RIAA’s Sue-Fest Goes Down-Under

The RIAA have taken their ‘righteous fight’ down under, and are now concentrating on the victimisaion of Australians. Good news for their perennial targets – children and innocent mothers - in the US, but bad news for Australians, say p2pnet news.

The RIAA – consisting of the Big Four music cartel of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG – may have decided to let the American Front Line cool a little after their disastrous (in a PR sense, at least) suing of an Jammie Thomas.

The Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) has, in the past, claimed again and again that it simply isn’t interested in individual users who flaunt the laws, now appears to be going after those individuals through a number of Australian ISPs. Bullying tactics is the word on the street, and the Australian press and social commentators are not too happy. For a country that has traditional struck its own line in political and social matters, to be pushed around by some large US companies is not going to be easy to swallow.

Sabiene Heindl of the MIPI says that the Big Four representatives in Australia have been

petitioning internet service providers (ISPs) to send warning notices and disconnect the internet connections of users who have been identified as illegal downloaders

While many of the US ISPs have crumbled under this kind of pressure we think think that the Australians are going to be that much more stubborn about the whole idea.

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