Digital Piracy and ISPs: Their Effect on Legal Herb Retailers
Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable, and several other of largest ISPs have now officially consented to beef up their efforts to protect the rights of copyright owners. This is the first unified step taken by a large group of internet service providers, and is heralded as long overdue, but welcome by the recording industry and the motion picture industry. Their joint statement to the public:
“Leaders from the movie, television, music and Internet service provider communities today announced a landmark agreement on a common framework for ‘Copyright Alerts, that will educate and notify Internet subscribers when their Internet service accounts possibly are being misused for online content theft. This voluntary landmark collaboration will educate subscribers about content theft on their Internet accounts, benefiting consumers and copyright holders alike.”
Online downloading of digitally protected content such as music, music videos, and movies, is illegal. The new agreement gives the music and film industries a solid leg to stand on for fighting online illegal downloading of works that are copyrighted. Illegal streaming services are not currently covered by this initiative. It is estimated that online piracy of software, music, and films costs the U.S. economy billions in lost revenue and jobs each year. Some of the jobs lost have been replaced by positions in other industries, such as legalherbsdirect.com, and other available jobs.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and Motion Picture Association of America (or, MPAA), have struggled for several years to convince ISPs to take a stand for anti-piracy. The new means of enforcing these policies is not much different from the old ways. The ISPs will send warnings to people who are suspected of illegal downloads, and will make them aware of penalties that can be leveraged against them. If these methods fail to motivate the offending parties, the ISPs will take increasingly stronger positions with those customers. ISPs have a vested interest in maintaining good relationships with young customers, however, and this may keep them from actively prosecuting most of the people who engage in illegal downloads.
Others see this move by the ISPs as just a front, with no real intention to enforce behind it. Time will tell whether these ISPs really mean business or not.
