Privacy and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Verizon Identifies Download Suspects,
Firm Says Fight Goes On to Guard Privacy

Verizon Communications Inc. yesterday gave a music-industry trade group the names of four customers suspected of illegally downloading digital copies of songs, but promised to keep fighting the law that forced it to do so.

The nation's largest telephone company was ordered to surrender the names to the Recording Industry Association of America by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Earlier in the week, the court rejected Verizon's request for a stay of the decision until Sept. 16, when Verizon is to challenge the law used by the RIAA to get the names.

Verizon has argued that the law -- known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- is too broad and a violation of its customers' privacy.

The RIAA, which represents the music industry's largest record companies, said yesterday that it has not yet decided what it will do with the names.

"We are weighing our options," said RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss. In some cases, the RIAA has sent individuals suspected of illegally downloading music "cease and desist" letters, but in other cases, the group has filed lawsuits.

Verizon says the law does not provide safeguards for the privacy of consumers. A complainant can identify an individual by tracing his or her Internet protocol address, which is unique to each user and can be gleaned from e-mails, Web site logs or a Web surfer's entry into a chat room. Under the copyright act, a court clerk can issue a subpoena for an individual's name, without a review by a judge.

"All they need is your IP address to unlock the big key to your identity," said Sarah B. Deutsch, Verizon vice president and associate general counsel.

The issue has caught the attention of Congress, where some members are considering bills that would make it tougher to force Internet service providers to turn over the identities of their customers.

"It's probably time for Congress to step in to offer a legislative solution," Deutsch said.

The decision to pursue individuals for copyright violations demonstrates the frustration of the recording industry with copyright piracy on the Internet. It has shut down enterprises such as Napster, the company that launched the music downloading boom. At its peak, Napster had more than 50 million users. But after Napster was put out of business, peer-to-peer software spread across the Internet, making it easier for users to trade songs with each other directly.

Last month, four college students agreed to pay as much as $17,500 each to settle lawsuits brought by the RIAA for running file-sharing services on their computers.

Source: Washingtonpost.Com

 

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this is horriable

did the guy that created the internet really intended for goverment to owen it

i have a qustion

if we were to put a sh*t load of servers on indian reservation grounds can any company working out of the indian nation have to abide by usa law

think about it cfree comunication in genral would be upheld by the tribes

the indians are sitting on a gold mine if they went high tech they could tell everone to kiss there you know what

i dont think any electronic law can go over to indians terotory

seriosely if i were companys and freedom for the net people id rent property on indian land put a server onn it ha haaaaaaaaa lol lets see them try that stuff then

i can understand why the millinume law is there but i really think how they present it is outragiouse

it also makes it so programers cant expand as well

souce code lerning might as well be illigal

were being reverted back to the stone age this effects security programers as well

but they dont see the danger yet lol

i could tell you something right now and every security and antivirus company be s%rewed lol

cause it is legal to patent anything and with the new millinume law shesshhhhh way to much power that can be used in the wrong hands

 

i dont know i just dont think it fair to security programers

we need to move foward to make better products for the consumer

not backward

in the past one could take an already exsisting ideal improve on it after riping it apart to see how it work and then built something better based on same technoligy

but with this new law it protects even bad guys as laws like this could be used badly

i think they need to narrow this law to any one resaleing or pirating or uploading copy right matrial by music and movie industry will go to jail

see how easy that was lol

not that hard

but instead what you got is everything is illigal lol

ok thats the last ill talk about this i promise it just i feel so strongly about it