy, lately. Don’t look now, RIAA folks. But I think you’ve just struck out.