AT&T and Comcast are surprise participants in RIAA anti-piracy plan
Ironically enough, ISPs Comcast and AT&T are reportedly supporting the RIAA's new three-strikes plan, a quietly emerging measure to thwart music pirating among US residents by disconnecting pirates from their ISPs.
Like music industry groups in Britain, France, and elsewhere, the US-based RIAA is now starting to abandon its previous policy of suing suspected pirates in favor of severing these users from the Internet.
Under the RIAA's quietly emerging three-strikes plan, ISPs would first send out two warning letters before pulling the switch on Internet access. But details of the program are still being fleshed out. According to published reports this week, ISPs Comcast and AT&T are taking part in the plan, whereas some other US-based ISPs, such as Verizon, are not.
Some observers say, however, that Comcast and AT&T won't admit to their participation in the three-strikes program, partly because they're afraid of losing business to ISPs that don't support the strategy. One theory has it that Comcast and AT&T are getting behind the plan because they've evolved over the years into being content providers in addition to ISPs.
AT&T is reportedly stepping even further on the anti-piracy side into testing piracy filters, usage caps, and metered billing.