RIAA to halt lawsuits, cozy up to ISPs instead

[xenomorph42]

[Taro Toporific]

Softbank BB (Japan's largest lower-cost provider) has already sent out an email to all their subscribers saying:

With the spread of broadband communication and continued increase of
data traffic, we have endeavored to provide a suitable Internet
connectivity service to our customers, but a number of our customers
have been uploading extensive data to the internet and occupying the
bandwidth causing a decline of speed and quality to other customers.
To improve this condition, we will restrict customers' upload data
which has reached a certain level according to the "Total traffic data
restriction"(*1) starting from January 5th, 2009.

*1. Customers uploading more than 15GB(Giga Byte) of data within 24
hours is in object.
We will inform customers in object beforehand, but if there is no
improvement in the way of usage, after suspending the usage, we may
terminate the subscription.
Downloading data such as browsing homepages, receiving mail and
downloading files are not in subject, therefore customers using the
internet in an ordinary way will not be affected

REMEMBER that the FG forum rules prohibit topics about performing, "bootlegs or illegal downloads of commercial software, movies, music". This is just "news" about the RIAA and let's keep it that way, ok?

[FG Lurker]

I can't quite see how it would be possible to upload 15GB or more of data in a 24 hour period. Theoretically I suppose but I haven't seen real-life levels of performance that would allow that to happen.

I use Carbonite for data backup and have moved about 60GB of data to them. I hope we don't see tighter limits on data transfer as I still send quite a bit of data to Carbonite on a daily basis. Plus Skype, plus a bit of beetea now and then. Linux distros etc, of course.