RIAA Attacks Safe Harbor

Ars reports that the RIAA is lobbying the government to sneak rules mandating web filtering into the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The proposed regulations would mandate that ISPs filter out copyright-infringing materials – and, in fact, all services that facilitate infringement, even those that also have legitimate uses. Killing P2P software in such a way would violate net neutrality principles far more than anything any ISP has yet tried. It would also gut the safe harbor provision of the DMCA, which sensibly argues that only actual copyright infringers – not the ISPs that transmit their data – can be held liable for infringement.

While we here at CEI oppose mandating net neutrality, we also oppose mandating violating it. The market – not government – is best-suited to decide which network management tools work best against congestion while providing what customers want.