
Canada Prohibits Piracy Settlement Demands in ISP Copyright Notices - walterbell
https://torrentfreak.com/canada-prohibits-piracy-settlement-demands-in-isp-copyright-notices-181218/
======
grawprog
I started getting those emails just after the law changed a few years ago.
Multiple emails per day. My ISP was forwarding them from some lawyer in
California. I couldn't block them because they were coming from the same email
that sends my bill. They were for things i'd never downloaded or even watched.
A whole bunch of 8GB files of movies i'd never even heard of.

I called my ISP they said they were forced to send them to me and recommended
I stopped downloading things....

First of all there's no way in hell i'm gonna download an 8GB
video...period...second...i'd never even heard of those movies...so fuck
that...

I looked up the lawyer that the letters were coming from, found out he was
some random copyright troll and had been harassing people in canada all over
the place pretty much the day after the laws changed. So I found a fax number
for their office and with a handy little script...I showed them what it was
like to be flooded by bullshit.

The letters stopped within a day and I haven't gotten one since.

~~~
kuhhk
> So I found a fax number for their office and with a handy little script...I
> showed them what it was like to be flooded

That is fantastic. What did the script do? Did you roll your own fax software,
or use some third-party/open source binary? I'm curious because every 2-3
years I'm required to send some stupid fax, and I never really found a good
(free) way to do it.

~~~
grawprog
I found something that let me send an image as a fax. It was a while ago. I
really searched for this. I don't think I still have it. I only ever used it
for that and that was on an older computer. The script just used a binary to
send an image I had prepared with some text asking them to kindly stop
emailing me...well...maybe not so kindly and it sent the image as fast as a
fax machine would allow. I imagine they ran out of paper fairly quick...or the
machine locked up...but it seemed to work.

It was some small project I found on github or something. I had to compile it.
Sorry I can't be more helpful. I think I searched for send fax from linux and
variatins of that.

~~~
walrus01
The _vast_ majority of incoming fax numbers now don't physically print a fax,
they just turn into PDF files, so unless you've visited their office in person
and confirmed the presence of a physical fax machine, it may be a futile
effort.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_fax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_fax)

~~~
kevindong
You can still fill up their inbox and greatly inconvenience them.

~~~
DoreenMichele
It's probably this. When I worked in insurance, as things got backed up,
people would begin refaxing the same claim because they didn't have their
check yet. So we ended up with multiple copies of many claims in our
electronic queue system.

It was about that point where the company would start asking people to work
overtime to try to get the backlog under control. People would fax and refax,
then call and we would get an internal message from the call center asking us
to prioritize this claim, etc. The behinder we got, the behinder we got
because now we were having to look through multiple copies of the same file
only to determine they were all duplicates and so forth.

Even without paper copies of faxes, faxing someone a ton of stuff over and
over creates problems on the receiving end.

~~~
Alan_Dillman
>now we were having to look through multiple copies of the same file only to
determine they were all duplicates and so forth.

That sounds like a old fashioned ways in front of a problem, and in front of a
solution.

There are multiple automated(or even just "hand" sorting) solutions that could
chew through the duplicates.

~~~
DoreenMichele
It's been a few years since I had that job. I don't doubt things have changed
in that time.

------
walrus01
Now if we could just stop copyright third party enforcement companies from
sending DMCA notices and automated threats to Canadian ISPs with ARIN IP
space, where the dmca does not apply. Pretty much all go to /dev/null.

It's amusing how fully automated American legal threats make the default
assumption that everywhere on the internet is subject to American federal
laws.

The traditional email inbox abuse@ispname.com is supposed to be used for
actual network operational issues which impact the health of a network (ddos,
IP space hijacks, SMTP blacklists, abusive colo and dedicated server
customers, etc).

------
gruez
seems to be a blogspam of [https://torrentfreak.com/canada-prohibits-piracy-
settlement-...](https://torrentfreak.com/canada-prohibits-piracy-settlement-
demands-in-isp-copyright-notices-181218/)

~~~
walrus01
Techdirt is not blogspam, it's a 12+ year old and generally well respected
site that covers issues of interest to those who support the EFF, and similar.

~~~
freehunter
Blogspam is a blog taking content from the original source and reprinting it
without any substantial improvement over the original source. It has nothing
to do with the reputation or reliability of the blog, just the content.

------
paul7986
I guess ppl in the US still download content?

There are so many paid and non-paid streaming options to choose from it makes
me wonder why download content?

~~~
fpgaminer
Modern streaming have changed the pirating landscape, no doubt. This is
especially true of music, where there is a plethora of good selection.

However this isn't as much the case with movies/TV. Streaming in that realm is
fractured, expensive, and most of the offerings are poor. With music you
subscribe to service X and get access to 90% or more of what you'd want. With
movies or TV, you have to subscribe to a handful of services all at once just
to get access to maybe half of the content you'd want to watch. $10/mo for
music, okay. Netflix+Hulu+HBO+Amazon+etc; adds up fast.

Outside of Netflix, every other provider has some combination of terrible
app/UI, streaming problems, or ads.

Even if you look past all that, how do you play all these subscriptions? The
device landscape fragments everything further. And god help you if you want
global search on all your subscriptions, or want access to an Apple library.

Contrasted with pirating + Plex? Yeah...

And the problem is only getting worse as all the big players in market
continue to wage war. See, for example, Disney pulling out and forming their
own subscription.

Don't get me wrong. I think the world is better today than it was when all we
had was cable. All of these content companies getting direct access to
subscription money is incentivizing productions that could never have existed
under the older ad-driven models. But in terms of overcoming piracy? They are
leagues away.

~~~
felipelemos
And in the end the lesson is:

People are lazy. They will use the easiest process, even if they have to pay
it.

~~~
mirimir
Maybe so.

For me, the criterion is whether I can download it, without any DRM. So I can
access whenever I like. Without fear of inactivation. And without having usage
tracked.

~~~
felipelemos
Here at HN you are probably not alone, but for the majority of the users, they
don't even know what DRM is.

~~~
jjeaff
They may not, but most are aware, and annoyed, when they can't play their
iTunes music on a different device or when things they bought go away when
that streaming service changes things

------
miguelrochefort
Now that rightsholders aren't allowed to settle a deal through ISPs, maybe
they will go to court and ask copyright infringers to pay the full penalty.

This could actually be worse for copyright infringers...

~~~
ustolemyname
Maximum non-commercial penalty for copyright infringement in Canada is $5000
(about $3700 USD today).

I don't think taking people to court has a great cost-benefit ratio.

~~~
leereeves
Is that per infraction?

If you're using BitTorrent with multiple people downloading from you, that
could turn into serious money quickly.

~~~
ylbss
Total.

