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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."
So if you write back, give them a crapy excuse "sorry, I didnt know kazaa was bad" They have proof in writing. PROOF IN WRITING. That you admited to violating the law. Anyone see something wrong with this??
How this for a letter: "Yes, I might have said content, I apologize if I do. Why I have it? I plead the 5th"
snowulf.com
Heck they were almost DisneyCast!
They're probably playing establishing a track record to appease their next Hollywood acquisition target.
What seems funny to me is that I have know about 15 people who download gigs of crap a week, and each one of them thinks that BitTorrent is untraceable. They give me excuses like "The packets don't have the file name information", among others. I tell them all the time that thier only real protection is thier isp's willingness (or lack thereof) of getting involved.
I just type my sig in the reply form...
Yea exactly .. Comcast being one of the biggest distributers of video media .. they are losing 'profits' by allowing u to serve those files. Interesting to see that bittorrent was the method of distribution .. I wonder if you can get away with sending only parts of a file :)
Or you could just write in the letter that after your hacker friend explained to you that the whole neighborhood was using your internet connection to download pr0n...you, as a good christian, promptly blew up your WiFi router in the back yard. That way, they can't tell if you had WEP enabled or not. Though I hear hellspawn can decrypt WEP in real time nowadays.
...it appears that if a valid explanation is given (ie. I don't know how to secure my access point and my neighbors run wild on my connection...) then both Comcast and the copyright owner will be happy.
There's nothing in the letter that leads to this conclussion. They say:
"Comcast will provide a copy of the counter notification to the party who sent the original notification of claimed infringement. We will them follow the DMCA's procedures with respect to a received counter notification ".
Any lawyer out there who can specify the DMCA's procedures in such a case? Does pleading ignorant work? It would be too easy
It can't be long now, we'll start with the disclaimers and all... I can just imagine it:
"By accessing this node you indicate that you are not now, nor have you ever been a law enforcement agent, postal worker, or employee of any Media corporation engaged in interstate commerce, nor are employed by any such organization."
More work for the lawyers, YIPPEE!
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
I know a guy on Cox that got one of these last Wednesday too. It was from BayTSP. It quotes no law other than vaguely referring to the DMCA. They shut his service off cause he wasn't home to see the email within the 24 hour period they gave him to respond. He played dumb and told them he had wireless and didn't know how to secure his WAP. They told him they'd turn his service back on after he went home and made sure BITTORRENT was OFF all his computers.
BT is legal and I use it for Linux transfers.
They included a report that appeared generated by one of their spiders and was no proof of him doing anything far as I'm concerned. It was meant to scare him.
Also, the District of Colunbia v RIAA on Dec 20 2003, ruled transitory data across a network is NOT subject to the takedown provisions of the DMCA and as such, they have no right to discontinue his service. It's like making the phone company disconnect your phone for making an illegal phone call (which they can't do). Same thing.
The guy I know, didn't even go home. He called them back an hour later and told them, 'Nope, nothing there' and they turned it back on with Cox blaming his neighbors.
It's actually intereting -- given Verizon's victories, why would Comcast play DMCA ball for MGM?
Could it have anything to do with Comcast's (recently abandoned) bid for Disney? And Disney-MGM Studios?
Playing megamedia connect-the-dots is fun!
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
"it was an XviD of Walking Tall, which was made by MGM"
.torrent themselves... sorry, it just doesn't make any sense...
Maybe I'm not reading this right, but this is NOTHING like the RIAA, this is for DOWNLOADING, not SHARING, and not just that it's for downloading something that the plaintiff has created and put up for distribution, entrapment anyone?
On second though, can't be, can it - if they put up the
Anyone care to comment on how effective peer guardian is and avoding this unpleasantness?
I work for Cox Communication's Network Security department, and we handle hundereds of these issues a day.
You are found to be sending out copyrighted material over P2P networks, we get the complaint, and turn your service off. You call in, we tell you you were distributing the copyrighted gaybarebackporndivx.avi - and you promise to disable your outgoing filesharing.
We turn you back on, close the ticket, and all is back to normal.
-Imidazole2
"Seriously, I have 3 or 4 options right now for broadband. If comcast is going to monitor my usage then I'll decide to go elsewhere for service. The only way they'll stop this kind of activity is if they lose customers by doing it."
That's super, but I have one option: Comcast. I'm nowhere near close enough to the CO for DSL, and unless they decide to run fiber to the small neighborhood in which I live (yeah, right), my only option for a long, long time is going to continue to be Comcast. I hate it, it sucks, and I'm annoyed by it. What can I do about it? Nothing.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
"In accordance with the DMCA and Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy, Comcast request that you immediately remove the allegedly infringing works from the Service or Comcast will be forced to remove or block access the the works."
Comcast is demanding the file be removed from (The "Service"). I use Comcast and when did my personal Hard Drive contents become under the control of their Acceptable Use Policy?
If the file was placed on rented Web space on one of their servers, maybe... But to demand I remove a file off my personal hard drive because it is in violation of their Acceptable Use?
This seems to me to be a line crossed. If they've now declared that the contents of my personal hard drive are covered under their "Service" then I say Bring it on! That's a fight I'd morgage the house to pay for!
I'm going to install BitTorrent just so I can get one of these letters. I'm mad.
The only way they'll stop this kind of activity is if they lose customers by doing it.
Except that the chances are that the other companies will soon follow suit. If they don't, they'll end up providing more bandwidth per customer than Comcast, which gives Comcast a competitive advantage. I run a small WISP and I do everything I can to hand customers who want to run P2P and so on to my competitors. And I saw an interview with the CEO of France Télécom a couple of months ago in which he more or less begged the government to give him an excuse to do the same as me.
Virtually serving coffee
I went to a private high school. Nearly our entire senior class went out drinking on our senior class trip. This was a school sponsored trip and created a problem for the administration. The "helpful" deans came to our class warning us that the administration would do something horrible to us, so we should draft a letter as a class apologizing for our transgressions and they would go easy on us. (I was not present at this meeting with the deans. Had I been, I wouldn't have let it happen like it did.) Our class officers wrote a letter of apology which was then used as a basis to pursue the issue as fact rather than heresay as it had been up to that point. It created a much more difficult situation for our class as the administration set their sights on expelling a number of my classmates. We had to get creative in order to accept discipline as a class. But, had we not provided proof in writing, I don't think they would have been able to really discipline us like they did. Anyway, maybe slightly OT, but this definitely reminded me of that.
What I want to know is in this case who initiated discovered this download incident and initiated the complaint? Was it some 3rd party P2P watchdog hired by MGM who then complains directly to ISPs then the ISP accuses the customer? Or does Comcast police all downloads without waiting for incident complaints from companies like MGM? If that's the case then unfortunately Comacst cutomers agreed to it on sign-up, as from Comcast's Terms of Service: "Monitoring of Postings and Transmissions: Comcast shall have no obligation to monitor postings or transmissions made in connection with the Service. However, you acknowledge and agree that Comcast and its agents shall have the right to monitor any such postings and transmissions, including without limitation e-mail, newsgroups, chat, IP audio and video, and web space content, from time to time and to use and disclose them in accordance with Sections 4 and 5 of this Agreement, and as otherwise required by law or government request. " ... and from their privacy policy page "Comcast uses personally identifiable information collected on the Service as necessary to render the Service and to ... determine whether there are violations of any applicable policies and terms of service; " I guess that's standard for all ISPs Terms of Service, and we all agreed to it. Don't like it, use the other broadband carrier in your area, oh, they have the same terms, oh well.
A friend of mine had his cable access turned off because cableone was notified that they'd downloaded Starsky and Hutch. When they called the company for an explanation they were told that if they signed a statement saying they had downloaded the file and deleted it they would turn their cable back on. When they said that they hadn't downloaded the file and in fact had proof that neither one of them were in the house at the time the file was downloaded. They were told the connection couldn't be turned on until they'd resolved the issue with the company investigating for the movie company.
They don't even have a wireless network, so it's pretty clear that whoever is doing the monitoring messed up, but still their only recourse is to sign a statement admitting to wrongdoing.
Needless to say they now have dsl and satellite tv.
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.
IANAL, but there are laws about theft of service from cable companies. These were passed to prevent people from sharing their cable TV with their neighbours, but apply to their Internet service as well. Saying that you have an access point would be admitting to committing theft of service.
What Would the Fab Five Do?
so THATS what all those hits on my Router where!, I have been trying to figure out what they where for a week since I last checked the log....cause they just randomly started happening recently
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
well, this works as long as you can "render to God what's God's" (case to the point: the Temple scene). From here on it's open to speculation about what is/should be considered as God's ;-)
A theory could come in the form that for a Christian everything comes from God, so he/she, as one of the God's children, is free to use it. Subsequent anarchy would be interesting to watch.
Heh, most of the time movies are "traded" around is when the developers GIVE OUT screeners to people, and THAT is uploaded and passed around. So in turns, it's actually their own fault.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
Anybody think about going after Comcast for violating USC 18 2511(c)? It states:
2511(c) intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose, to any other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subsection;
And more specifically 2511(3)(a):
2511(3)(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection, a person or entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not intentionally divulge the contents of any communication (other than one to such person or entity, or an agent thereof) while in transmission on that service to any person or entity other than an addressee or intended recipient of such communication or an agent of such addressee or intended recipient.
Looks to me like Comcast violated US criminal ccode and perhaps 371 (conspiracy with MGM).
I'm not one for violating copyrights, but the DMCA is being used in other areas to prevent much needed security discussions and crack down on whistleblowers. Moreover, pointing out that a company sucks these days invites a SLAPP lawsuit. Maybe we should go back to the days of bang-paths and store-and-forward. If there are enough overlapping wireless networks in your metro area, you'd never have to cross physical infrastructure and it'd be virtually untracable. Store and forward's also a lot more difficult for some corporation to take over. It's easy enough to configure a program to listen on only one interface, so setting up your machine to provide a service over wireless only is pretty straight forward. Just a thought...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
While I can see allegations of copyright infringement, if the user was in fact sharing a copyrighted movie, I'm a bit confused by the DMCA aspect. No encryption was being circumvented (it was a camera rip), nor was the copy made from a digital source of any kind, and it's not even clear that the user is the one who made originally made the rip of the movie, so I would think standard copyright law would cover the situation - it was a copyrighted movie, he was allegedly distributing it. What provision of the DMCA was supposedly being violated here?
1) You don't need the rights to MGM's movies to reproduce them.
2) You may not need the rights to MGM's movies to distribute them, depending on whether or not your activity is commercial. i.e. piracy is illegal, but loaning a videotape to a friend is not. This last point is currently contested because "distributing" these days not longer means moving around a single physical copy, but making copies and distributing them.
But yeah, hey, I'm with you all the way. If any of those Comcast users are really pirates, as in selling MGM's movies without the rights, string 'em up! I guess my problem is that I doubt anyone's selling anything.
Here is a good one, if I pay for HBO on Digital Cable but I miss the Sopranos, then download it from bit torrent am I breaking the law? It's the same as using TiVo, or even a VCR. Of course comcast being the cable provider probably wouldn't like that. But how different is it from having a friend tape it for me?
ISPs who allocate dynamic IPs definitely track which account was using which IP at which point of time; if the ISP is already cooperating with the request, then static or dynamic doesn't make a bit of difference.
(Of course, dynamic IPs do make it harder for someone in the wild to track the activity of a particular user).
Actually, all Microsoft requested, was for them to inform me, offering a file named Windows_Source.zip was likely illegal -- by forwarding the Microsoft's letter to me.
But SpeakEasy.net -- the celebrated "geek friendly" (you can run servers) ISP -- shut me down -- without even checking, if MS' allegations were true (I removed the file the day before MS sent their letter to SpeakEasy)!
Trouble was, I was on vacation, so it lasted for a week... They gave me credit for the whole week after I cleared it upon coming back, but I am still fuming.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
> Only users who engage in illegal activities really have anything to worry about.
I read an interesting article this weekend in which various evangelical Christians (including one youth pastor) all encouraged P2P sharing of music by Christian artists for various reasons. All of the reasons given were variations on "it's helping spread the word" and "the Bible says that you shouldn't be concerned with money," which pretty well mirrors the "it's free advertising" and "rock stars already have enough money" logic that most file traders share.
When I started typing this, I had some point in mind about how when even evangelical Christians can ignore IP laws ("thou shalt not steal" being the original DMCA) without a second thought, media companies are definitely in trouble. I completely lost track of how to make that point, so feel free to mod me (-1, interesting, but only vaguely related, coherent, or on-topic).
Others ISPs are already doing it.
Two of my friends have had their Time Warner cable modem service terminated.
The letter that you were supposed to sign and return was not, however, an apology and explanation. It was essentially an admission of guilt... They wouldn't restore service without a signature on that letter.
In effect, you are screwed either way. If you don't sign the letter, you can't get your service enabled again. If you do sign the letter, you're admitting guilt (and signing it) so they can easily sue you later (the copyright holder).
It looks like the letter is about someone "sharing" a movie for others to access is the issue addressed - NOT the original downloading, as most here seem to be assuming.
That said, I think anyone getting such a letter had better go see a lawyer before they essentially write the copyright holder a written confession.
What I don't understand is why ISPs don't just toss the logs every 24-48 hours - they are sending out the letters to comply with the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA. If they deleted the logs as policy, they would be compliant with the provisions, and wouldn't be *able* to send out letters. IANACopyrightLawyer.
Another thing - There is no 'open' advice on EFF or Chilling Effects as to what to do when you get a letter. In my case, the file may have been something I shared, but I truly don't recall having the file listed at the stated filesize.
It would be nice to know what the hell to do, as sending a letter of any sort seems to open yourself up to a suit (which as we all know, I will win, because of resonable doubt and the fact that the justice system is fair and not based entirely on who has more money.)
ugh.
I do too, i share some random videos and MP3s of local artists. Just in case i ever get a letter from the RIAA, i leave my wireless AP competly open, no wep, SSID broadcast, everything. My computer is prety well secured from that side, i leave my shared folder open on the network though, but to cover my ass my connection is completly open. I believe the phrase is plausable deniability.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Get real, if the media industries continue with this crusade against sharing, they will negate any reason for most home owners to have broadband.
People dont need 1.5m to check their mail(spam)... And who is going to want to spend 50 bucks a month if the cant actually USE it.. ( remember the restrictions on VPN and such from a while ago )
Its time to adjust to the public's ( i.e. customers and voters ) demands.. Not continue to try to squash them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's a long standing urban legend...
WHAT child pornography online?
I mean it. This is getting worse than the commies-under-the-bed meme of the last century.
If you've never searched for kiddy porn, how would you know it's so widespread that we need to monitor the net bit-by-bit for it? Just the act of searching for it is borderline illegal. How can anyone know about the availability of such things?
Occam's razor: it's not out there, because people aren't insane. People "know" it is out there because they are constantly told it is. But it is a handy meme for turning the net into a giant listening device.
The judge take stuff like this for ground to dismiss any ways. If you walk into the store and buy a pack of cigerettes that came from a hijacked semi you won't get prosecuted. The same if you goto a yard sale and buy book or somethign that was property of the public library.
The point is, you obtained this in a way that is consistant with "normal" channels of distrobution. The store commonly sells cigerettes that are leagle, The yardsale's commonly have books availible that are leagle, and the internet commonly haves files availible without charge. There is a fine line of when you knew. this sin't like someone is in an alley somewere selling you a television for 5 cents on the dollar. (even then if they (the seller)have a convincing story you have a good defense).
This specific case is even more dificule because the offending file has the name walking tall. This movie and name has been done before, there was even a tv series about it. The story is based on the life of a real sherif/cop and I believe even the name of a book about it. Is it the copy MGM owns the rights too or is it some backyard jedi night thing were kids put a play together and thier software picked up on it?
Actually, it's my property. I gave it to them decades ago because getting TV to rural areas got everybody good political points. Unfortunately, state monopolies tend to have this brillant ability to delude themselves into thinking they arose on their own merits, and that it's morally fine to abuse the people who gave them, for free, literally trillions of dollars in property.
Thank you. It is important to remember that most of our telecom infrastructure is inextricably linked with liberal doses of public monies or government-mandated monopolies and usually involves usage of a public "right of way" in which cabling is strung and control boxes are located. If the system were truly free market, end to end, then those saying "it's their network" might have a case. As it is, we are more than just customers and deserve to have a bill of rights as customers which is enforced with the same vigor as our responsibilities.
I do not have a signature
Of course, this brings up the studies which have shown that it is actually the difference in speeds rather than the absolute speed being driven. Here in Ohio, on rural Interstates, cars can go 65 but semis and busses are limited to 55. As a result, we do tend to have more accidents involving cars and semis simply because the semis have to go 10mph less than the cars. Read more here.
Who knows? Perhaps it is worth a shot.
Oh-- and to stay on topic... Ahem, looks like it is time to shut down ed2k... I mean...