For years now, the battle against piracy has gone a little something like this: based on sometimes accurate evidence, intelligence firms working for the entertainment industry send the IP address information of users who've shared a copyrighted file to ISPs, who then forward a DMCA warning letter to the end user without identifying that user to the entertainment industry. The end user then completely ignores the letter and -- absolutely nothing else happens. Obviously this doesn't do much to deter piracy, which is why the entertainment industry has been pushing for ISPs to take tougher measures.

Internationally, there's growing pressure on lawmakers to pass bills that force ISPs to patrol their networks and terminate the connections of repeat offenders. Given these users are paying customers, and acting as content nanny is expensive, ISPs instead are ramping up the notification efforts -- in the hopes that this keeps the entertainment industry (and the politicians who love them) off of their back. While data supporting whether this accomplishes anything is mixed, it's why Verizon recently started increasing MPAA & RIAA letters, and it's why Time Warner Cable is trying a new notification system as well.

According to Gizmodo, Roadrunner customers who engage in P2P transfers of copyrighted materials (and forget to use forced encryption) are now getting full window browser notifications that inform them they've been very naughty customers. The warnings, which they've actually been using for a little while now, insist that Roadrunner is stepping in to protect the user from P2P:It is, after all, important to "protect you" from that first season of Mad Men and the entire Led Zeppelin discography that you just downloaded. Accidentally. Just like with DMCA warnings, nothing happens after the warning is issued. A user can simply click on "I am aware of this issue and will take steps to resolve it," and then go download a pirated CAM of 2012.

It's just a process for the sake of having a process, designed to keep regulators from imposing new anti-piracy laws that dictate how the ISPs can run their networks. In this instance who can blame them -- the entertainment industry essentially wants ISPs to spend money to prop up (unless you're Comcast/NBC Universal) somebody else's failing business model. For most ISPs, such efforts will be expensive, and probably won't do much to slow piracy's relentless growth.

Instead of filters and booting people off of the Internet, carriers are hoping that alerts make the entertainment industry happy. Of course some ISPs, like Cox Communications, are placating Hollywood by taking things even further -- engaging in anti-piracy efforts that can result in account termination if you don't heed Cox warnings. However, Cox tells us that's a minuscule portion of their userbase they actually wind up booting from the network -- as in less than one-tenth of 1% of all Cox users.

Of course none of this is going to stop piracy. ISPs have been sending out warning letters since earlier this decade, and piracy exploded anyway. It still seems likely that regulators here in the States will follow their French and UK counterparts and embrace the "three strikes" or "graduated response" approach to combating piracy. But booting potential customers off of the Internet for watching pirated copies of The Golden Girls creates more problems than it solves.

Who pays? Who tracks terminated users across ISPs? Who creates an independent review system for the falsely accused? What happens if all P2P traffic is just encrypted? Meanwhile, it still wouldn't address the core issue here: that the entertainment industry needs to adapt and create simple, cheap and compelling alternatives to piracy.