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AT&T's Version of Six Strikes Launches November 28
Will Include Walled Garden and 'Education' Campaign
Leaked documents suggest that AT&T will begin their "six strikes" entertainment-industry anti-piracy campaign starting on November 28. Efforts to tame user piracy will vary slightly by ISP (ranging from filters and throttle to potentially severed connectivity) and will be spearheaded by the Center for Copyright Information (CCI). Leaked documents, obtained by TorrentFreak, indicate that AT&T's version of the plan involved putting users who get more than four or five warnings into a walled garden where access to certain websites is restricted until they complete an "online education tutorial on copyright" created by the entertainment industry. It's not clear what websites will be blocked, but it's likely the most common sources of pirated material (like Pirate Bay):
quote:
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When repeated infringers try to access certain websites they will be redirected to an educational page. To lift the blockade, AT&T will require these customers to complete an “online education tutorial on copyright”. The training does not give any information on what sites will be blocked temporarily, but it’s mentioned that “access to many of the most frequently visited websites is restricted”. What the copyright education tutorial entails remains a mystery.
AT&T's training documents go on to indicate that all other ISPs will be implementing their own versions of this plan on the same date. The plan has been heavily criticized by numerous groups including the EFF, in large part because it assumes guilt, the industry's "education" material will be highly skewed (surely there will be a fair use chapter, right?), and users have to pay a $35 fee if they want to contest the accusation of piracy. There's also no real indication that the plan will work -- with most users simply moving to proxies or VPNs to avoid the spying eyes of their ISPs.

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IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

2 recommendations

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Simple way to avoid copyright issues

If it's copyrighted, pay for it and download it from a legitimate source such as iTunes or Netflix.

Illegal downloading is a high tech form of shoplifting as it is similar to shoplifting a CD or DVD at Best Buy or Target. Downloading illegally is basically theft in my book.