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I(SP) Spy?

Recent federal court rulings upheld the principle that ISPs may be compelled to disclose the identity of customers that may be illegally moving copyrighted material over the Net. Members of the ISP-Wireless list react.

[February 11, 2003]

Responding to an online news article entitled Net Providers Must Help in Piracy Fight, MA posted the following lament on the ISP-Wireless list last month:

"This is bad news. I do not want to become a record company spy.

The only thing I track is bandwidth usage. I don't care—and really don't want to know—what my users are doing on the Internet. It is none of my business.

What's next, keeping copies of everyone's e-mail so they can come and get those when they want?"

[JB asked] "Why didn't ISPs have anyone fighting this?"

[MO responded] "Wouldn't have made any difference. The DMCA [Digital Millenium Copyright Act] was bought and paid for by 'big entertainment.' They got the Congress (the best their money could buy) to give them powers that third world dictators long for. I am afraid that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg with the DMCA. It is a very bad law, very bad. Just wait, this is nothing."

[DC enquired] "Does it require ISPs to keep any specific records? Or does it just mean that ISPs have to turn over what records they do happen to have if subpoenaed?

This could be a boon to those WISPs that don't like [the file sharing software program] Kazaa and the bandwidth it uses by giving them an excuse to say something like this:

'We at WISP-R-US advise our users that we fully cooperate with the U.S. Justice Dept in their fight against the illegal copyright piracy engaged in by many users of programs like Kazaa and Gnutella. If you use these programs please be sure that the files you are trading are not covered by any US or international copyrights.'

[MR offered more concrete information] "This is exactly what the DMCA specifies. You have to give the customer's contact information—nothing else. You don't have to monitor the traffic.

Have you registered with the copyright office under the DMCA? If not, you are not afforded protection from being sued for the copyright violations of your users.

The only 'new' part of this is that the judge has decided that the customer's computer is a 'server' and that you are the service provider.

This probably also applies only to the district the judge is in at this point. It wasn't clear from the article which district that was."

—End