Fergie's Tech Blog

RIAA Says Copyright Filters Could Be Put In Anti-Virus Software

Mike Masnick writes on techdirt.com:

It's been fairly amazing to watch the entertainment industry act as if every other industry is responsible for protecting its obsolete business model. Amazingly, it's been successful in convincing AT&T that this makes sense, despite the fact that doing so will almost certainly do more harm to AT&T.

However, to its credit, Cary Sherman of the RIAA has said he doesn't think that ISPs should be forced by law to provide these filters. Instead, however, it looks like he's trying to convince other industries to step up and help the entertainment industry as well. His latest, as pointed out by Broadband Reports, is that one possibility would be for anti-spyware/anti-malware applications to also watch for the transfer of unauthorized copyright material. Sherman suggests that this would be one way to get around the question of people simply encrypting traffic to avoid ISP filters.

What's not entirely clear, however, is why security firms would ever want to do such a thing, as it would almost certainly annoy their customers to no end.

posted by Fergie @ 2/07/2008 03:02:00 PM