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sabretooth
join:2012-02-14
Marietta, GA

sabretooth to Camaro

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Re: Comcast to start Monitoring ISPs July 1

I'll be a great defense, "Your honor, I was hacked"

telcodad
MVM
join:2011-09-16
Lincroft, NJ

telcodad

MVM

An article on the Digital Trends site today about all this:

Six strikes and you're screwed: What the upcoming piracy crackdown means for you
Digital Trends - March 29, 2012
»news.yahoo.com/six-strik ··· 247.html

"How does it work, in a nutshell?

Anytime copyright holders find that their content is being illegally downloaded, they will contact the participating ISPs. The ISPs will then send out an initial “copyright alert” to accounts linked to the alleged infringement. If a subscriber’s account continues to be linked to infringement, his or her ISP will send out up to four written notices, the natures of which are sometimes vague and varying. If the alleged infringement continues still, the ISP will then take “mitigation measures,” which include bandwidth throttling (i.e. slowing down the accused subscriber’s connection), or even temporarily cutting off full Web browsing abilities. In cases where alleged infringement persists after the initial mitigation measure, the subscriber may face lawsuits from the copyright holder, and/or have their Internet access cut entirely, in accordance with section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) (»www.copyright.gov/legisl ··· dmca.pdf).

Who is in charge of this system?

Administering “six strikes” is a new entity called the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), which was established by the entertainment industry and the ISP industry. (Internet users were not part of the negotiations.) The CCI will be governed by a six-person executive committee, made up of three representatives of the copyright industry, and three representatives of participating Internet service providers. There will also be a three-person advisory board, made up of people “from relevant subject matter and consumer interest communities,” who represent us, the Internet users, in all this. Though, from the looks of it, the advisory committee appears to be mostly ornamental.

The CCI develops the “educational material” part of the alerts, and develops a set of “best practices” for the copyright alerts system to abide by. According to the CCI’s FAQs (»www.copyrightinformation.org/faq), the CCI will also “benefit from guidance by consumer advocates and technical experts serving on its advisory committee or providing other expert services,” whatever that means.

Which ISPs are part of this plan?

The big ones. Those currently on board include AT&T, Cablevison, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. Smaller, local ISPs are not yet included in the plan. But more may climb aboard by the time the plan sets sail this summer.

What are these alerts?

Officially, the plan contains six levels of “copyright alerts,” and the consequences at each depth intensify. They are as follows:

First alert: An ISP will send a written alert (probably via email), which informs the subscriber that his/her account has been linked to infringing activities. This alert will also direct the subscriber to “educational resources” which will “(i) help him/her to check the security of his/her computer and any Wifi network, (ii) provide explanatory steps which will help to avoid content theft in the future and (iii) provide information about the abundant sources of lawful music, film and TV content,” according to the CCI. Of course, all of these “educational resources” are provided by the entertainment industry and their ISP cohorts, so you can guess what kind of advice these one-sided resources provide.

Second alert: This alert nearly mimics the first, but will “underscore the educational messages.” Also, ISPs may choose to simply skip this alert, and jump to option number three.

Third alert: At this level, things get creepy. Once an account is linked to infringing behavior a third time, the ISP will issue the alert through a “conspicuous mechanism,” like a pop-up window or landing screen, when the user goes online. The user must then explicitly acknowledge that he/she has seen the alert, which reminds that “content theft” is taking place through his/her account, and re-informs him/her the consequences of illegally downloading copyrighted content.

Fourth alert: The fourth alert is essentially identical to the third alert.

Fifth alert: Now the “mitigation measures” begin. In addition to sending an alert (probably the same alert as the third and fourth alerts), the ISP can choose to a) reduce Internet connection speeds (i.e. throttling); b) impose a landing page, which the accused subscriber cannot bypass until he/she contacts the ISP “to discuss the matter” — or reviews and responds to more of that enlightening “educational material.” According to the agreement, the ISPs have some freedom to choose which mitigation measures to take at this point in the alert process. And these measures may include some that are not listed here.

Sixth alert: At this point, the ISP may issue another mitigation measure. But the company could, legally, suspend the customer’s account altogether — though that is not an official part of the plan. Also, the subscriber could be sued by the copyright holders under DCMA. That said, the specific consequences at this stage remain dangerously unclear. (We’re putting our money on lawsuits.) The CCI does not expect many subscribers to reach this level of alert."
telcodad

telcodad

MVM

An article yesterday evening on the Venture Beat site:

Media companies & ISPs outline plan to stop piracy
Venture Beat - April 2, 2012
»venturebeat.com/2012/04/ ··· esponse/

"Another cog has fallen into place for the music and movie industries’ plan to transform major internet service providers into a copyright violation task force.

Today ISPs and media companies announced new plans for the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), a joint organization set up to curb illegal downloading and streaming of copyrighted content. Former lobbyist head Jill Lesser was named the organization’s executive director. The CCI’s six main directors all have ties to either ISPs or entertainment companies, but it’s advisory board does feature several tech/privacy advocates, including Public Knowledge CEO Gigi Sohn, iKeepSafe.org President Marsali Hancock, Internet Education Foundation Chairman Jerry Berman, and others.

Both the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America met with several ISPs last July to discuss voluntary policies to discourage internet subscribers from illegally downloading music, movies, video games, and other software. The ISPs participating in the anti-piracy measures — Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon FiOS, Time Warner Cable, and others — should be ready to implement the new policies by this summer. Those policies include having each ISP set up its own method of tracking subscribers’ internet activity as well as setting up the CCI.

The CCI will support a new anti-piracy initiative called “graduated response”, which allows media companies to contact ISPs about users suspected of piracy and allows ISPs to subsequently send notices to educate those users about the consequences of copyright infringement. Users who are repeatedly notified can face suspension of their Internet service, bandwidth throttling, and “other measures that the ISP may deem necessary to help resolve the matter,” according to the CCI. Anyone who feels they have wrongly been accused of piracy can appeal by requesting an independent review of their internet activity, which costs a cool $35.

In regards to the graduated response initiative, Lesser said she plans to focus on “education and deterrence, not punishment.” That’s somewhat comforting, but ultimately we’ll have to see how the group operates once everything is set in motion this summer."

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ to sabretooth

Premium Member

to sabretooth
said by sabretooth:

I'll be a great defense, "Your honor, I was hacked"

Not a defense, sadly. If you choose to add wifi, you are responsible for what happens. The cat downloaded kiddy porn defense also fails, unless you can prove your cat did it, or that you were hacked exactly when the infringement happened. Besides, there is no court, or honor here. Just no internet for you for a year.