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[Copyright Alert System] Or, how to alienate everyone. Six Strikes rollout begins Monday.
Donnicton
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
(Pardon me if this subject was posted before, I haven't seen this subject come up in the first half-dozen pages or through a cursory forum search.)
Whelp, it appears the "Copyright Alert System" is going active on the big ISPs starting on Monday.
This will, at the start, apply to AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.
Here's a snazzy new propa- "informational" video and web site, courtesy of the "Center for Copyright Information".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQTONXs_N-A
How will this work? Well, let's start by asking CCI themselves!
What is Copyright Alert?
What Do I Do if I’ve Received a Copyright Alert?
That "online copyright education program" portion is an absolutely terrifying portion of an already terrible plan.
What Do I Do if I Think the Alert Was Wrongly Sent?
Don't worry folks, just your local copyright police here to make you're you're not doing any bad copyright stuff. If you are, we'll unilaterally presume guilt - bypassing all court involvement - and punish you accordingly with throttled connections, pass-through pages reminding you that we think you're a pirate, or full on re-education courses! So make sure you're ready to fight some serious burden of proof - as well as fork over $35 at your expense that you may or may not get back.
Fortunately, This only applies to the big players. If you have some of the smaller ISPs, You may find that they're actually on your side.
(As it turns out, The MPAA/RIAA never even bothered to ask any of the smaller ISPs to join in anyway.)
As anyone familiar with the HADOPI debacle in france can tell you that this was a miserable failure over there and only drove real piracy further underground and raised even greater awareness of anonymizing software, while resulting in scores of false accusations and even a few internet disconnections(to give you an idea of how accurate these tools are, remember that time the RIAA accused a laser printer of file sharing?). However, in true American(disclaimer: I am an American) fashion the copyright industry over here is set out to prove that they can take a terrible idea and do it too on a much grander scale, but because they're doing it, it will somehow turn out differently.
Businesses with open WiFi are terrified of this, because despite ISP insistence that it won't affect them, there's already good indication that this will start murdering open WiFi service in places of business, after receiving accusations based on what any given customer does.
I hope you're ready to potentially be pirates, whether you want to or not!
At this point the EFF has not yet commented on the Monday launch, but I'll post a link when they do.
Whelp, it appears the "Copyright Alert System" is going active on the big ISPs starting on Monday.
This will, at the start, apply to AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.
Here's a snazzy new propa- "informational" video and web site, courtesy of the "Center for Copyright Information".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQTONXs_N-AHow will this work? Well, let's start by asking CCI themselves!
What is Copyright Alert?
What is a Copyright Alert?
Artists, moviemakers and other owners of content join public peer-2-peer (P2P) networks to see if the music, movies, and TV shows they’ve made available are being shared without permission and in violation of U.S. copyright law. If they notice that a file is being shared illegally, they notify the appropriate Internet Service Provider (ISP) and that ISP, in turn, passes on that notice to their subscriber as a Copyright Alert.
Subscribers are responsible for making sure their Internet account is not used for copyright infringement. Copyright Alerts assist in this process by:
Making accountholders aware that unlawful content sharing may have happened using their internet account;
Educating accountholders on how they can prevent copyright infringement from happening again and
Providing consumers information about ways to access digital content legally.
After receiving one Alert, we believe most consumers will take the appropriate steps to avoid additional Alerts. However, if copyright infringement continues on a subscriber’s account, our member ISPs can take steps that temporarily affect that subscriber’s Internet experience.
Depending on the service provider, the ISP’s range of actions may include:
A temporary reduction in Internet speed;
A temporary downgrade in Internet service tier or
Redirection to a landing page for a set period of time, until a subscriber contacts the ISP or until the subscriber completes an online copyright education program.
Before each Alert is sent, a rigorous process ensures the content identified is definitely protected by copyright and that the notice is forwarded to the right Subscriber. Nonetheless, if a subscriber feels that he or she has received a one or more Alerts in error, CCI has created an Independent Review Process for subscribers to pursue before any additional measures that may impact service are imposed. This process is run by the American Arbitration Association and designed just for the Copyright Alert System.
How Do Content Owners Know About My Activity?
CCI’s content partners – companies that own and develop music, movies and TV shows – join peer-to-peer networks and locate the music, movies or TV shows they have created and own. Once they see a title being made available on the peer-to-peer network, they confirm that it is, in fact, copyrighted content.
After confirming that a file appears to have been shared illegally, content owners identify the Internet Protocol (IP) address used by the computer making the file available. Each IP address belongs to an Internet Service Provider (ISP), so content owners notify the ISP to which the address is assigned and the ISP then passes a Copyright Alert on to its customer.
No personal information about consumers is shared between the content owners and ISPs, and ISPs are not involved in the process of identifying copyrighted content.
For more information about what to do if you’ve received a Copyright Alert please see the video:
What Do I Do if I’ve Received a Copyright Alert?
What Do I Do if I’ve Received a Copyright Alert?
The “Alert” you received is meant to inform you that your Internet account may have been used to engage in copyright infringement. We want you to know about the importance of respecting copyright and the potential consequences of inadvertent or purposeful sharing of movies, music and TV shows through peer-to-peer networks. To avoid receiving future Alerts, here are some steps you can take:
If you have been downloading or sharing content illegally please stop doing so immediately.
Make sure that everyone who uses your internet connection knows that you received this alert and advise them to use only legal sources for music, TV shows and movies.
Secure your home wireless network so that only people you authorize are able to use it.
If you receive multiple Alerts – meaning that there may be multiple instances of copyright infringement associated with your account – your ISP may undertake measures that will temporarily affect your Internet experience.
Depending on your service provider, the range of actions may include:
A temporary reduction in your Internet speed;
A temporary downgrade to your Internet service tier or
Redirection to a landing page for a set period of time, until you contact your ISP, or until you complete an online copyright education program
If content is no longer illegally downloaded to or shared from your account, you will not receive additional Alerts.
Note: The Copyright Alert System is designed to protect a subscriber’s ability to access important services, such as Voice over Internet Protocol telephone service (e.g. to call 911), services for disabled subscribers, or home security or medical -monitoring services even during the Mitigation Stage of the program.
That "online copyright education program" portion is an absolutely terrifying portion of an already terrible plan.
What Do I Do if I Think the Alert Was Wrongly Sent?
What Do I Do if I Think the Alert Was Wrongly Sent?
Subscribers who receive multiple Alerts can file for an Independent Review if they feel that Alerts have been sent in error. Initial educational Alerts are not eligible for the Independent Review Process. If infringing activity on your account continues and you reach the mitigation stage (where your ISP is going to take corrective measures), you will be offered the opportunity to ask for a review.
If you believe you have received one or more of the Alerts in error – or the allegations about your account are otherwise inaccurate – you may request an Independent Review. The Independent Review Program is run by the American Arbitration Association (AAA), an organization that provides fair and neutral alternative dispute resolution. In order to file a request for Independent Review, you must do so from your ISP’s system. When you are presented with the review opportunity, your ISP will provide a link to the AAA’s system where you will be able to register and view those Alerts eligible for review. Please click here to see the grounds or accepted “reasons” for requesting an Independent Review.
NOTE: YOU HAVE ONLY FOURTEEN (14) CALENDAR DAYS AFTER RECEIVING A MITIGATION ALERT TO FILE A REQUEST FOR INDEPENDENT REVIEW.
Once you choose to have your Alerts reviewed, you will be asked to complete a series of steps, including paying a $35 fee (you may request a hardship waiver). Once a request for review is filed, any possible Mitigation Measures (i.e. an action that would temporarily affect your Internet experience) will be suspended pending the outcome.
If you are successful in your challenge, no Mitigation Measure will be applied, any applicable previous Alerts will no longer be associated with your account, and the $35 filing fee will be refunded. However, if you are not successful, the Mitigation Measure selected by your ISP will be applied.
More Details:
To have your ISP remove the Alerts from your account and decline to apply to any Mitigation Measure, you may be required to prevail in a challenge to more than one Alert. You will be informed of the number of Alerts that need to be invalidated to avoid mitigation when you begin your appeal.
The $35 filing fee may be waived by AAA if you qualify for financial assistance.
This is a non-exclusive procedure, and you still have the right to challenge any action in a court of law.
Don't worry folks, just your local copyright police here to make you're you're not doing any bad copyright stuff. If you are, we'll unilaterally presume guilt - bypassing all court involvement - and punish you accordingly with throttled connections, pass-through pages reminding you that we think you're a pirate, or full on re-education courses! So make sure you're ready to fight some serious burden of proof - as well as fork over $35 at your expense that you may or may not get back.
Fortunately, This only applies to the big players. If you have some of the smaller ISPs, You may find that they're actually on your side.
Luckily Dane Jasper, CEO of the much smaller Sonic.net, was willing to comment on the efforts to make ISPs responsible for online piracy. He told TorrentFreak that ISPs are not setup to police the Internet and that the entertainment industries should look for a solution closer to home.
“ISPs provide an essential utility: connection. We are not equipped to police the actions of individuals,” Jasper says.
“I think history has shown that you cannot solve piracy by force, but that industries need to adapt around it with business models that allow consumers to access the content they want easily and at a not-unreasonable cost.”
(As it turns out, The MPAA/RIAA never even bothered to ask any of the smaller ISPs to join in anyway.)
As anyone familiar with the HADOPI debacle in france can tell you that this was a miserable failure over there and only drove real piracy further underground and raised even greater awareness of anonymizing software, while resulting in scores of false accusations and even a few internet disconnections(to give you an idea of how accurate these tools are, remember that time the RIAA accused a laser printer of file sharing?). However, in true American(disclaimer: I am an American) fashion the copyright industry over here is set out to prove that they can take a terrible idea and do it too on a much grander scale, but because they're doing it, it will somehow turn out differently.
Businesses with open WiFi are terrified of this, because despite ISP insistence that it won't affect them, there's already good indication that this will start murdering open WiFi service in places of business, after receiving accusations based on what any given customer does.
I hope you're ready to potentially be pirates, whether you want to or not!
At this point the EFF has not yet commented on the Monday launch, but I'll post a link when they do.
Donnicton on
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This discussion has been closed.
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- John Stuart Mill
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Like, what the flying fuck? I'd be angry if I could stop laughing for a few seconds.
I hate it when distributors call themselves 'Content Owners'. You fuckers don't own jack shit, aside from the right to distribute - and you sure as Hell didn't create any of the content you distribute.
I kinda start wondering whether the hash/checksum of a copyrighted work is also copyrighted. Because part of me wants to download a .torrent, never download or seed any of the actual data, but just stay connected to the tracker/swarm forever. Then when I get the notice, be all "look, look at the torrent right there, I've neither downloaded nor uploaded any of their work."
Then keep doing it forever.
I'm sure there's a "fuck you" clause in my ToS though, even assuming that wasn't still infringement (based on the hash/checksum). But the idea amuses me.
It certainly doesn't work for the UN.
Part of me wants to start torrenting just to spite these fucks, but I won't cause ain't nobody got time for that.
Maybe I don't trust those fucks to get this even remotely right and their "appeal" program is about as awful as could be constructed and still said to be "fair" without breaking up into giggles. Provided the person saying so has a really good poker face.
Because this is the dumbest way to try to get people to stop pirating things. And if I'm not pirating and I get one of these notices, I'm supposed to pay another 35 bucks to prove to these assholes I'm not doing something?
Nope, sorry dicks, I give you 68 bucks a month for phone and internet, you're not getting 90 because you're terrible at content providing.
Because "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is a stupid position that's more at home in a fascist regime than a democratic society?
I don't pirate and don't have a big fear of being wrongly accused, but I think it's a stupid policy and potentially leads to worse policies that actively infringe on fundamental rights.
That's the thing: Most people, even most people selling creative works that are often pirated, don't want to put the genie back in the bottle.
There are some publishers & some developers that do kick-up a stink about piracy - but, for the most part, it's the retailers and distributors. And piracy is just the scapegoat for the larger issue: they they are slowly becoming irrelevant, and there may come a day when publishers ask, "Wait, why are we signing these mostly terrible-for-us business deals with you, again?"
Just as an example, from the industry I'm most familiar with: I don't give two fucks (well, I do, but not hugely) if I write a book and you download it from a torrent site rather than buying it, because I've already been paid. Even my publisher, often, doesn't give two fucks, because they've also been paid (most publishers sell to a distributor rather than selling directly to consumers - though there are, of course, exceptions). It's only the retailer / distributor at the end of this food chain that has to compete with pirates, most of the time. And the retailers (for the most part) aren't bitching about it, because they've already diversified their revenue.
It's sort of unfortunate in that a lot of the old guard that are so scared / opposed to digital distribution have been, for a long time, friends to content creators (again, there are exceptions, blah blah): lobbying on their behalf, setting up solicitation agencies, negotiating with the publishing racket, etc. But their usefulness has just been evaporating as creative industries have modernized, and they've completely refused to keep up with changing trends.
The smug wafting off of this plan is just clinging to my underoos.
You only think it's obnoxious because you haven't been sent the educational video yet!
EDIT: It's also precious that they send you a write-up, like a supervisor at a retail job.
The bright colors, the childish shapes, the soothing cable-in-the-classroom voice speaking in in a non-threatening "what some people people don't realize is that this system is a good thing for everyone" mannerism only vaguely hiding exactly how hard they'll come crashing down on you if they find you guilty of violating the system...
The informational video alone is something I would fully expect to see while roaming down the sterile white hallway of random video game dystopia #326. Except it's an actual thing that exists and is staring me right in the face from YouTube complete with its 6:264 like:dislike ratio. And it's not a parody.
I can't possibly dare comprehend what the actual penalty education videos are going to be.
Yep this won't cause any problems
You and your publisher can give no fucks because you've, for all practical intents and purposes, paid the distributor so that you don't have to give any fucks. For entirely rational reasons, the price the distributor is willing to charge to take this risk is going to be affected by piracy of your product.
This isn't to say that a whole lot of distributors aren't going to become irrelevant, and I personally think this is all around a good thing, but part of that process is going to be a transition of financial risk back to creators, with all the fun that entails.
You just watched a pirated film, spaceman. I mean, assuming you clicked 'play' on the video in the OP, and assuming the OP didn't get permission from the distributors of that film to post it here for discussion.
Don't worry, though! You're only at Violation Level 1! An educational video and Probationary Agreement Contract has been emailed to you! As soon as we get confirmation that you've watched the video & we receive the signed copy of the contract, we'll stop throttling your bandwidth.
That is just the smallest part of the problem, but I hope it's one that even you can understand: copy protection laws are outdated, they're internationally inconsistent, and fucking DMCAs are thrown everywhere, at everything in order to try and censor people (or just because the distributors want to be dicks). Posting clips like the one above should be covered under Fair Use, of course, but the reality is that DMCAs are thrown at Fair Use material all of the time, and most companies react to any DMCA filing by automatically assuming guilt. You have to prove your own innocence on YouTube, for example, by filing a counter-notice.
The calm but unnaturally even and almost monotone voice, followed at the end with a cheerful lilt as it describes the supposed benefits really makes it.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Eh. If YouTube disappeared, i would shed no tears. I'd love to see infringement/fair use heavy social media sites like Facebook and tumblr gone too though, so I'm not going to be persuaded by any perceived injustice here. I view the rights of the copyright holders as much more important than frivolous social media.
That's not bullshit. I just got two Sleigh Bells CDs AND a t-shirt in the mail, which wouldn't have happened without Youtube. And I bought direct from the band's site.
Unless I'm, like Jurg does, just trawling youtube for stuff I own in iTunes but am too lazy to open up the program to get to.
Actually, I just looked up Cloud Storage of music. It sounds like a pain in the ass to upload everything. So I might be lazy.
I use youtube very much cause of lazy.
Probably by who has more money/lawyers.
Screw you verizon.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
I know so many people like that at my job, I don't envy anyone that works customer service for these companies, their jobs are gonna get a whole lot more painful.
At this point Youtube disappearing would put thousands, possibly even more, people out of a job. And after all the shit they've tried to pull, I couldn't give a damn about the copyright holders.
I mean, it's only represented one of the most significant paradigm shifts in how human beings interact in our lifetimes and helped decide multiple national elections.
Pretty frivolous IMO
Jesus Christ
Did the people who made that think that workplace sexual harassment videos are the pinnacle of educational videos? All that video was missing were reenactments.
Creepy monotone lady voice didn't help either.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky