The Music Lesson: The Evolution Of Co-opetition?

Most recent examples of this cooperation and competition concept amongst media companies include:

Then, as we were rounding the close of 2008, I read an article about how the music industry, represented by its trade organization, The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), announced that after years of unsuccessfully suing people for allegedly stealing music via the internet -- to date, approximately 35,000 since 2003 -- they have decided to drop the legal assault tactic and are pursuing other avenues to discourage piracy. What other avenues, you may query, will the music industry pursue to stem the theft of their merchandise?

Under a new arrangement with Internet Service Providers (ISP), the RIAA will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take. Depending upon the agreement, the ISP will either forward a polite note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally and ask them to stop. If the customers continue file sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

If I understand this tactic correctly, the ISPs will be willing to cancel subscriptions and forgo monthly revenues -- upwards of $200 -- $300+ per month per household -- from their triple play or quadruple bypass (video, broadband, landline, mobile) in order to altruistically accommodate an industry under digital siege.

This tactic is not without precedent in the United States. If I remember correctly, the Bush Administration had a similar arrangement with the telecom industry, through the government's wiretapping/home security initiative. If a person was deemed a threat to national security they would be detained and unfortunately, for the telecom operator, in most probability, the individual's service (monthly subscription) would dissipate due to their incarceration and/or inability to locate the customer in question, which ultimately led to their failure to pay their bills on a timely basis.