Internet providers to begin warning customers who pirate content

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/18/tech/web/copyright-alert-system/index.html

by pwg • 14 years ago

38 63 14 years ago

I appreciate that this will give copyright infringers the ability to know whether their attempts at masking their identities are proving sufficient without a lot of risk to them.

tux19683• 14 years ago

This is aimed at your typical bittorrent user not elite super pirates.

IsTom• 14 years ago

It will rise awareness among "typical bittorrent users" how to avoid being detected.

tomjen33• 14 years ago

Agreed.

And this does nothing about those who use usenet or rapidshare.

monsterix5• 14 years ago

'Pirate content' is such an oxymoron. First you created a network with our support so that you can distribute content to us. Then you used that clout to force artists to fall on their knees, 'help' them get their content out.

Now you have a license for such content. So you're forcing us to behave to your definition of 'proper'. Started teaching people some manners, now? The very same people who make you whatever you're.

That's not going to work sir, I am afraid.

You don't own the network of us. You can't make it behave according to your whims and fancies. The artists can connect with us directly. They love to. Stop bothering us.

VMG• 14 years ago

Does it bother you at all that some of the artists did not want to connect to you for free? That they don't find it okay that The Avengers is streaming to you in 1080p for no cost at all while they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars?

Edit: qualified first statement

monsterix5• 14 years ago

Yes gave it thought: "Some of the artists did not want to connect to you" then why make a commercial flick called Avengers at all? Surely, those artists did mean to connect with us. For a price, not free you meant I think.

Agreed, artists should make money. They should make money, and it CAN be done by embracing technology, by making it better at delivery. That's a different approach in life.

I don't think the ideas to (referring CNN's article) "snoop who is downloading and teach them some manners" is going to work at all.

ghshephard4• 14 years ago

I always find it interesting to see if I can find the logic in the arguments that people make to justify stealing other people's property.

I really doubt that the artist behind "Hurt Locker" were trying to "connect with us directly" when people ripped off their movie on the torrents.

monsterix5• 14 years ago

But you agree that people were trying to see the movie 'Hurt Locker' or treasure it? And obviously there was no official way of acquiring the content - a place which works nicely and is priced correctly.

We've seen this, argued over and over again for past fifteen years. Justifying stealing is different from putting middlemen to their place. Teaching consumers manners, penalizing them is not the right way.

One can understand this, or wait to understand this the hard way.

tomjen33• 14 years ago

I don't really care whether you think it is okay or not.

I just care that I can get the stuff on my terms. Not for free, but I don't want to have to see it at a specific time or pay for a bunch of channels I don't want.

alan_cx• 14 years ago

I feel a Sunday rant coming on....

Its people who incorrectly keep using the word "stealing" who make me want to copy everything I can.

People who confuse borrowing and sharing with stealing must be hard to get on with. Can I borrow that newspaper? No. Can I borrow that book? No. Can I borrow a lawn mower? No. Kids? Do they share, sorry, steal books from each other? Toys? Are newspapers left on the trains when people get off to incite other to "steal" ? If I glance across and read a head line as you read, are you illegally sharing?

Copying and sharing is NOT stealing. Get that in to your head and you might get a sensible debate going. Until people stop using these exaggerated WMD terrorist OTT type claims, the debate cant even start. Oh yeah, I have heard it claimed that sharing funds terrorism. Really.

More than anything, I am sick an tired of this industry, backed by the US gov, continuing to support a failing old industry with bullying and threats. See how nasty and vindictive these people get when their controls on us fail. That infinitely worse than sharing stuff.

And if sharing is wrong, then the USA can stop using our language, English. Or perhaps pay the UK a licence fee for its use. In fact, the US could really help put Spain in that respect. See, it's ridiculous, isn't it?

Anyway, isn't it Christian to share? Isn't it kind and decent to share? That's what I learned as a kid. Has the world really gotten that bad?

Lastly, I want to see a loss proved. I want to see it proved that down-loaders would have purchased had they not down loaded. Or, I want to see a business like Fox go bust due to sharing. If that happens, I will believe their claims. Until then, I will be sure that all they are doing is protecting greed, since despite all the whining, they are still incredibly profitable. I suspect out sourcing costs more US jobs than sharing.

I'm now off to download something I don't want. Never seen Hurt Locker..... I'll leave a comment on the torrent site to explain my motivation.

Sunday rant done. Thank-you.

citricsquid6• 14 years ago

> The artists can connect with us directly. They love to. Stop bothering us.

So why don't they?

http://bandcamp.com http://soundcloud.com http://myspace.com http://cdbaby.com

All services that an artist can use to distribute music yet musicians still choose to sign with labels to this day. Maybe, just maybe labels provide value to artists beyond what you can comprehend?

Would Justin Bieber be worth over $100,000,000 if he had released his music on Bandcamp? Would Lady Gaga be worth $150,000,000 if she had released her music on Myspace? Do you think Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber want people to pirate their music and care only about people hearing their music? If that was the case why don't they release it for free?

Radiohead released an album independently in... 2005? That was a success, if artists only cared about making music and didn't care about making money why hasn't every artist since released independently?

Why can't people that create content be a business? Surely that is the entrepreneurial spirit everyone here is supposed to have... and if so, why can't they be against people that engage in media piracy?

monsterix5• 14 years ago

Point taken. It's good to see the options coming. Yes, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga are creations using the current technology.

Not by suppressing freedom to download, or by penalizing consumers who download, or by asking them to behave properly. I never said artists should release their music for free. You did not read properly.

antihero2• 14 years ago

TBH if artists care about money over music, I'm less likely to like their stuff anyway. There isn't a huge amount of music that costs silly money to produce nowadays, is there?

Though there are exceptions - bands like Muse, that need lots of up-front investment to create a huuge amazing stadium show (the costs will probably be recouped from tickets, though).

Joakal• 14 years ago

One person compiled a list of resources in response: https://pay.reddit.com/r/evolutionReddit/comments/11sr28/er_...

macchina• 14 years ago

At least they are trying to create some sort of process instead of just running people into court. But I have a feeling innocent users of bittorrent will receive notices. It's not even clear whether they indicate the name of work infringed when sending notices.

http://www.copyrightinformation.org/alerts

ghshephard4• 14 years ago

I've always been curious - has anyone ever been prosecuted for downloading content? My understanding is that it's the unauthorized publishing (for example, providing a bit torrent seed) that is illegal.

For example - were any users ever pursued for purchasing discount (and, I'm guessing, not 100% legal) tracks off of mp3.com?

ta12121• 14 years ago

There is nothing legal about downloading pirated content (in the US), but the penalties for uploading (distributing) are much higher, which is why those are the people that get sued.

DanBC• 14 years ago

As I understand it both are illegal.

If Bob downloads a bunch of tracks the company can sue for the cost of each track - $0.79 per track, plus costs.

If Bob then uploads a bunch of tracks the company can sue for the cost of each track, multiplied by the number of people in each swarm, plus costs. This gives the ridiculous many-thousand dollar sums.

Both are illegal.

If Bob burns the content to CD and takes a bunch of them to a car-boot sale it becomes a criminal offence.

(I'm in the UK and legal terminology is a bit confusing when it crosses from the US.)

icebraining4• 14 years ago

If Bob then uploads a bunch of tracks the company can sue for the cost of each track, multiplied by the number of people in each swarm, plus costs. This gives the ridiculous many-thousand dollar sums.

That's actual damages, and in practice labels find those too small, so they go after statutory damages instead, which is why the different appeals in the Capitol v. Thomas case have awarded them completely disparate amounts, from $54,000 to $1,920,000, for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa.

jtokoph• 14 years ago

Can someone explain why they don't want to let me pay $2-3 to download a commercial free episode of a show the day it airs on television?

Isn't that way more money than they would make if I watched it via live broadcast?

nuttendorfer• 14 years ago

I think advertisers might not like this and pay less?

tomjen33• 14 years ago

Sure. But they want the world to be the same it has always been.

citricsquid6• 14 years ago

The only part of this I think is bad is this:

> If a customer feels they are being wrongly accused, they can ask for a review, which will cost them $35 according to the Verge.

I can't find any real information on this, but do the fees get refunded if it turns out you are not guilty of the download? If that's the case then I see no problem with any of this and I'm happy it's being done.

icebraining4• 14 years ago

So the incentive to tell you that you're guilty anyway is pocketing $35.

The incentive for telling you that you're innocent is...?

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong.

fijal• 14 years ago

For one, I would welcome such service in South Africa and pretty much everywhere else outside the US. From the article:

"The note will include information to steer them away from their life of crime, including tips on how they can download content legally."

This is awesome news. I would love to be able to download content legally. So far my experience is "fuck you, you're to small for us to care".

EDIT: Also: "by the way, this show can be bought for $2 here and there" will be both awesome advertisement and might really work. I somehow doubt this is the goal though

soldermont001• 14 years ago

I don't pirate, but I still don't like the idea of the content of my traffic being constantly analyzed, getting harassed with false positive notices due to software bugs, or due to legitimate sites accidentally having copy written material, or not honoring fair use correctly, or legitimate downloading of a game from a small studio with little bandwidth using BitTorrent, paying $35 review fees and talking to Comcast customer service any more than I absolutely have to.

Somehow this reminds me of getting carded at a CVS store when buying an extended BIC lighter for lighting BBQs. When I expressed surprise, I was told it's because I could use it to light a cigarette.

I feel like I'm living in the movie Idiocracy... http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/idiocracy/trailers/

acabal• 14 years ago

I find this quite scary. As with all things like this it starts in degrees. Today it's an annoying warning and "educational materials". A few years from now, when warning aren't enough and people are used to them, it'll be disconnection, back to ham-fisted legal blackmail, or even more creative and ridiculous punishments for pushing electrons.

The worst part is that the ISPs are also in many cases the content creators too. Therefore they have a financial incentive to snoop on their networks, invade people's privacy, and basically be a privatized big brother. Better not write an email about downloading files, because your ISP might read it and disconnect you!

I don't know if having the ISPs in the same bed as content creators is a monopoly or not, but it's certainly not in the public's best interest. Every day where I read an increasingly outrageous story about ISP/government internet snooping and control makes me want to switch gears and dedicate my work to internet privacy and distributedness.

beloch• 14 years ago

There are several conflicts of interest here.

Companies that both search for copyright violators and provide internet service (e.g. Time Warner) will be strongly motivated to send out massive amounts of spurious warnings to their own users. By doing so, they can effectively throttle anyone using large amounts of bandwidth even if it isn't for illegal file sharing. The review fees will also allow providers to "tax" high-bandwidth users unwilling to be throttled. i.e. If a user requests a review their ISP can pocket the fee and simply throw out the warning without wasting any resources actually reviewing it, only to send another warning the following month.

The truly diabolical aspect of this policy is that the copyright owners do the "monitoring". While using spurious warnings to cut bandwidth costs and squeeze more fees out of their own users, they can also issue just as many warnings against users of other ISP's to ensure that there is no benefit to switching providers. It is even possible that some companies may actually send out massive amounts of spurious warnings to users of competing ISP's as a way of pressuring them to switch ISP's.

Solutions? There needs to be a sufficiently strong penalty for issuing warnings that aren't valid.

belorn2• 14 years ago

It's worse, you forgot to add that media companies also get free (and to some degree directed) advertising for each notice. ISP and media company both profit for sending en-mass those notices, and the party who has to bear the costs is the customer.

revelation• 14 years ago

Obviously the solution needs to be a legal framework that disallows my internet provider from sending me harassing notices or willfully degrading my service. For the latter, that might already be the case.

Peaker• 14 years ago

The notion that all private communication between peers is monitored for copyright infringement means that we've reached the police state stage of enforcing copyrights.

I guess everyone encrypting all of their communication is the next inevitable step due to government's involvement in our private dealings.

sasoon• 14 years ago

This is just silly. Internet is for data transport. Imagine if cities are responsible that someone is transporting stolen goods on their roads, or Ford has to keep track of what their car owners transport in the car...

sbarre• 14 years ago

The only reasons those things don't happen is that they're not economically or practically feasible.

If they were, you can bet they would be trying to do it.

taybenlor• 14 years ago

I live in Australia and AFAIK this has been common practice for at least the last 5 years. I know people who have received these notices in the mail. Though with recent precedent set in iiNet vs MPAA I can't imagine anything like this being a problem.

belorn2• 14 years ago

Get a VPN. ISP's have not been neutral third-party for a long time, and monitoring has become a revenue source. While political pressure can in the long run fix the problem, vpn's are one of the few options left.

xentronium• 14 years ago

I don't understand how they are going to find out who is downloading content illegally. Honeypot seeders?

tux19683• 14 years ago

They have clients connected to torrents harvesting IP addresses of everyone in the swarm. They request a few blocks of upload from each peer as evidence that it is sharing copyright content.

This is already routine, what is changing is that they now have a better way to use this information instead of filing legal threats and lawsuits.

beedogs• 14 years ago

I'll start taking copyright seriously when it's no longer a joke. Right now, the terms are effectively infinite.

Scale it back to 14 years and maybe I'll consider respecting it.

(Luckily, I don't have to put up with this shit in Australia just yet. Another year or so, and I'm sure it'll be here, too.)

Internet providers to begin warning customers who pirate content

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