Six-Strikes System Starts In U.S. 418
New submitter mynameiskhan writes "Major internet service providers today will start monitoring the internet traffic to their customers' computers and will warn them if they download copyrighted materials using peer to peer network. The article says, 'A person will be given up to six opportunities to stop before the Internet provider will take more drastic steps, such as temporarily slowing their connection, or redirecting Internet traffic until they acknowledge they received a notice or review educational materials about copyright law.' Furthermore, if you appeal the warning you will be required to pay $35 to state your case. Have the ISPs have had enough of RIAA pestering, or are they siding with RIAA?"
Finally! (Score:2, Informative)
Finally an incentive I needed to get a seedbox and VPN in a country far, far away.
Re:Huh (Score:2, Informative)
Welcome to the party, you're a few years late.
Re:EFF (Score:5, Informative)
I suggest you join the Effector [eff.org] mailing list, and have a good strong look at Demand Progress [demandprogress.org].
I should also point out Move to Amend [movetoamend.org] while I'm plugging these. This one's actually been introduced to congress.
Re:So the defendant has to pay to "appeal"? (Score:2, Informative)
* If the appeal is successful, the $35 is refunded to the appellant (and you can bet the AAA will charge the respondent, since they want to cover their costs).
* The fee is also refunded if the Copyright Alert is withdrawn by the copyright owner.
* The $35 fee is waived if your income is less than 3 times the federal poverty level (that is, $33,510 for a family of 1, more for more people).
ISPs not monitoring traffic (Score:5, Informative)
Major internet service providers today will start monitoring the internet traffic to their customers' computers
False. The ISPs will not be monitoring traffic. The *IAA will monitor bittorrent and report IPs to the ISPs. Not that this isn't still bad, but at least get your facts straight in the first sentence of the summary. Even TFA got it more or less right:
Under the new program, the industry will monitor "peer-to-peer" software services for evidence of copyrighted files being shared.
Industry, as in the *IAA, not the ISP.
Re:Of course (Score:3, Informative)
What. A. Load. Of. Shit. (Score:5, Informative)
Shay-zus, there's no level so low these fucks won't stoop to it, is there?
Check this gem out, from the "How Do Content Owners Know About My Activity?" section:
Riiiight... 'cuz, we all know, ISPs and the MAFIAA are certainly trustworthy entities, who would never misuse people's personal information, or god forbid, lie to support their goals.
Best part: When you mouse-over the phrase "Internet Protocol (IP) address" in the second paragraph, this is what pops up:
A unique set of numbers associated with individual computers connected to the internet
Do they not realize that's a blatant lie? Or do they expect us to not realize it?
My favorite, however, was the "How do I find Movies and Music Legally" link - it takes you to a page with links to...
Wait for it...
RIAA, MPAA, and ISP websites!
Shazam!
Re:They told me (Score:2, Informative)
Except that this, for once, has nothing to do with politics. Nothing to do with the dreaded Obama, or the potentially equally dreaded Romney, nothing in the slightest. It has nothing to do with socialism or fascism (or whatever meaningless term people assign to people who disagree with them). It is purely a deal between two businesses, which is perfectly fine and legal. The government has played no role.
Don't misconstrue this statement as me agreeing with this scheme. Construe this as me being absolutely sick of childish politics.
Re: First strike (Score:5, Informative)
Imagine if you got a speeding ticket and had to pay the court to hear your case where it clocked the car that just blew by you?
[...]
Another good example would be public defenders. Imagine if you had to pay for a public defender, and you'd only get your money back if you were found innocent?
Umm, when was the last time you were in court, win or lose, and DIDN'T have to pay court fees? Especially for a crminal violation like a speeding ticket. I got out of the last ticket I received several years ago, but still had to pay $65 for the priviledge of doing so in the Pulaski County court house. And, last I knew public defenders didn't work for free. They're not free as in beer, they just get paid out of state/federal revenue, i.e., tax money. Trust me, you pay for them.
Re: First strike (Score:3, Informative)
Can someone explain to me how they can charge me to review the legality of my case?
The "how" of it is pretty simple: they inserted clauses into their subscriber agreements that outline the process for this arbitration arrangement (which is not the same as judicial oversight, incidentally), and we all agreed to it by not cancelling our service and saying good-bye to our internet access. Some bargain, huh?
Arbitration is a corporatist/anti-individual scam, of course; the companies decide which arbiters to hire, and will hire and favour the ones that consistently rule on the side of the business. The only way out of this that I can see -- save for legitimate competition in the American ISP markets (now there's a chuckle!) -- is some kind of governmental or regulatory decision (such as via the FCC) that classes ISPs as common-carriers which could be prohibited from exercising this kind of surveillance over their customers.
Re:Good thing proxies can't be spoofed! (Score:4, Informative)
No, it will be the rise of VPN's
Re: First strike (Score:4, Informative)
Can someone explain to me how they can charge me to review the legality of my case? I realize they're offering to "give it back" if I win, but that's not relevant.
Presumably, because you agreed to it in the contract between you and the ISP. You know, the clause that says that they're free to alter the terms of service you're required to obey, at any time -- it's in the contract you didn't read, because nobody ever does.
Re: First strike (Score:5, Informative)
Actually in cricket, one out and you're out, so you have to go in. 10 outs and the side is out...
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
Each man that's in the side that's in, goes out, and when he's out, he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.
When they are all out the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When both sides have been in and out including the not-outs, that's the end of the game.
File an FCC privacy complaint (Score:3, Informative)
There are a couple of problems with what they are doing here.
#1 Illegal wire tap:
I use my internet connection for both telephone and mail. That being the case deep packet inspection is both opening my mail and tapping my phone line. There are many federal laws broken here.
#2 Disclosure of CPNI:
There are FCC regulations and mandates about sharing customer proprietary network information without consent. Your ISP needs your consent to share network usage data with a 3rd party. I have received no communication or notice from my ISP.
Here is the form you can use to file an FCC privacy complaint:
https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form2000.action?form_type=2000B [fcc.gov]
If we get a large number of people making formal complaints against their ISPs for breech of privacy the FCC will be at the very least annoyed. They might even do something about it if we are lucky. This can be used as the groundwork for the upcoming court battles I envision.
Re:Of course (Score:4, Informative)
FYI: "Guilty till proven innocent" is a concept of Criminal Case Law
Not in the US, it isn't.
and has no role in Civil Litigation, where you must only show "probable cause".
Civil lawsuit outcomes are based on "preponderance of evidence"...in layman's terms, who is "most right", not "probable cause". Regardless of how the determination of liability at the end of the trial is done, you can still sue anybody for anything with no real evidence that they did anything wrong. With far less than "probable cause", civil litigation can reach the discovery stage, at which point you better have deep pockets if you want to continue a defense.
The major difference in a lawsuit and this system is that evidence is not assumed to be valid in a lawsuit...it must be proven. For example, if the plaintiff claims to have evidence of infringement on a computer, the defendant would be able to get to see that computer (usually via a neutral third party) to verify that the alleged evidence does exist and was collected in a proper manner. This discovery might allow the defendant to show that the evidence is faulty in some way.
All this is absent from the "six strikes" system, which assumes that all evidence against the alleged infringer is valid with no possibility for a mistake. Because of this, the term "guilty until proven innocent" applies. Unfortunately, there is really no way to prove innocence once you start with the assumption that all evidence indicating guilt is valid and not subject to rebuttal.
Re:All bark, no bite (Score:3, Informative)
That is exactly what they are doing. According to the Center for Copyright Information [copyrightinformation.org] the process is:
1. Companies that own music, tv shows, and movies join peer-to-peer networks and search for media that they own.
2. They confirm that the titles are indeed copyrighted content.
3. They collect the IP addresses making the content available.
4. They send the IP addresses to the participating ISP that the address is assigned to.
5. The ISP passes a Copyright Alert to the customer using the IP address.
A couple of ways to avoid the copyright alert system would be to:
- use a download method other than bittorrent.
- use an ISP that doesn't participate in the system. A list of participating ISPs [wikipedia.org] is on wikipedia.