Thursday, July 14, 2011
Can Your ISP Make You Go to Copyright School?
First, some backstory. It’s estimated that 95% of the music, and 80% of the movies downloaded are illegal. These statistics are frightening for media companies who have spent the last ten years using a heavy-handed and largely ineffective strategy of dragging individual users into court. Passing more stringent laws seems like a dubious proposition as that would still require individual legal battles. So, with the assistance of Governor Cuomo of New York (and encouragement by President Obama), a deal was brokered between ISPs and media conglomerates. This isn’t a law; it’s a contract involving six ISPs (AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, Time-Warner Cable, or Verizon).
How Does the Deal Work? The agreement requires that your ISP implement a “six-strikes” system in which individuals who download illegal material receive a series of escalating alerts. The first four alerts are informative and explain how to download legally. By the fifth alert, the ISP can either provide a warning like the other four, or can implement tougher punitive restrictions, for example reducing download speeds or requiring the user to respond to educational materials about copyright. If another alert is needed, the ISP can implement stricter restrictions. Nothing in the deal requires that the ISP cut off service, limit emails, or messages, and no personal information about the user is exchanged – all of it is accomplished via the user’s anonymous I.P. number. Opponents of the deal object that users may be punished even though they haven't legally been proven to have infringed.Takeaway Points. If a user disputes actions taken by the ISP, the user can – for $35 – file for an “independent review,” though it’s not clear what that entails. The deal, like any deal, can be amended and could possibly include harsher penalties in the future. The deal also may get road tested in courts as users or rights group test the legality. Stay tuned.
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NOOOOO...... This isn't true! This is so un-Constitutional, on so many levels it's laughable. Even if you take the Government out of the equation, now the ISP's have opened themselves up to contract law suits themselves.
ReplyDeletePlus, let's not forget the obvious. If the can send warnings about downloading, that means they have just admitted to tracking and monitoring your communications, websites, information, and essentially spying on you, via the internet.
That's like cops kicking in your door, for you snorting a line of cocaine (I'm not condoning that). However, the first question out of any half way decent lawyers mouth, is going to be "How exactly did you come to find out my client was snorting a line? Do you have a warrant to keep him under this level of survialence? Let me see the warrant? Do you have a warrant? What was the good faith under oath affirmation you took, to a Superior Court Judge to convince a neutral magistrate that you had probable cause to believe that individual would be breaking that particular cry, at that particular place, in that particular manner, and by what means did you obtain that evidence.
I doubt a Private company is going to be dumb enough to open themselves up to lawsuits (Class action no less), of that magnitude. Where they'll be smeared by newspapers, who hate the internet as the new reading news source these days. Plus, the Government is still violating the Constitution, because when the Government empowers some one with police rights, to do their bidding, the Courts have ruled that it is the same as if the Government has acted itself.
Therefore the gross liabilities, for the ISP's and the FED's, I just don't think so. They couldn't be that dumb!!!!!