Slashdot Mirror
US ISP Adopts Three-Strikes Policy
Andorin writes "Suddenlink, a United States ISP that serves nineteen states, has implemented a three-strikes policy. Subscribers who receive three DMCA takedown notices are disconnected without compensation for a period of six months. According to TorrentFreak, the takedown notices do not have to be substantiated in court, which effectively means that subscribers can be disconnected based on mere accusations. In justifying the policy, Suddenlink turns to an obscure provision of their Terms of Service, but also claims that they are required by the DMCA to disconnect repeat offenders."
If you are a customer of theirs, immediately cancel your service and tell them why you are doing it. that ought to send the right message.
OK, everybody start submitting DMCA reports. They'll be out of subscribers in no time flat.
...but the reference to the DMCA is horseshit.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Get a movement within their customer base and employ the classic school scenario where a rule doesn't work if it has to be applied to everyone. Start filing tens of thousands of DMCA take down notices for suspected violations. If their policy is as described, cutting service to that many people will put a direct stop to it.
Time Warner's Roadrunner service has had a similar policy for a while, and it's really not that bad of a deal. Basically, if the RIAA/MPAA sees your IP address, instead of trying to extort you for money, they just tell TWC, who redirects you to an angry-sounding webpage next time you try to use the Internet. You click "Accept" or whatever, and then the problem goes away. No subpoenas, no lawsuits. You can do this twice. It's not until the third time that something actually bad happens, and if you're incompetent enough to get caught three times, you shouldn't be on the Internet.
What happens when some troublemaker sends 3 takedown notices for all their subscribers?
This will only detach the people from the Internet.
I have a dream, that with every advanced WIFI router
is a clustered Peer2Peer protocol that will replace
ICANN with a more Freenet-inspired system of independent
routing of packets.
If only the world was Free again like 4Chan, but without
the CIA/NSA back-end that Moot forwards the logs to.
is of course SuddenDisconnected
Countdown to someone sending DMCA takedown notices for random Suddenlink customers begins now...
Their network is overloaded and it easier to trim the fat (heavy downloaders=pirates after all) then to build out their network.
Do they serve business customers as well? Because if they do, this is probably going to get them sued before long.
People should drop this company, ASAP.
Submit DMCA reports on the board and management of suddenlink. They all most likely have full speed connections. Maybe you think they are misusing your IP.
The policy allows no review of the DMCA, so it would be interesting to see how that develops.
Company name:
Cequel Communications Holdings I, LLC
and from their web page:
Mr. Jerald L. Kent Chairman
Mary Meduski EVP - Chief Financial Officer Age: 51 314-315-9603
Mr. Thomas P. McMillin Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Age: 48
Ralph Kelly SVP - Treasurer 314-315-9403
Mr. James Fox Chief Accounting Officer and Senior Vice President Age: 40
Mike Pflantz VP - Corporate Finance 314-315-9341
Mr. Terry M. Cordova Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President Age: 49
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
suddenunlink.com is now a registered domain name that points to the original article.
Maybe they should change their name to SuddenDisconnect?
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
It just doesn't make sound business sense to me to voluntarily implement this when there aren't other ISPs doing the same -- especially the major ones. Could this ISP be getting some incentive money to implement this? I just hope the folks who are currently with them have an alternative high-speed alternative.
Moot's Canadian, he sends it to CSIS, they sell it to the CIA/NSA.
The residential access business is low profit, especially for the little guys that use the incumbent carrier's network. AT&T's DSL pricing for independent ISPs, where AT&T is providing a simple data circuit, is higher than what they sell to their residential full-service customers. So the ISP is making $3.50/mo/user. The time spent servicing a DMCA request, whether valid or not, eats that profit quickly. Residential internet access is a crappy, crappy business.
Major Areas of Operation: Texas, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma
Oh.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I see tons of frivolous items that could be reported on throughout their site to the DMCA. Just start submitting and eventually 3 notices will make it through....Should be great to see Suddenlink have to take their own site down.
Ave Molech Setting
Of course, it's not like so many ISPs don't have a ton of other obscure terms that allow them to terminate your service on a whim.
If you are a customer of theirs, immediately cancel your service and tell them why you are doing it. that ought to send the right message.
That it does.
It tells them that they have shed another geek who clogs their pipes and will never upgrade his service.
I've been reading the TF thread for about an hour now, and I still can't help but think this is a horrible and stinky decision;
I've written Suddenlink to communicate my dissatisfaction :
@SuddenLink : "I've contacted Suddenlink in order to communicate my dissatisfaction. I was given the opportunity to move to an area for a job, that was serviced by Suddenlink. Their policy was the deciding factor in me choosing to reject the job opportunity.
Way to go Suddenlink, not only have you cost yourselves a reliable customer - your policy is affecting immigration to your country."
Their response was to play dumb ;
"I apologize, sir! But I'm not quite sure as to what disconnect policy you're referring to. We do not have any cancellation fees or contracts, and you're free to leave our company without any charge or penalty. "
To which I replied and pointed them in the direction of the TorrentFreak article ;
"The disconnect policy in which I refer to, can be found here;
http://torrentfreak.com/us-isp-disconnects-alleged-pirates-for-6-months-100924/"
And their reply was ;
@SuddenLink : "Thank you for your email in regards to the DMCA Violation. I appreciate the opportunity to assist you today.
I apologize that you do not approve of this, sir.'
wow... I'm glad that they 'apologize' that I don't approve of their policy. Great customer service skills - both on a CSR level and Company-Wide, that this is the best response they can come up with.
I got a notice from Time Warner about three years ago regarding a movie I was supposedly sharing. They suspended my internet until I clicked a button promising I wouldn't pirate anyone. They also warned me I only had one warning left (i.e. on my third strike they would discontinue my service).
Just grab their netblock and submit DMCA takedown notices for the entire range.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Whoring themselves out to this kinda of organized crime.
NONE Of the *big* service providers, who run a large, successful, and well managed network are jumping on this bandwaagon.
This ias *nothing* to do with "catching criminals" or 'stopping piracy', it's a trivial manner for them to legitimize disconnecting the heavy users so they can continue to run a network without having it implode.
Failure to run your business properly is not a good reason to pound your customers in the ass.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
4. The methods used by copyright holders to identify infringement are not very reliable, so you get flagged without ever having done anything wrong.
5. Somebody who's out to get you makes a false complaint and your ISP is too lazy to investigate, so you get flagged without ever having done anything wrong.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Personally, I ended up recently getting a cheap VPS and just using it for any of my torrenting. The owners are Canadian so they're very anti DMCA anyways.
http://buyvm.net
I get good speeds then just FTP it off. Of course, you could just use it as a literal VPN and run it from home.
This sounds like a job for 4chan! lol
Just systematically report violations until their policy starts to cut into their bottom line as pissed off customers leave.
my account with them was disconnected about 3 weeks ago, after the 3rd strike rule. moved to dsl, and the local dsl provider dosent issue dcma notices like sudden link. but dsl could only offer half the speed. :-( I dont plan to go back to them ever.
Wonder what would happen if employees of Suddenlink started getting DMCA notices filed against them.
Would the enforce the TOS equally or skew the rules. If they didn't enforce it equally, those disconnected under the same circumstance could then take legal action that would make this folly pretty expensive.
Submit DMCA reports on the board and management of suddenlink. They all most likely have full speed connections. Maybe you think they are misusing your IP.
Suddenlink googles for "Suddenlink."
Suddenlink finds this post to Slashdot. Suddenlink awaits events.
The geek submits his fraudulent DMCA complaint. Suddenlink neatly pegs him to Slashdot.
The timing is right. The complaints all take the same form....
I am so glad this is happening the US. Australia and UK has had US media companies holding our internet and VOIP connections to ransom. I wonder how US citizens would feel if a foreign company dictated who was allowed to connect to the internet.
the takedown notices do not have to be substantiated in court, which effectively means that subscribers can be disconnected based on mere accusations.
Come on, let's hear all the Ayn Rand Libertarians saying that this private company should be forced to follow the due process requirements of the 14th Amendment.
This is what happens when you let techheads who do not understand the law make policy. "Conducting an investigation" is not something ISPs or anyone else should want to find themselves in a position to be doing.
If there is an "alligation" of infringement the ISP need only pass the letter from the copyright holder on to the end user. It is NOT the ISPs duty to conduct an investigation or otherwise make any determination of fact. The less the ISP puts themselves in a position of knowing a damn thing the better off they are.
If you get it wrong you will quickly find yourself on the reciving end of a civil suit and you will most likely loose your case and loose customers over the negative publicity.
1. Get customer list.
2. Send three DMCA takedowns per customer, no merit to claims required.
3. PROFIT!
PeerBlock Beat the ISP's at their own game. Pirate all you want.
Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
Accused three times.
The european parliament is starting to seriously discussing a Europe-Wide version of the three strike rule. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/205958/eu_votes_to_toughen_rules_on_internet_piracy.html
Hopefully this will never be implemented. The consequences for citizens living in a digital country where you can't do anything related to public administration without internet access (typically in Norther Europe) are impossible to imagine.
I wonder if all those geniuses have a business plan for when they remain without customers, because they've disconnected them all?
99.99% of the complaints from from some zit faced teenagers in a garage running some random scanning software full of bugs but toting an official sounding name and purporting to be a representative of one of the filthy greedy money whore companies out to rip off people and sue for profit as much as they can. They are merely privateers. Ignorant ones at that.
But.
That does not matter. When the NOC at CableONE.Net receives one of these complaints which usually turn out to be bogus once somebody with money involves a lawyer ready to take away these little children's toys and their basement location and have their wages garnished for the next 4 decades, things get dropped. But for the rest which is the majority not rich and good enough for justice, CableONE.Net does not care. First violation, your service is IMMEDIATELY and fully suspended until you digitally sign a form where you agree to appear in a Federal court of law in the jurisdiction of where you live to confess fully to your "crimes." Second time, you sign the same form and are forced to still go without service for a minimum of at least 10 business days of course with no reimbursement for that time you paid for. The third time, they just cancel your account and blacklist you in their entire system forever.
It doesn't take much. I saw somebody get their account canceled because 3 times they merely had the word "disney" in the file. No hash check. Not one fucking single bit of verification and it was only a *text* file with a video extension. CableONE.Net did not care and the zit faced privateers in their basement collected their bounty. (It was done to prove a point, and did so quite well as their lawyer even called to make sure exactly what happened and the policy and the ticket numbers to subpoena for court)
I completely agree. Find every single one of the ISPs that follow this policy, look up their current IP scope and just start submitting a triplet of complaints on random IPs from formal sounding fake businesses. No different than what is done already. Maybe when they find themselves blacklisting 40-45% of their cash cow in their plants they just might start to think long and hard about who they want to play ass kiss with while totally ignoring any all even true verification much less due process of any sort. Fuck them all. I hope somebody puts a cut in one of their main coax lines right by a HAM radio tower and causes a full city wide outage as the HAM radio broadcast totally runs over their weak return path operating at the same frequency; fire up a HAM transmission and everybody loses Internet, instant outage as long as the tower is transmitting.
Assholes.
Qwest has been doing this in in phoenix(or in Gilbert at least) for more than a year. How do i know? Because i already got my internet disconnected twice. I had to call them to get my service back and running. They gave me a sermon and then connected me back up. They told me i would get permanently disconnected if i had one more dmca complaint.
The freest country in the world! Or maybe not?
Immediately start filing those DMCA takedown notices. Anyone, everyone. Neighbors? Yes. Businesses? Even better. Flood the service with spurious takedown notices and someone will learn how ridiculous that policy is.
And when all those affected customers cancel their accounts, it'll be much more effective than if it was just you canceling.
Happy takedowns!
Send an anonymous letter to the local Church of Scientology, who is almost as famous as the RIAA for abusing the DMCA. Tell the Scientologists about the "Suppressive Person (SP)" who is sharing a copy of the "Class VIII Audit Lecture" and let Scientology fill out the DMCA takedown letters. Scientology's lawyers will be ecstatic to try and abuse another alleged critic, and you can have 1 of 3 outcomes:
It's a win-win situation. Either Scientology gets nailed, or Suddenlink gets nailed, and either one is ok. Bonus points if the subject of the takedowns is in the Suddenconnect upper-management.
Hell yeah, I'm posting this as Anonymous Coward!!!
...So it begins.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I got a better idea for yall... STOP ILLLLEGGAAALLLLYYYYY DOWNLOADING STUFF THAT DOESNT BELONG TO YOU!! :)
Its funny that yall complain because there are means put into place to prevent people from stealing stuff. Thats like getting upset because you break into a gas station to steal stuff, but get in trouble for it and you cant seem to understand whats wrong.
Dont be dumb. Dont steal. Dont have any problems.
Also, for all of you that are ignorant (most of you), you dont need court to figure this out. Learn how networks work, and then you'll realize that your IP address tells a LOT about you. Dont be stupid and use torrentz because that is what gets your IP onto a list, which allows the other people to drop those reports on you.
IT IS NOT SUDDENLINK! They dont care what you're doing, its other companys and the people that lose money from you being a thief. Think about it honestly. At least Suddenlink gives YOU a chance not to be stupid about how you download shit. AND At least Suddenlink takes the wrap FOR YOU so that YOU dont have to deal with copyright issues over the stuff YOU are illegally downloading.
Dont be dumb people. If it wasnt for them, you'd simply be in trouble for copyright. Plain and simple.
Emigrate. Try Iceland or Sweden.
Do you honestly believe that there will not be a test court case to determine the validity of these actions. It takes only a few minutes to get an injunction against the action. Any two-bit lawyer can do that.
Pigskin-Referee
Linux: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow
Not exactly new in the US. Our hotel uses Qwest DSL, and we offer guest wifi. Guess what? A hotel guest torrented an obscure british sitcom and Qwest cut off our internet to our entire hotel (FIRST STRIKE) -- our servers, websites, reservation systems, -- ALL DOWN -- no notice was given by Qwest. Upon calling numerous departments within technical support, they finally informed us of the reason for the "outage" and then chastised us for downloading copyrighted material. After an hour and a half, we convinced them to turn our internet back on. However, they warned us that if a guest downloads copyrighted material two more times (i.e. 3 strike policy) we will be permanently disconnected and banned for Qwest Internet Services. There are only two other ISPs in town, and if we were to be without internet our business wouldn't be able to operate.
if the ISP of Congress and the Senate have a similar three-strike rule. Oh, the fun that could be had.
I'm surprised, nobody thought of that!
Yeah, 'cause its not like people can / are falsely accused using methodslike 3 strikes. /s
If there is a high chance of being wrongfully accused of something by using a particular means, damn right I will complain about it, and in no way does objection to this. automatically mean you pirate.
Maybe because the means of catching alleged lawbreakers plays judge, jury, and executioner without proof or due process? [and no, theft is not involved last I checked]
More like you don't have a fucking clue about what opponents of this are saying and you'd rather continue using tired and dis-proven talking points instead of actually *trying* to read up on the issue and intelligently respond.
Oh the irony...
1. No stealing involved 2. Not committing a crime != immunity from being accused of it.
Uh, yes you do when it comes to alleged crimes, you idiot.
IP addresses only point you to the router, not the person using the computer that uses that router, nor in a network of multiple computers, the computer itself. The dotted-decimal number alone does shit.
Again, you call people thieves when no such act is involved and when no proof of the contrary [that it is involved] has occurred. Piracy doesn't take money, or anything from somebody that they already had [but have no longer]. Copyright infringement is a totally different beast as backed up by years of case law. Doesn't make it right, and only a complete retard believes that you have to view it as stealing to view it as wrong, but it. fucking. matters.
Again, ironic you state that.
By acting on accusation alone? Bullshit.
Again, ACCUSED. These claims are over allegations, they BELIEVE you are illegally downloading something - doesn't mean you are, or aren't FOR SURE until it is PROVEN one way or another. Somehow, I think you have trouble with the words "accused" and "allegation," given how you have been so definitive about the unknown, and willing to prosecute without proof/due process.
[citation needed]
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Problem is mr. brain your traffic still goes through the ISP. A simple inline bridge which most of them run btw gives them full access to your traffic. I don't care what you are running on your client that packet still has to reach the internet and when it does it is visible to the ISP.
Got Code?
I thought a DMCA Take down Notice was issued to websites believed to be hosting infringing content? What does this have to do with file sharing?
It's a business, so they can cancel you for most any reason they want and dont need 'proof' or a judgment in court. Of cousre you can too, and it sounds like it is time to pack up and change services. Vote with your feet.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
***Suddenlink does not charge for services that have been terminated. I know this for a fact.***
I hope the can. gov. does not start to imitate their american cousins....i would hate to think that after 3 strikes, I would have to change companies over and again.