Copyright Wars

Published by: Codrut Nistor, in News

May15th2008

Are you really sure your ISP is not throttling your P2P traffic, even though you may be only downloading Linux distros? If you won a trial against the RIAA, did you have any idea they may start saying your attorney's fees are too high, although they were trying to make you pay for some MP3 files like you had to buy the artists themselves for the rest of their lives? I know, there are a lot of things completely unfair about RIAA, and it seems the "copyright wars" continue...

RIAA Cartoon

First stop, the ISPs that don't live up to the users' expectations. Obviously, it's about those in the US. To be more specific, we're going to talk about Cox and Comcast, but they are not the only ones on the planet playing dirty with their users, unfortunately.

Some researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems got deeper into this issue, and their results are pretty interesting, because out of 1,224 ISPs they have checked, only 13 were blocking BitTorrent traffic. Unfortunately for those in the US, 9 of those 13 were ISPs which operate there.

While some companies claim they are only blocking or limiting P2P traffic at peaks hours, both Comcast and Cox admitted(or others managed to prove beyond any doubt) that peak hours is not the only time of the day when P2P traffic is blocked. In fact, for them, it doesn't matter the time of the day!

Ben Scott from Free Press, one of the groups trying to make the FCC take action against these policies, said "Consumers have no reason left to trust their cable company. These Internet experts have also unequivocally demonstrated that blocking is not limited to times of supposed congestion. Their sophisticated testing shows that Comcast and Cox block BitTorrent applications at all times of the day—not just at times of peak traffic. This research proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that consumers, Congress and the FCC must urgently pursue the complaints against network providers."

These being said, it's obvious that Comcast and Cox are silent, despite the requests from press to choose their position and speak out. Well, the facts show everything, so why bother? Keep going this way, guys, and you may find yourselves without subscribers, one day!

Second topic today, Tanya Andersen. If you never heard of her, you should know that she is one of the few that saw the case against them dropped by the RIAA, but it took no less than 2 years for this to happen. Since she was the prevailing party, the judge ruled that RIAA must pay the attorneys' fees. So far, so good, but...

...Tanya Andersen's lawyer asked to receive $298,995 for the time worked during the trial, while RIAA reckoned only about 10 percent of that amount! In the end, the decision goes she must get $107,834 in court costs and attorney fees from the RIAA.

Well, what about RIAA's requirements from those pursued in court for downloading some songs being "excessive"? Anyway, both sides have until May 27 to file any objections to the award, and I hope RIAA gets what everyone expects - a decision to make them think twice before sending people into court!