What a 'Six Strikes' Copyright Notice Looks Like

The new Copyright Alert System, a.k.a. the 'Six Strikes' policy, went into effect on Monday. Comcast and Verizon activated it today. Ars Technica asked them and other participating ISPs to see the copyright alerts that will be sent to customers who have been identified as infringing. Comcast was the only one to grant their request, saying that a "small number" of the alerts have already been sent out. The alerts will be served to users in the form of in-browser popups. They explain what triggered the alert and ask the user to sign in and confirm they received the alert. (Not admitting guilt, but at least closing off the legal defense of "I didn't know.") The article points out that the alerts also reference an email sent to the Comcast email address associated with the account, something many users not be aware of. The first two notices are just notices. Alert #5 indicates a "Mitigation Measure" is about to be applied, and that users will be required to call Comcast's Security Assurance group and to be lectured on copyright infringement. The article outlines some of the CAS's failings, such as being unable to detect infringement through a VPN, and disregarding fair use. Comcast said, "We will never use account termination as a mitigation measure under the CAS. We have designed the pop-up browser alerts not to interfere with any essential services obtained over the Internet." Comcast also assures subscribers that their privacy is being protected, but obvious that's only to a point. According to TorrentFreak, "Comcast can be asked to hand over IP-addresses of persistent infringers, and the ISP acknowledges that copyright holders can then obtain a subpoena to reveal the personal details of the account holder for legal action."

Here's the form

[Zembar]

Apologies to the author of the original(can be found at http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt [craphound.com]):

Your law advocates a

(x) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting piracy. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

(x) Legitimate bittorrent uses would be affected
(x) It is defenseless against VPNs
(x) It will stop piracy for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of netflix will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(x) Requires too much cooperation from pirates
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(x) Many internet users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) TOR endpoints in foreign countries
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Unpopularity of net restrictions
(x) Pop-up blockers
(x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of piracy
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Dishonesty on the part of pirates themselves

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) IP headers should not be the subject of legislation
(x) Blacklists suck
(x) Whitelists suck
(x) We should be able to watch youtube without being permanently disconnected from the net
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
(x) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
(x) I don't want private corporations suing me for downloading my own files

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!

My Next Business Venture...

[ponraul]

Fake six-strikes popups which ask for credit card numbers to resolve the complaint.