Petteri Pyyny
25 Jul 2001 15:37
In U.S. various copyright owners, most notably MPAA and RIAA, have been putting pressure on various high-speed internet service providers to remove individual users' accounts because of alleged P2P file sharing. Movie studios and record labels understand that bulk of the material available via "post-Napster" file sharing communities like Gnutella, iMesh and eDonkey2000 comes from broadband (DSL, cable modem, etc) users. And when these networks don't have centralized servers to shut down, studios and labels are forced to attack individual users.
Many American broadband ISPs say that the number of complaints from copyright owners has increased dramatically over last few weeks. Most of the ISPs have bowed under the legal pressure, but some major players like Verizon have refused to remove accounts without further investigation. Also number of letters from various anti-piracy companies has increased -- some of the best-known "bounty hunters" are MediaForce and Copyright.net.