AT&T Learns From Mom in Fighting File Sharing

By Saul Hansell, Bits Blog - NYTimes.com, March 26, 2009

How much are the big Internet service providers going to cooperate with the record and movie industry’s requests that they hector and eventually punish customers who are exchanging copyrighted files?

So far, not so much. But AT&T has released data that a compromise plan — nagging with no punishment — may be almost as effective.

Late last year, the Recording Industry Association of America said it had stopped its five-year program of suing people who trade music online, in part because of pressure from Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney general. Instead, it had asked Internet providers to create a program that would give customers who trade files an escalating series of warnings and punishments: a notice on the first offense, followed perhaps by a slower Internet connection for the second, and finally cancellation of service on the third violation.

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