Frying pan to fire transfer

First, the good news: the RIAA is phasing out its program of harassment by lawsuit against file sharers. This has done nothing to stop file sharing, done nothing to halt the incessant slide of CD sales, and created enormous ill will against the recording industry. It's been primarily a program of extortion against consumers, since hardly any of the suits have actually gone to trial.

Now, the bad news: they're apparently setting up agreements with Internet Service providers to warn, slow down, and/or cancel service to their customers who are suspected (!) of file sharing. This is an incredibly bad idea, especially since (unlike with lawsuits) the users will have no way to defend themselves. Is your ISP signing up for this program?

An excellent post by Matthew Yglesias asks why copyright law seems to less and less serve its intended purpose, which is to stimulate creativity. He points out that despite all the file-sharing going on, there's no lack of new music being produced, so it's unclear what public purpose is addressed by constantly tweaking the law to try to reduce file-sharing.