
The Copyright Alert System: Moving to Implementation - kghose
http://www.copyrightinformation.org/node/709
======
mistercow
I can't help but notice that I am confused[1] by this six strikes deal. So
they're going to invest millions of dollars in a system to monitor and notify
ISPs for the purpose of... educating people about copyright? With no
significant repercussions? And you can avoid those education steps by just not
being with one of the top 6 ISPs? Doesn't add up.

But if you read these articles, you'll notice that they sort of gloss over the
fact that this appears to be a system for getting IP addresses of infringers
_to the copyright holders_. Once they have that, we already know what they can
do with it. The boilerplate suits stopped because they weren't economical, but
who's to say that the big content owners haven't found a way to change that
equation. MarkMonitor itself could even be that extra term.

I think the six strikes education system is a smokescreen. We're being
misdirected from a pretty scary fact: the MPAA, RIAA and major ISPs have
apparently pooled their resources to create a monolithic peer-to-peer
monitoring system. Then they've sent everyone who should be freaking out about
that on a wild goose chase of speculating about how the "six strikes" are
going to evolve into full-on censorship. But that's not where we need to be
focusing our attention. We need to ask _what else_ they can do with the data
they collect from MarkMonitor.

[1] <http://lesswrong.com/lw/if/your_strength_as_a_rationalist/>

~~~
otakucode
I would not be too surprised if action were taken to create a new law which
makes it illegal for content creators to sell content directly to consumers.
Such laws already exist that prevent car manufacturers from selling directly
to the public, and they exist for no reason other than to create an artificial
market in which car dealerships can pretend to offer a valuable service.
Content distributors are now in the same position. They need to have an
artificial market constructed to make it look like they are doing something of
value.

Consider the viewpoint of a typical person in power today. They see these
gigantic social institutions that provide a measurable portion of the nations
GDP which might soon be torn apart and replaced by a decentralized,
unorganized system with unknown economic value. Much of the history that they
believe is worth knowing consists of the creation of massive centralized
systems to aggregate supply and demand to solve the problem of distribution
(both physical distribution of product and logistical distribution of work).
To them, a move to a system where content creators distribute and sell
directly to consumers is, at best, a horrifying step backwards.

The first step to making sure content creators can't sell directly to
consumers, of course, is to insert themselves in the new means of distribution
in order to wedge the old distributors into some new place created for them.

~~~
tptacek
Exactly how do you propose that any statute could be devised to forbid the
sale of "content" to consumers? If you can do that, you can just as easily
forbid the sale of anything colored blue, or of books containing the word
"prickleberry". The Constitution has something to say about that.

If you're going to argue that the content industry --- which is significantly
smaller than the Internet industry, by the way --- is so powerful that it can
simply disregard the Constitution, what's left to argue about? Here, allow me
to win the resulting debate: "the content industry is going to get a law
passed that will establish the death penalty for piracy". Oh no!

~~~
chaostheory
> The Constitution has something to say about that.

It has some say, but lately it's been repeatedly ignored.

> which is significantly smaller than the Internet industry, by the way

Unfortunately, I feel that the content industry lobbies way more than the
Internet industry as a whole. This is slowly changing, but we still give far
less political contributions than they do.

~~~
tptacek
If you're going to say the content industry can ignore the Constitution, then
what's to argue with? If they can do that, they can do anything. Disney can
charge you not only for copying Mickey Mouse, but for also for simply _having
mice in your house_.

~~~
chaostheory
> If you're going to say the content industry can ignore the Constitution,

I didn't say that. I was implying that the gov can, and it has been. Guess who
lobbies the gov with more money?

~~~
tptacek
Nobody is going to pass a law outlawing the direct sale of "content" to
consumers. That was an extremely silly argument.

~~~
chaostheory
You never know. With the current trend being the sale of licenses and not the
actual content, maybe one day in the future people can only sell licenses
through approved license sellers. If you think that's ridiculous, what do you
think people 50 years ago would think of what's happened to our airports? It's
not that far fetched unless one thing changes: techies as a whole start
lobbying harder and with more money.

~~~
tptacek
The example of airport regulation does not make the idea of content sale
regulations less ridiculous.

------
spindritf
Also discussed here <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4679150>

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SoftwareMaven
This really makes me want to upload all my (legally obtained) files to EC2
then download them. How could they ever tell whether the bits are licensed or
not?

~~~
jiggy2011
_"Over the course of the next two months, each participating ISP expects to
begin rolling out its version of the CAS – a system through which ISPs will
pass on to their subscribers notices sent by content owners alleging copyright
infringement over peer-to-peer networks."_

They aren't looking at your traffic, they are waiting for complaints from
third parties.

Third parties do this by connecting to P2P networks themselves and watching
the traffic of certain files.

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javajosh
Actually, they need a law that requires immutable MAC addresses, routers that
expose their NAT tables and MAC tables to "trusted third parties", and ISPs to
expose their physical-address-to-IP tables. Altering a MAC address, possessing
contraband "open" hardware, would be a criminal offense. Like a car at the
DMV, computers would need to be registered and private party transfers would
have to be registered. Possession of a device with either an unregistered MAC
address or an address associated with someone else would be a serious crime.

Let us hope that one day we get this, so that the MPAA and RIAA can be
empowered to do the right thing and protect their copyright holders' rights.

~~~
jiggy2011
Can you elaborate? I'm not sure what the point of such a law would be.

~~~
pmorici
The point would be so you could identify an individual computer and upon
investigation tie it definitively to an owner. As it stands you can easily
change a MAC address and the translation of private -> public IP address done
by a NAT capable network device combines the traffic of multiple computers to
look like it is a single one. This means you can only attribute file sharing
activity to a public ip which in practice might have numerous clients behind
it.

Hence if there were a law like that and everyone obeyed it then you could
generally identify the exact machine that did the file sharing.

~~~
jiggy2011
You will only usually only know the MAC address of the last hop since a new
layer 2 frame is generated every time a packet hits a switch or router.

For example if I watch the source MAC address of incoming HTTP requests to my
server it always reports the MAC address as being the one for the
router/firewall in front of the server even though the source IP addresses
will vary.

The only way I can think this would be possible to achieve would be to require
a signed certificate and HMAC (message authentication code) from the the
originating client to be sent with every IP packet and make sharing private
keys a serious criminal offence. Even then it would probably be basically
unenforceable on any kind of scale.

------
benologist
Didn't we just have this discussion?

Edit: apparently not, hours ago we discussed "Internet providers to begin
warning customers who pirate content" which is of course, different.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4679150>

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hnolable
[http://lifehacker.com/5940565/why-you-should-start-using-
a-v...](http://lifehacker.com/5940565/why-you-should-start-using-a-vpn-and-
how-to-choose-the-best-one-for-your-needs) (why you should start using a vpn)

~~~
vegardx
A VPN is not a solution, it bypasses the problem temporarily. A VPN provider
is no different than any other ISP, they are subject to the same laws and
regulations. And you really don't want to be surfing the web with an added
50-100ms latency just so you can pirate.

~~~
Quarrelsome
> they are subject to the same laws and regulations

True, but the VPN provider doesn't need to be in a country that follows these
laws. Russia and China spring to mind as long term solutions.

~~~
camus
Are you ready to give your credit card number to a service run by chinese or
russians ? rememeber they dont follow US laws , wait til they screw you ...

~~~
gergles
Who cares? Your credit card company is American and as such you have all the
American consumer protections on credit card purchases (which are actually
very good.)

If I gave my credit card number to someone and they decided to sell it for $20
to someone who runs up $10,000 worth of monkey porn on it, whatever, it's not
my money they're spending. I'd call Amex and have a credit the same day.

~~~
DanBC
Bit more scary if they use your details for images of child sexual abuse.

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ore>)

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bo1024
I still don't understand how this is legal. If you signed an agreement with
your ISP for a certain speed of internet for a certain length of time, why can
they just choose to violate the contract based on what some third party says?

And if they write anything about illegal copyright violations into the
contract, I would hope some people who use P2P legally would challenge that
(see if they get throttled, file a lawsuit).

~~~
benologist
ISPs have _always_ had explicit policies about not using their service or
facilities to break laws. Your agreement to pay $xx/month for some number of
megabits does not and can not and has never superseded the law.

... (d) you (or a subaccount associated with your Member ID) engage in conduct
that is a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without
limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws); ...

[http://www.att.com/shop/internet/att-internet-terms-of-
servi...](http://www.att.com/shop/internet/att-internet-terms-of-service.html)

~~~
bo1024
Sure, but that doesn't (or shouldn't) mean that if I phone your ISP and tell
them you broke the law, they can assume that's true and take action against
you

~~~
benologist
1) bo1024 explicitly agrees neither he nor anybody else will use his internet
account for illegal activities

2) an ip address is seen uploading or maybe even downloading the latest Bieber
album

3) the ISP's logs show that ip address was assigned to bo1024's account

Pretty much the only thing that can go wrong is that the company complaining
does not have the authority to complain about that file and that's happened
with automated DMCA notifications because they use some sort of dumb keyword
monitors.

They don't need to automate choosing which torrents to spy on, a single person
lurking on TPB's top 100 movies and musics would cover the majority of people
by far.

Which route they go can make this all very accurate.

------
w1ntermute
If they really start doing this, it's time to rent a seedbox.

<https://www.feralhosting.com/pricing>

~~~
tux1968
Sure, but a slim fraction of people who currently download content with
bittorrent will resort to this. This will dramatically decrease the number of
seeders and thus reduce the effectiveness of torrents even for those willing
to pay for a seedbox. In any case, it will increase the cost of downloading
pirated content and make legal options more attractive.

Once the vast majority of casual piracy is curtailed, more more focused
enforcement against people on private trackers / seedbox providers etc can
begin.

Sure there will be loopholes and ways for determined pirates to slip through
the cracks, but the days where everyone and their brother can grab pirated
content without worry are numbered.

~~~
tomjen3
What legal options?

Actually watching things on a physical tv?

~~~
tux1968
Sure, or Hulu or whatever. Remember this enforcement isn't world-wide, it's
only in the USA for now.

Yeah, this enforcement will likely expand beyond the US as they are pressing
very hard in every trade negotiation. But legal options will expand over time
as well.

~~~
doesnt_know
It's only a matter of time until the US media organizations starts putting
political pressure on others to implement the same thing. The only difference
is we have no legal way at all to obtain the content.

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melvinng
educate or brainwash? I'm pretty sure the general public already knows about
it with SOPA and every ad before the start of the movie.

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jinx_xnij
Seedbox in Europe, rented through a company in Canada, SFTP to me = awesome

~~~
montecarl
Rsync would be better than SFTP, because you can start copying the file before
it is done. I have large files copied to my laptop from my seedbox almost as
soon as the download completes on the seedbox.

~~~
JonnieCache
How does that work with bittorrent's out of order downloading?

~~~
JeremyBanks
I haven't used a seedbox, but it seems like the best arrangement would be to
download the files from your seedbox using BitTorrent over a VPN. Your local
client would only accept local peers (which the seedbox would be, virtually),
so you aren't compromising your security, but you get your files almost as
fast as your seedbox.

I'm pretty sure clients can be configured to make this work, but I haven't
looked into the details.

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mgkimsal
Are they only looking at P2P traffic? Can we start torrenting on port 80?

