Bayou Internet and Communications owner Jerry Scroggin says the entertainment industry can’t expect him to work for free.
Last week the RIAA made headlines by announcing that it was going to quit suing individual file-sharers and instead begin targeting their Internet connections with assistance from ISPs. Now one ISP is saying that this assistance isn’t free and the entertainment industry better expect to pay for enforcement of copyright protection on its network.
Jerry Scroggin, owner-operator of Bayou Internet and Communications, wants the entertainment industry to know that policing P2P users costs both time and money. Each time he receives a DMCA notice asking him to disconnect a suspected file-sharer from his network he sends the same reply.
“I ask for their billing address,” Scroggin said. “Usually, I never hear back.”
He says he receives several notices each month, and while Scroggin understands the labels’ need to protect their content and is willing to cooperate with law enforcement, he also believes that as bystanders in the music industry’s war on piracy ISPs shouldn’t be expected to help enforce copyright law free of charge.
“They have the right to protect their songs or music or pictures,” Scroggin said. “But they don’t have the right to tell me I have to be the one protecting it. I don’t want anyone doing anything illegal on my network, but we don’t work for free.”
He notes that he’s not against helping authorities enforce the law, it’s just that copyright infringement is pretty low on his list of priorities, especially if he’s not being compensated for his efforts.
“If it was life threatening, I’m the first to jump,” he said. “We’ve been contacted by police over Denial of Service and bot attacks. We’ll have Secret Service and FBI conversations. We help if police are on perv watch.”
Here are the realities of being “HBO’s free police,” he said.
Scroggin also points out that it’s just not reasonable for him to disconnect customers based on unverified and usually minimal evidence of piracy. Yet, the entertainment industry insists that he get rid of a paying customer without regard for his losses. In his mind a 99-cent track on iTunes just isn’t enough reason to disconnect users, especially if he’s being asked to do it free.
jared@zeropaid.com
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He seems to have the same attitude AT&T had during Canada’s only file-sharing case which is interesting since he didn’t need a court hearing to come up with this.
This makes way too much sense. Many cable companies charge $100 – $150 for cable phone and internet. That’s $1200 – $1800 a year. If they had to disconnect just 10 people a month that’s what? $144000 – $216000 in losses per year not including the man hours needed for going through the reports and disconnecting people? And what are they gonna get from the RIAA? A smile and a pad on the back from a fat balding RIAA rep. If the RIAA wants ISPs to be their internet police they should be forced to pay. This isn’t France we have no mandatory 3 strike law.