Don’t name names

Yesterday brought news that SBC Communications has so far refused to give up the names of customers the Recording Industry Association of America is hunting down to punish for sharing music files. Simultaneously, lawyers for Verizon Communications appeared in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to challenge the recording industry’s interpretation of the subpoena provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

Bravo to both Bells for continuing to fight the fight. Verizon’s experience of being forced by court order to give up names shows how difficult that fight is, but in my opinion both companies should be commended for continuing undaunted. Whatever your stance on music file sharing may be (and, as I have written in previous columns, mine tends to lean against the practice, unless it’s sanctioned by performers and songwriters, because I believe it threatens to stifle creativity), it’s imperative that the privacy rights of service providers' customers be protected at any cost.

The carriers rejecting the requests for customer names are likely doing so at least in part for their own commercial reasons—they don’t want to lose customers, and they don’t want customers to be dissuaded from downloading content that requires them to buy more and more bandwidth. But I don’t agree with one judge’s implication that Verizon “make[s] a lot of money off of the piracy.” Companies providing high-speed access service make money from connectivity, not from content that’s downloaded for free.

I’m sure carriers would like to make more money from content—so the music industry should find a way to distribute its content that’s amenable to the recording industry, service providers and their customers. It’s not the telecom industry’s responsibility to do that for the music industry. With any luck, the carriers’ legal efforts—combined with legislative momentum to change the 1998 law—will pay off.

E-mail me at jmeyers@primediabusiness.com.