Aussie ISP Scans Downloads For Copyright Violation

Steve Nakhla writes: "According to this article, Excite@Home has begun snooping users' downloads in order to find copyrighted or pirated material. Violators have their access cut off. As an Excite@home user, this alarms me. What exactly is their definition of copyrighted? Doesn't the New York Times copyright their online articles? Can I not view them any more for fear of violating Excite's policies?"

Comments

Download Linux, get your access taken away?

[Tin Weasil]

If they were really penalizing people for downloading all copyrighted materials, then you would get yanked for downloading GPL'd software, since it is, in fact, copyrighted.

Hey! Take a look at the bottom right corner of your page when you load slashdot! There is an OSDN copyright!

Really, I don't think any aussies who is doing anything legitimate (reading the NYTimes for example) has anything to worry about here.

I support any ISP for yanking connectivity of anyone for any reason. It's the ISPs right. Maybe they don't like you because you don't take baths (sorry RMS).

What is disturbing is that the ISP in question is actively monitoring it's user's online transactions and actions. That, in my OP is a violation of privacy.

Re:How is this different from a wiretap?

[stevew]

First off - we're talking about Australia - they have a different take on things down there, and what may be legal here might not be there (and vice-versa.)

If I recall correctly, the 1996 Telecommunications Act made ISP's the equivalent of common-carriers, and they are exempt from worrying about content issues. The DMCA modified that to the extent that you can be tried and convicted by the ISP by them merely receiving a letter claiming you've done something wrong. The DMCA requires that they take action upon receipt of a letter. So - the ISP can only be held liable if they don't take action.

My solution is to send all the lawyers in the land to this little island off the coast of Africa where there are no scheduled boats or planes. This in and of it self should take care of congress since it's mostly lawyers. Think of what a wonderful world it could be! ;-)

Re:woah, WOAH!!

[Angst Badger]

Isn't this a MAJOR invasion of privacy? I can't remember exactly, but I seem to remember that ISPs were told they were NOT allowed to do that to modem users, as it violates several privacy issues. You're required to get a warrant prior to initiating any snooping whatsoever.

Yes, it's an invasion of privacy, but the question is whether it is an illegal invasion of privacy. If it was a government agency doing it, then yes, they'd need a warrant. For a private company to monitor what its customers are doing with company equipment is another matter altogether, and in many cases may be perfectly legal.

In some states, for example, you can legally record (your own) telephone calls without informing the party at the other end. Tennessee is one of those states. Maryland -- as Linda Tripp learned to her dismay -- is not.

Please bear in mind that there are extraordinary restraints on the actions of government agencies because they have extraordinary powers. Private citizens and private companies are under much lesser restraints. Moreover, analogies between telcos and ISPs (or between the telco branch of Big Fnarking Company and its ISP branch) are flawed because there are very specific laws governing common carriers, which telcos are, and few laws governing ISPs which are not, I repeat not, common carriers.

I'm not saying this is the way it should be, but in the absence of laws to the contrary, that's just how it is. Considering that ISPs can and have been held responsible for the actions of their customers in some instances, management may feel like they have to cover their butts by snooping. Of course, they may also just be tired of losing money on MP3-and-warez-sucking bandwidth hogs.

Re:How is this different from a wiretap?

[TekPolitik]

At first it looks like it may be an illegal wiretap. This is covered by the Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1989 (Cth). The difficulty lies in the interpretation of "Interception" in section 6 of that Act

Don't worry too much about subsection 2, none of those provisions apply even though it looks like they might. Subsection 1 is the problem, because it defines interception as "listening to or recording". Since the software downloads are not audio content, they're not "listening to" it, and it seems unlikely they're recording it. There's no reason to expect a court to decide that a checksum, CRC or other hash would constitute "recording", since "recording" implies substantially duplicating the content rather than merely identifying the content probabilistically.

It is unlikely that a court would hold that anything other than the reproduction of the content itself would constitute "recording".

IANALY,TINLA

Hey - Does this mean they are stealing a service?

[Phrogman]

If they intercept the images that a person downloads from a pay service - or the text articles or whathaveyou, does that mean they are illegally accessing that service?

I mean if I pay good money to access a porn^H^H^H^H^H pay news service and receive the benefit of that service, how can they legallly be allowed to (presumably) gain the same benefit from that service without paying for it?

Why, that ought to be illegal...