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Originally Posted by Dusteh
Yes I saw your point Bill about ID3 tags, but this kind of file recognition is easily avoided through rar archives of music, shared through fileshare sites such as rapidshare... or by using FLAC instead of mp3.
I think you are correct that high-bandwidth suspicious users would probably be flagged up. But can you imagine ISP's really bothering to expend resources to use a human to investigate, or in reality don't you think their automated system will more likely send a nasty letter anyway?
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I certainly think that's likely to be the first form of action.
After all, it's certainly cheaper to stem that particular flow and move on than it is to chase infringers into court from the outset.
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This is what I meant by heavy-handed. I am all for punishing people stealing music, but I think this method is going to throw up false-positives and cause alot of trouble for both users and ISP's.
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Technology is getting smarter (and processor power cheaper) all the time and will likely be used for much of the donkey work.
Of course, die-hard downloaders will always seek to stay one step ahead.
As has been suggested, if a user is sharing publically, then labels (or their agents) may invest in staff to prowl the usual sources gathering IPs of the illegal sharers.
Moles have already been used to shut down font sharing groups/servers back when it was at its height, so it's not hard to imagine a similar approach.
Fwiw, staffing such positions doesn't add up to much money in the grander scheme of things. Besides, if it can stem a flow of illegal downloading, with the possible outcome that actual, legit sale increase slightly, then it could ultimately become a profitable exercise (according to the overall bottom line, though direct, accurate measurement is likely to be difficult).
There are companies out there which specialise in providing just such a service, so presumably, there are other companies out there who consider such services an investment, either in raw financial terms or in terms of protecting a brand.
I suspect they'll take a reasonably considered approach, scaling the first form of action according to the level of infringement - one or two, very public examples, notwithstanding.
Labels know they're never going to make all the money they've lost to downloading back. They're more likely to take the path of least resistance (whilst not ignoring the problem) by cornering people and sending an appropriately overbearing legal letter - again, a few public examples notwithstanding.