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OptimumOnline Bans uploads to P2P networks
An anonymous reader writes "In disturbing news this week Cablevision's high speed broadband unit OptimumOnline has sent letters to subscribers warning that uploading to P2P networks will no longer be tolerated. Obviously bowing to record and movie industry pressure the letter includes a link to a page that gives directions on how to disable file trading on 18 P2P services from KaZaa to Xolox. If you don't comply, they will cut the cord. I remember not to long ago where OptimumOnline ran TV ads touting the ability to grab music from the Net. The story on this can also be read here."
They're just tired of having bandwidth wasted?
Oh, and last time I checked, upload != 'grabbing' files. That'd be downloading, eh?
It doesn't matter if your right, it doesn't matter if you've done nothing illegal, what matters is who has the better attorneys. The logic used here is the same that is used with gun control. Punish the innocent and the people capable of potentially commiting a crime. Assume they are guilty first, ask questions later.
The cable company capitulated because the legal expenses to fight the threat of legal action is more than sending out a letter to each user. It's really that simple. If this isn't a SURE sign our legal system needs a review, then I don't know what is.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
This may seem heavy-handed, but most of the stuff they're uploading is probably copyrighted, and hence illegal to share. So, really all the ISP is doing is banning people from breakng the law. Just because you don't agree with a law doesn't make it ok to break it with impunity - if that was the case, nobody would drive the speed limit.
I remember not to long ago where OptimumOnline ran TV ads touting the ability to grab music from the Net
Right... cutting off the upstream means you can't UPLOAD music... you can still download all you want.
At my present job, we recieve DMCA violation tickets sent to us, which include the ip address of the customer that was sharing files. We then track down the customer based on the ARP logs and issue them a letter notifying them that they are in violation of our Acceptable Use Policy which prohibits the usage of servers on a residential service, as well as our clauses that allow us to terminate a customers service. If we recieve 3 DCMA tickets from a particular customer we permanetly terminate their service. On a side note, due to the asynchrous nature of most cable modem service, as well as the fact that a node is essentially a LAN, I can certainly understand the concern about people constantly uploading files. Saturating the forward path can cause problems with download traffic as TCP requires ACK packets to be sent stating that a packet has reached it's destination, if the ACK packet is not recieved the packet needs to be re-transmited. So the next time you think your not causing any problems for anyone when you spent the last 2 weeks on Kazaa allowing people to leech files think again.
You are saying it would be ok for Ford and GM to put monitors on all of our cars so that if we exceed the speed limit they can come take the car back? How about we get smart money going to make sure we pay every cent of our taxes and never use it to buy anything illegal? Condoms should come with monitors too? Wouldn't want to let us go sticking them into prostitutes, animals, or other men where it's illegal.
It doesn't SEEM heavy handed, it IS heavy handed. Not everyone is ready to bend over like you and accept being treated like a criminal for refusing to be disneyfied lumps of consumerism.
If bandwith consumption is their issue, then they can always go the capping/rate increase route.
The ban is against servers. Most ISPs ban this for residential accounts. When surfing on the web you are a client to the various web servers. You sent them an HTTP Request for the web page(A URL essentially) and they send you an HTTP reply which includes the web page. So that is not in violation of the no server ban. Now running your own web server, that is in violation.
Technically many service providers can ban the use P2P applications on this condition. Although rarely do ISPS enforce this rule. But for a cable customer, the bandwith is shared and the upstream is really easy to congest. One valid argument agaisnt peer to peer networking services is that users from all over the world in downloading files from users of the service clog up the upstream bandwith for valid users of the service.
Now why should you be mad at Optimum Online? Because they didn't enforce their rule on no servers to BAN P2P networks a long time ago. In fact their advertising implicitly specified that P2P networks were one reason for signing up with their service. Maybe if they banned them from the beginning as violating their server rules they wouldn't be such hyppocrites.
I admit I haven't done more research so I do not know if they sent it out to all users of their service or just the residential cable users. Commercial accounts of most services do NOT have a restriction against using servers. Because most commercial users of high bandwith service want to run web servers or other things for their businesses. Therefore there is no basis for using the no server rule to ban P2P networks since there isn't a no server rule. Additionally invoking a no server rule against commercial customers would be extremely ineffective since most sign up to run servers.
I love the instant paranoia that most /. users seem to have, it's always someone bowing to pressure from some organization. Did you every consider that maybe, just maybe, they are just sick of the bandwith that is being wasted. Consider that most Cable ISPs only provide 40KB/s upload speeds, they are probably hinting at something. Also, consider all the support costs for people acting as a server and then calling in a complaining about the service being "slow", because they are not aware that while they are downloading they also have to upload while still requesting more information.
Taking over one bit at a time...
I've been reading Lawrence Lessig's _The Future of Ideas_ and he talked about this and made it clear why it would happen and the inevitability of it. Cable is the closed network of our time. There are far too many controls on it. I wonder how it is that the network providers are so short-sighted that they believe that this model is the way to go.
As for peer-to-peer and that it trades only illegal stuff, well that's hogwash. Yes, p2p is being used for a lot of file sharing right now and most of it is still protected by (an outrageous system of) copyrights. But p2p is an infant and there is no way to tell what it will be used for in even one year's time. I bet that p2p users will outwit the cable companies, bypass them and, unless they open their networks, make them irrelevant.
What will come in the place of cable. Hell, I don't know, but the cable industries stands of today feel a lot like aol's work of yesterday. Aol's dying. Cable will be next. Something else will take its place.
Until then, if you've got access to dsl and you value openness, call Verizon or whoever. The phone companies are the only ones who have to leave things open. Though, that might change. Things are getting creepy under the Generalisimo Bush. Egad.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
So your saying that the 10 to 15 GB of amature racing videos and my physche iso's that people are always downloading from me are not legitimate use of P2P? What % of non infringing/infringing matierial do you find acceptable to be considered legitimate? What makes your % any more right then my % or a judges %? Don't you think the media companies are going to have a higher % then all of us? Should we shut down alt.binaries? What % would make them not legitimate anymore? What about IM file xfers? What about MS file and print sharing or Samba? What about cdr's? Each has illegal and non illegal uses, fractions of what it is used for will vary greatly depending on what else is around. If P2P goes away I am losing my right to my 100% legal use of it.
You are no longer trying to prove your point from a technical perspective, you are now using your opinion. That is exactly what I was refering to in my previous post about you falling under (3) for personal reasons.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
We recieve a list of copyright materials that were sucessfully downloaded from the individual.
That's kind of surprising, because that could be illegal, for whoever's doing the downloading. But I wouldn't put it past anyone...
As the law currently stands, we have to uphold the request of the copyright holder, and if we don't do this then we can have legal action brought against us.
ROFL. You don't have to uphold the request in this case. (And you can have legal action brought against you either way; the DMCA can't prevent that.) I think you're confused about the infringement liability exemptions. You might want to take a look at this.
But to summarize:
Yes, an ISP only has DMCA immunity from liability for infringement of copyright involving content stored on their servers if they designate an agent, comply with notice & counter-notice time limits, etc. That's probably what you're thinking of. See USC 17 Ch. 5 S 512(c).
But that's irrelevant, because we're not talking about content stored on the ISP's servers.
The ISP has blanket immunity for content that passes through their network but isn't stored there more than transiently. This is covered a couple of paragraphs up in S 512(a). (Notices could be involved, but only if a proxy is maintaining content that has been removed at the source; and we're not likely to find an inward transparent proxy on a network with an AUP that prohibits servers. =)
If you don't like the law, I would suggest contacting your senator.
Heh. And if my ISP constantly tries to cover their ass at my expense (but can't even get that right, since they don't seem to know where their ass it), then who do I contact? Their shareholders? =)