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Piracy The Internet Your Rights Online

ISP 'Six Strikes' Plan Delayed 157

MrSeb sends this excerpt from DailyDot: "Shortly, a new system in the U.S. will allow your ISP to give you gradually sterner warnings and possible punishment if you download copyrighted material. The Copyright Alerts System (CAS) — more commonly known as the 'six strikes' policy, after the number of warnings users receive — is coming. Soon. Any minute now. Really. But it's not here yet, even though several news outlets — including CNN — said the system would go online yesterday, Thursday. Speaking to the Daily Dot, a press contact for the six strikes system says: 'We do not intend to launch until we are confident that the program is consumer friendly. We expect our implementation to begin later this year, with each of the ISPs launching at potentially overlapping but different times.' ... The six strikes system is officially helmed by an industry coalition called the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), which was created by the MPAA and RIAA. It counts the U.S.'s five top ISPs under its umbrella: AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon."
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ISP 'Six Strikes' Plan Delayed

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  • Sweet.
    • Re:No COX? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:13PM (#40641043)

      Cox doesn't fuck around. I have their 50 Mbps package for $100 a month. I don't have cable. I don't get OTA broadcasts, because I've not bought an antenna. I do download about 2 TB of data a month between Netflix, Pandora, and others. I've never had a word said to me about it. They even give me additional bandwidth for the first few megabytes of a transfer when network congestion allows. They call this Superboost, I think. Works well when downloading a bunch of very small files that will be decoded and combined into a bunch of bigger files. They don't seem to care that their are effectively Superboosting the entire multi-gigabyte download.

      • Re:No COX? (Score:5, Informative)

        by spire3661 ( 1038968 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:27PM (#40641201) Journal
        Officially, your account is capped at 300 GB/mo. I have the 25 Mbps Cox package and they 'cap' me at 250 GB, although i make sure i never hit that high. They now show your usage on their website if you care to look. Internet Usage i think its called. Somehow i doubt you are pulling 2 TB/mo without hearing anything from Cox.
        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          2 TB a month is pulling nearly 1 MBps (~800 kBps), every second of the month, every month. I don't think even netflix would cause that much. Pandora is probably just noise in that kind of bandwidth measurement. Must hit the torrents really hard
          • he could be pulling a lot off of usenet i know guy with two internet connections in his house one comcast, one qwest/c-link, and he reguarly pulls the max off of both.

      • Cox doesn't fuck around.

        sigh. slashdot, you never change, do you?

    • Re:No COX? (Score:4, Informative)

      by rickb928 ( 945187 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:15PM (#40641071) Homepage Journal

      Cox has had a 3 strikes policy regarding DCMA notices since 2008. Enforcement has been spotty, but they treat it as a TOC violation.

      Wanna try it out and see if they still enforce it?

      • Verizon has or had something similar. I came home one evening to find the internet was down (verizon). after calling support, I learned that I was accused of downloading copyrighted materials 3 times and I should have seen an email about it.

        After arguing with the tech that I couldn't receive email with my internet shut off, they expanded on the claims. I denied the accusations and stated that no one was at the house at the time of the claimed copyrighted materials BS and that I have no wireless for someone

  • by geminidomino ( 614729 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @01:56PM (#40640903) Journal

    the 'six strikes' policy, after the number of warnings users receive â" is coming.

    We do not intend to launch until we are confident that the program is consumer friendly.

    Either you're going to eventually launch it, or not. It will never be 'consumer friendly' since it's a blatantly anti-consumer move intended to whore out to an unrepentantly anti-consumer organization.

    • by betterunixthanunix ( 980855 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @01:58PM (#40640935)
      "Consumer friendly" in this case means, "Making sure people remain friendly." The last thing anyone wants is for consumers to realize they are being exploited.
    • Either you're going to eventually launch it, or not. It will never be 'consumer friendly' since it's a blatantly anti-consumer move intended to whore out to an unrepentantly anti-consumer organization.

      Just wait until they've done this to about two dozen decent programmers... they'll invent some new crypto protocol that makes bittorrent look like the redheaded stepchild of piracy... "You can't stop the signal, Mel." -- Mr. Universe

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Mel?

      • by Zmobie ( 2478450 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @03:03PM (#40641719)

        Either you're going to eventually launch it, or not. It will never be 'consumer friendly' since it's a blatantly anti-consumer move intended to whore out to an unrepentantly anti-consumer organization.

        Just wait until they've done this to about two dozen decent programmers... they'll invent some new crypto protocol that makes bittorrent look like the redheaded stepchild of piracy... "You can't stop the signal, Mel." -- Mr. Universe

        Already been done. It is called BTGuard and you can get it plugged into most torrent trackers for a small monthly fee. Lifehacker ran an article about it not long ago.

        http://lifehacker.com/5863380/how-to-completely-anonymize-your-bittorrent-traffic-with-btguard [lifehacker.com]

        http://btguard.com/ [btguard.com]

        Also, as outlined in the lifehacker article there are other solutions to mask the traffic from an ISP and there is no way in hell they can block some of them because they have much broader uses than just hiding your torrent tracking traffic. VPNs are way too widely used by so many businesses for telecommutes and other such, so it will ALWAYS be an option. And since (at least I think) it would be illegal wiretapping for them to capture your packets and decrypt them, there is not a damn thing they can do about it.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          Now consider the nature of six strike or three strike. Download copyrighted material, WTF, pretty much the whole of the internet is copyrighted, when I create a web page it is copyrighted. The person distributing the content is responsible for issues of copyright, stories, images, sound, video and games. How can I the end user ensure far more than a billion web pages are copyright correct.

          This is starting to smell like the RIAA/MPAA US Mafia is trying to steal everyone else's copyrighted content and clai

  • Too Late (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Already switched to a local ISP -- the moment people realize some have it and others don't they will flock to non implementing parties. It's only those without a choice getting screwed.

  • CCI (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13, 2012 @01:57PM (#40640913)

    It's good to know that this will be handled by an impartial organization...

    • Made up of people whose objectivity can be measured by the number of fraudulent lawsuits they've filed, then quickly withdrawn.

      DoJ, get off your fat ass, and spank these guys!

      • by tnk1 ( 899206 )

        Made up of people whose objectivity can be measured by the number of fraudulent lawsuits they've filed, then quickly withdrawn.

        DoJ, get off your fat ass, and spank these guys!

        It's the man who does the spanking in this relationship, not the bitch.

      • you still have faith in this DOJ???
        • you still have faith in this DOJ???

          Parts of the DOJ are very highly respected. The SG's office (which I think is technically part of Justice) and the Civil Right's Division, for example. And even in the slightly less-highly-respected parts, there are some very highly respected and incredibly nice people.

          There are also at least some assholes and even some incompetents, but the asshole bit is kind of a natural consequence of how the US criminal justice system works. The assholes generally mean well, but they are too quick to trample on the

        • I light a candle for them, that they might suddenly come to their senses and say "Look, we've all been accepting bribes for years, and at first, we didn't think it was hurting anyone; but now, now we can hear our friends screaming out in the streets, and while we cannot go back in time and undo our apathy, we can prevent things from getting worse."

  • by Taibhsear ( 1286214 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @01:58PM (#40640921)

    We do not intend to launch until we are confident that the program is consumer friendly.

    It is, inherently, not consumer friendly.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13, 2012 @01:58PM (#40640923)

    Comment has been edited to fit with Comcast's Anonymous-Posting Policy found in our ToS.

    Thank you for using Comcast, anonymous poster!

  • by Dan667 ( 564390 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @01:59PM (#40640937)
    It is a much much bigger problem and steals directly from Artists and Musicians as well as US Taxpayers. When does it get some attention?
    • by Anonymous Coward

      when the people that realize that start paying for congress and the senate's re-election.

      When you actually buy the MPAA/RIAA's crap you are paying for them to lobby the other way, which a majority of people do...

    • When the people who work in Hollywood stand up and demand that they stop getting screwed over. If they won't first stand up for themselves, there's no way for anyone else to stand alongside them.

  • by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @01:59PM (#40640947) Journal

    usenet. Keep ports 119 and 563 out of their meddling hands and I'll remain a happy camper.

    • Get a provider that supports SSL. Then you can claim you downloaded 350GB of Linux distros last month!

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 )

        Get a provider that supports SSL. Then you can claim you downloaded 350GB of Linux distros last month!

        What, you mean you didn't?

        Luddite.

    • by Dins ( 2538550 )
      I'm with ya. But there have been a recent rash of DMCA takedowns, so somebody somewhere has finally caught on...
      • I'm with ya. But there have been a recent rash of DMCA takedowns, so somebody somewhere has finally caught on...

        How do you "take down" something that has been propagated to servers all over the world?

    • by jchawk ( 127686 )

      Dude!

      The first rule of usenet is you do not talk about usenet!

  • spend the first sentence wondering why on earth they called this thing "Shortly"?
  • by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:02PM (#40640975) Homepage Journal

    Too bad this violates the Data Treaties that the US signed with both the EU and Canada over Data Privacy and Copyright.

    Canadian citizens have a stronger right to use material, as was ruled yesterday, and since the US Senate affirmed both International Treaties, it is bound to respect their rights, as treaties override any national laws or actions, as our US Constitution specifies.

    But, hey, nice fake out, greed heads.

    • Maybe so, but do you think Joe user is going to sue the big boys for cutting off his service? And if Joe wins, what do you think the damages will be? Restoration of service and some lawyer's fees? And what IP lawyer do you think will take on such a case?

      • Maybe so, but do you think Joe user is going to sue the big boys for cutting off his service? And if Joe wins, what do you think the damages will be? Restoration of service and some lawyer's fees? And what IP lawyer do you think will take on such a case?

        A Canadian or EU one working pro bono, is my guess. Most likely a class action case.

      • by oxdas ( 2447598 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @03:24PM (#40642007)

        A woman sued Universal for issuing a DMCA takedown request to Youtube for a video of her baby dancing to Prince (see, Lenz v Universal). The EFF took on the case and she has won nearly every argument so far (The case started in 2007 and has a summary judgment hearing scheduled for October 2012). So, yes, I think someone will sue. The bigger question is could it be turned into a class action suit. If they win a test case, then lawyers will be salivating at the deep pockets involved.

    • Too bad this violates the Data Treaties that the US signed with both the EU and Canada over Data Privacy and Copyright.

      This is interesting. Does anyone know the names of these treaties?

    • I keep hearing this, but it is clearly not the case.

      From Article 6: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

      National laws (the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance the

  • by TaggartAleslayer ( 840739 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:03PM (#40640981)

    What bothers me about measures like this is how broad and intimidating they can be to the average user.

    I see measures like this as nothing more than an intimidation tactic to force users into corporate marketplaces for everything. "I'm not sure if this download is going to get me a strike, so I better go pay for it on Amazon/iTunes/Google." This line of thinking is just going to cost the industry more in the long run. You don't piss off the masses with overbearing rules. The "let them eat cake" mentality is ultimately very self destructive.

  • by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    I hate having to explain to my friends and family why they should install and use TOR for all their internet activities. Shit, most of them have no idea about IP law at all and assume that if they can find it on the Internet it must be OK to download it.
    • And, just out of curiosity, how many of them have ever considered voting third-party?

      • by Greyfox ( 87712 )
        Far too few of them. Third parties seem to be making progress in state and local governments though, so perhaps they will eventually percolate up. You don't change an entire culture overnight.

        I've thought several times that my state needs a Pirate Party, but it's kind of a one-trick (or one-platform) pony. A middle-of-the-road moderate party with IP law reform flavor might do well, picking up moderates from both main parties who have been disenfranchised, but IP reform still isn't sexy enough to be a main

    • IP law is really quite strait forward - an IP looks like 123.45.67.8 and does not identify any particular person. Think of it as the phone number corresponding to a domain name. DNS is the phone book. Several addresses may share a phone number, or several phone numbers may all terminate at the same address. People can share phones or addresses, or have more than one of both.

      Your friends and family should be capable of grasping that.

      Whoosh is available as a no-cost option.

    • by Hatta ( 162192 )

      You probably shouldn't be using TOR for *ALL* your internet activities. After all, everything that goes through Tor comes out in plain text at an exit node that could be run by anyone.

      • and it goes in plain-text through every other pipe with bigger interest in spying on you. just think who is more likly to spy ge/comcast/msnbc/universal who makes the copyrighted material or privacy advocate that does not know who or where you are, that for all he knows you could be in lawless somilia or copyright ignoring communist china. Besides it is not necessarily plain text, if you are communicating over https it is encrypted. in fact the newer tor browser bundles comes with https everywhere which aut

  • by jcadam ( 964044 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:09PM (#40641025) Homepage
    Oh cool, I was beginning to view internet access as a commodity, with no real difference between ISPs... Now I have something to use as a discriminator when selecting a new provider.

    So.... AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon just managed to remove themselves from ever being considered by me again (and no, I don't ever knowingly download copyrighted material without paying for it).

    Something tells me the mom&pop ISP down the road doesn't have the time/staff/inclination to bother with this kind of crap.

    --
    P.S.: Internet business idea #3,633,235: Privacy-focused ISP.
    • And I was thinking that the triumvirate of money, stupidity, and law had decided to give it a miss after the ACTA / PIPA / SOPA debacle.

      Still, it's nice to know that I have choices. Not ISPs, they seem eager to place themselves into the cross-hairs of 'not a common carrier' (good luck with that), but choices of which countries I live in. I swear, it's like that scene in the Simpsons where Principal Skinner is explaining to Lisa why they've been having so much 'magazine time.'

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Just pay for VPN service so not even your ISP knows what your transferring

  • allow your ISP to give you gradually sterner warnings and possible punishment if you download copyrighted material

    Sloppy stuff from DailyDot : we would probably all blow through our six chances on the very first web page we visit, since just about everything that is downloaded has copyrights. The distinction between authorised and infringing use of copyrighted material, which appears to have whooshed the article author, is likely the reason this scheme is having trouble getting off the ground.

    • by Shagg ( 99693 )

      we would probably all blow through our six chances on the very first web page we visit, since just about everything that is downloaded has copyrights.

      True, and in most cases it is also virtually impossible for the average user to tell whether it's authorized or not.

  • Sue the ISPs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DL117 ( 2138600 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:17PM (#40641105) Homepage
    I'm not a lawyer, however, I believe this could a breach of contract law. If the ISPs are making an agreement with third parties for conditions to terminate an agreement with their users, that could be considered acting in bad faith towards the consumers.
  • by tekrat ( 242117 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:20PM (#40641131) Homepage Journal

    If I know any of those major ISPs, they'll be emailing you at the @comcast or @verizon email address that they assume you're monitoring, because they gave you that email address when they became your ISP.

    They aren't going to assume that you've been using the same email address for decades, long before you signed up for their broadband, and that's the email address you monitor.

    I can see it now, they shut you off claiming you haven't responded to any of their emails -- meanwhile you're unaware that a mailbox you've never checked in your life is where those emails are....

    I very likely have a Verizon mailbox, but damn if I know what it is. Or how to access it. My email comes to me through a mom&pop ISP where I have my webserver, not through my broadband provider.

    And I'm sure I'm not alone in this -- how many people have a Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail account as their primary email address?

    • by Comen ( 321331 )

      I do not see it in this artical, but from previous articles on this subject it made it sound like this process if different and instead of a email being sent you would get a browser pop up that would tell you the site you are going to, or the file being downloaded is copyrighted and illegal to download. Not sure how that would work for things like torrents, but I would asume you would get a notice when you go to the site that lists the torrent to download.

      • by Comen ( 321331 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:45PM (#40641441)

        From this link http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/ispplan.pdf

        Subsequent alerts may include notifications in the form of pop-ups or redirection
        to a special page displaying the alert. Failure to respond to these alerts will lead
        to additional steps designed to ensure that the account comes into compliance.
        These steps, referred to as “Mitigation Measures,” might include, for example:
        temporary reductions of Internet speeds, redirection to a landing page until the
        subscriber contacts the ISP to discuss the matter or reviews and responds to some
        educational information about copyright, or other measures that the ISP may
        deem necessary to help resolve the matter. These steps will only be taken after
        multiple alerts and a failure by the subscriber to respond. This system consists of
        at least five alerts.

        • From this link http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/07/ispplan.pdf [wired.com]

          Subsequent alerts may include notifications in the form of pop-ups or redirection
          to a special page displaying the alert. Failure to respond to these alerts will lead
          to additional steps designed to ensure that the account comes into compliance.
          These steps, referred to as “Mitigation Measures,” might include, for example:
          temporary reductions of Internet speeds, redirection to a landing page until the
          subscriber contacts the ISP to discuss the matter or reviews and responds to some
          educational information about copyright, or other measures that the ISP may
          deem necessary to help resolve the matter. These steps will only be taken after
          multiple alerts and a failure by the subscriber to respond. This system consists of
          at least five alerts.

          I don't see how that's going to work at all. Wouldn't most modern browsers block popups, especially those not at all affiliated with the target site? Wouldn't most third-party DNS providers warn you of a redirection as some kind of hostile activity? Wouldn't a NoScript (or similar) browser also defeat some/all of these "notification" methods?

          • by Kjella ( 173770 )

            I don't see how that's going to work at all. Wouldn't most modern browsers block popups, especially those not at all affiliated with the target site? Wouldn't most third-party DNS providers warn you of a redirection as some kind of hostile activity? Wouldn't a NoScript (or similar) browser also defeat some/all of these "notification" methods?

            Worst case they could simply /dev/null everything but plain HTTP and redirect that to a "please contact us" page that you have to click through to get your connection back, not unlike how many wifi services makes you sign in / agree to a ToS before letting you proceed. I've never heard of anyone using that on a regular broadband connection before though, but should be fairly straightforward. Hmm, I wonder if this could be patentable - I'd love to throw a little monkey wrench in that system.

          • by sjames ( 1099 )

            reviews and responds to some educational information about copyright,

            "Relax" said the night man, "We are programmed to receive" ...You can check out any time you like, but you can NEVER leave!

    • Yep. If my ISP wants to contact me, they've got my mailing address and phone number. If they don't use one of those two, it can't be that important.

  • I'm surprised the MPAA and RIAA did not dress this up as "Consumer Relief Access Protection".
  • Bluffing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pwizard2 ( 920421 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @02:24PM (#40641185)
    I wonder how much of this is bluffing. There's no way they can watch everyone all the time. Even if they could, it would cost too much to do it indefinitely and if it cuts into profits too much (especially for another company that is giving little or nothing to them) I'm guessing the ISPS will only make a half-assed attempt to carry this out.

    Are they seriously going to monitor every single FTP transaction or every Torrent swarm that passes through their infrastructure? Many people just go in, leech, and get out of the swarm as soon as they have all the pieces which leaves only a small window of time to catch them.
    • I suppose they could outsource it to the NSA, they seem up for the job.
    • by Shagg ( 99693 )

      No, the ISPs are just going to send out "strikes" to whoever the RIAA/MPAA tells them to.

    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      No, your ISP is not going to monitor anything. But you know all these IP addresses the MAFIAA has been collecting? Well now instead of threatening with harmless C&D letters or trying to sue 10,000 people at once through the courts those will now go as "strikes" directly from the MAFIAA to your ISP. Get enough strikes and you will be harassed and in worst case disconnected by your ISP. They haven't hired on the ISPs to spy on you, but as their private vigilante justice system. Instead of having to deal w

  • When every user on using your service has 5 strikes in a week... enforcement of this will drop off really fast.

    I will certainly be wardrivetorrenting when this drops.
  • six strikes system says: 'We do not intend to launch until we are confident that the program is consumer friendly.

    The only people I know of that would enjoy this are usually called, "Cutters."
  • Why does every article say they're going to get you for "downloading" copyrighted material. Since when can they get you in the US for downloading copyrighted material? I thought the only issue was with distributing/seeding it.

    • Exactly! I just downloaded your post (which is copyrighted automatically in the US), in order to read it, so presumably you can file a complaint with my ISP and that'll be strike 1 against me. Hmmm, in hindsight I should have posted anonymously. Perhaps I could send the RIAA an email and then sue them for opening it. If DOWNloading copyrighted material is illegal, then the internet as a whole is illegal.
  • by oxdas ( 2447598 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @03:10PM (#40641803)

    How can any ISP determine whether or not I have received the rights to any given copyrighted item? What if the items I am downloading are fair use productions using copyrighted material? Nobody really knows what fair use is and is not (it is very subjective), how can you write an algorithm to detect it? I just don't understand how this is technologically possible.

    Courts have already ruled that you can sue for DMCA requests that don't consider fair use. It doesn't seem a stretch to apply that to "strikes" as well (and strikes are probably easier to demonstrate harm). The ISP's are going to have to tread very carefully to avoid class action lawsuits.

  • by ThatsNotPudding ( 1045640 ) on Friday July 13, 2012 @03:12PM (#40641839)
    for all their foibles (slow playing DOCSIS 3 in smaller markets; IPv6 will be as slow in arriving), they frequently are far less dickish than the other US ISPs. Not like I have an alternative even if they were, though (yay, monopoly and ~$160 monthly bills).
  • So that limits us to Project Gutenberg. Everything else is "copyrighted", and every time you "visit" A Web site you "download material".

  • The six strikes system is officially helmed by an industry coalition called the Center for Copyright Information (CCI)...

    CCI being the product of an agreement between the media cartels and major ISPs, under pressure from the Obama Administration (otherwise, why would ISPs agree to a plan that could cost them a bunch of customers). Unlike regulatory bodies established through real legislation, CCI is answerable to neither the courts nor the public. Even if the rules were "consumer friendly" today, who's to

  • Those company symbols? That exist on corporate web sites that they say no duplication?

    Well, our browser caches duplicate that, hell, even going to the site duplicates it upon your screen. How many people print pages of their web sites for reasons?

    So everyone, unplug your internet. Once this thing passes, just going to a web site will break copyright law, by loose definition.

    Someone needs to set fire to the RIAA and MPAA buildings.

    • > Once this thing passes...

      "Passes"? Do you labor under the delusion that this is legislation? It's just a private, voluntary agreement among some businesses.

      • And you don't think the RIAA and MPAA will be using this to get around the legislation that judged that IPs are not indicative of people?

        I meant exactly as I said it.

  • Yikes! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    will allow your ISP to give you gradually sterner warnings and possible punishment if you download copyrighted material

    Yikes, that's awful.

    Or maybe the submitter meant to say "copyright-infringing material".

    GPL-licensed material is copyrighted. In fact, copyright is the mechanism used to enforce the provisions of the GPL license.

  • why can't I have a right to confront my accusers in a court of law before sentencing occurs?

For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!

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