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Comcast Warns Infringing Customers Of Abuse
tm writes "Comcast recently sent out letters to DMCA-infringing customers, informing them of their illegal downloading transgressions. The notice clearly states that Comcast has been asked by the copyright owner, MGM, to notify the individual of their actions and demand that the downloaded file(s) be immediately removed. In addition, the individual must write a return letter, which consists of an explanation and an apology. It appears that if a valid explanation is given, such as 'I don't know how to secure my access point and my neighbors run wild on my connection,' then both Comcast and MGM will be happy. If the explanation is not satisfactory however, they may proceed with fines, termination of service, ect. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and if this will influence other ISPs to go after customers at Hollywood's request."
In the letter from Comcast, there is no mention of offering an apology.
Where does it say anything about you having to send an apology and an explanation? This is just a standard DMCA notification letter, which Comcast is REQUIRED to send in order to be protected from lawsuits by copyright holders. You have a right to send a counter-notification, which is a formal statement that they're accusing you in error. Usually you don't have to do anything about these letters, aside from the obvious step of not sharing copyrighted material online. This looks like a standard DMCA letter, ISPs have been sending these out for years.
"...Comcast request that you immediately remove the allegedly infringing works from the Service or Comcast will be forced to remove or block access to the works.
If you believe in good faith that the allegedly infringing works have been removed or blocked by mistake or misidentification, then you may send a counter notification to Comcast. Upon Comcast's receipt of a counter notification that satisfies the requirements of the DMCA, Comcast will provide a copy of the counter notification to the party who sent the original notification of claimed infringment. We will then follow the DMCA's procedures with respect to a received counter notification."
Since it is a bit torrent link they're talking about (if you go by the port number in the complaint) you could easily say that your child or something had to get 'the internet talk' and kill it as easily as that.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
BitTorrent is wide open! Its pretty obvious; anyone can connect to the tracker and get a list of seeders/leechers... No amount of firewalling on the client-side can prevent that.
The 5th Amendment applies if you're being charged by the government (criminal charges). It does not apply if you are being charged by a private entity (civil charges).
If the company sues you, they will depose you or put you on the stand, and you will be (under oath, and under penalty of perjury) obliged to tell the whole and unvarnished truth.
From Verizon's news page, and I quote:
Verizon appealed the court's decision because it opens the door for anyone who makes a mere allegation of copyright infringement to gain complete access to private subscriber information without the due process protections afforded by the courts.
They don't condone piracy, but they want to cover their customers in case of abuse. It's a very reasonable position and it makes me glad I'm a Verizon customer(though actually they are the only broadband availiable in my area).
Yeesh, Slashdot has gone from merely sensationalizing stories to just plain making shit up. I can't wait for the next Linux Kernel release announcement, which I'm sure will end up saying something like "500 University students sued for using Linux; now in Guantanamo Bay"
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
It looks like this user was using bittorrent. If you are using bittorrent, the only client you should ever use is Azureus. Once you have Azureus installed, also install the Azureus SafePeer plugin. This will download the latest ip addresses from PeerGuardian which moved to a new address. This should help keep unwanted users out of your box.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Yup!
Look at what I have to block because of constant attempts by infected Comcast jackasses hitting my webserver.
Perhaps Comcast should worry about this more than what MGM is telling them to do. These are attempted intrusions that Comcast lets go without disabling (which they are able to do automatically).
66.130.171.0/24>80 66.189.242.0/24>80 66.41.0.0/16>80 66.131.84.0/24>80
66.171.26.0/24>80 24.118.53.0/24>80 66.131.98.0/24>80 66.44.125.0/24>80
66.229.130.0/24>80 66.69.155.0/24>80 66.130.145.0/24>80 66.171.148.0/24>80
66.130.128.0/24>80 66.130.102.0/24>80 66.63.82.0/24>80 66.171.201.0/24>80
24.118.11.0/24>80 66.65.30.0/24>80 66.131.138.0/24>80 66.120.58.0/24>80
66.131.241.0/24>80 66.176.82.0/24>80 66.130.20.0/24>80 66.131.183.0/24>80
66.130.178.0/24>80 66.130.20.0/24>80 66.44.252.0/24>80 66.130.252.0/24>80
66.130.55.0/24>80 66.130.66.0/24>80 66.178.17.0/24>80 66.48.151.0/24>80
66.131.101.0/24>80 66.233.252.0/24>80
Not really. The point is that you should provide a means for your ISP to 'cover their ass' in the event that they get 'requested' to do something about you specifically.
It would be nice to have a standard letter that lists the reasons that would be acceptable to them the presence of this 'criminal activity' in an area that they have legal liablity.
In short, the issue of copying music books and movies has no answer. So no one cares if you do or don't do it. All anyone really cares about is whether it is going to create a problem for them.
If they (the **AAs) were truly serious about stopping copying, then people would be going to jail for long periods of time for selling hard disks. Like how people in the USA (for example 65-year-old Canadian comedian Tommy Chong) are sent to jail for selling painted glass tubes that might be used for , ohmygod!, smoking illegal herbs.
[By the way, the news broadcast of Mr. Chong's imprisonment was followed by an advert for corporate love drugs - expensive pills designed to increase woman's sexual response. Ask your doctor today!]
Anyway, what Comcast is trying to tell you is that if you share files (and you do), please make an effort to come up with a reasonable excuse for them to ignore you while still collecting your money and providing service.
That's what this is all about.
Never sign something unless you get signatures from all concerned parties.
My wife is a teacher and they have to administer state tests every year. She tells me they have to sign something stating they'll abide by the rules with possible punishments including stripping the license to teach of the offending teacher. I try to point out to her that she's engaging in a contract that only has terms written for one party. She and every other teachers fails to see my point saying that they "have to" sign it. If it is something required by your previous employment, then it is already covered by previous contracts.
Lots of employers do stuff like this. They have you sign things to show that you've been informed of company policy. What is actually happening is that their legal department thinks the changes are significant enough that they are changes in your job, and they want to make them unilaterally. I'm not advising digging in your heals at every little issue, just be aware of what is happening when you sign your name.
Also, you shouldn't apologize for something that, given the opportunity, you would do again.
t
At the time of this post there were 200 comments, and 30 of them were rated +5, very few of them were +3 or +4.
Ideally moderation separates the good stuff from the bad-- and this fails just as bad if everything is rated 0 than if everything is rated +5.
I know folks might be saying a lot of good things, but try to separate the *really* good stuff from the *sort-of* good stuff with mod points.
Make the mod system work better. Create less mediocre +5s
(attached to this comment because I think it's better than +5s higher up on the page)
RD
Naw, but I remember there was a clause in their contract prohibiting the downloading and/or distribution of illegal material, violating copyrights, running servers of any kind, etc.
contract summary:
You have the right to remain silent.
You have the right to have a pickle shoved up your ass.
Anything you say is in violation of these rights.
I am replying for the sake of de-misinforming anyone who reads this guy's post. He is not a lawyer, does not know how the law works and is wrong this specific instance. Just because something is not specifically stated in the constitution or any statute etc does not mean that it is not the law.
I took law classes and the professor taught us that you can plead the fifth in a civil case (it may not be precisely "pleading the fifth" but you can choose to not answer a question). The differences that I remember between the civil and criminal versions are as follows:
If you plead the fifth in a criminal case, the other side's attorney cannot bring up that fact. In a civil case he can say eg "The guy is pleading the fifth, he is OBVIOUSLY guilty".
If you plead the fifth in a criminal case you cannot answer any questions at all. It is all or nothing. In a civil case you can answer some questions and not answer others.
I really wish there was a mod option (-1 PLAIN WRONG) or (-1 Misinformative)
"Does the Fifth Amendment apply in civil cases?"
IANAL, but the Fifth Ammendment can be pled in a civil case, if there is a risk of that testimony being used to file criminal charges against you. You can't just plead the 5th because your testimony will be giving them evidence for them to win their civil case. There must be something in your testimony that could incriminate you criminally.
However, in the civil case, that pleading of the Fifth Ammendment can result in a negative inference against you in a civil case(i.e., why would you plead the 5th unless you were guilty?") that isn't there in a criminal trial. IN other words, pleading the 5th in a civil case is not without repercussions.
Bottom line is that pleading the 5th in a civil case is a risky proposition that may cause you to lose your civil case but may help protect you against future crimimal charges.
There are "better ways" than pleading the 5th. Use your imagination.
There isn't anything in the current copyright law descibing criminal acts for some one abtaining a copywriten work in a fashion thats not consistant to what the owner wants. All the laws i can find about it deals with making the copies and distributing them. I would be interested into were you got the downloading is illeagle. i know it isn't right and morally might be consdiered to need to be illeagle but as of now I don't think it is.
Simply downloading something doesn't violate the law. I'm pretty sure that is why RIAA hasn't went after those that just download and one of the reason why p2p networks are still leagle. RIAA has threatend to sue those that are just downloading but I think they would have a tuffer time then SCO is having with it's linux users. After all this isn't like walking into a store were your expected to pay for somethign then walking out without paying. You goto these places with expecting not to pay somethign and then find somthign (that should be paid for) made availible free.
I'm quite familier with title 17 of the us code, state and local laws might differ and there is a possability of a law I havn't seen yet. If I'm wrong (leagaly not moraly) then please cite the laws for me. Or at least tell me if it is a state or federal law and what state.
A good source for federal laws and case law is cornell's law site.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/
I got one of these letters several months ago accusing me of sharing some movie i've never heard of on a p2p. I called their abuse department and asked what the deal was and explained that I had never used morpheus or whatever the p2p was and that I never had the filenames in question. The guy told me that there were discrepancies between the databases that they used to generate the letters and the database that tracks their ip leases. Meaning... The ip they listed was never one that was assigned to me, and the letter was a mistake. The guy in their abuse department said that they are required to send the letters but to just throw it away and move on and nothing else was ever going to happen anyway.
I am not familiar with the referenced file. I searched my computer and did not find this file in my filesystem. I often get unsolicted links sent me via AIM, Email, web popups, and network popups. One of these links may have been clicked on.
Signed
Comcast user
Lets be realistic here. There is NO mention of Comcast giving out ANY user information. I assume MGM contacted Comcast with a list of IP addresses, Comcast is tackling this from their own end. Big picture though... How is anyone realsitically supposed to know what is indside a file before downloading it? Is a file name and an IP address enough evidecse to assume you were knowingly contributing to copyright infringment? What if you got an email saying "New Microsoft Updates" and it happens to point to http://somesite.inv/xfiles.torrent (remember, many popular email clients do not directly show you the link and render html).
Torrents provide an easy way for anyone to see the participating members. Of course the media companies have no easy way to see if you got the whole thing, 10kb of it or have been redistributing it at 100kB/sec for 10 days.
Usenet seems to be more protected for the downloaders as the only place logs are kept are with the individual news server owners. Any attempt at a media company getting the download logs would be truely a fishing expedition. The point of all these questionable methods being used by the media companies is to scare people and do it with the cheapest and easiest method. If it really did come down to a court case involving money and damages, they would need more evidence then an IP address and possibly a filename to get money and prove a point. Detailed logs of your file transfers and possibly even packet captures, exact timestamps, the file in its entirety as transfered from YOUR computer only (you could have been pushing out bogus data etc) and probably much more. All of this is already possible with the cooperation of ISP's but the bang for the buck is not good. They want to protect their rights in a civil court but want it done cheaply with no effort involved. The result is campaign contributions, FUD, and cheesy attempts at laws. The DMCA and the one proposed allowing them to "hack" into your computer stand out the most.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
In this case, the content is hosted on a server you own, but on a network owned by the service provider. Since the service provider can't just root your box and remove the content, you need to do so. Like I said in my earlier post, though, I wouldn't give much of a response.
A simple "I have ensured that this file is not available on my server." should suffice to prevent comcast from disconnecting your link while not admitting anything at all.
You are spot-on for content on a hosted account though... the only small wrinkle here is that you own the server, so the only way the ISP can take it down is to disconnect you, which is, to say the least, an inconvenience for you.
.sig: file not found
I know we all like to pick on the DMCA but you shouldn't just throw it in every writeup. These people are violating copyright law, not the DMCA. The DMCA is being used to force them to remove the material or else the ISP without sending a C&D or court order. That is the only way it is involved.
"...employee of any Media corporation..."
That one is pretty easy to get around:
1. Their attorney could access the node.
2. A third party consultant could access the node.
3. An employee of a subsidiary could access the node.
And to recall a famous scene from the South Park movie: "Let's see, you must be 18 or over...whatever, *click*".
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I am sick of people thinking that it is ok to steal movies and music just because it happens to be in digital format.
And I'm sick of people using the word "steal" when what they mean is "make unauthorized copies". There is a significant difference both in the semantics and in the real world effects of these actions.
I do not have a signature
You can't really use that defense though, because Comcast has explicitly said "Thou shalt not connect more than one computer to this cable connection" in their rules and regs. Telling them that your access poing is open and allowing many connections is admitting that you're braking their rules, which will lead to a disconnection.
If you own a different connection from the standard one, which is rare, then there would be less of a problem.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
The usual movie piracy procedure is like this:
1. First distribute camcorder recorded version of movie
2. Follow-up with high quality 3 part camcorded version
3. After 2 months release divx screener copy
4. Release full DVD rip of screener copy
5. Release divx of retail DVD
6. Release full DVD rip of retail DVD
You can generally pick when and which version you want, it all depends on how eager you want to see the movie. At least this is what I've heard.
First of all, this isn't new. I got one of these from Comcast back in September, which was 8 months ago.
:P
Second, it does not say you must submit an explanation and apology. You only have to submit something to them if you believe that the file was mistakenly identified.
The only thing this is asking you to do is stop sharing the file. Which is what I did. Comcast is not trying to invade your privacy. And they are most definitely not doing this because they want to, it's because the copyright owner has used the DMCA to force Comcast to notify you of your infringement.
I really wish the editors would look into the details of things like this before submitting a story. It's almost as if they want to post misleading information to make controversy amongst us users and start a heated debate.
Joseph?
"Innocent until proven guilty" applies only to criminal cases.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
The supreme court claimed that the interests of precenting drunk driving outweighed the protections against unreasonable search and seizure. The supreme court is supposed to uphold the constitution, not change it via ruling and decree. That is why they founding fathers made it so it can be amended!