Music, movie industry to warn copyright infringers

Well... the only way to KNOW that the person downloaded "illegal" content is to provide them with said content... And to provide them with said content, you are either uploading illegally and should be sent to jail, or uploading the content to the end users with a valid license to do so, in which case the users are receiving a legally obtained copy. There is no way for the industry to get around this paradox without violating federal wiretapping laws and invading the privacy of people. I hope some lawyer is crazy enough to attack this loophole for 57 billion dollar (the supposed loss due to piracy) settlement payable to the 77% of America with ISPs doing this illegal activity.

"violating federal wiretapping laws".... That only pertains to telecommunication systems like telephone or cell phones. A few years ago, Col. Powell's son, who headed the FCC at the time, regulated cable Internet as an information system. Information systems have a different set of regulations, such as allowing cable companies to see if you're using a descrambler or an illegal cable device. Therefore, tapping into Internet traffic is fully legal.

Bryan Villados, you forget that ATT/Verizon are both still telecommunications companies and perfectly within the realm of those regulations.

So next time someone claims "lag", may actually have uploaded or downloaded some music or movie?

For a lot of people being stuck in slow internet will feel like jail!!! LOL

Actually - its very important to note that the above is a criminal offense in Japan - so watch yourselves!

There won't be much point in paying extra for faster internet speeds if the ISPs start throttling their users based on the say-so of the RIAA. One solution is to use a VPN with a server outside the US. The US government won't like that as it makes it very difficult for them to snoop on your communications. I expect they are already preparing their "terrorists use VPNs" argument to justify more oppressive laws.

Scrote, you could also use one of the ISPs other than the top 7, since those were never actually asked to join this farce.

VPN that doesn't keep logs - pretty much a sure-fire way to avoid anything like these silly letters.

For all those touting the VPN's, you STILL have to connect to an address somewhere. It's relatively easy to block specific addresses on the national network of routers. All the VPNs in the world won't help you if the national routers refuse to connect you to the offending address. (In fact if the Chinese hackers don't back off soon, I could see anything to or from China getting shut down at the U.S. borders.)