
Judge sides with Rightscorp, says DMCA doesn’t protect Cox - pavornyoh
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/with-a-week-to-go-before-rightscorp-trial-cox-loses-key-dmca-motion/
======
transfire
Wouldn't enforcing such a ruling require Cox to monitor all traffic? It would
be like requiring the USPS to open all packages and read all letters.

~~~
victorNicollet
From what I gather, Rightscorp sent Cox a list of repeatedly infringing
customers (presumably as IP addresses and time of infringement) and requested
that those Cox customers be notified that they should pay $20 per song or face
lawsuits. Cox declined to notify the customers.

There is no monitoring involved here, nor any technical difficulty for that
matter : any ISP should know what customer owned which IP at a given point in
time, and have contact information on file for that customer.

The real question here is a legal one: is the list provided by Rightscorp
really "identifying repeat infringers" in the sense of the DMCA (in which
case, refusal to act would void the DMCA safe harbor for Cox)?

~~~
morsch

      any ISP should know what customer owned which IP at a given point in time
    

Should they? Because as far as I can tell, there is no legal requirement to
store this data in the US unless specifically compelled to do so by the
government.[0] Is there anything DMCA/safe harbor-related that goes beyond
these requirements?

The parameters for mandatory data retention -- if, what, for how long -- are
contested in the EU. ISPs should not store anything they aren't legally
required to store; and arguably they must not store this kind of data where it
is identifiable.

[0] [https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-
retention/us](https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-retention/us)

~~~
ensignavenger
I am in the process of starting a small, rural WISP, and I have absolutely no
plans to store this data. As you said, I plan to store as little as possible
about my customers.

~~~
celticninja
I think the smaller you are the less you need to store in terms of customer
data, this is certainly the case in the EU/UK. The aim being to ensure that
regulations are not too onerous on smaller organisations.

------
theklub
Anyone have a road map for starting a tiny ISP?

~~~
akama
One of the hardest problems with this would be getting connections to
customers. I wonder how effective wireless connections could be. I know of a
couple companies that do it for whole apartment buildings but I've never heard
of it for just one house.

~~~
ensignavenger
Wireless for houses is, especially in rural areas like where I live. I am in
the process of starting a WISP right now to serve my rural area.

The biggest challenge in any area is how crowded the spectrum is. Crowded
spectrum will ruin your available bandwidth.

------
spacemanmatt
Good on Cox for going to bat for its users.

