The Daily Swarm

CNET:

Verizon, the second-largest phone company in the United States, is expected to begin issuing “copyright notices” on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America to those accused of illegally downloading songs from the Web, according to sources with knowledge of the agreement….The sources, who asked for anonymity, said Verizon’s letter campaign is part of a test, which is expected to begin on Thursday. Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman, confirmed the existence of the test but declined further comment….The move is significant for the music industry because among Internet service providers, Verizon has typically been among the most reluctant to intervene in copyright cases on behalf of entertainment companies.

Digital Music News:

…according to specifics confirmed Friday, the telecommunications company will not reveal the identity of its subscribers, nor will it take any punitive action for copyright violations…Earlier, Verizon agreed to pass along notices from Disney, and now, the partner appears to be major labels as represented by the RIAA. “All that happens is that we pass the complaint along to the party,” described Verizon executive Eric Rabe in a phone conversation Friday morning…These are soft moves, and Rabe portrayed Verizon as a third-party simply passing the information along. If the copyright owner wants the identity of the customer, then a subpoena is required, a step that the RIAA has earlier pursued through aggressive, ‘John Doe’ actions against individuals.

Techdirt:

AT&T, Comcast, Cox and some other ISPs already do this. The letters don’t include specific threats of action (so, no “three strikes” type policies), but the RIAA is clearly hoping that by passing on the letters it will discourage unauthorized file sharing. It’s a bit of a waste for Verizon to need to spend resources on this, and it really is just the RIAA‘s first step in the door to eventually push for kicking people off of the internet, but on the whole it’s not that terrible to pass along notices. In the end, my guess is that it will actually serve to do a lot more to promote encryption services than anything else. Maybe some encryption service can approach Verizon about “sponsoring” those customer notifications.