ISP’s Liability for File Sharers at Issue
Several of the world’s largest high-tech corporations plan to urge Congress today to force Internet service providers to crack down more aggressively on their users who swap copyrighted software, music or video files online.
The move is a significant escalation in the campaign by the software and entertainment industries to squelch widespread file sharing by millions of users through services such as Kazaa, Grokster and Morpheus. If successful, it could reshape a long legal tradition of shielding phone, cable and other communications companies from liability for the actions of their customers.
Although members of the Business Software Alliance, including Microsoft Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Intel Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc., have not suffered losses from illegal file sharing as great as the entertainment industry’s, they believe the problem will only worsen as technology improves and more people get high-speed Internet access.
Generally, the only way for companies to learn the names of suspected file traders is to file a lawsuit, a step technology companies would prefer to avoid, said Bruce Chizen, chief executive of Adobe, which makes the popular Photoshop editing program. The Recording Industry Association of America has so far sued 7,700 file swappers in hopes of scaring away others, a strategy that has angered many music fans.
Read the complete story @ The Washington Post
