Most people would say that the “Six Strikes” Copyright Alert System has been an utter failure. We’ve not yet heard a single success story. In fact, we’ve not heard anything about it since it launched earlier this year. A new report suggests that Comcast may already be tiring of this method and is now working on a new plan that would encourage pirates to buy content instead of punishing them.
Variety reports that Comcast is working on a new anti-piracy plan that approaches pirates as potential consumers instead of criminals. It’s a shocking development for an industry that has been hellbent on treating pirates as nothing but criminals. Even the consumer education-focused CAS treated consumers like criminals with its myriad of punishments.
In stark contrast to the CAS, Comcast’s new plan wouldn’t tell pirates that their efforts are destroying the livelihoods of millions, or that their efforts will lead to the downfall of Hollywood. Instead, Comcast would send a simple pop-up ad to BitTorrent users with links to legal alternatives. It would happen while the content is being downloaded so pirates would be faced with a moral conundrum – continue downloading the content in question or just pony up the cash for it.
Comcast may be proposing nothing more than a sophisticated guilt trip, but it’s still a far better alternative to the punishments in the CAS. That being said, Comcast isn’t ready to sell its new system as a CAS replacement. It’s instead being billed as a complement to the CAS. Of course, that could change if CAS remains a target of criticism.
We won’t be able to see the results of Comcast’s ambitious new plan for a while though as the company’s engineers have not even begun work on it. It’s not said when work will start on the program, but they’ll be working alongside NBC Universal to make it happen. In the meantime, Comcast will have to convince other cable companies to embrace the future of treating pirates like customers. If the past is any indication, this will be hardest part.
Still, credit must be given where credit is due. Comcast’s new plan sounds like a step in the right direction. The pessimistic side of me is saying that the company will do something to screw it up, but I want to remain optimistic for now. Piracy has always been a service problem, and it looks like Comcast is taking a step in the right direction.
Earlier this year, a big hoopla was made about the Center for Copyright Information and its Copyright Alert System, otherwise known as “Six Strikes”. In short, those caught downloading pirated content on BitTorrent would be sent warnings that soon turned into punishments of increasing severity. Now the non-profit that caused a stir earlier this year has found itself in a spot of trouble.
TorrentFreak reports that the Center for Copyright Information had its company status revoked last year. The Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs revoked its status after finding that the non-profit founded by the MPAA and RIAA never filed the proper paperwork or paid its fees.
So, what does this mean for the CCI? It means that it won’t be able to do business in the United States until it gets all of this cleared up. Doing so won’t be that difficult though. In fact, a source close to the CCI told TorrentFreak that it’s already submitted the proper paperwork to have its status as a company reinstated. Even if its status is reinstated, the CCI may still face fines and other civil penalties.
Of course, all of this is rather interesting in the larger context of the “six strikes” system. There have been no widespread reports of warnings being sent out since the introduction of the system in February. It’s hard to say why that is the case, but the CCI’s troubles suggest that it may not be on top of everything just yet. It’s not exactly surprising either considering that the rollout of the Copyright Alert System was delayed for over a year.
Those hoping for the death of the Copyright Alert System will be disappointed though. It’s not dead, and it wont die anytime soon. Still, the Copyright Alert System may be all bark and no bite for a while as the CCI works to reinstate its company status.
It’s been a few weeks since the launch of the “Six Strikes” Copyright Alert System. There haven’t been any widespread reports of people receiving copyright alerts yet, but the programs opponents are growing. In fact, opponents now have a powerful man on their side – the father of the Internet.
Marketplace interviewed Tim Berners-Lee at SXSW Interactive, and the Internet freedom proponent had some choice words for programs, like the Copyright Alert System, that attempt to police the Internet.
The World Wide Web should be a blank sheet of paper. The Internet service providers, their duty is to get me bits. Bits in, bits out. If the police want to come and arrest me for doing something illegal, then the police have to come. But it’s not the job of an Internet service provider to be, in this case, not just the police, but then also the judge and the jury.
Berners-Lee’s concern is similar to previous statements made by public figures that have come out against the controversial CAS program. New Jersey Gubernatorial candidate Carl Bergmanson was quoted last month as saying “ISPs have no right to decide what you can and can not download.”
Looking at the bigger picture, Berners-Lee says that the Copyright Alert System and similar programs threaten the open Internet and democracy as a whole:
To start with, for business, you really use the Internet to produce an open market. And perhaps more dear to me for the future, is democracy. We need to be able to find ways of governing ourselves in peace. We need to be able to find ways of coming to agreements with people in other countries, in other cultures, about what we are going to do with our planet and how we are going to solve global warming. For that, we need a very strong democracy. Democracy involves people being informed, being able to communicate, being able to hold each other accountable. And all that absolutely depends on the neutral Internet.
The FCC, the agency in charge of creating net neutrality rules for the U.S., has stayed remarkably quiet during the debate over the Copyright Alert System. Their silence can only mean that the Commission supports the program for now, but it will be interesting to see what the Commission does if the CAS starts to target innocent Internet users.
It was pretty much a given that the Copyright Alert System, better known as “Six Strikes,” would increase the use of VPNs or proxies in the U.S. Still, it’s nice to confirm our assumptions, and a report released today does just that.
TorrentFreak reports that interest in VPNs and proxies have increased dramatically over the last month as more people are now searching for ways to protect their BitTorrent transfers from the ever watchful, and quick to judge, eyes of the Internet police.
The interest was judged on a selection of Google Search trends that reveal searches for terms like “BitTorrent Proxy,” “BitTorrent VPN,” and “VPN torrent” have all increased over the last few months. The biggest spike came at the end of February/beginning of March when the CAS went live, and mainstream media started reporting on it.
Of coure, these trends are only indicative of people looking for information. Are the actual VPN providers seeing an increased interest in their products? Speaking to TorrentFreak, BeeVPN says that they have seen an increase in interest and are even starting to incorporate “six strikes” into their marketing campaigns.
Like I said at the start, it was a given that VPNs would see a surge in popularity when the Copyright Alert System went live. What’s going to prove interesting is how the CCI responds to people trying to circumvent the system.
Time Warner Cable is one of the five ISPs participating in the “six strikes” Copyright Alert System that went live last week. One group of hackers does not particularly like that fact, and made sure Time Warner knew it last night.
The Daily Dot reports that the Time Warner Cable support Web site was hacked and defaced last night by a group of hackers calling themselves “NullCrew.” The defaced page landing featured the gorilla (pictured above) from the popular “rustled my jimmies” meme. The hack reportedly lasted anywhere between five to eight hours.
Funny enough, it seems that the IT guys at Time Warner Cable never thought to change their admin password from the default “changeme.” Beyond that, a few names and chat logs from the support site were posted, but no confidential information was shared with the public.
To that end, this particular hack was obviously just meant to draw people’s attention to the Copyright Alert System. It’s nothing like the previous defacements and hacks coming from Anonymous as part of #OpLastResort. That particular operation targeted the Federal Reserve and other government agencies.
I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if NullCrew’s exploits inspired more hacks and defacements of the five ISPs participating in the CAS. Anonymous, and related hacking groups, obviously see it as an attack on Internet freedom. It will be interesting to see what happens when the first round of copyright alerts start going out to subscribers.
Piracy is a problem that needs to be dealt with. I don’t think anybody is going to refute that. Where people are divided is how we actually deal with this problem. After years of reputation destroying legal battles against dead people and little girls, copyright owners think they have an answer.
On Monday, the Copyright Alert System, or “Six Strikes”, went into affect across the five biggest ISPs in the U.S. The system hopes to catch those pirating content over P2P networks, and send them a notice detailing their infringement. The hope is that those who are caught will start using legal alternatives.
Do you think the Copyright Alert System will work? Will people truly stop pirating content after receiving an alert?Let us know in the comments.
To better understand the CAS, we have to look at what the Center for Copyright Information is doing with it. First, there are three tiers to the CAS that consumers should be aware of with each tier having two levels within it. The three tiers are as follows – educational alerts, acknowledgement alerts and mitigation measures.
The first two warnings – “educational alerts” – tell consumers they’ve been caught. The email will then direct them to legitimate sources of content with the hopes that the early warnings are enough to scare people into buying content.
The next two warnings step it up a notch with what’s called “acknowledgement alerts.” The first two alerts were simply emails, but these next two will actually hijack your browser. You will be hit with a message telling you that you’ve been caught yet again, and must acknowledge that you’ve been caught before you can start browsing.
The next two tiers, and presumably every alert afterwards, will be “mitigation measures.” In essence, the ISPs will begin throttling your bandwidth or blocking Web sites you frequently visit. The ISPs will not be able to cut off your Internet connection under the plan.
For a visual explanation, here’s the CCI’s soothing jazz version:
The actual specifics of these tiers will be different across the five ISPs participating in the CAS. We don’t know what every alert will look like, but Ars Technica did manage to get a hold of what Comcast’s alerts would look like.
As you would expect, the CAS hasn’t exactly garnered many fans. New Jersey Gubernatorial candidate Carl Bergmanson recently spoke out against it by saying ISPs have no right to monitor what you download:
“The internet has become an essential part of living in the 21st century, it uses public infrastructure and it is time we treat it as a public utility. The electric company has no say over what you power with their service, the ISPs have no right to decide what you can and can not download”.
The EFF has also come out swinging against CAS. The group says the system presents a number of troubling statements that don’t just hurt Internet users but the Internet for itself. For instance, the group points out that the CCI Web site tells people to lock down their Wi-Fi connections so others don’t pirate on your connection. The EFF sees this as an attack on the open Wi-Fi movement and it would be especially troublesome for those who do share their Internet connections with others, like small businesses.
Small businesses are where we run into the biggest problems. The CCI says that rights holders won’t target open Wi-Fi networks run by businesses. Your local Starbucks or Panera Bread are safe as they run off of a business network. The problem comes in the form of small businesses like a local coffee shop or bakery that runs free Wi-Fi off of a residential network. These businesses will be held liable for the actions of its consumers.
The CCI argues that it won’t hurt small businesses running residential networks because the CAS will never terminate an Internet connection. That’s entirely true, and it’s good that copyright owners didn’t go as far to request that ISPs terminate connections. The problem, however, lies in the fact that the fifth warning and afterwards will either block popular Web sites or throttle connections. For a small business that has multiple customers all on the same network, that’s just as good as shutting off the connection. People who want to use the Internet at these places will find it too much of a pain and take their business elsewhere.
Do you think the CAS will hurt small businesses? Or do you think the EFF and other groups are just exaggerating?Let us know in the comments.
This all brings us to the question of whether or not the CAS will even stop piracy. That’s obviously the goal, but it doesn’t look like an attainable one at the moment. In fact, the CAS is its own biggest enemy in the war on piracy.
The alerts obtained from Comcast all have one troubling thing in common. They don’t list any of the alternative, legal sources for content. The main point of the program is to educate consumers on legal alternatives, and it can’t even do that. Consumers receiving the alert with no prior knowledge of the system will most likely see it as a scam email and won’t act upon it. Later tiers require consumers to watch an educational video on copyright, but it doesn’t say whether these videos will present legal alternatives.
Fortunately, legal alternatives are doing a good enough job stopping piracy themselves. A recent report from the NPD found that legal alternatives like Spotify were driving music piracy down. It proves once again that easy access at a fair price can beat out piracy any day. Heck, the proliferation of streaming services even gave the music industry its first raise in revenue since 1999.
So why do copyright owners think the CAS will work? Do they really expect piracy rates to magically drop once the alerts start flying out? Past examples would suggest that no such thing would happen. In fact, previous efforts on the part of copyright owners to curtail piracy have had the opposite effect. Just look at the shutdown of Megaupload or the blocking of The Pirate Bay in the UK. Both cases actually saw an increase in piracy.
At this point, it’s still too early to tell how much the CAS will actually accomplish. At best, copyright owners will be able to proclaim that piracy rates are down as more people either use VPNs or move off of P2P and onto Usenet or Mega. At worst, consumers revolt and ISPs drop it after seeing that it’s costing them customers. Either way, piracy isn’t going anywhere.
Do you think piracy will ever stop being a problem? Or is it just a fact of life in the Internet age?Let us know in the comments.
The “Six Strikes” Copyright Alert System is being implemented across major ISPs this week. Those who regularly download music or movies illegally via BitTorrent might just start seeing these alerts pop up in your email inbox.
Of course, the concerned Internet user may want to know what these alerts actually look like. Ars Technica was able to get their hands on a few of the alerts from Comcast, and they’re pretty much what everybody was expecting.
Comcast provided Ars with only a limited number of alerts – one, two, four and five to be exact. The ISP wouldn’t say why it couldn’t provide all of the alerts, but it’s safe to assume that all the alerts will look similar to what was provided.
Interestingly enough, it looks like the Copyright Alert System isn’t even doing its supposed job. As pointed out by Ars, the alerts don’t even tell consumers what they downloaded to receive the alert. The email also doesn’t point consumers to legal alternatives. You would think Comcast, which owns NBC, would want to point consumers to Hulu or other legal alternatives where its properties are hosted.
Granted, this is just the start and Comcast may refine the system in the coming months. We also don’t know what the alerts from other ISPs will look like. Those may point to legal alternatives and actually provide more information to the suspected infringer.
For those worried about the CAS, it seems that a VPN may be the way to go. Ars confirmed with a spokesperson from Time Warner that the ISP will probably not be able to catch those downloading media through a proxy.
I’m sure we’ll start seeing what the other alerts look like as people with other ISPs start to receive them. We’ll then be able to tell whether or not this is truly an “educational” program, or just another pro-copyright campaign that will only piss off consumers.
It was widely reported that the Copyright Alert System was “turned on” yesterday. The CAS, or more widely known as six strikes, detects the illegal sharing of copyrighted materials over P2P networks and alerts users via their ISP. There are a few glaringproblems with it, but inaction on the part of government suggests lawmakers are fine with it. One politician, however, has recently spoken up against it.
“The internet has become an essential part of living in the 21st century, it uses public infrastructure and it is time we treat it as a public utility. The electric company has no say over what you power with their service, the ISPs have no right to decide what you can and can not download”.
Bergmanson says that he doesn’t condone piracy, and added that he finds it unethical. That being said, he says that piracy is a result of bad laws.
“…it is not surprising that as the law evolves to disrespect the public domain, that the public would grow to disrespect copyrights.”
I think we can add fair use to the number of things that laws continue to “disrespect” that lead people to piracy. The Internet has changed the consumer/provider dynamic, yet the content provider refuses to update their business model to reflect this new reality.
Aside from the argument against more restrictive copyright laws, it’s far more interesting to see Bergmanson address the idea of the Internet being a public utility. Some of the Internet’s most outspoken proponents have suggested such a reclassification in order to ensure that more people get access to affordable Internet. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, however, as major telecommunications companies have powerful lobbying arms.
All that being said, Bergmanson and his ideas will probably not see the light of day in New Jersey. Current governor Chris Christie is a local favorite, and he has the support of some powerful people in the Internet business if his recent fundraiser hosted by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is any indication.
For the past year, we’ve seen delay after delay for the Center for Copyright Information’s six strikes Copyright Alert System. For a while, it looked like it would never become a reality. Now it looks like the system is finally in place, however, and it may be launching today.
The Daily Dot reports that the CCI plans to launch the six strikes Copyright Alert System across all the major participating ISPS – AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon – this week. Each ISP will reportedly launch on a different day this week which Comcast reportedly launching its system today.
A small recap for those unaware, the Copyright Alert System is a joint operation between ISPs and major content holders around the country. In essence, these content holders will be scanning Internet connections looking for people downloading pirated content via BitTorrent. If you’re caught, the content holders will send your a notice through your ISP. There are three tiers of warning with two warnings per tier, hence the six strikes.
The first two warnings are “educational alerts” that tell consumers they’ve been caught. The email will then direct them to legitimate sources of content with the hopes that the early warnings are enough to scare people into buying content.
The next two warnings step it up a notch with what’s called “acknowledgement alerts.” The first two alerts were simply emails, but these next two will actually hijack your browser. You will be hit with a message telling you that you’ve been caught yet again, and must acknowledge that you’ve been caught before you can start browsing again.
The next two tiers, and presumably every alert afterwards, will be “mitigation measures.” In essence, the ISPs will begin throttling your bandwidth or blocking Web sites you frequently visit. The ISPs will not be able to cut off your Internet connection under the plan.
Of course, the real fun of all of this is that the copyright holders have all the power in this relationship. They can simply accuse you of piracy with little proof, and the ISPs must hit you with whatever tier of alert you’re on. Sure, you can appeal the accusation, but it costs you $35 up front and goes before the American Arbitration Association. In short, it’s not worth fighting, and the content holders know it.
Despite being anti-consumer and potentially damaging to small businesses, the CCI wants you to know that it’s your friend. The group put together a small video that says it only wants to be your friend as long as you purchase all your content legally.
I’m sure that the CCI will announce that P2P sharing is down in a few months from now, but we’ll know what’s really up. The number of VPN subscriptions in the U.S. is already on the rise, and more people will presumably start using Mega, Usenet and other non-P2P networks.
Nonetheless, It will be interesting to see the response from Internet users not aware of these programs once the first alerts start rolling in. The response may be so vitriolic that ISPs and the CCI call it off until it can formulate another plan. The consumer is king in the U.S. and corporations have been known more than once to back down when programs like this only serve to piss off their most loyal consumers.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about the six strikes anti-piracy program being put into place by ISPs across the U.S. The last news that came out of the CCI said that the program was delayed until early 2013 for some last minute problems caused by Hurricane Sandy. We don’t know when exactly the program will go into place, but some new information on the program itself has leaked out.
TorrentFreak reports that Verizon’s Copyright Alert Program has been leaked, and the document details what the ISP for each tier of alerts. It was previously reported that Verizon would throttle speeds on the fifth and sixth alert, but the new leaked document is a bit more specific on what that means. Spoiler: Hope you pirates like dial-up speeds.
Before getting to that, let’s take a look at what pirates can expect on the first and second copyright alert they receive from Verizon. For these first two alerts, Verizon will either send you an email or call you to tell you that a copyright owner believes you are a dirty pirate. From there, they will provide info on how to locate, and remove, file sharing software from your computer as well as provide a list of legal alternatives to piracy.
By the sounds of it, the first two alerts aren’t that bad. They’re a little annoying, but nothing to get angry about it. Now the third and fourth alerts are where things start to get annoying. Upon being alerted that your a dirty pirate, the ISP will redirect your browser to a “special Web page” in which you must acknowledge receiving the alert. You will also have to sit through a presumably boring film on copyright law and infringement.
How can it get more annoying than PSAs? On the fifth and sixth alert, you will be given three options: one, you must agree to an immediate reduction in Internet speed to 256kbps for two days; or two, you must agree to the same reduction, but it can be delayed for up to 14 days. If you’re feeling really lucky, you can also appeal the the validity of the alerts to the AAA who will decide if the copyright owners were wrong in sending you the alerts. This process will cost you $35, and will only be refunded if you win.
In what may be even worse, it was confirmed by TorrentFreak that ISPs will be sending out copyright alerts to businesses. How many people do you think pirate content on public Wi-Fi networks provided by restaurants or cafes on any given day? A business could receive six alerts in one day and have their complimentary Wi-Fi slowed to a crawl. At that point, you’re not even punishing pirates anymore – you’re punishing everybody, including the businesses.
In short, the Copyright Alert Program is probably going to anger more people than it will convert them to law abiding citizens who buy all their music from Amazon. Of course, the intention of the program is not to convert dedicated pirates, but the casual music listener who might pirate a few songs here and there. The first alert might scare them into being a good little boy or girl, but I just don’t see it working all that well.
Also, I have to ask – whatever happened to this program being pro-consumer? CCI Director Jill Lesser has repeatedly stated that the intention of the CAP is not to punish the consumer, but rather educate. I think having speed dropped down to what constituted a regular Internet speed in 1995 to be a little extreme. Sure, you can delay the throttling, but it’s still going to happen across your entire connection. If Verizon and the CCI wanted to cultivate a little goodwill, they would only throttle P2P traffic. It’s possible, and some ISPs already do it. Throttling the entire connection is asinine and does little to educate the consumer, it only serves to grow resentment among the consumers they claim to care about so much.
In all honesty, I see the CAP not lasting very long. It’s not as extreme as when the RIAA was suing people left and right, but I feel the public outcry is going to be similar. Piracy is a problem, and one that does need to be solved. Throttling speeds and punishing the very consumers that ensure the survival of copyright owners isn’t going to solve it.
Well, this was unexpected. After CCI had been working since late 2011 to get its ambitious anti-piracy alert system off the ground, it looked like the program was finally going to launch this year. Things rarely ever work out as planned, however, and the alert system has been delayed once again.
Due to unexpected factors largely stemming from Hurricane Sandy which have seriously affected our final testing schedules, CCI anticipates that the participating ISPs will begin sending alerts under the Copyright Alert System in the early part of 2013, rather than by the end of the year.
Our goal has always been to implement the program in a manner that educates consumers about copyright and peer-to-peer networks, encourages the use of legal alternatives, safeguards customer privacy, and provides an easy-to-use independent review program for consumers to challenge alerts they believe they’ve received in error.
We need to be sure that all of our “I”s are dotted and “T”s crossed before any company begins sending alerts, and we know that those who are following our progress will agree.
The delay was unexpected, but it shouldn’t change anything in the long run. ISPs will start sending warnings in early 2013, and casual file sharers will be encouraged to use legal alternatives. Repeat offenders will be targeted with more drastic measures such as throttled speeds and blocked Web sites, but the CCI has already said that they’re not going after “serial pirates” who will get around the alert system by using VPNs and related technologies.
For now, however, we wait. The CCI is only saying early 2013 without providing a firm date. There’s a possibility that it could be delayed again if any of the ISPs get cold feet. More ISPs could also join in the fun between now and launch.
Up until now, we’ve only heard about the new six-strikes anti-piracy program from leaked documents and anonymous sources. Now the Center for Copyright Information is finally ready to announce official details of the program that will be going into effect next month.
In a blog post by Jill Lesser, Executive Director at CCI, she lays out the work that the organization has been involved with over the past year in getting the six-strike program set up. The program has been met with a number of delays since its announcement last year. Lesser attributes this to her team wanting to make sure the program “works well for consumers in every way, to ensure accuracy, protect consumer privacy and offer resources that answers consumers’ questions.”
With all the niceties out of the way, Lesser says that the Copyright Alert System will be launching in the coming weeks. Each ISP participating in the program will be launching their own version of the program over the next two months. AT&T is already rumored to be launching their program on November 28, but other ISPs could launch earlier.
As for the six-strikes themselves, Lesser says those reports are “erroneous.” She says there’s no strikeout involved with the Copyright Alert System. The alert system will work like this instead: first time offenders will be sent “educational alerts.” After those fail to work, the “acknowledgement alerts” will be sent out which require a customer to contact their ISP letting them know they received the notice. If all else fails, Lesser says ISPs can engage in “mitigation measures.” By this, she means that ISPs can throttle speeds, but they can not cut off a person’s Internet access.
The “mitigation measures” described by Lesser go against the leaked documents that came out of AT&T last week. Those documents, while they mentioned throttled speeds, also said that they would hand over the identities behind IP addresses to copyright holders for litigation. Speaking to Ars Techinca, Lesser says that existing laws concerning copyright litigation have not changed. Repeat offenders will be treated as a lost cause, and the legal system can have their way with them after that.
Beyond the general information presented here, Lesser also goes into the technical details on how the Copyright Alert System works. She says that they will identify “alleged infringement over peer-to-peer networks” using “trained professionals and automated processes.” She also says that the system has been built to detect false positives. She also says that their ID system won’t expose any personal information to ISPs or copyright holders. The only thing that people will ever see are IP addresses.
That’s all well and good, but a few false positives are bound to go through. What happens to the innocent folks who receive copyright alerts? Consumers will have to go through the American Arbitration Association to have the case reviewed. Ars Techinca reports that the appeal will cost consumers $35, but the amount will be refunded if the consumer wins the appeal.
In the end, Lesser sees this as an education initiative. She told Ars Techinca that the program is aimed squarely at “Joe Consumer.” They’re not going to waste time going after “sophisticated pirates” because “there are laws in place and the content community will continue to fight that problem.”
With that being said, copyright holders may want to be consumer friendly towards these “sophisticated pirates” as well. Recent studies have shown that these pirates are the big spenders among media consumers and copyright holders can’t afford to lose their support.
We’ll be sure to let you know when the Copyright Alert System goes up across each ISP. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.