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AT&T Has Begun Issuing RIAA Takedown Notices
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from CNet:
"AT&T, one of the nation's largest Internet service providers, confirmed on Tuesday the company is working with the recording industry to combat illegal file sharing. At a digital music conference in Nashville, Jim Cicconi, a senior executive for AT&T told the audience that the ISP has begun issuing takedown notices to people accused of pirating music by the Recording Industry Association of America, according to one music industry insider who was present. In December, the RIAA, the lobbying group of the four largest recording companies, announced the group would no longer pursue an antipiracy strategy that focused on suing individuals, but rather would seek the help of broadband providers to stem the flow of pirated content. The RIAA said an undisclosed number of ISPs had agreed to cooperate but declined to name them. This is important because the RIAA has said that repeat offenders faced the possibility of losing service — at least temporarily — as part of the music industry's 'graduated response' plan."
This, correct me if I'm wrong, is completely legal; so I would rather them pursue this vein of inquiry than through legal action.
Is there anyway to defend yourself from these claims? Is there no burden of proof on the RIAA's side? Will AT&T simply punish those accused?
In short, screenshot or it didn't happen.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
I still find it amazing that ISPs go along with thi....wait...we're talking about Comcast/Verizon here. Same people who used to throttle legitimate P2P traffic. I guess we can assume that if you're shut off for 3 months for downloading music, there will be a fee greater than the bill for 3 months of service you missed to reinstate your account.
Warning: Corny karma killing post above.
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Note that the accused is just that: the accused. Being accused of piracy is enough to get you kicked off the Internet. No trial. No jury. No judge. To AT&T and others, to be accused is to be guilty. God help us all.
Fata viam invenient.
Will it ever get to the point where they're truly hurting the "pirating" community? And when they do, will they respond to what will undoubtedly be a negative impact on music sales? Yeah it sucks to have your internet shut down or having to switch providers, but will it really matter in the long run?
And no recourse.
And I, for one, welcome our new telecommunications overlords. I'd like to remind them that, as a long-time member of /., I can be valuable in helping them round up violators to slave in their fiber-optic tunnels.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
the more they oppress, the greater the resistance, afaic
sharing is good
- Step one: Find the RIAA's ISP. They probably have a big T3 line or something. ... wait. I forgot that laws only really apply to people, not massive media conglomerates. Oh well, time to come up with another cunning plan...
- Step two: Tape yourself singing in the shower. The worse the better.
- Step three: Rename the recordings. Britney Spears - Toxic, Metallica - Until it Sleeps, etc. The more popular and highly prosecuted the better.
- Step four: Copy files to a VM and install every virus-encrusted file sharing program you have on there. TRY to get caught.
- Step five: Await lawsuit. Counterclaim for piracy.
- Step six: Repeat three times. Three strikes, RIAA's out!
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
When are they doing to do something about the plethora of zombie computers on their home subscriber feeds? They'll police the "illegal sharing" of content but they don't care how much spam their users generate? Sounds a little fishy to me.
One of the 187.
I still find it amazing that ISPs go along with thi....wait...we're talking about Comcast/Verizon here. Same people who used to throttle legitimate P2P traffic. I guess we can assume that if you're shut off for 3 months for downloading music, there will be a fee greater than the bill for 3 months of service you missed to reinstate your account.
It took me a while to figure out what was in it for them as well. After all, this is a lot of work just to piss off your customers. But you hit it with the comparison to P2P throttling - what they want to do is get rid of their most unprofitable customers - those using the most bandwidth. One subset of people using lots of bandwidth includes people downloading music illegally. As it happens, that's a group easy to go after - but they certainly won't stop there.
If you want to see this go away, we need to push for the demise of flat-rate pricing. If the carriers were *more* money by the people using more bandwidth (for whatever reason), they'd be telling the RIAA to go pound sand.
If the "letter" is delivered via email, it's merely an empty gesture.
If it's delivered by snail mail, I'd consider it a form of harassment, as i've heard it mentioned here by lawyers that "notice and takedown" only applies to intermediaries such as webhosts/isp's. If it's against the terms of service cancel the service, otherwise don't worry people or get kids in trouble based on unproven accusations sent to you by a company who cent C&D letters by the hundreds to a copying machine.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Hi everyone.
Please take a step and configure your torrent clients (or others) to use the encryption only.
I see that many of you have got this feature off.
If you have it off, then you are just helping ISP to filter what you are sharing. If you turn it on, then players in the middle (like ISP) cannot see what you are actually transferring.
So, please don't be ignorant and configure your clients to use only encrypted connection! You will help also others like me, to have better download rate on encrypted connections only.
How easy...
Thank you.
As long as They don't screw with my traffic, I can accept this.
As long as you can accept this, they will screw with your traffic.
I steal signatures. This one used to be yours.
First the RIAA should not be able to retrieve the addresses directly from the provider. Privacy and such.
Second the provider does not know what is legal and what is not. IANAL defence and such.
So the RIAA can only directly ask for removal after a court order. And I mean first an official request and only later if the person repeats it, an official lawsuit.
What the RIAA can do is send a letter to the provider. That provider can then be so nice as to say that they have received this letter and if the person does something that is not legal to please stop doing this as it is against their AUP.
That is where it stops. All the rest should be going through the courts where the courts must make a serious difference between people who just share and people who make money of it.
But then that would require the RIAA to think and comprehend.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Tortious interference
Does that mean that we now finally get viable mass darknet solutions?
Ok, so if they kill all illegal means of obtaining content, and they severely restrict legal means of getting TV and movies (i.e. removing hulu access from Boxee), explain why I need broadband?
How do you think theyll scan the packages for illegal content without screwing ur traphic? raising your bandwith? AHHAHA this was a good one.
As long as They don't screw with my traffic, I can accept this.
I would consider disconnection with no burden of proof "screwing with my traffic" but I am funny that way.
I remember, as a younger lad, playing games like Cyberpunk and Shadowrun and thinking that these future-fantasy worlds where megacorps ruled the world, competing and colluding with each other in a massive game, with governments relegated to the role of their legislative pawns was a lot of fun but far out there and obviously fictional.
Oh, how I miss my youthful days... Getting older and watching fiction become reality is not pleasant...
Tortious interference
It's rather unfortunate that ISP contracts can be changed at will by the ISP but not the customer.
The ISP can merely add a clause including the MAFIAA as a party to the contract and suddenly this possible angle for lawsuits disappears.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
How will they decide what is piracy and what isn't? Using a 256 bit encryption to newsgroups should be enough protection but is it?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I'm opposed to downloading copyrighted materials without the consent of the copyright holder.
Having said that, I'm extremely suspicious that AT&T's process is fair. I have questions:
1) Is this truly targeted towards copyright violators, or is this just a bandwidth management strategy? That is to say, if I download 100 Gb of Linux ISO's, will I get nailed?
2) Is this is 3 strikes (accusations) and you're out policy?
3) Is there any dispute resolution process or recourse for those who believe they're falsely accused? After all, identifying users by their IP addresses does yield false positives?
4) If I actually did download or upload something illegally several times, will I lose my internet access? What if I still need to pay bills, etc? Losing internet access is almost like losing phone service nowadays.
I think the process would be much fairer if there was a dispute resolution process and that the ultimate punishment would be getting your connection relegated to dial-up speeds.
However, I suspect that AT&T's motives aren't entirely towards being fair to their customers.
This space left intentionally blank.
... when you can have the ISPs act as your own personal police and be above the law? Guilty upon accusation shall be the law of the land, and there shall be neither trials nor appeals. The music industry has become its own level of authority sitting on the side of the judicial, and shall not be accountable for any of the many, many abuses of power that are sure to follow.
I was all prepared to cheer for AT&T and watch to see whether the RIAA refused to take down whatever it was that was at issue. I am now bitterly disappointed.
... the fees for recording whatever song you just performed? If not, make sure you sing a song that is in the public domain, otherwise you can be sued even though it is only your voice.
based on unproven accusations sent to you by a company who cent C&D letters by the hundreds to a copying machine.
don't know if this is a typo or freudian slip, but "sent" is the proper spelling.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
1. Who pays your ISP for service, you or the RIAA? Is the RIAA a law enforcement agency? Who is the burden of proof on? Is there a reasonable and established standard of evidence? Is there any real way to dispute a false allegation? What happens when someones life is ruined because of this (can't work from home any longer, can't order goods online, can't communicate with friends)?
2. The RIAA has stopped suing individuals because they realize that's too many people to scare. Now they're waving a big legal stick at the ISPs and the ISPs are caving in based on nothing but a threat. Fantastic. Maybe I'm wrong, but have there been many/any cases where the courts have actually ruled against an ISP for an end-user P2P'ing? Have damages been established for such a case which could threaten the business of the ISP? Have the ISPs appealed the ruling?
3. ISPs are not throttling your traffic due to their concern for copyright issues, they're throttling your traffic because they haven't invested sufficiently in infrastructure suitable to meet the usage demands of some of their customers and/or have sold misleading "unlimited" plans that in reality they can't/won't stand behind.
How can you accept this? (Apart from "because I have to")
The root of this issue is that people steal music. If it wasn't digital and we did not have the internet you would have had to borrow the record from a friend or steal to hear it without buying it. Somehow in our culture it became ok to steal music and now video, how did this happen? DRM and file sharing and all this stuff could exist without any legal complications if people just would not steal... In fact we would not need DRM. If you like some music go buy it, you can still listen to it first on radio or from a friend but you should buy it. Name another business where it is OK if someone steals your product?!
If everyone who uses p2p file sharing would simply write to the companies who use the RIAA and say if they continue the current path you will stop purchasing from their company and then put that into practice , the RIAA would no long be in existence. A few thousand letters followed by a drop in sales speak louder than any forum.
I see the long term results of this strategy similar to electricity and phones. Companies can not arbitrarily turn off your phone without a valid arguement that can withstand courts. This is due to many medical equipment devices requiring electricity and phone lines be available. To many people, going without the internet is as serious as going without electricity (albeit very arguably). I'm sure after a few years legislation will attempt to be passed protecting the internet connections to homes the same way. What is the RIAA and the ISPs in the RIAA's back pocket going to do then? Use the excuse of "we've always done it this way"? At some point someone is going to deem the internet a necessity in the home, and the RIAA is going to have to change their tactic or attempt to buy out the legislation.
Cost of entry into the market is kind of high, If the local government is not creating an outright monopoly, then you still have to lay wire/fiber/wifi out to the customer's door.
But if they are screwing with his traffic, then he won't accept it! :-)
Starmen.net
You can complain to AT&T by visiting this link: Email Us
And I will not use AT&T as my service provider in the future.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
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AT&T and Co already stopped providing free access to Usenet binaries, but there's no download caps. Stop using torrents and get a Usenet provider instead. So far AT&T doesn't seem willing to block Usenet traffic.
IANAL.
Is it possible to fight something like this simply by showing up in court and saying,"Ok, prove it."
Shouldn't that be enough to get people off the hook? I'm fairly certain I'm over simplifying it, but I really feel like all this take-down BS is just smoke and mirrors to scare people
-
It's not that they can't afford to prove it. It's that they can't prove it. Period. They have no legal means of doing so, as the courts are finally making clear.
So what happens to people to run open wifi routers? Oh sorry I have an open WiFi router didn't realize someone was pirating music through it.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
but "guilty until proven innocent" has been the whole point of this discussion. Did you miss something somewhere?
Is downloading a copy of a song, that you already own a copy of, illegal?
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
you've discounted all uses of "slippery slope," haven't you?
Could you give us a single example of the phrase being used "properly?"
Otherwise you're just being closed minded and silly.
It maybe legal to do this but they can't force ISPs to comply.
It could be a nice business opportunity, to start an ISP bussiness, not colaborative with RIAA crap and ADVERTISE it, privacy protection could be a feature people would value and motivate them to switch ISP
Wish I had a couple of million to start a bussiness like that
This is just wromg on AT&T's part. The RIAA can accuse anyone (and has in the past). That does NOT mean that whoever they acuse is guilty of illegal file sharing (and yes, there is LEGAL file sharing going on). The RIAA has in the past acused people of file sharing that were not guilty, and had no possibility of being guilty. So now AT&T is going to ASSUME that whoever the RIAA points a finger at is guilty?!
What ever happened to "Innocent until PROVEN Guilty?
AT&T will have increased costs on their part as a result of this agreement. As a result it will likely result in increased internet rates for me as an AT&T customer. If I find out that my rates go up as a result of this agreement with the RIAA I wil cancel my subscription to AT&T DSL. AT&T should not be in the business of playing Nanny for the RIAA. If the RIAA wants this they should be the ones to foot the bill and pay the costs. AT&T needs to stop wasting time and money on initiatives like this and focus on getting broadband into rural areas. All the money thats being wasted to support the RIAA could be used for rural broadband initiatives. I understand that its not good to pirate stuff. However, like hell I am paying more to my ISP to support pursuit of people who download "illegal" content. The RIAA does a good enough job of that on their own. They are a sneaky, smug, hand wringing bunch of litigious thugs who want to waste the court's and taxpayer's time clogging the dockets with frivolous lawsuits and other wastes of government resources and time.
that a private business can break a contract without proof and not be held accountable for that breech?
I just posted a NON vulgar response to this article concerning AT&T's abuse for the RIAA on this issue. My post was on here now its gone. Apparently, slashdotters think its OK for AT&T to pass RIAA's costs for finding pirates on to the customers themselves.
I understand that downloading illegal stuff is not OK. But don't add anything on my bill to support the RIAA's lead. I'll leave.
AT&T, you get $50/mo from me for 6mpbs service. Leave me alone or I'll leave and I'll make sure other people do as well.
I have received a notice of copyright infringement from Mediacom(who uses AT&T backbones) stating that I had downloaded a movie that I had never downloaded. They listed a title of a movie, a date and an IP address. Unfortunately I have no way to prove or disprove that this IP address was in fact the IP address that I held during this time as my cheap router does not collect this information and I am on a short DHCP lease. I have a secure wireless network and had no visitors to my home with a computer during that time frame.
I received a warning that if they found that I infringed upon copyright again they would disconnect service.
Who watches these companies to make sure they do not falsely accuse someone? I find this whole idea unacceptable and I hope that more people speak out about it and find AT&T in a outright lie. I know I did, I just don't have any way to prove it.
It's all about the cable. Help support publicly owned cabling systems! If the public owns the cables, the public can provide for a variety of ISPs. If the ISP also owns the cables--then that guy has content-controlling-power and the power to dictate terms of service.
You don't want the people who own the cables to start dictating content! Keep the tubes publicly owned!
Support public-provided internet!
When they came for the child-pornographers,
I remained silent;
I was not a child-pornographer.
Then they locked up the drug dealers,
I remained silent;
I was not a drug dealer.
Then they came for the file-sharers,
I did not speak out;
I was not a file-sharer.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me
What happened to the free market dear american? The free market that is supposed to offer the customer choice? What are you saying dear american, your free market does not work? Would you kindly then stop pressing the rest of the world to adopt this silly system. Thank you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
How long until they merge FISA with the RIAA and roll it out on AT&T?
Have you read your AT&T contract lately?
All that needs to happen is that small-business owners realize how much trouble this could cause them, and start talking to their congress critters. But this is a ways out, and most of them don't realize the impact that actions like these can have on their business.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Wait, don't you have to be the copyright holder to issue a takedown notice? Since AT&T is not the holder, the notice is invalid.
Thank you very much for the information I really appreciate it!!
I found this useful site for Pay Per Affiliate
Except of course for the fact that the band sees virtually zero (~ $0) of that cd-sale money. The band is making their money playing live and charging $50 or whatever per ticket.
And how do I know if it sucks if I'm incapable of listening to it before buying what will quickly become a $20 coaster?
Here's what actually happens (highly simplified obviously, but it gets the point across):
1. Band creates song
2. Song put on CD by RIAA
3. Song becomes mp3 format, and is listened to by many
4. Assuming it's not shit, song and thus band become popular
5. Band comes to town - makes killing by selling out tickets
The whole mess is happening at #3. Previously, #3 was only radio and word of mouth. If neither of those were there, there would be no sales because people (generally) don't spend money on 100% unknown music. When the internet happened along, suddenly word of mouth and radio combined to become mp3. The popularity of good bands skyrocketted. After all... prior to the internet, personal experience has shown me that very, VERY few bands from other countries came here. Thus... bands that may have had a poor following in their specific area may be popular elsewhere. Instead of rolling over and dying in obscurity, said band keeps going and stays alive.
So now we have the RIAA saying "no more mp3". We will be stuck with radio, and word of mouth again. Radio of course is basically owned by people who want to push specific bands/music, regardless of their quality, regardless of what people want (and honestly, every single radio station here sucks in my opinion, since none of it is of the genres I prefer to listen to... damn bible-belt). Goodbye wide variety of music, and experiencing any music from any other culture.
I can honestly say I've bought a decent number of CD's for bands I previously had no clue existed due to mp3 downloads. That's something the RIAA actually, physically sees money for (not so much the band... but if they come to town, count me in). Without the random downloading, they would not have seen one thin dime of my money.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
IANAL and I'm jumping to the conclusion that you think Bob is guilty of infringement. What Bod did is called "Making Available" and I think we've almost driven a stake through the heart of that argument. Alice may be guilty of infringement but to prove that one would have to have provable records of her download activity which I don't see that you could get without wiretapping.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
From the same company who, in collusion with the NSA, currently monitors all our telephone conversations...
Delusional to the last.
I see the long term results of this strategy similar to electricity and phones. Companies can not arbitrarily turn off your phone without a valid arguement that can withstand courts.
Some Internet connections may already be in this situation, although it has not been tested in court AFAIK. There are a number of people whose sole phone access is through their broadband Internet connection (such as Vonage or Time-Warner). These telephone providers already have the burden of providing 911 service, so why not lifeline service also?
Hi ho silver
> So at what point in the post above is proof offered that the ISP serving take down notices will ultimately lead said ISP snooping any and all data for any third party that asks for it?
Well, they HAVE to snoop on you to find out what MP3s you download. So does it really matter at that point who all they're willing to sell it to?
It's the mass spying we're against. It doesn't matter whether they do it for only the RIAA's sake or whether other media companies join the bandwagon. (Though it's hard to see how other companies would NOT try to join the bandwagon now that the RIAA has cut a deal like this.)
> Just like you are free to buy internet access from someone who hasn't made a similar arrangement.
You DO realize that all the little ISPs are dependent on a few big ISPs, right?
And that there aren't very many damn ISPs around here at all. I'm in one of the five largest cities in America, and there aren't many options or I wouldn't be stuck with $120/month IDSL. Yes, I know that's absurdly unreasonable...
Also, even if businesses can terminate you for "any" reason, they can't do it for an illegal reason. And if you knew anything about law, you'd know that there are many such reasons. "Common sense" has never applied to law, but I question whether your notion of what businesses can do qualifies as sense, common or otherwise, in the first place.
Just because someone wrote it into a ToS that no one reads and which the public is required to accept as a matter of course, doesn't mean they can get away with it.
If, as you should be, you are concerned about the abuse of the telco monopoly over their agreement with the RIAA, write to the FCC with a complaint. It's easy, they have a web form for this. The FCC can look up these things and introduce regulations if a compelling case is made. All this talk on /. doesn't count for crap. Take your well-reasoned arguments to the place where it counts.
> That is why for people who use electric heat in the winter, the electric companies WON'T turn off the electricity. Why? They could kill that former customer. No heat + winter = illness or death.
I wish that were still true these days...
While internet may not be at quite the same level of necessity, it's coming closer day by day. Are phones necessary? I'd say they are (911). The internet is gradually taking over for them. If the bandwidth for VoIP were there for everyone, the internet would probably have replaced phones already, except for cell phones (many of which come with internet access these days...).
I find it hard to believe that ATT would do the RIAA/MPAA bidding gratis. Previously RIAA/MPAA would get a court order and ATT would give up the name and address of the IP holder and wash hands after that. Now ATT becomes an active participant with RIAA/MPAA against its customers. This is good for ATT how? Becoming a NARC, a SNITCH and a RIAA BITCH for a few nickles worth of bandwidth savings? Aw hell, who we kidding... ATT was one of BUSHCO's best Bitches and has been a PRO-GOVERNMENT operative for decades. Recently most notable for the company's complicity with ILLEGAL SPYING. Of course U.S. FED GOV paid ATT handsomely as FED GOV always does so no surprise ATT takes the money and their MONOPOLY STATUS in trade. No scruples have been harmed since ATT retired their last one years ago.
SO.... What's in it for ATT THIS TIME?
How about the RIAA/MPAA brokering a SWEET DEAL for ATT to distribute media to their customer base at DISCOUNT PRICES, undercutting the competition while making HUGE PROFITS on volume in leverage of this SERVICE to their customers?
WIN, WIN, WIN!!!
Mo MUSIC, Mo MONEY and Mo MONOPOLY!!!
HELL YEAH.... I'm IN!
Users suing the RIAA and ISPs for not allowing the user to argue their case. Plus not allowing the user to see the evidence against them.
What this is about is the RIAA is losing lawsuits. So they have changed their strategy to the next cheapest thing they have on their list. After all this is all about money. Doesn't matter if the user is guilty or not. Just follow the money.
Given their well-known blatant and outrageous disregard for individual rights, anyone who would buy any service from AT&T deserves what they get.
They are not "ISSUING" takedown notices. The RIAA is doing the 'ISSUING'. AT&T is 'FORWARDING' them. Where is the news story here?
[Darknet, http tunneling] Widespread sharing may someday be throttled, but piracy won't stop. The law of diminishing returns & stuff; it's just too expensive to stop the clever ones. (See: crime) I'm just curious how some data suggests public sharing hurts some artists, but seems to help others, like free advertising. Sounds like market forces choosing what's good instead of the marketers. :)
Fixed that for you.
There are no winners in a witch-hunt, but one thing is for certain. The people who are quickest to stand up for the witches will themselves be called a witch.
These issues are a symptom. We need to fix them one rung farther up the chain.
I have AT&T DSL for $15.00 a month, not real fast but it gets the job done.
The only other choice I have is Comcast - $50.00 a month. Comcast is not a choice because I can't afford it.
I am in Sacramento, CA.
Any other DSL available would still get to me via AT&T's wires..