
Internet providers to begin warning customers who pirate content - pwg
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/18/tech/web/copyright-alert-system/index.html
======
aaronbrethorst
I appreciate that this will give copyright infringers the ability to know
whether their attempts at masking their identities are proving sufficient
without a lot of risk to them.

~~~
tux1968
This is aimed at your typical bittorrent user not elite super pirates.

~~~
IsTom
It will rise awareness among "typical bittorrent users" how to avoid being
detected.

~~~
tux1968
How many of those people do you think are going to pay for VPN/seedbox access?
At the very least it makes pirating cost more and legal options more
attractive.

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beloch
There are several conflicts of interest here.

Companies that both search for copyright violators and provide internet
service (e.g. Time Warner) will be strongly motivated to send out massive
amounts of spurious warnings to their own users. By doing so, they can
effectively throttle anyone using large amounts of bandwidth even if it isn't
for illegal file sharing. The review fees will also allow providers to "tax"
high-bandwidth users unwilling to be throttled. i.e. If a user requests a
review their ISP can pocket the fee and simply throw out the warning without
wasting any resources actually reviewing it, only to send another warning the
following month.

The truly diabolical aspect of this policy is that the copyright owners do the
"monitoring". While using spurious warnings to cut bandwidth costs and squeeze
more fees out of their own users, they can also issue just as many warnings
against users of other ISP's to ensure that there is no benefit to switching
providers. It is even possible that some companies may actually send out
massive amounts of spurious warnings to users of competing ISP's as a way of
pressuring them to switch ISP's.

Solutions? There needs to be a sufficiently strong penalty for issuing
warnings that aren't valid.

~~~
belorn
It's worse, you forgot to add that media companies also get free (and to some
degree directed) advertising for each notice. ISP and media company both
profit for sending en-mass those notices, and the party who has to bear the
costs is the customer.

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fijal
For one, I would welcome such service in South Africa and pretty much
everywhere else outside the US. From the article:

"The note will include information to steer them away from their life of
crime, including tips on how they can download content legally."

This is awesome news. I would love to be able to download content legally. So
far my experience is "fuck you, you're to small for us to care".

EDIT: Also: "by the way, this show can be bought for $2 here and there" will
be both awesome advertisement and might really work. I somehow doubt this is
the goal though

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soldermont001
I don't pirate, but I still don't like the idea of the content of my traffic
being constantly analyzed, getting harassed with false positive notices due to
software bugs, or due to legitimate sites accidentally having copy written
material, or not honoring fair use correctly, or legitimate downloading of a
game from a small studio with little bandwidth using BitTorrent, paying $35
review fees and talking to Comcast customer service any more than I absolutely
have to.

Somehow this reminds me of getting carded at a CVS store when buying an
extended BIC lighter for lighting BBQs. When I expressed surprise, I was told
it's because I could use it to light a cigarette.

I feel like I'm living in the movie Idiocracy...
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/idiocracy/trailers/>

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Joakal
One person compiled a list of resources in response:
[https://pay.reddit.com/r/evolutionReddit/comments/11sr28/er_...](https://pay.reddit.com/r/evolutionReddit/comments/11sr28/er_guide_to_fighting_the_mafiaa_six_strikes/)

------
citricsquid
The only part of this I think is _bad_ is this:

> If a customer feels they are being wrongly accused, they can ask for a
> review, which will cost them $35 according to the Verge.

I can't find any real information on this, but do the fees get refunded if it
turns out you are not guilty of the download? If that's the case then I see no
problem with any of this and I'm happy it's being done.

~~~
icebraining
So the incentive to tell you that you're guilty anyway is pocketing $35.

The incentive for telling you that you're innocent is...?

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong.

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jtokoph
Can someone explain why they don't want to let me pay $2-3 to download a
commercial free episode of a show the day it airs on television?

Isn't that way more money than they would make if I watched it via live
broadcast?

~~~
nuttendorfer
I think advertisers might not like this and pay less?

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acabal
I find this quite scary. As with all things like this it starts in degrees.
Today it's an annoying warning and "educational materials". A few years from
now, when warning aren't enough and people are used to them, it'll be
disconnection, back to ham-fisted legal blackmail, or even more creative and
ridiculous punishments for pushing electrons.

The worst part is that the ISPs are also in many cases the content creators
too. Therefore they have a financial incentive to snoop on their networks,
invade people's privacy, and basically be a privatized big brother. Better not
write an email about downloading files, because your ISP might read it and
disconnect you!

I don't know if having the ISPs in the same bed as content creators is a
monopoly or not, but it's certainly not in the public's best interest. Every
day where I read an increasingly outrageous story about ISP/government
internet snooping and control makes me want to switch gears and dedicate my
work to internet privacy and distributedness.

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ghshephard
I've always been curious - has anyone ever been prosecuted for downloading
content? My understanding is that it's the unauthorized publishing (for
example, providing a bit torrent seed) that is illegal.

For example - were any users ever pursued for purchasing discount (and, I'm
guessing, not 100% legal) tracks off of mp3.com?

~~~
DanBC
As I understand it both are illegal.

If Bob downloads a bunch of tracks the company can sue for the cost of each
track - $0.79 per track, plus costs.

If Bob then uploads a bunch of tracks the company can sue for the cost of each
track, multiplied by the number of people in each swarm, plus costs. This
gives the ridiculous many-thousand dollar sums.

Both are illegal.

If Bob burns the content to CD and takes a bunch of them to a car-boot sale it
becomes a criminal offence.

(I'm in the UK and legal terminology is a bit confusing when it crosses from
the US.)

~~~
icebraining
_If Bob then uploads a bunch of tracks the company can sue for the cost of
each track, multiplied by the number of people in each swarm, plus costs. This
gives the ridiculous many-thousand dollar sums._

That's actual damages, and in practice labels find those too small, so they go
after statutory damages instead, which is why the different appeals in the
Capitol v. Thomas case have awarded them completely disparate amounts, from
$54,000 to $1,920,000, for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa.

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Peaker
The notion that all private communication between peers is monitored for
copyright infringement means that we've reached the police state stage of
enforcing copyrights.

I guess everyone encrypting all of their communication is the next inevitable
step due to government's involvement in our private dealings.

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beedogs
I'll start taking copyright seriously when it's no longer a joke. Right now,
the terms are effectively infinite.

Scale it back to 14 years and maybe I'll consider respecting it.

(Luckily, I don't have to put up with this shit in Australia just yet. Another
year or so, and I'm sure it'll be here, too.)

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macchina
At least they are trying to create some sort of process instead of just
running people into court. But I have a feeling innocent users of bittorrent
will receive notices. It's not even clear whether they indicate the name of
work infringed when sending notices.

<http://www.copyrightinformation.org/alerts>

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taybenlor
I live in Australia and AFAIK this has been common practice for at least the
last 5 years. I know people who have received these notices in the mail.
Though with recent precedent set in iiNet vs MPAA I can't imagine anything
like this being a problem.

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sasoon
This is just silly. Internet is for data transport. Imagine if cities are
responsible that someone is transporting stolen goods on their roads, or Ford
has to keep track of what their car owners transport in the car...

~~~
sbarre
The only reasons those things don't happen is that they're not economically or
practically feasible.

If they were, you can bet they would be trying to do it.

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belorn
Get a VPN. ISP's have not been neutral third-party for a long time, and
monitoring has become a revenue source. While political pressure can in the
long run fix the problem, vpn's are one of the few options left.

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xentronium
I don't understand how they are going to find out who is downloading content
illegally. Honeypot seeders?

~~~
tux1968
They have clients connected to torrents harvesting IP addresses of everyone in
the swarm. They request a few blocks of upload from each peer as evidence that
it is sharing copyright content.

This is already routine, what is changing is that they now have a better way
to use this information instead of filing legal threats and lawsuits.

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monsterix
'Pirate content' is such an oxymoron. First you created a network with our
support so that you can distribute content to us. Then you used that clout to
force artists to fall on their knees, 'help' them get their content out.

Now you have a license for such content. So you're forcing us to behave to
your definition of 'proper'. Started teaching people some manners, now? The
very same people who make you whatever you're.

That's not going to work sir, I am afraid.

You don't own the network of us. You can't make it behave according to your
whims and fancies. The artists can connect with us directly. They love to.
Stop bothering us.

~~~
citricsquid
> The artists can connect with us directly. They love to. Stop bothering us.

So why don't they?

<http://bandcamp.com> <http://soundcloud.com> <http://myspace.com>
<http://cdbaby.com>

All services that an artist can use to distribute music yet musicians still
choose to sign with labels to this day. Maybe, _just maybe_ labels provide
value to artists beyond what you can comprehend?

Would Justin Bieber be worth over $100,000,000 if he had released his music on
Bandcamp? Would Lady Gaga be worth $150,000,000 if she had released her music
on Myspace? Do you think Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber want people to pirate
their music and care only about people hearing their music? If that was the
case why don't they release it for free?

Radiohead released an album independently in... 2005? That was a success, if
artists only cared about making music and didn't care about making money why
hasn't every artist since released independently?

Why can't people that create content be a business? Surely that is the
entrepreneurial spirit everyone here is supposed to have... and if so, why
can't they be against people that engage in media piracy?

~~~
antihero
TBH if artists care about money over music, I'm less likely to like their
stuff anyway. There isn't a huge amount of music that costs silly money to
produce nowadays, is there?

Though there are exceptions - bands like Muse, that need lots of up-front
investment to create a huuge amazing stadium show (the costs will probably be
recouped from tickets, though).

~~~
jopt
> less likely to like their stuff

Quantified this? Or is this something you hope is the case, without really
knowing?

~~~
antihero
I base it on the fact that I genuinely like bands as they are small, and then
as they make their stuff more "accessible" after signing a big deal, in order
to expand their user base, it loses a lot of appeal for me. I prefer music to
be pure and not be changed in order to cater for people who aren't prepared to
spend time enjoying it. Each to their own, and if you like mass-appeal stuff,
but that's not for me. Similarly, TV shows. Stuff like The Wire, which doesn't
patronise the viewer and expects you to pay enough attention to draw your own
conclusions, I find much more satisfying than stuff that hands things to you
on a plate.

~~~
jopt
Okay, so how much less likely?

I enjoy narrow genres myself, but I haven't actually done the math to see how
this would affect artists etc. Have you?

