John Lister has reported that
“some of America's leading ISPs have reached an agreement with movie and music companies to punish customers who breach copyright laws. But while the sanctions are lighter than rights owners would like, the move could still spark a legal debate.The deal involves AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon, along with industry bodies for Hollywood studios, record labels and TV producers. It's being organized under the newly-formed Center for Copyright Information.” – infoPackets
This is an industry program and isn't governed by legal regulations, and arstechnica.com reported that White House officials were instrumental in pressuring the ISP’s to take this action.
So what are we talking about? Many ISPs already provide warnings to users if suspect behavior is detected, but the Copyright Alert System is intended to provide a standardized approach that all ISPs will use. In 2008 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) abandoned its practice of suing individuals for online piracy in favor of working with Internet service providers to track down offenders. Since then, ISPs have issued warnings on their own terms, but this agreement creates one system that major ISPs will follow.
“Under the new system, alleged offenders will get up to six warnings when they are suspected of downloading or sharing copyrighted material without permission. After that the ISP will take action, such as slowing access speeds or blocking Internet access until the customer contacts them to discuss the issue. It's being stressed that ISPs won't permanently disconnect customers as part of the scheme. Those behind the system argue that it will act as a warning mechanism to casual offenders, and that it will make parents aware when children are downloading illegally.” – ibid
The US plan appears loosely based on a system in France by which customers get two warnings and, after a third alleged offense, are disconnected. The RIAA and MPAA aren’t really pleased with the ISP’s solution, so there’ll probably be some pressure to “toughen” punishments. Also, it should be noted that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) already requires ISPs to have a termination policy in effect if they want to take advantage of the law's "safe harbor" clauses. That way, if a copyright holder sues you for illegal downloading, the ISP can say it took measures to stop the activity and cannot be held liable for your activity.
The system allows you to request an independent review before any of those mitigation measures are put into place, but it will cost you $35.
Should you win one of these challenges, you get your $35 back and the "alert" is taken off your account, though no other alerts are. Your next alert will therefore begin the "mitigation" process once more.
These alerts do eventually expire; any subscriber who makes it 12 months without receiving a notice has their slate wiped clean (arstechnica)
Appeal categories:
(i) Misidentification of Account - that the ISP account has been incorrectly identified as one through which acts of alleged copyright infringement have occurred. (ii) Unauthorized Use of Account - that the alleged activity was the result of the unauthorized use of the Subscriber’s account of which the Subscriber was unaware and that the Subscriber could not reasonably have prevented. (iii) Authorization - that the use of the work made by the Subscriber was authorized by its Copyright Owner. (iv) Fair Use - that the Subscriber’s reproducing the copyrighted work(s) and distributing it/them over a P2P network is defensible as a fair use. (vi) Misidentification of File - that the file in question does not consist primarily of the alleged copyrighted work at issue. (vii) Work Published Before 1923 - that the alleged copyrighted work was published prior to 1923.
(i) Misidentification of Account - that the ISP account has been incorrectly identified as one through which acts of alleged copyright infringement have occurred.
(ii) Unauthorized Use of Account - that the alleged activity was the result of the unauthorized use of the Subscriber’s account of which the Subscriber was unaware and that the Subscriber could not reasonably have prevented.
(iii) Authorization - that the use of the work made by the Subscriber was authorized by its Copyright Owner.
(iv) Fair Use - that the Subscriber’s reproducing the copyrighted work(s) and distributing it/them over a P2P network is defensible as a fair use.
(vi) Misidentification of File - that the file in question does not consist primarily of the alleged copyrighted work at issue.
(vii) Work Published Before 1923 - that the alleged copyrighted work was published prior to 1923.
There are rules for each category, they can be viewed here:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/the-six-ways-you-can-appeal-the-new-copyright-alerts.ars
Also, the ISP’s aren’t looking at what you download. Apparently, P2P transfers of large files or pirated files carry the senders “address”. The company whose film or music is notified and they send an email to the ISP and the ISP warns you. You are not identified by name. That probably could be subpoenaed and the ISP would have to give your name.
A more detailed list of companies companies and groups supporting this measure includes: Motion Picture Association of American and MPAA members like Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers Entertainment; Independent Film & Television Alliance; Recording Industry Association of America and RIAA members like Universal Music Group Recordings, Warner Music Group, Sony Music North America, and EMI Music North America; American Association of Independent Music; and the ISPs mentioned above (per PC Magazine).
Oh really? France instituted the 3 strike rule. Then you're disconnected from the net.
"Meanwhile, piracy persists. According to at least one study, by the University of Rennes, unauthorized sharing of content on the Internet has actually increased in France since the legislation was passed."http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/technology/internet/19iht-CACHE.html
France Suspends Internet Piracy Monitoring after Hack Leaks Private ISP Data
I don't know if you follow Techdirt. You really should. The man writes really, really well on legal tech issues, including this one (in fact, this is a huge conversation point for him).
True, I'm not talking about water, shelter, or medicine. But the bare minimum required to actually exist falls well short of what we consider to be minimum standard of living--the definition of which continues to change and expand, as exemplified in the growing trend towards guaranteed internet access. It's certainly not insane to imagine it might one day include such apparent trivialities as affordable entertainment.
As our world becomes increasingly digital, we're seeing the way we value digital media change. symptom of this is obviously piracy. And while piracy, no matter what the root cause, is illegal, it is also socially acceptable. A huge portion of society engages in the act, and even more are involved as third parties. We can see the... lack of social taboo most clearly in poorer communities, where the lack of realistic alternative makes piracy, rather than retail, the social norm. But that lack of taboo exists at everywhere and at every tax bracket. It's grandmothers, grandchildren, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. It's evident in every station, vocation, and nation. (A bit over the top, but still true--and damn it, I enjoyed it!)
It's clearly a law that a large and growing number of everyday people no longer subscribe to. That does indeed make them criminals, but it doesn't necessarily make them inherently wrong.
I'm going to backtrack a little and come at this from another angle, and, because I can't quite seem to type something that I'm happy with, I'm going to copy and paste something I wrote on these forums a year ago. It doesn't fit into this discussion perfectly, but it's close enough. Slightly edited.
[Laws are] drafted by people, individuals, each with their own ideals, passions, beliefs and faults. Individuals who are capable of making mistakes or even of willfully doing harm for their own gain. Of course, the democratic system used by our host countries does not place all that responsibility within the hands of individuals. But a sub-committee, or a committee, or even a house of legislature is still merely the sum of its parts, and if an individual can make a mistake, than it follows that a group of them can also make a mistake.
Erm... that above paragraph doesn't really please me, so let me put it more plainly: If people are not always perfect, it stands to reason that neither are laws.
Thus we're changing laws, reworking them, adding and subtracting from them over time until we have a set that works. And as time goes by we sometimes discover that a law that worked yesterday doesn't work today, and we either begin the process over again, or we scrap the law entirely. And sometimes a new facet of society creates the need for additional laws. We've been doing it for thousands of years, and, I pray, we will continue doing it. We must always question whether our laws are still relevant. If we blindly accept the laws as they exist, we impede legal progress. I think we owe it to ourselves and each other to do better than that.
[...] A rather substantial part of society engages in piracy. It is illegal, though it certainly doesn't seem to carry the same social stigma as, say, shoplifting, or vandalism, or even smoking pot, which is, for all intents and purposes, essentially decriminalized here. (Legally, it isn't, but largely it is politely ignored.) And if you look the headlines about legal action being taken against pirates you will see a bigger demographic than just "collage-aged young people." Pirates clearly come from all walks of life. This suggests to me that societal ethics may be shifting, or are about to. And as laws evolve to suit ethics, we may very well see the laws that surround this debate change. In fact, I'm certain they will.
[...]
If most people are opposed to the law as it stands, it wont be law very long. I realize that pirates don't form a majority, but they are not insignificant in number, and their ranks aren't exactly shrinking.
Tells me the criminals were feeling the pinch and decided to increase blackhat attacks - a form or blackmail (for the other ISP's): "To encourage the others".
As for the French Universities, it seems to have had the opposite effect here, possibly because the Universties are policing themselves. That goes back to the point of responsible conduct... if people can't behave, then they require supervision - as disgusting as that is.
Thanks for the tip, illmunkeys. I'll be glad to take a look.
I think that applying our standards to others and/or causing them to take ours is in violation of the Prime Directive. Humor aside, I think it's dreadful that they receive so little for hard work. It causes populations to defect, causes poor health and living conditions and misery. And our economy drives it. Sickens me, actually. But that's beside the point.
Whether they agree with the law or disagree, it is the law, and disrespecting it won't improve their conditions. "I'm poor, so I can do what I wish to live 'the good life'". is an argument which does not sway me, as it is illogical. Human, but illogical and irrational.
As for laws evolving and changing - that's a given. The definitions of theft still put electronic theft (and that's what it is) beyond the pale. That's as it should be.
No amount of argument will ever convince me that it's ok to take what belongs to someone else without paying for it to the owner (not the thief), and passing it on freely or charging for it.
Down deep, no matter how rationalized, theft is theft, and it hurts the victim and the thief as well as the economies involved. I suppose that makes me a fossil in many eyes. So be it.
If it were ok to steal things because "they cost too much" and we could never afford them, we'd all be stealing huge warehouses to keep all our stolen goodies in. Kind of makes me wonder how a person too poor to afford a song can afford the device to play it on, or maybe I've just answered my own question.
Of course, we do apply our expectations and standards everyday, if somewhat indirectly, in the form of advertising and just good old cultural imperialism. But yes, that's another debate entirely.
It's not really there to change your mind. I just wanted to look at another motivation behind piracy in addition to pure greed. Life's rarely so simple, and crime less so.
Technically, legally, it's not even theft Though I only bring that up for a laugh and nostalgia's sake.
I don't think you're a societal relic just yet, but I do think your beliefs are entering the minority. And, for the conviction to argue those beliefs, you're certainly rare enough. For most people, though, it's simply becoming "normal." To me, that suggests something will change, drastically, one way or the other. Ideally, copyright laws will see a comprehensive overhaul, as they aren't working as they should, and something will be done to "win the hearts and minds" of casual pirates.
Millions of people, in North America alone, are pirating casually. While I don't deny the fact that they are criminals for doing so, I will argue that it certainly points out that copyright laws aren't up to the task of protecting copyright holders under the system. They simple weren't conceived to deal with a digital world, and no amount of band-aid amendments and additions will fix that. I don't pretend to know how, exactly, they need to change, but I do see that they do. I think lawmakers and society as a whole need to look at the idea of copyright (especially digital copyright) from a completely different angle, and start fresh.
Changing the cultural attitude to resemble something more like yours is absolutely essential. But I'm not sure any attempts to influence public opinion will "take" unless we address some of the issues with a set of laws that are increasingly out of date.
Or, we could just do the draconian thing--keep propping up failing legislature with greater policing, tougher penalties, and questionable ISP policies--because that seems to go well in all those movies I download
------------
Man, there's just too much to say on this topic, but I need to cut myself off here so I can actually make something of my morning.
Well, as the law stands they are thieves. They will be caught... sooner or later. The penalties on the ISP level are far fron draconian... more like getting bitten by a 90 tear old who forgot his dentures.
Things might 'tighten up'. In any case, I still feel like taking something which is not mine (IP or Physical Property) is theft... and that is a crime. No movie is worth that.
In YOUR social circle perhaps?
Says a lot for your moral stance if your social circle considers it acceptable.
There are also 'social circles' where 9/11 is lauded as a great success.
Wow Jafo....
I have friends who pirate songs and movies, but they aren't bad people. I can't see them hijacking a plane and flying into a skyscraper......
I can almost always guarantee someone will fail to understand the meaning....either intentionally for the purpose of being argumentative or to demonstrate profound naivete.
To explain .... there are groups in ALL walks of life who believe what they do is acceptable TO THEM [and thus presume it is acceptable to all].
Does NOT make it right, or universally acceptable to/for others.
Whether it is due to pathetic upbringing [KKK followers]...indoctrination [Taliban] or social indifference [piracy] each is accepted within their own circle.... but not outside.
Please try not to be so obtuse ....it's actually NOT that abstruse.
You are though permitted to do the following under Australian law:1. Copy music off a CD as long as it's for personal use, you own the CD and you don't give the copy or the original to someone else.
am I missing something here?
myfist0....and your meaning is......?
...or are you just wanting to flame until you get burnt?
Neither did Madoff (fly a plane into a building). So why did we arrest him and send him to jail?
This is violate our constitution and our privacy! Im sorry this is just wrong.
How can you talk about the Constitution when we have a president that disregards it at every opportunity?
Yeah that is true...that is why I am so sad that this great nation is becoming such an shity nation just like the rest of the world. It make me MAD and sad at the same time...
hey... c'mon fellas. Topic's ISP's.
The Constitution has literally nothing to do with this, so let's leave that also.
Jafo: I read your following post, so I understand the point you're desperately trying to make.
But PLEASE (for your own good), never ever ever try comparing someone downloading a free movie to someone flying planes into national landmarks resulting in the immediate mass-murdering of thousands of human beings. To make such an incoherant, loaded statement removes a great amount of credibility from anything you say afterwards.
While this has been applied to criminal activity, it can also be applied to the greed of powerful companies and the filthy steenkin' rich. While they think it is acceptable to make something for a dollar and sell it for twenty to gouge every cent possible from the market, I and many others find that totally unacceptable. It may be their intellectual property, but when there is no decency in pricing [legalised theft] there will be some who fight fire with fire and take it indecently... er, steal it.
Again, it comes back to the society they [the upper echelon] created.... and the greater the gap between the haves and the have nots, the greater the propensity for [the lower end of] society to steal. There will always be somebody who covets another's property and therefore steals it, but a greater responsibility in pricing would see a significant reduction in petty theft. For example, it costs music companies nowhere near a dollar to produce a digital song for download, far from it, in fact, yet most sell a song for a dollar and upwards. Their actual costs nowhere near justify the price charged, and many people know and resent this, hence the inclination of some to download music [movies, games and software] 'illegally'.
For mine, ISP's should not be charged with the responsibility of policing the internet. No, it is the insatiable greed of corporations that needs to be addressed, and the best way to get them to look into responsible pricing is for consumers enmasse to speak against corporate greed by closing their wallets.
Unfortunately, that price will likely be too low for stockholders, etc. Also, we should be able to offer prices for food, etc. That's a sweet idea, but impossible to implement without commisars, and we all saw how that worked out... what will we have? Immense mechanisms to determine the price of everything by someone's opinion? We have that: The Marketplace.
What we need are observers who see when illegal steps/actions occur to prevent the market from acting freely - ie monopolies, price fixing, etc.
The effort to fix "affordable" prices has resulted in the hyperinflation of health care costs in the US. These efforts are called Medicare and Medicaid.
Please take a look at this article: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/understanding_the_cause_of_hea.html
The same thing would happen to food, clothing, etc. if their prices were 'fixed'. Government isn't the fix in this case.
Victor5 ....read #111...
AGAIN
It is neither incoherent, loaded, NOR desperate, however the inability of SOME to comprehend may just make it all moot.
If you cannot understand its relevance then you, too are being deliberately obtuse for the sake of point-scoring.
The reality is STILL that there are people who 'like' doing things that are either abhorrent to others or are ILLEGAL...or both.
What makes ANY ACTION universally acceptable is exactly that....'universal acceptance'. A small, specific group 'liking' a course of action, WHATEVER IT MAY BE does NOT define universal social acceptance.
The marketplace would be all well and good as a self-regulator if it were a fair and level playing field to begin with. Sadly, the majority of corporations seek to extract the maximum they think the market can bear, and in doing so, those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale are deprived the opportunity to compete for goods and/or services. Instead of using the mentality that it is much easier to get one dollar from one million people, they keep prices high to extract that same million from a smaller number of wealthier clients/customers.
What this does is to create a class of elites and a class of "I want to be a part of this modern, consumerist world but can't afford to", thus creating societal inequity and those coveting that which they see wealthier citizens enjoying but cannot afford themselves. Once a society like that is created it is inevitable that inequity leads to jealousy and jealousy leads to crime.
It wouldn't matter how many observers you employ to monitor these things, price fixing has been a corporate tool for manipulating the masses as well as maximising profits, and politicians have been/will be handsomely rewarded for their inaction in this regard, so it will continue unabated until capitalism in its purest form is brought to its knees.
It's all well and good to hope for positive things for the masses from the corporate world, but truth, justice and fairness will never ever be a part of corporate psyche while profit is the prime mover.
Again, this comes back to corporate greed... the health insurers and corporate doctors who administer businesses rather than medicine. While it is not perfect, we have government run health care here in Australia and it works well with the private sector. While one can/could pay a fortune for treatment at a private facility, the public system provides more than adequate health care free of charge and the country isn't going guts up because it's government run.
True, governments stuff up here and there, but I think the US' aversion to government controlling anything [other war and the military] is based on fallacy and untruths perpetuated by self-serving corporate interests who'd rather not give up another share of the economic pie. Put simply, there's money in medicine and the US corporate isn't giving that up for anyone's better health. The truth is, if other countries have proven it works, corporate America has purposely sabotaged universal health care and the American public has been duped/brainwashed into thinking it won't/can't work. Land of the Free? Not according to the ex-pats who reckon the US is one of the most manipulated and over-governed countries in the world, though not by government alone.
Ah. So as long as you want it, it's ok to take it. The deprivation defense is not legally recognised.
The essence of business is profit: Not what YOU or I would consider "fair". The market/consumers do that.
They do the same in Medicare and Medicaid. Government run health care is like every other government run entity: Beset with nonsense rules and regulations made to cover government toadies' arses. And waste. Oh what waste. I remember the 'great' care you received, mate. Not that it would have been better under a govenment program here. Government programs are the shelter of the non caring. The VA is the perfect example. The workers get 'tenure' and from then on it's cruise control.
Nope. It's based on seeing one gov't. screw up after another. We also treasure our freedom too much to surrender it to a "benificent" government. Medicare and Medicaid are Democratic power bases as the rich and loopholes are the Republicans'. I want no self serving group of power hungry bought and paid for politicians in charge of my health care: Neither now nor ever.
In Australia the public health system is recognised by both major parties. While it is not perfect, it works quite well and is just part of the landscape. But the profit motive says nothing for a great deal of kindness and compassion, and a lot (all?) of the free computer programs that many of us use would not exist if the profit motive was applied to everything. The economy is not the sum total of human capacity - why do open source and free programs exist? Just what is their economic use? This just proves that the economy is just one piece of the puzzle. Just as not all the world is explained by economics, not all of what government does is useless or intrinsically valueless. The government has a place in society, just not all-important or of nil-importance. Moderation - not too little, nor too much - as they say, helps with a great many things.Best regards,Steven.
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