mrhuggles
join:2007-03-29
Ames, IA
 ·Qwest.net
| reply to questionable
Re: Qwest blocking users without passing along DMCA notices
the only thing i see questionable about it is that they didn't wait until there was some kind of conformation that copyrights were being violated, unless qwest is an arm of NBC and acting in their own best interests, i do not see why they should act so heavy handed against people that for all they know might be completely innocent |
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sprewell
Premium
join:2004-09-02
Phoenix, AZ
| RockyBB, what exactly are you trying to figure out step by step and why? Triggered all the activity? I don't think you understand how this stuff works: it's not like if I go to hulu.com and view an Office ep, my computer then automatically kicks into high gear and starts stealing Office eps online. It's not like Tivo on crack.
adsldude, finally someone who acknowledges the obvious, that it's just stupid for Qwest to not say what the infringing file is, not to mention illegal. As for the rest of your comment, that's all obvious stuff that I'm well aware of and is neither here nor there. You can't figure out what the problem is if Qwest won't tell you precisely what happened.
questionable, the only reason I now know what the alleged infringement is is because I insisted on them telling me, as I've said repeatedly. However, even when they finally gave me that info, after a fair amount of arguing, they insisted that they didn't have to but would do it anyway in this one instance. It is immaterial to this thread who watches The Office; obviously now that I know what the alleged infringement is, we can look into it.
mrhuggles, yeah, it's weird that they immediately shut you off. Other ISPs will often forward the notices and ask you to take care of it first, not just shut you off right away with no notice. Qwest is separate from NBC so that's not the issue. They do have to take action at some point because it's the law but they are being too heavy-handed and are actually not following the law when it comes to their subscribers.
My whole point is that it's ridiculous for Qwest to allege infringement and not say what the file is. I seed torrents for open source software, for all I know they just don't like my using bandwidth in that perfectly legal manner when they don't say what the alleged infringement is. It's ironic that previous commenters quoted that chilling effects FAQ in support of Qwest as I suspect that's exactly what Qwest is trying to do here. By alleging infringement without stating what it is, they're hoping that ignorant customers will just cut back on everything, even potentially completely legal downloads, in the hopes of getting Qwest off their back. Unfortunately for Qwest, by not notifying its customers, they're actually breaking the same law that NBC is using to track down supposed infringers, the DMCA. |
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no_one
@qwest.net
| reply to sprewell
Qwest does not care what you download. They do no investigation.
In this case you said "Turns out they had received 5 DMCA notices from NBC/Universal ". That is who cares what you are doing with the dsl.
Qwest is just along for the ride on this. They got lots of letters so bam.
Maybe if you are really lucky a lawyer will send you a letter directly who works contract for NBC/universal asking for large sums of money to settle. |
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no_one
@qwest.net
| reply to sprewell
Qwest for the most part lets you use bandwidth. On that it is a three strikes policy. Two warnings then third off. If you never got a warning on bandwidth then that is not an issue. If qwest cared about your bandwidth usage they would let you know without playing games.
Some months I use nothing other way way much.
So all this is NBC/Universal thinks they caught you doing something. You said had to do with the Office.
Can you just tell Qwest the computers are clean and get turned back on? Do not say more than needed. Qwest will not enforce anything but the connection. But if you say too much may or may not get back to NBC. Just caution play dumb.
Qwest does not care how you use your connection until someone complains to them.
If you have other users or open wifi in the house and a dsl connection is in your name be careful. Next you know cops will say you download child porn. Sure you could prove it was not you but trust me it would not be fun. |
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no_one
@qwest.net | reply to sprewell
If all they cared was bandwidth would have told you that. Some months I use nothing some way way much. They give two notices then third you are out. They do not play games with copyrights to boot high users. High use is I believe still fairly high. |
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sprewell
Premium
join:2004-09-02
Phoenix, AZ
| reply to sprewell
If Qwest doesn't care what I download, why keep the alleged infringement from customers, even if it's illegal to do so? I can only speculate that they want to discourage usage. Obviously it's NBC driving this though, I never said Qwest initiated it. However, Qwest is obviously not following the right procedure as laid out in the law, and one has to wonder why, when this is all obvious stuff that's been around forever. As I said before, I'm not worried about NBC coming after me as it will get them nowhere. Yes, Qwest has let me use bandwidth so far for the most part, I agree with you there, though I speculate that the constant dynamic IP changes are done to dissuade usage. My independent VoIP from Gizmo5 was unusable when I first hooked up to Qwest as it seemed to trigger constant resets, not sure what was going on there. Qwest has already turned service back on, as I've noted previously, so that's not the issue. |
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mrhuggles
join:2007-03-29
Ames, IA | as far as the law is concerned they *should* probably only give out your information to anyone with a court order right? |
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sprewell
Premium
join:2004-09-02
Phoenix, AZ
| Yeah, Qwest didn't give my info to NBC as far as I know, I think they only need to if there's repeated infringement. But just in case you're not clear, my issue is that they wouldn't tell me what the alleged infringement was, even though they were required to by law, until I badgered them for it. |
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mrhuggles
join:2007-03-29
Ames, IA
·Qwest.net
| are you sure they are required to by law? as far as i knew they wernt required by law to forward the DMCA notices to you, they could either do so, or ignore them
acting on them without notifying you? thats just dumb, but is it really against the law? |
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sprewell
Premium
join:2004-09-02
Phoenix, AZ
| Please read the thread, we've already been over all this. They're required to promptly send me a notice of what the infringing material is so that I can file a counternotice if necessary. The DMCA notice from NBC essentially consists of cut-n-paste of the DMCA law, the name of the file, their address, and the timestamps. They don't have to pass the exact DMCA notice along but they do have to name the file in question, that's the law. Of course, the timestamps would be useful too, to figure out what exactly happened. In my case, after some arguing, they finally just forwarded the original DMCA notices. All I was asking for was the name of the file, which it turns out they were legally required to pass along even though they claimed they didn't have to. If this is just some rogue employee at Qwest, I understand, this shit happens, though they should have better training. However, this appears to be a calculated policy on their part. |
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mrhuggles
join:2007-03-29
Ames, IA
·Qwest.net
| sigh i think you miss my point, all that stuff isn't LAWS its only laws if they follow the rules, if they do not follow the rules they are not protected! [or at least is my limited understanding. thats why i use terms like questionable and i am not sure etc] |
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sprewell
Premium
join:2004-09-02
Phoenix, AZ | Not sure what you mean by "its only laws if they follow the rules, if they do not follow the rules they are not protected." The law is all written down and explicit, I suggest you follow the links and references above if you're really interested. |
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dynodb
Premium,VIP
join:2004-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
| said by sprewell  :Not sure what you mean by "its only laws if they follow the rules, if they do not follow the rules they are not protected." The law is all written down and explicit, I suggest you follow the links and references above if you're really interested. If it's so explicit- quote it for us.
Not a vague wikipedia article.
Not a section that doesn't apply to ISPs.
Not a what you think the law might be.
Spell it out for us exactly what law is being broken. If you're going to accuse an entity of breaking the law, tell us which aspect of which law. |
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questionable
join:2005-10-18
Phoenix, AZ | reply to sprewell
And if they truly did break that law you can in turn sue them. You might not get anywhere except maybe on KPHO or one of the other stations in your area. Heck maybe even national |
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AthlGrond
Premium,MVM
join:2002-04-25
Aurora, CO
 ·Comcast
| reply to sprewell
I don't see anything in any of the links that indicate that the ISP is obliged to send you notice, except when they don't want to cut off your service.
That is to say there is an implication in most of the linked material that the ISP would want to keep you as a customer and would therefore want to give you chances to rectify any errors on your end or to establish that errors were made on the copyright holder's end.
Based on what I've seen, Qwest is taking the "we don't care about you as a customer" route here. Which (as someone further up said) is them being stupid, but I think the law allows for them to be stupid.
I hope you have another broadband option where you live (I would assume you would not want Qwest anymore).
--
I'm not a tax dodger, I'm a potential cabinet appointee! |
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no_one
@qwest.net
| reply to sprewell
How does dynamic IP affect your bandwidth usage? Yes if running servers there are ways around a dynamic IP. Same for most everything else. I use VOIP etc. and have no problems. If your IP is switching that rapidly maybe there is a connection problem.
However, up to I believe a very generous amount of bandwidth Qwest does not care. Please don't quote the normal user amounts it is well above that. |
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sprewell
Premium
join:2004-09-02
Phoenix, AZ
| reply to sprewell
dynodb, OSP is a catch-all term that applies to all service providers, as I've explained previously, with each link in the chain passing the DMCA notice along to the relevant original party. I have already spelled out exactly what the law is and how and why it was broken. If you're too dumb to follow the thread so far, I'm not going to waste 10-15 mins of my time cutting and pasting and explaining the law for you, when you can spend the same 2 mins I did to go read it.
questionable, I doubt I'd get much out of suing them for these two instances. The real opportunity might be a class-action suit if one finds multiple customers who have been wronged by a pervasive policy but I'm uninterested in pursuing that myself.
AthlGrond, It's in the quotes above and the links, not sure why you don't understand that notice is required by the law. It's not Qwest being stupid, it's Qwest breaking the law. As I said before though, it's always possible this is an isolated instance by a rogue employee, but the other former employee saying it was a policy suggests otherwise. Of course, there's another broadband option available; if only there were a lot more, if Qwest and the cable company hadn't paid off the govt to avoid local loop unbundling.
no_one, the constantly changing dynamic IP will sometimes cause my p2p clients to not be able to access the internet without a manual reset. I can only speculate that that is the only reason for the constantly changing IP, as most people will probably not bother with the daily manual resets that I put up with. When I first started using Qwest's DSL service and tried to use Gizmo5 VoIP, it would trigger a flurry of resets somehow. However, that went away months later, not sure why it was happening. I agree that Qwest has not hassled me about bandwidth, as I stated earlier. However, I can only speculate that these constant mild hiccups, caused by what should be easy to handle network problems, are done intentionally to discourage usage. |
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rims
join:2000-10-22
Phoenix, AZ
| reply to sprewell
The chilling link says an isp has to notify a subscriber per section 512(i)(1)(A) of the code. That section is concerned not with what is required by law from the ISP, but what is required from the ISP if they want to benefit from Safe Harbor provisions, ie to not get sued by NBC. At least that's what it seems to say to me
(i) Conditions for Eligibility.—
(1) Accommodation of technology.— The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider—
(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers; and
(B) accommodates and does not interfere with standard technical measures.
»www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/512.html |
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sprewell
Premium
join:2004-09-02
Phoenix, AZ | reply to sprewell
There is no reference anywhere in this thread to 512(i)(1)(A), the only section that the chillingeffects FAQ and I referenced is the relevant one at 512(g)(2)(A). |
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rims
join:2000-10-22
Phoenix, AZ | reply to sprewell
That section also seems to imply only that the ISP is automatically free from liability if they notify you. Not that they by law must notify you |
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