Major US ISPs joining RIAA, MPAA to punish pirates

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Several top US Internet service providers are collaborating with the entertainment industry to clamp down on piracy, according to a CNET report. After years of being hounded by groups such as the MPAA and RIAA, Internet gatekeepers including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are reportedly on the verge of introducing a graduated response system to punish pirates. CNET's sources claim that a final agreement hasn't been inked yet, but the plan is "on track" to be unveiled next month.

Although "graduated response" probably evokes memories of France's three-strike policy, the American adaptation won't be quite as strict -- initially, anyway. France's HADOPI law requires ISPs to warn alleged copyright infringers of their conduct two times. The third time someone is caught transferring unapproved content, they can be suspended from the Internet (the offender is blacklisted from all Web providers), fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and face up to two years in prison.

Conversely, the arrangement between American ISPs and the recording industry is voluntary, and suspected infringers won't necessarily face three strikes. According to CNET's unnamed insiders, ISPs will be able to choose how many warnings they want to issue before terminating a customer's service. If a rightsholder logs your IP address downloading or sharing unsavory material, they can notify your ISP, who will bombard you with so-called "Copyright Alerts."

If you fail to comply with those warnings, the recording industry will expect your ISP to escalate matters by selecting from a list of sanctions. Depending on the severity of the case, you might have your connection throttled or you could even be limited to the top 200 websites. Although it's not necessarily required, ISPs may also disconnect you from their service entirely, but this already occurs in select areas where ISPs have agreed to cooperate with antipiracy groups.

It's unclear what the framework will cost to implement and oversee, but both sides are reportedly splitting the expenses. Representatives for the RIAA, MPAA, and NCTA (National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which includes Time Warner Cable, CableVision, Charter, Comcast and Qwest), declined CNET's request for a comment. Unfortunately, it seems most ISPs are involved in the discussions, so you probably won't be able to escape the arrangement.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/44392-major-us-isps-joining-riaa-mpaa-to-punish-pirates.html

 

[freedomthinker]

I can't really post a major argument . But damn , sucks for you guys in the US . This is kinda retarded . 2 years in prison ? Freedom my *** . Haha , seriously the more i read the news , the more the US government and big businesses gain even larger quantities of power and control over you guys. Awesome ~!

 

[mccartercar]

TOR Onion Network....Point Moot

 

[KG363]

ISP's shouldn't care

 

[SNGX1275]

I'm able to 'escape' it. My ISP seems to serve a very limited area along the stretch of I-44 in Missouri and perhaps Oklahoma.

I don't have the access to the cheap fast speeds most everyone else in the US does, but I guess the tradeoff is my ISP isn't negotiating with the **AAs.

TOR Onion Network....Point Moot

I'm speaking with some ignorance on this so perhaps I'm wrong. But I was under the impression that if you were going to do some questionable things such as downloading movies or music by using TOR it would take a lot longer, ie the dl speeds are terrible. Also, that the more people that started using it for such activities where files are often in the GB range, things would only get slower.

 

[Mizzou]

It's unclear what the framework will cost to implement and oversee, but both sides are reportedly splitting the expenses.

Translation, the consumer will ultimately be the one that ends up paying to cover these expenses.

 

[Guest]

to: freedomthinker

So much for a self-proclaimed "thinker." The 2-year prison example refers to France, not the US. Learn to read before spilling your pretentious banality.

 

[Guest]

I can't really post a major argument . But damn , sucks for you guys in the US . This is kinda retarded . 2 years in prison ? Freedom my *** . Haha , seriously the more i read the news , the more the US government and big businesses gain even larger quantities of power and control over you guys. Awesome ~!

Read it again. That paragraph refers to France laws. D'oh!

 

[Darkshadoe]

Downloading illegally does not "stick it to the man" as so many think. It just makes them do retarded crap like this. If you really want to hurt them, don't buy their products til it comes down to a reasonable price. Force them to drop their prices. Its simple and legal. You DONT have to have that game, movie or song the day it comes out and they do make more.

I'm all for busting these greedy corporations down a peg, but there are better means than getting myself or others in legal trouble.

 

[gwailo247]

Will they impose sanctions like the UN? Essential goods only, but no luxury resources? You can check your e-mail, but can't access Hulu?

 

[PinothyJ]

Unfortunately, it seems most ISPs are involved in the discussions, so you probably won't be able to escape the arrangement.

Except if you are not living in the USA .


Go win…

 

[Cota]

Wow, that must be death penalty to a "social network" addict, but to come to think to what we have ended. I never tough i was gona say this, but good thing every thing is legal in Mexico.

 

[Mister_K]

kg363 said:
ISP's shouldn't care

Well if that was the case, ISP could be sued by these big corporations...

Anyway 2 warnings and then you busted? Sounds good to me

 

[howzz1854]

seriously, lower the prices, and there won't be any pirating going on. recent study i've read from google news have shown that average software price is well above average income of consumer, and that's just in developed country like ours. in developing countries, it's way over consumers' spending capability. and they wonder why China and India can't stop the fluid of piracy. with steam's increasing popular weekly blow-out sales, gamers are finding better deals and less reason to pirate. just my 2c.

 

[Guest]

What they should do is clamp down prices. I will be to honest, I'm not poor, but if I had to pay for every movie, song, game, etc than I use every year (not a library I swear) it will be a huge punch to my economy because of how ridicolous ammount of money it would be. Piracy is wrong, so their prices.

 

[aj_the_kidd]

Guest said:
What they should do is clamp down prices. I will be to honest, I'm not poor, but if I had to pay for every movie, song, game, etc than I use every year (not a library I swear) it will be a huge punch to my economy because of how ridicolous ammount of money it would be. Piracy is wrong, so their prices.

Like the idea will probably the end result after this "mess" is over and done with. Personally i would just like content to be more readily available, very limited where i live for what i want.

 

[Modena]

They need to lower the cost of their crap media and we will pay accordingly. I'm not gonna pay $30 to watch whatever movie in 3D and have it suck on top of it. IMO ISP's should have zero say in what we view or download. Most are already putting up caps on how much we can use per month, now they're also going to ban us for using it how we want? If anything they are the ones stealing from us with 95% of the media out the game/movies being complete garbage.

 

[PinothyJ]

Guest said:
What they should do is clamp down prices. I will be to honest, I'm not poor, but if I had to pay for every movie, song, game, etc than I use every year (not a library I swear) it will be a huge punch to my economy because of how ridiculous amount of money it would be. Piracy is wrong, so their prices.

This is crap. I live in Australia where our prices are stupidly high for no reason than to profit the suppliers and we do fine. Hell, one of my best mate is completely broke yet still has money to buy movies and games out the yin-yang: however many dvd/blurays it takes to fill a large bookshelf, double tiered, two display stands and a medium sized bookshelf, not to mention the pile next to the tv. So you cannot really complain that your life is so horrible because of the prices of the media that you desire.

I personally spend my money on other things, but that is for another thread…

 

[Lionvibez]

Wow thank god I live in Canada!

I guess now we can say Blame America

 

[captaincranky]

So "Big Brother" really is watching. There's a f****** big surprise.

 

[Tekkaraiden]

lionvibez said:
Wow thank god I live in Canada!

I guess now we can say Blame America

Rogers and Bell will likely try to do the same, heck they both already attempted to cap bandwidth even getting the CRTC on their side.

 

[SNGX1275]

They need to lower the cost of their crap media and we will pay accordingly. I'm not gonna pay $30 to watch whatever movie in 3D and have it suck on top of it. IMO ISP's should have zero say in what we view or download. Most are already putting up caps on how much we can use per month, now they're also going to ban us for using it how we want? If anything they are the ones stealing from us with 95% of the media out the game/movies being complete garbage.

I agree. Apparently now we give service providers policing powers?

 

[captaincranky]

They need to lower the cost of their crap media and we will pay accordingly. I'm not gonna pay $30 to watch whatever movie in 3D and have it suck on top of it. IMO ISP's should have zero say in what we view or download. Most are already putting up caps on how much we can use per month, now they're also going to ban us for using it how we want? If anything they are the ones stealing from us with 95% of the media out the game/movies being complete garbage.

The trouble is, now that the IPS will be policing the internet with the media providers, both sides have no incentive whatsoever to lower prices. In fact, they'll probably raise them. They used to call s*** like this a monopoly. Now I suppose, they can get away with calling it a "consortium".

But I suppose the good little sheep will go along with it, instead of boycotting it altogether.

Where have all the windbags gone that shouted, "death to Blockbuster"? Blockbuster and Redbox, could turn out to be your only escape from this nonsense.

 

[lawfer]

Wait, so let me get this straight. ISPs are joining the RIAA and MPAA, to monitor, and consequently punish "illegal" file sharing. Now, isn't that a major violation of the customer's privacy? How can they, both morally and legally, be allowed to even plan on doing this? Did I miss something?

 

[Guest]

since when do you think your ISP is worried about what moral, ethical, or really even legal for that matter? I can think of many things that several things these companies do that just barely scrapes any of those and they don't even get a second look by good ol gov't. This same statement goes for MPAA and RIAA also.