Guillotine

After years of rather ridiculous lawsuits against file sharers the RIAA has finally decided to stop suing common folk for downloading a few MP3s here and there. But… Before you hoist the Jolly Roger and head over to your favorite torrent site to begin downloading the last 20 years worth of music… It’s not quite that easy. They will still sue the worst offenders, but most will not fit that category. For the rest of the illegal file sharers what awaits will be a bit more effective, and is already generating quite a bit of controversy.

The new plan??? The ISPs (Internet Service Providers) will be required to police their users in order to determine whether illegal file sharing is occurring, and then supposedly the ISP will be required to send the user a warning to cease illegal activity or further action will be taken… The further action??? Offenders may be subject to bandwidth throttling (controlling the amount of bandwidth a user can access), or even deactivation of service. The idea is that the average Joe/Jane that is downloading an MP3 or movie here and there won’t be targeted (at least not at this point), but the fellow downloading hundreds of MP3s a week on a regular basis will be flagged, warned, and acted upon.

The most controversial aspect of the new plan has not officially been announced by RIAA at this point, but is circulating around the internet rumor mill is that the practice of blacklisting may occur. It is already understood that ISPs will be required to submit reports on illegal file sharers to RIAA, and it’s completely reasonable to think that RIAA could use this information to create a list of users that could be sent out to all ISPs thus a situation could arise where a person who was banned from one service may be on such a list and be refused service from other ISPs. Of course this is just a rumor at this point, but one could see how easy it would be to implement, and hey… It’s RIAA we are talking about here, so it’s not like it would be a far fetched move based on their previous actions.

Personally… I have mixed feelings about this, but mostly on the good side. It means if I decide to download an mp3 or two I don’t have to sit there with fear debating on whether clicking that download link is worth a lawsuit, and no more news stories about 13 year old Jimmy who has been arrested for illegal file sharing… This is good. Of course the flip side is that your ISP might mistake innocent activity as illegal file sharing thus putting you in jeopardy of losing your internet access. Of course I’m sure if it was truly mistaken activity one could easily call their ISP and straighten things out. On the other hand if blacklisting does occur then that could be a bad thing. While it’s usually not a big deal to straighten out a misunderstanding to an ISP you are already with it’s quite a bit harder to try to explain to a new ISP why your name is on a list of illegal file sharers, and on top of that to convince them to provide service anyway.

If implemented properly I could see this working well, and would allow RIAA to concentrate their activities on the really bad people like bootleggers and such rather than a housewife that downloaded an episode or two of Sex in the City that she missed. If implemented poorly it could be a lot more localized trouble for individuals.

And for those that will inevitably scream that ISPs policing their users will be an invasion of privacy… Well… Sorry to say it, but they have been doing that all along. Everything you do on the net shows up in the server logs of your ISP as well as every server you connect to while online, and it always has. The only difference now is that the ISP will be taking action directly rather than letting RIAA do it via lawsuits.

Okay… I took the last couple weeks off of posting as it’s been really slow on the news front lately, but here is something I came across on gizmodo and found too funny not to post.

I’m thinking about running right over there to get a job. Who needs job security these days anyway.

Actually… This picture reminds me of a local furniture store that has had a “going out of business” banner up for the last 10 years, but has yet to close it’s doors. I think it would be rather amusing if right before these Circuit City locations are ready to close they suddenly find enough capital to keep them open, and we find out this was all a ploy to help them dump off a lot of old stock.

The sad thing about Circuit City is that they really did not need to close so many stores. A simple restructure of the stores would have done wonders for them. During my stint in retail management I spent 7 years running a department store’s electronics department, and got to see the effects of Best Buy on our sales when they opened. What Circuit City did to respond to Best Buy was the wrong move. They remodeled their stores, but tried to keep a showroom style which just does not work these days. Not to mention whoever was in charge of their layouts was probably on some drugs at the time… My local Circuit City decided to put computer displays at the front of the store while the PC accessories were in a back corner… Honestly until last year I didn’t even know that stuff was back there. They also stuck video games at the very back of the store… Bad idea there.

I know when my store came under threat of Best Buy we responded by forgoing the showroom style and going full big box. Pack the shelves with merchandise, and focus on self service. Honestly It worked. During the whole time I was there we had 20-30% sales increases every year, and never really even noticed Best Buy’s impact on our sales. People don’t want to ask for assistance these days… They just want to walk in, grab what they want, and get out. I suspect after I left my store it did even better as the guy who took over for me really believed in the “stack it out” philosophy, and regularly stacked piles of merchandise right in the aisles. In my opinion Circuit City would have done well to employ this strategy, and probably would not be in the jam they are in now if they had simply changed with the times. Get the merchandise out on the sales floor, and come up with a sensible floor plan… Those two things work wonders in any modern retail environment.