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| reply to spy1 Re: AT&T willing to spy for NSA, MPAA, and RIAA
What Spy1 posted works.....an it works exceptionally well with AT&T Several years ago AT&T tryed charging its customers a $3 sur-charge each month just to have AT&T as their long distence carrier.....an the american public rebelled dropping AT&T altogether.....it brought AT&T down to its knees and near bankrupted the company....it was a short matter until AT&T reversed their decision on the sur-charge....... Since that incident I have never used their services again. Voting with your pocketbook woks wonders.......an its damn well past time people do it....in many areas. It seems the american public has forgot that as a comsumer they have enormous power. | |   dualsmp
join:2001-08-25 Charlotte, NC
| Here is another related AT&T story:
»www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?···AndMedia
AT&T to Block Pirated Content
Telco exec says illegal content costs the carrier; skeptics question privacy.
June 13, 2007
By Alexandra Berzon
AT&T on Wednesday became the first major U.S. telecommunications carrier to announce that it was taking steps to curb Internet piracy on its network.
The move marks a surprising reversal for AT&T, given that telecoms and cable companies have traditionally stood behind legal protections to avoid responsibility for copyrighted movies and music flowing through their pipes.
What were trying to do in our piracy initiative is to try to come up with a network-based solution, AT&T head of external and legislative affairs Jim Cicconi said during a panel about rights management at the Digital Hollywood conference in Santa Monica.
Mr. Cicconi did not specify how AT&T would detect and block individual copyrighted files, but he did say the carrier would not start blocking web sites used to distribute illegal content.
The carriers entry into piracy protection comes after AT&T was asked to partner with the Motion Picture Association and Viacom, according to reports. Record companies have long complained that music piracy was hurting CD sales, while Hollywood studios claim they lost an estimated $2.3 billion worldwide from Internet piracy in 2005 alone.
But Mr. Cicconi said AT&T, the largest U.S. broadband Internet provider with almost 13 million lines, came to the realization that pirated material was clogging the network and costing the company money.
Somebody running a server in their basement on our network and uploading illegal copies movies raises the costs for everybody else and jams the network in ways were not compensated for, said Mr. Cicconi, whose company is also one of the worlds largest providers of Internet-based corporate communications services.
He said AT&T is spending about $18 billion on network maintenance, a significant chunk of which is required just to keep up with tremendous growth of traffic on its backbone. And a sizable chunk is traffic that is illegal, he said.
But music industry veteran Jay Samit, who has led several major music companies, questioned AT&Ts sudden change of heart. He said that Internet service providers have benefited for years from the pirated content flowing through their networks, and are only now reversing course after noting that media companies are starting to stream content on the Internet themselves.
The sizable reason why people bought broadband is to get to that [pirated] content, so youre making money off that, Mr. Samit told Mr. Cicconi.
Others said that the prospect of AT&T implementing filtering will inevitably bring up privacy concerns.
Having this big faceless entity blocking content could make people nervous, said attorney Kraig Marini Baker, in an interview. Mr. Marini Baker represents media companies, including Viacom, in digital rights issues.
Mr. Marini Baker said he expects media companies to welcome AT&Ts entry into the piracy protection space, as long as AT&T eventually comes up with a system for content owners to make some money off their circulating content.
Content owners are always going to want as many tools and as many people filtering to the extent that they can leverage that and monetize it, said Mr. Marini Baker.
| |  Mele20 Premium join:2001-06-05 Hilo, HI
edit: June 21st, @03:16AM
| said by dualsmp :Here is another related AT&T story:
» www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?···AndMediaAT&T to Block Pirated ContentTelco exec says illegal content costs the carrier; skeptics question privacy. June 13, 2007 By Alexandra Berzon AT&T on Wednesday became the first major U.S. telecommunications carrier to announce that it was taking steps to curb Internet piracy on its network. How could AT&T be the first? Time Warner sent a notice out on June 6 a week before the AT&T announcement. Packet shaping hasn't come to Southern California yet but I was told yesterday that it will be here in a few weeks and it will affect all traffic on Bit Torrent INCLUDING legitimate downloads of applications that are now required or strongly suggested to be downloaded via Bit Torrent. There apparently will be no differentiation between legitimate downloads and pirated ones. Plus, something like the OOL speed test (FTP) that I use will also be affected. I got this confirmation from someone in management at Oceanic TW. -- "The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason | |
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