Comcast and AT&T to partner up with RIAA and monitor illegal file-sharing

**shadylookin** · January 29th, 2009

Originally Posted by MikeTheC

This will ultimately only come back to bite them.

Savvy tech folk have very, very long memories, and activist tech folk have a fairly long reach.

I'm just waiting for the U.S. government to decide to nationalize the Internet infrastructure and ISPs along with it.

ultimately though that doesn't matter because comcast is a monopoly in most areas. If I could have jumped ship when my previous cable provider made a deal with comcast I would have, but there's simply no other alternative where I live

**zmjjmz** · January 29th, 2009

Luckily there's Verizon FiOS in my area :/

**swoll1980** · January 29th, 2009

Originally Posted by shadylookin

I imagine they're only doing this because they overstated the abilities of their network and want an excuse to get rid of customers that use a lot of bandwidth(they've already been caught throttling torrents).

Not getting rid of customers, but rather reducing the bandwidth their using. A huge chunk of bandwidth is being chewed up by illegal download addicts that are downloading things 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I think this is a scare tactic to try, and control some of these people. Either way I don't give a crap seems to me the only ones affected by this are the ones breaking the law, and if they don't like the rules they can buy leases, and start their own isp

**3rdalbum** · January 29th, 2009

I hope Comcast and AT&T users start illegally sharing one particular video file involving a cup and two girls...

**handy** · January 29th, 2009

Originally Posted by MikeTheC

I'm just waiting for the U.S. government to decide to nationalize the Internet infrastructure and ISPs along with it.

That goes against the grain, in the land of privatisation.

They thus far don't even have national health.

**swoll1980** · January 29th, 2009

Originally Posted by handy

That goes against the grain, in the land of privatisation.

They thus far don't even have national health.

Or nationalized anything for that matter. I'm 99% sure that 10 people control the prices of everything in the US

**Frak** · January 29th, 2009

Which ISP was it that said "No" because they said that they should be the ones to get paid for monitoring their users and not the RIAA? Maybe it was Verizon...

Anyways, I can either choose AT&T or Washington Post in my area. Washington post is already in RIAA's bed anyway.