Ok for starters, i myself do not pirate. But I think this is important
anyway because it may affect more than just piracy someday.
Internet providers pull the plug on downloaders
If the Recording Industry Association of America doesn't send you a nasty
letter in the mail for that Steely Dan album you downloaded, you might not
necessarily be quite off the hook.
Internet providers to start policing the web July 12
Published: 15 March, 2012, 20:49
AFP Photo / Samantha Sin
TAGS:Scandal, Politics, Internet, Information Technology, USA
Some of the biggest Internet service providers in America plan to adopt
policies that will punish customers for copyright infringement, and one of
the top trade groups in the music biz announced this week that it could
begin as soon as this summer.
The chief executive officer of the Recording Industry Association of
America
told an audience of publishers on Wednesday that a plan carved out last
year
to help thwart piracy is expected to prevail and be put in place by this
summer. RIAA CEO Cary Sherman was one of the guest speakers among a New
York
panel this week and he confirmed that, at this rate, some of the most
powerful Internet providers in America should have their new policies on
the
books by July 12, 2012.
Last year, Time Warner, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision Systems and
other Internet service providers proposed best practice recommendations
that
they suggested would help curb copyright crimes on the Web. The end result
largely settled on consisted of a "graduate response" approach, a plan
that
would mean culprits could be issued a series of warnings for illegally
downloading suspect material which, after a certain number of offenses,
would lead to "mitigation measures," connection speed throttling and
termination of service.
"We anticipate that very few subscribers, after having received multiple
alerts, will persist (or allow others to persist) in the content theft,"
the
Center for Copyright Information said in an official statement last summer
as plans were first publicized. Now nearly a year after developments made
by
the big ISPs were first discussed, the RIAA's Sherman says that online
censorship sanctioned by corporate conglomerates such as Time Warner and
Verizon are practically set in stone.
Discussing the road to realizing how to implement the policies, Sherman
briefly touched on the technical aspects of the plan this week during the
panel. "Each ISP has to develop their infrastructure for automating the
system," Sherman said. They need this "for establishing the database so
they
can keep track of repeat infringers, so they know that this is the first
notice or the third notice. Every ISP has to do it differently depending
on
the architecture of its particular network. Some are nearing completion
and
others are a little further from completion."
So what does this mean for you? If you're an Internet user in America,
almost certainly something significant. Between Time Warner, Verizon,
AT&T,
Comcast and Cablevision, those ISPs alone accounted for around 51 percent
of
the market in America back in 2008. Figures from June 2010 collected by
the
United Nation's ITU division suggests that there are around 240 million
Internet users now in the US, which means more than three-fourths of the
country's total population. With those big ISPs only thriving since their
last figures were disclosed, 51 percent coverage of the market today would
mean that around 120 million users can expect to fall under the umbrella
of
a massive campaign that could soon see half of the country at risk of
having
their Internet shut off.
As RT reported last year, a flip of the kill-switch is indeed an option
that
ISPs can take if they decide they find their customers at fault. That
doesn't mean it's the be-all-end-all response, though. Under the
"six-strike" policy discussed last year, each alleged instance of
copyright
infringement would prompt the ISP to reach out to its customer in question
and inform them that they have detected a violation of US law. Strikes one
through four would constitute email warnings of increasing severity, but
five through six can come with legal action and end with the termination
of
service and potentially time behind bars. Although cooperating ISPs said
last year that they would suspend service after a certain number of
infringements, today they are hesitant to announce permanently cancelling
any accounts - but merely putting them on hold while users respond to
their
legal requests.
The explanation for a change of heart, of course, comes down to money.
Earlier this year Cary Sherman penned a ranting diatribe in the New York
Times attacking opponents of the failed Stop Online Piracy Act and the
Protect IP Act - or SOPA and PIPA, respectively - two anti-Internet
legislations that had the hefty support of the RIAA.
"There's no question that all the companies that are providing access to
music are benefiting in some way, legal companies, and that's entirely
appropriate," Sherman wrote earlier this year. "ISPs have done very well
by
the availability of music online, because it has created greater demand
for
broadband access, and as a result they have now penetrated to the 66-67
percent level of US households, because they want access to the content
that
the entertainment industry offers."
With the big ISPs having more than 100 million users at their mercy,
limiting connection speed could easily convince a good number of people to
remediate the alleged violations they are accused of, but actually
terminating service for good could be a grave mistake for the industry.
National Cable & Telecommunications Association President James Assey said
last year that, by implementing the plan,"We are confident that, once
informed that content theft is taking place on their accounts, the great
majority of broadband subscribers will take steps to stop it."
Some companies have already taken similar steps, but have been met with
their fair share of roadblocks along the way. Verizon has previously sent
warning letters to users alleged to be in violation, but those warnings
have
in some cases proved to be bothersome. In one 2010 episode, for instance,
a
53-year-old grandmother was threatened with having her Internet shut-down
for sharing copyrighted material - specifically clips from the television
show South Park - to which she was completely unaware of. In that case it
was an instance of mistaken identity where the woman's WiFi signal had
been
hijacked. In their own report, CNet reporters acknowledged that Verizon
never bothered to investigate into the legitimacy of their own claims
until
after a third-party became involved in the mediation.
This isn't to say, of course, that we are telling you that the RIAA and
certain Internet service providers are the bad guys here. After the SOPA
legislation threatened to terminate a good chunk of online services, many
websites waged a protest earlier this year by taking themselves offline
for
24-hours. Cary Sherman then took to the press to turn the fight around and
make it seem like it was the entertainment industry that was suffering,
not
sites like Wikipedia, a champion of the protest; Cary called them out in
his
op-ed for aiding in a "digital tsunami" that, along with Google,
"manufactured controversy by unfairly equating SOPA with censorship."
"The hyperbolic mistruths, presented on the home pages of some of the
world's most popular Web sites, amounted to an abuse of trust and a misuse
of power," added Sherman. "When Wikipedia and Google purport to be neutral
sources of information, but then exploit their stature to present
information that is not only not neutral but affirmatively incomplete and
misleading, they are duping their users into accepting as truth what are
merely self-serving political declarations."
Cary went on to say that the last minutue decision to drop SOPA was a
questionable one prompted by the mass creation of "misinformation" and
suggested it wasn't the work of democracy, but rather demagoguery. Of
course, when the RIAA attacked Megaupload for copyright infringement -
which
eventually led to US authorities seizing and shutting down the
file-sharing
site - the response from hacktivists aligned with the Anonymous collective
was a massive distributed denial-of-service attack on the websites for the
RIAA and a handful of other music and movie biz sites.
With SOPA and PIPA out of the way for now, American users of the Web must
look ahead before declaring victory in a war against online censorship.
Recently the US fought and won for the extradition of a 23-year-old UK man
who operated a website that American authorities decided was in violation
of
US law. If they are willing to ship a college student abroad to bring him
to
trial for posting a few links, will they think twice before turning off
your
Internet for sharing your own copies of South Park? That's an episode
you'll
have to stay tuned for to find out.
Source:
http://rt.com/usa/news/internet-providers-year-sherman-661/
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