Anti-Piracy Firm Offering ISPs Money For Outing File-Sharers

mytrip points out news that an anti-piracy firm called Nexicon has been offering financial incentives to ISPs in exchange for having the ISPs police their own networks for copyright infringement. Nexicon would offer their services (for a fee) to help the ISPs pinpoint users who are illegally sharing files, and then give the users an option to "settle" through their "Get Amnesty" website. The revenue generated by such settlements would then be shared with the ISPs. Jerry Scroggin, owner of a smaller ISP in Louisiana, is still skeptical, saying, "I would still wind up losing customers. I would also have to pay Nexicon for this ... I have to survive in this economy but I don't have the big marketing dollars that bigger ISPs have. I have to fund 401(K)s and find ways not to lay off people. Giving free rein to the RIAA is not part of my business model."

Comments

Huh, madness

[someone1234]

A small ISP could fake the logs and sell out some of their customers.

Re:Huh, madness

[Zerth]

I've got a few customers I wish I could do that to.

Unfortunately, that is probably a crime. Especially since I'm not an ISP, so I'd have to crack their wireless router.

Re:Huh, madness

[cdrguru]

An ISP log isn't going to be the final answer. Someone, somewhere is going to be looking at computer hard drives, CDs, DVDd, etc. If they do not find any infringing materials there is no evidence and the matter drops.

Now I would imagine if the ISP faked up some logs to provide material for the examination of cmoputers and a lot of it turned out to be bogus you would have the ISP getting sued by both ends of this. Because examining the computers (by a qualified forensic examiner) isn't cheap and because losing your computer for a couple of weeks isn't much fun either. So I would say there are substantial risks to faking logs and the end result is that it doesn't go anywhere. No settlements. Because there is no legal action and no possibility of legal action.

Now if someone wants to go from logs to making a settlement offer to the potential offender, that is just stupid. Because you just tipped your hand and the potential offender then can delete everything from their computer, without penalty, because there is no requirement to preserve evidence. So bypassing the "seize the computer" step nets you nothing in the long run.

they pitch an interesting plan

[v1]

"I would still wind up losing customers. I would also have to pay Nexicon for this ...

They do address this on their web page

THE VALUE: GetAmnesty provides content owners with a new revenue stream by collecting settlement fees on their behalf from those who illegally download their copyrighted content. Further, violators are tagged with a complete history of their downloading activities, which is easily translated to create customer profiles for online marketing purposes.

Looks like they intend for the loss of customers to be more than offset by the extortion payments you receive from some of them.

I'm betting NOT. Suing (or extorting, threatening to sue and selling "protection") your customers has never been an effective business model. You'd think they'd have learned that by now.

Re:they pitch an interesting plan

[stranger_to_himself]

I'm betting NOT. Suing (or extorting, threatening to sue and selling "protection") your customers has never been an effective business model. You'd think they'd have learned that by now.

True, but the average customer might never know or figure out that it was the ISP that sold them out.

Re:they pitch an interesting plan

[Kindaian]

And as they are at that, what differentiates a legal from an illegal download?

Specially as they don't know if I've or not a license to the download or not!

Re:they pitch an interesting plan

[McGiraf]

"(or extorting, threatening to sue and selling "protection") your customers has never been an effective business model. "

Tell that to the real Mafia.

Re:they pitch an interesting plan

[owlnation]

True, but the average customer might never know or figure out that it was the ISP that sold them out.

The ISP does have a duty to protect the privacy of a customer, I think most people know that it's hard to identify anyone without the ISP coughing up data -- legally or otherwise. Anyway, I don't think that matters. My guess is that the first act of anyone who is accused of file sharing, is to change their ISP, regardless of who found out about them, or sold them out. It only makes sense to do so. Either way, the ISP loses. And rightly so, they should not be giving up data without a solid court warrant to anyone, for any reason.

Re:they pitch an interesting plan

[JoshHeitzman]

As I remember it those safe harbor provisions don't great a general duty to assist in copyright enforcement, but the a very specific one if the form of honoring take down notices.

Re:they pitch an interesting plan

[Holi]

I would but they are all in jail.
I mean honestly, organized crime is a much smaller player then it ever used to be. Its hard to compete with the government sanctioned criminals.

great business model there jim

[timmarhy]

pay us money, and we MIGHT give you a cut of any profits we make. fuck that, sounds like a pyramid scheme to me.

Re:great business model there jim

[damburger]

Welcome to the world of 'Intellectual Property'. The owners of huge amounts of IP demand they be given lots of money on the premise that this will ultimately (through some only vaguely specified mechanism) result in artists being rewarded for the quality of their work.

More than losing customers

[davmoo]

Besides losing customers, if ISPs start policing their networks like that, don't they then give up some of their "safe haven" protections and all that?

making money from illegal activity?

[petes_PoV]

So they wait until they find someone doing something illegal[1]. They offer to allow them to atone (financially, of course) for their "crimes". They then share the proceeds with the very ISP which allowed them to perform these acts in the first place.

Apart from the highly dubious moral position, this sounds like either a protection racket or entrapment, or both.

[1] although it won't ever get to court - they'll hope people will just roll over and pay up. So the legality of this "sting" won't ever be tested.

That pill is poison.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once the ISP's start accepting this money, good bye safe harbor provision. You can't claim to be a common carrier once you've accepted responsibility for policing your content.

Now it's easy--someone with one of your ISP's IP addresses downloaded my copyrighted content? I don't even need to know who they are--I sue the ISP and win.

The potential legal liability an ISP would be signing up for to participate in this is MASSIVE. You're now potential liable for every copyrighted piece of data on your network.

Re:That pill is poison.

[cdrguru]

I don't think you understand how ISPs have DMCA Safe Harbor. They have it because they are required to cooperate with enforcement. If they fail to cooperate, they lose. So assisting in enforcement doesn't hurt them.

Now it is indeed a good question how much cooperation is actually required under the provisions of the DMCA. Clearly, turning over customer information is required, which all ISPs do when properly served. But do they have to go the extra mile as this program does? If I was marketing this program I would certainly spin it that they can cooperate or they can face losing their Safe Harbor status and suddenly become a party to infringement actions brought on their customers.

The idea that the ISP can shield cusomters from legal action has never existed. Any suggetion that the ISP can afford not to cooperate is going to go out the window pretty soon, should this actually work out.

Short Term Gains! Sell Out Your Customers!

[erroneus]

They may not be your customers for long, but we will pay your Tuesday for a customer sell-out today!

Ahh, I see

[Xelios]

So the RIAA/MPAA's strategy in stopping the lawsuits was simply to outsource that operation to a 3rd party in an attempt to distance themselves from the negative publicity they've been getting. Should anything go wrong, this company will just be cut loose and left to deal with whatever mess they've gotten themselves into, and the cycle will start again with a new company.

A little information about Nexicon

[Xelios]

I found this through a quick google search. It seems Nexicon is the company behind YouTube's video identification software, and that it used to be known as Cyco.net, an online seller of cigarettes. After acquiring two small IT companies it had a change of heart, and decided to change its business model from selling tobacco online to providing the content industry with copyright infringement solutions. It makes perfect sense.

Article about the renaming to Nexicon
Article about their work with Youtube

This violates common carrier

[eyeota]

This has a huge potential to backfire on the ISPs.

IANAL, but I have worked at an ISP before. ISP have some limited immunity from civil suits because they are a common carrier.
i.e. They're providing transport to another network (the internet) and the information the flows between it is the responsibility of the sender / receiver because they're merely providing the transport. The minute they start to police the network at a content level (like Nexicon suggests) they can potentially be liable for the information passing through their networks because they are now 'aware' of the illegal content and have a responsibility to act.

The cons outweigh the pros for this time of agreement. I dont' expect many ISPs to by into this B.S.

Morals or Pocketbook

[nurb432]

Sounds to me like that ISP in the story has no moral grounding and would screw its customers if the economy didnt suck.

The war is just beginning people. Are you ready?