Good News!

If you look well at what's happening around you, sometimes you can even get scared when downloading a new kit of your freeware Internet browser, or music player. What if somebody's watching? What if this program is not so legal as it seems? I am not paranoid, but I know people suffering from a computer-related paranoia, and if it's not about viruses, it's the fear of being watched, even when all they have to hide is one or two kinky Yahoo! Messenger conversations with their wives. Obviously, the RIAA is not hunting this kind of people, but now laws protecting the regular Internet user started to pop up...

The standard procedure of the recent campaign conducted by the RIAA against filesharers follows the same pattern every time: they find some computer offering files for download, obtain a court order to force the ISP or organization providing the IP of that computer to reveal the identity of its owner, and then sue the poor guy(or chick). The problem appeared with the methods used by MediaSentry to gather data, and in Michigan has just been passed a law specifically calling for computer forensics groups to be licensed!

This won't really help those caught in the act, but I don't think it's fair to see people investigated by a so-called authority that is, basically, breaking the law. Well, it wasn't breaking the law before, but now they are unlicensed, so they are breaking it as we speak, if any investigation is still conducted...

The whole story goes deeper than this, but we should wait and see what happens next. For now, it's only a small step, but in the future, I really hope to see things moving in the right direction, especially regarding those huge fines RIAA obtains in court for people sharing a few tracks they had no idea of being illegal content.