RIAA vs. file-sharers, civil and criminal approaches

I agree with Ed Felten's comments on the RIAA and not suing file sharers (and Jonathan Zittrain's quotes) - that is, the RIAA will try to get the ISPs to be their enforcement agents.

However, my method of reasoning is simpler: "Where's the money?"

The RIAA is not going to file a civil suit against individuals who file-share, because, by and large, those targets have no assets. Worse, those users are at the bottom of the pyramid, the "small-fry". It's a complete waste of money to go after them.

For all the noise about The Government, prosecutors have even tighter budgets than the RIAA. A criminal case against an average file-sharing user makes even less sense.

Even make-an-example cases won't be meaningful, because the behavior involved is unskilled and low-level (note in contrast, going after tool-making programmers make much sense, that's a skilled activity, with much potential to intimidate by harsh penalties)

So where's the control-point? The ISP. ISPs want to make money. The path of least resistance (== costs least money) is to do what the RIAA wants, and there's both economic incentive and law to back this. There's the money.

Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog (Wikipedia, Google, censorware, and an inside view of net-politics) - Syndicate site (subscribe, RSS)