

Time Warner Cable tries to put brakes on massive piracy case - mkelly
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/time-warner-cable-tries-to-put-brakes-on-massive-piracy-case.ars

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btilly
I really hope they succeed. But I question why it costs an average of $45 to
figure out what subscriber a given IP address was assigned to at a given time.
In principle that is a question whose answer should be automatable. And once
automated, it should cost much, much less than that.

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henrikschroder
I assume it's a bullshit number conjured up from nowhere, whose purpose is to
show that each lookup actually costs time and money and resources, and if you
multiply the number of requested lookups by this number, you get a really
large number, that it is then unreasonable that Comcast should pay.

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harry
In a similar vein, outside organizations can poll our University with what's
called an "Open Records Request." (Kansas Open Records Act -
<http://www.dol.ks.gov/es/html/kora_drh.html>) Any data that's not protected
under some law (HIPAA, FERPA) or record policy can be released.

We receive many requests for data with only one full time staff in the
position to provide the information. To mitigate such requests coming in we
have a similar paywall to TWCs - 50$/hr involved. We also require that the
request be submitted in writing. Typically there's a handful of hoops to jump
through with one of the university's general council, signing various forms
and getting information to the right people. The paywall combined with the
have-to-talk-to-a-lawyer before any requests are resolved dropped the number
from a few dozen to one or two a month.

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chaosmachine
_"TWC has a six-month retention period for its IP lookup logs, and by the time
TWC could turn to law enforcement requests, many of these requests could not
be answered."_

That's an interesting piece of information. If TW can delay things long
enough, all the evidence will be gone.

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pierrefar
I'd worry about this tactic for more serious enforcement issues.

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wmf
I think more serious crimes go to the head of the queue; that's precisely why
TWC doesn't have time to investigate pirates.

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pierrefar
The closing commentary is the key: it's not like TWC cares about subscribers,
but it wants to protect itself from being arbitrarily overworked for no
obvious reasons.

This should be a fun case to watch.

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boredguy8
Is there a good way to track a story like this, given the lack of broad appeal
and sporadic updates?

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rms
A Google alert? Try "Time Warner" "Uwe Boll"

~~~
pierrefar
Yep that's the easiest. Other options:

1\. Do a Google blog search and subscribe to the RSS feed.

2\. Twitter search and subscribe to feed.

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pook
I think spam is the appropriate metaphor for modern legalistic bullying. It's
obvious that the cost of initiating a legal battle is rather small, vastly
disproportional to the cost of defending oneself against the hostilities. The
asymmetry practically encourages such absurdities as seen here. And, it
produces the same broadcast vs. conversation pattern.

The problem is that finding a way to increase the cost of initiating legal
kungfu would be from the start itself subject to a crippling ambush.

I don't think bartl's suggestion would quite work, precisely because the ROI
is so heavily tilted: lawyers will simply find some way of mitigating it.

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bartl
>Each lookup costs TWC $45.

Then they should be allowed to charge that amount (or, say, rounded to $50 per
case) to the people who request it, no matter who it is. If it's the Justice
Department, then it should come from _their_ budget, law enforcement is not
the responsibility of individual companies, unless it's _them_ that are being
accused.

~~~
wendroid
It costs us $500 per IP, thank you.

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joubert
I was surprised to read in the story they get ip requests from law enforcement
for suicide threats.

