Suing P2P users is like terrorism

Essential linkage: Viacom lawyer speaks out.

A top brief for show biz studios Viacom, has told a bunch of Yale Law students that suing peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing users in federal courts "felt like terrorism".

Michael Fricklas, Viacom's general counsel, said he's a huge fan of fair use, doesn't want to take down Youtube mashups, and has no plans to start suing P2P users in federal courts. But he still loves DRM and "three strikes" laws.

He told the spotty Herberts and Herbertessas at Yale that suing end users for online copyright infringement was "expensive, and it's painful, and it felt like bullying."

Fricklas said the way it came across to the public when some college student went up against "very expensive lawyers and unlimited resources" was very bad and "felt like terrorism."

According to Arstechnica, Fricklas said that customers "need to be treated with respect," he added.

While bashing the experience of many earlier DRM schemes, Fricklas likes the idea in principle. He said it would be good for online content rental and online streaming.

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9 Comments

thesorehead Nov 18, 2009 1:23 PM	I didn't see iTunes going out of business when Apple removed the DRM on all the songs. Build it, they will come and all that.
Mademan Nov 18, 2009 2:19 PM	But even then, the fact that so many people use iTunes, and have an ipod, meant that the restrictions were minimal. The real issue was the quality of the file, yet Apple have responded to both complaints. I don't agree with any other DRM schemes though, because what happens when they go out of business, like so many other dot.com industries?
superjamie Nov 18, 2009 2:39 PM	DRM is a good idea in theory, however in practice it runs into many problems. Cross-platform compatibility, network connectivity requirements of authorisation and ongoing support of licensing when a company disappears are just the tip of the iceberg. The current RIAA/MPAA/DMCA/ACTA attitude of "guilty until proven innocent" for users, "guilty by association" for ISPs and "three strikes" for everyone just serves to get the general populace offside and ensures piracy continues to run rampant. Respect is a very important component of bringing people around to your wishes. I think if the music/movie/gaming industry took all the money they'd put into litigation against filesharers and used it to develop a decent worldwide business model that is beneficial to us as consumers and them as suppliers then everyone would be alot happier, they'd be alot richer, and piracy would be a far smaller phenomenon restricted to those who feel compelled to "data hoard" or are just too tight to pay for anything.
fliptopia Nov 18, 2009 11:16 PM	Maybe instead of suing they could ask these people how they could rach them and make them happy to use a legal channel to get their stuff.
12345 Nov 19, 2009 5:56 AM	#@%^$^# lawyers...
deonast Nov 19, 2009 9:06 PM	I can't abide buying products with DRM, too great a risk of complications or future support issues when the company no longer supports that product and it becomes hobbled with a DRM that stops a product working. I do agree with DRM for things like streaming for instance rental or say libraries loaning ebooks. You are not paying to keep the content just to view it for a set period so that makes sense.
darklife41 Nov 20, 2009 4:20 AM	DRM is a double edged sword. Its expensive to stay ahead of crackers, and the expense is passed on to paying customers, until the price becomes too high and paying customers become pirates. Its a lose/lose situation. Piracy is a fact of life, so catch people who do it and prosecute them without the needless expense of DRM. DRM itself adds to pirating. :-)
karlm Nov 23, 2009 8:36 AM	Finally a lawyer who has a clue. I have to agree it's up to companies to protect their intellectual properties, maybe with things like watermarks (invisible) so that it can be attributed to a single customer, but DRM and protection schemes suck ass. Take a lot of the games these days - overbloated protection schemes which add to the cost of the game, and then -don't work-. A couple of games I bought recently (yes box purchases people) I had to get 'no-cd' patches for because the game completely refused to run (probably due to the fact that I have two DVD roms ...)
Catmanagain Apr 19, 2010 4:50 PM	Lawyer's like the 3 strikes and your out laws because the the companies they represent don't have to prove that someone has infringed on copy write all they have to do a verbal the person three times. To me that sounds more like terrorism or at least heavy handed stand over tactics.

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