Tracking the trackers

The University of Washington study on the methods used by anti-piracy organizations to find copyright violations has a sample DMCA takedown notice, received by the University during the study, from which they’ve removed the names and addresses. After a few paragraphs of legal threats, the letter contains this gem :

” Further, we believe that the entire Internet community benefits when these matters are resolved cooperatively. We urge you to take immediate action to stop this infringing activity and inform us of the results of your actions. We appreciate your efforts toward this common goal. “

For people who are paid to spy on and denounce other people’s Internet use, they seem pretty clueless.

Hello, recording industry, and welcome to the 21st century. It’s not called ARPANET anymore, Internet users aren’t an obscure subculture, my dog has a website, and people don’t buy CDs. This is the world you live in, and it’s too late to prevent what’s already happened.

Not that we’d want to, anyways. Most of us don’t own a record label with an anachronistic business model.