Yahoo, ISPs enter Net privacy fray

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

cited in digital-copyright Digest 11 Sep 2002 15:00:00 -0000 Issue 66
Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, September 10, 2002
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-957332.html

"Yahoo and Internet service providers have sided with Verizon
Communications in its legal spat with the recording industry over
revealing the identity of an alleged peer-to-peer pirate."

snip

The 30-page amicus brief
<http://www.politechbot.com/docs/yahoo.riaa.amicus.091002.pdf>, signed by
12 groups including the U.S. Internet Industry Association, the Computer
and Communications Industry Association, and Yahoo, accuses the RIAA of
hoping to turn Internet providers into copyright cops.

snip

At issue in the RIAA's request is an obscure part of the DMCA that permits
a copyright owner to send a subpoena ordering a service provider to turn
over information about a subscriber. It is not necessary to file a lawsuit
to take advantage of the DMCA's expedited subpoena process ...., the RIAA
is revising its strategy and appears ready to sue
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-949533.htmlindividuals swapping songs over
the Internet.

Megan Gray an attorney who wrote http://news.com.com/2100-1023-956176.html
an amicus brief in this case on behalf of civil liberties group, on
Tuesday said: "The RIAA and other copyright holders are seeking to install
a surveillance regime in which every ISP is acting as the bloodhound of a
copyright holder. That, I am pleased to see, is being resisted by the ISPs
and the civil liberties community."

Question from Chuck:
Where are library organizations on this one?