AT&T, Comcast To Join RIAA Team 360
suraj.sun writes "AT&T and Comcast, two of the nation's largest Internet service providers, are expected to be among a group of ISPs that will cooperate with the music industry in battling illegal file sharing, three sources close to the companies told CNET News. The RIAA said last month that it had enlisted the help of ISPs as part of a new antipiracy campaign. The RIAA has declined to identify which ISPs or how many. It's important to note that none of the half dozen or so ISPs involved has signed agreements. But as it stands, AT&T and Comcast are among the companies that have indicated they wish to participate in what the RIAA calls a 'graduated response program.'"
Missing original CNET News article link : (Score:4, Informative)
Missing original CNET News article link :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10151389-93.html [cnet.com]
Re:What is with this? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good to know. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:A "graduated response"? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Music piracy. Crime of the century! (Score:2, Informative)
You: "I downloaded a Backstreet Boys album without paying for it.."
*all the other cell occupants slowly back away*
I'd back away too.
After all, it's a prison, and the one most likely to be interested in you is the backstreet boys fan.
Re:A "graduated response"? (Score:2, Informative)
By dealing with the RIAA at all the ISPs are making a huge mistake. Is my utility company liable if I install grow lamps and start a marijuana farm because they failed to alert the authorities about the power increase? Is my phone company liable if I start calling the state prison regularly and it turns out that I'm organizing to have an informant killed because they weren't monitoring my phone records and didn't recommend a phone tap?
By playing along even in a small role, the ISPs are really stepping in it...
I could be wrong, but if there is a spike in usage of water or power, utility companies will inform police of a possible grow op.
A marriage of convenience (Score:5, Informative)
Dude... (Score:3, Informative)
Liable-- don't know-- do they alert the authorities? hell yes
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=utilities+telling+police+marijuana+growers&spell=1 [google.com]
Re:Good to know. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A "graduated response"? (Score:4, Informative)
No. It's likely that they'd illegally use a FLIR camera [wikipedia.org] to look in your house before breaking down the door. Of course, when they get caught, they backpeddle [reason.com].
Re:A "graduated response"? (Score:4, Informative)
No but the GP is close. The power company does look for odd balancing issues vs power usage. People who grow large quanities of dope tend to be a bit stupid and cheap. Including putting a couple thousand watts of lights on a single circuit in their basement. The in balanced loadis noticed by the power companies. Normally as long as you pay your bill they don'tcare. However the stupid and cheap part comes into play. They forget to pay their bill. And police eventually get called.
I know of several arrsetts over the years from just such situations.
Re:Surprised? (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Aslashdot.org+whoosh [google.ca]
Re:Dude... (Score:3, Informative)
They cannot enter your house unless the electrical meter is located inside your house.
The power company owns everything up to the meter, beyond that it belongs to the owners. They are permitted to enter your property lines to service up till that point (including checking the meter).
The stupid part however is that large scale urban growers generally steal power, there have been instances where some have tapped directly into the grid lines and bypass the meter. This will usually result in the power company noticing something amiss when the total amount of billed power for the residents is far less then the amount of power that had been supplied to the area.
These people are usually candidates for darwin awards as there are no safeguards in place (assuming they did not explode when they tried to steal the power in the first place...
Re:What is with this? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It will not work (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. I live in Atlanta, and I have Comcast cable internet. There are no other cable internet companies. And there is exactly one consumer-priced DSL comany. And you know who that is? AT&T! Fuck!
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!!!
It makes me so mad that I want to go blow up the DSLAM or CMTS or whatever. FUCK!
Re:A "graduated response"? (Score:4, Informative)
As far as I can tell, this only increases their liability. Services providers have typically received immunity from the actions of their users, so long as there is a clear line between the service provider and the actions of their users.
What you are referring to is "Common Carrier" status. It prevents companies like UPS from being criminally liable for shipping cocaine, for example, overseas. It also prevents Telcoms from being liable for carrying information used to conduct criminal activities. If they actually get involved, though, they lose common carrier, and thus can become sued (or charged) for anything that occurs over their network.
Re:I stopped downloading years ago (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good to know. (Score:1, Informative)
Hey, I'm in the Philadelphia suburbs, and I get my DSL service from Voicenet. (Comes over Verizon wires, but Voicenet is the ISP). FWIW
Re:A "graduated response"? (Score:5, Informative)
Incidentally, ISPs are not Common Carriers. Their protection comes from the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions instead.
"Grandpa, what was it like before BitTorrent?" (Score:2, Informative)
"We shared our files via USENET [wikipedia.org]! And we LIKED IT!"
And we still like it, too.
Newsguy subscription [newsguy.com]: US$8.95 a month.
One time fee to NZB Matrix [nzbmatrix.com]: US$10.00.
Being almost impossible to trace by the MPAA/RIAA: Priceless!
(Yes, you do need an NZB client [google.com]. Mac OS, Windows, Linux all have clients. It's almost as easy as using BitTorrent!)
Re:A "graduated response"? (Score:3, Informative)
That decision against thermal-imaging cameras is quite silly, wouldn't that mean cops would need a warrant to look through your window?
No. It's based on "expectation of privacy". If you do something in front of a window that's open to the street, there's no real expectation of privacy. If you do something in your windowless bathroom, the expectation is that it won't be seen. If the cops look into your closed up garage, whether they use IR/thermographic imaging, X-rays, sonographic imaging, or a code scanner that opens your garage door, if they do so without a warrant, that crosses the line. Of course if they can convincingly say they thought it was allowed and it was "an honest mistake" when they violated your 4th Amd rights, the supreme court says that's OK.