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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/25/the-six-strike-copyright-alert-system-is-now-in-place-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
Crazy that this is not getting much press. Thank god that my ISP is not on the list. Here they are:https://torrentfreak.com/isp-six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-120803/Today in the United States, the Copyright Alert System has reached the first mark of its “implementation phase.” Thus, after months of delay, the six strike system by which consumers will be directly contacted, dinged, and slowed for pirating and sharing copyrighted information is slowly coming online.
The Copyright Alert System (CAS) is known in most circles as ‘six strikes,’ a reference to its main deterent method: escalating response to activities that violate copyright.
In short, here’s how it will work: content folks – think movie studios, labels and the like – will “join public peer-2-peer (P2P) networks” to see if their content is up for grabs, according to the Center For Copyright Information. Given that it will be – nearly everything is – the content denizens will ping ISPs about the issue, and the ISP will then reach out to the offending subscriber.
In the words of the Center, “ubscribers are responsible for making sure their Internet account is not used for copyright infringement.” Thus, if your Internet connection is used by your sister’s husband’s dog to download Kanye when you are on vacation and they are house sitting, too bad. It’s still on you.
In a practical sense, we have reached a new age of copyright infrgement and enforcement. This is now, for real:
Over the course of the next several days our participating ISPs will begin rolling out the system. Practically speaking, this means our content partners will begin sending notices of alleged P2P copyright infringement to ISPs, and the ISPs will begin forwarding those notices in the form of Copyright Alerts to consumers.
Six Degress of Pain
Naturally, the amount of pain that can be brought to bear through the six strikes system will determine how much you have to fear if you are a fan of pirating your content. If you are a subscriber, as WebProNews notes, of ”AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner [or]Verizon,” this is worth listening to.
The warnings are tiered into three categories: education, acknowledgement, and mitigation.
In the educational phase, users will be informed that they have been busted. This will be something of a shock, I would think. It’s no lawsuit but to be told that you have been caught pirating someone else’s content won’t be a welcome note. The infringing party will be given links and information on how to snag their content legally in the future. If this will drive iTunes sales or Spotify downloads remains to be seen.
The second level of warning, the acknowledgement phase, will force users to complete an action, watch a video, or something else to get past the system. The goal here, it appears, is to disrupt the user in a small way to make an impact.
Finally, the last phase, for strikes five and six, appears to differ by ISP, but via The Verge, here is what Verizon customers will be served with:
Fifth and Sixth Alerts:
Redirect your browser to a special web page where you will be given several options.
You can:
Agree to an immediate temporary (2 or 3 day) reduction in the speed of your Internet access service to 256kbps (a little faster than typical dial-up speed);
Agree to the same temporary (2 or 3 day) speed reduction but delay it for a period of 14 days;or
Ask for a review of the validity of your alerts by the American Arbitration Association. There is a $35 review fee (that you will get back if you win). For subscribers who meet certain need-based eligibility criteria. the review fee will be waived by the AAA.
Key: Your ISP will not be able to cut off your Internet connection as part of the CAS. So, the worst you can be is marked as a serial offender and slowed down.
So What?
What matters here is that the CAS is a system that is hard to bemoan overmuch: it doesn’t cut off your Internet connection, is slow to slow you, and doesn’t share your personal information from your ISP to the copyright holder in normal operation. It is far more intrusive than what was in place before.
Naturally, the CAS won’t deter those most determined to get around it. You can VPN, private share, or simply switch to streaming services that serve illicit content instead of downloading files directly, as ComputerWorld notes.
Still, most folks don’t know about that sort of thing. Instead, they will be about their merry way when the warnings start to pile up. This will put immense pressure on them, especially once the later tiers of warnings appear. Many will, I suspect, switch to the proffered free offerings.
And in the age of Spotify, Pandora, Netflix, and Amazon Instant Video, the reasons to pirate are on the decline. Certainly, there are endless asinine content restrictions online, as television studios and channels are slow to embrace the Internet as little more than a step-child delivery system, but change has been afoot for long enough now that the reasons to pirate are diminished.
The CAS exists now. It’s a new era.
While we’ve written a fair number of articles on the topic, many people assume that all ISPs are part of the agreement. However, this is certainly not the case. In fact, only five Internet providers have agreed to send out warnings to their customers.
In alphabetical order these are AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.
In total the ISPs above cover roughly 75% of all U.S. broadband internet customers. This is significant, but it nonetheless begs the question – why are the rest of the providers not involved?
Quite a few prominent names are not listed. Centurylink, Charter and Cox all have millions of subscribers, but are not taking part in the “six strikes” scheme. Not to forget the 100+ smaller providers across the United States who are also missing in action.
TorrentFreak contacted several of the larger Internet providers above to find out why, but they were reluctant to comment on their motivations. A Cox spokesperson was most vocal and said that they “have decided not to participate for internal reasons.”
Luckily Dane Jasper, CEO of the much smaller Sonic.net, was willing to comment on the efforts to make ISPs responsible for online piracy. He told TorrentFreak that ISPs are not setup to police the Internet and that the entertainment industries should look for a solution closer to home.
“ISPs provide an essential utility: connection. We are not equipped to police the actions of individuals,” Jasper says.
“I think history has shown that you cannot solve piracy by force, but that industries need to adapt around it with business models that allow consumers to access the content they want easily and at a not-unreasonable cost.”
However, the above is not the reason why Sonic.net isn’t taking part in the “six strikes” scheme. As it turns out, the RIAA and MPAA never bothered to ask Sonic and many other smaller Internet providers to join in.
“It isn’t because we refused, but because we were not asked. I know at least 100 small to medium ISPs through my trade association memberships, and have heard of no independent ISPs being approached at all,” Jasper says.
It’s not clear why they were left out, but it’s likely that it would have been too much trouble to reach consensus with so many parties involved.
When it comes to finding a solution to online piracy Sonic.net’s CEO is clear. The entertainment industries should ensure their legal offering is superior in terms of convenience and availability compared to that offered by pirates.
Jasper believes that taking away people’s incentive to pirate is key, and he mentions Pandora and Spotify as good examples of services that are able to deflate piracy.
“The point is that the music business has had to evolve to survive, moving away from albums and record stores to more innovative methods of distribution that consumers have responded to rather than turning to piracy out of an unwillingness to participate in the old model,” he says.
“I suspect that Apple TV, Roku and Netflix have similar beneficial effects on video, but a lack of uniform availability plus rather high prices and restrictive viewing terms hold back this solution,” Jasper concludes.
The MPAA and RIAA would not directly disagree that innovation is an important factor to curb piracy. But nonetheless, they hope that warning emails will also help. That people can bypass the scheme by using a VPN, cyberlockers, or even switching ISPs doesn’t change a thing.
At this point it is still unknown when the first warning letters will be sent. It is expected that the first ISPs will start later this year, and each will roll out their participation at their own pace.
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I see no problem with this legislation. Piracy is theft.
In the past year or two I think enough legal alternatives have emerged that are starting to make it kind of pointless. That's the way piracy will end, not by force.
They are just going to track whatever is currently popular.
