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US ISPs Become 'Copyright Cops' July 12th
An anonymous reader writes "Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon are among the ISPs preparing to implement a graduated response to piracy by July, says the music industry's chief lobbyist. ISPs, including Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable, have officially agreed to step up efforts to protect the rights of copyright owners. From the article: 'Supporters say this could become the most effective antipiracy program ever. Since ISPs are the Internet's gatekeepers, the theory is that network providers are in the best position to fight illegal file sharing. CNET broke the news last June that the RIAA and counterparts at the trade group for the big film studios had managed to get the deal through — with the help of the White House.'"
To finally drop Comcast and replace them with Sonic.Net DSL! I hope others follow suit and migrate to more ethical ISPs.
The home of the brave.
Stop buying music and movies. Very simple!
If the ISP can detect that I am accessing stuff I should not they can just slam the door shut so I don't get it.
If the ISP detects I am getting stuff I should not and does not slam the door they are complicit in the action since they are sending it to me knowing that I should not have it.
Anyone fingered by an ISP should sue them entrapment.
The internet was once thought of as a digital library and commons. Now it is little more than an interactive television.
Assuming people use SSL or something similar, how will ISPs know when someone is violating copyrights?
And they will be begging you to come back. Without filtering.
Thank you, America, for ensuring I have two choices for broadband, both of which are in bed with the RIAA for this scheme
Aren't the ISPs signing themselves up for a great deal of liability here? If they have the equipment and manpower to monitor for someone downloading Metallica songs, that also gives them the capability to scan for a great deal of other legally questionable content. Doesn't this make them responsible when someone, say, transmits illegal imagery over the ISP's service? They could have stopped it, so they should be considered accessories to it. Am I missing some legal loophole here, or is it simply a matter of "wink wink, nod nod, the people in charge only care about MP3s"?
Just don't
How delightfully efficient of our corporate overlords. Those 'people' are so clever! Personal anonymity is so 20th Century.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
... this means they will be MONITORING your traffic. Possibly including deep packet inspection and worse.
Pardon me, but even if I'm not doing a damned thing wrong, I don't want or need my ISP to be monitoring my activity, any more than I would want a phone company listening to my telephone calls.
I find the idea ethically and morally repugnant, and, for that matter, on thin ice legally.
I should also point out that my cable contract contains none of these provisions. Maybe it's fine for new accounts, but I will hold them to my existing contract.
Better when it was a law, at least then you'll notice when they silence dissidents and have it on record.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Well, damn. Anyone have recommendations for some reasonably priced proxy services that exit overseas?
Why doesn't someone simply go up to the guys who propose this crap and simply SHOOT THEM IN THE FUCKING HEAD!?
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
It's a token effort that only large ISPs are making. My guess is that they are doing this in exchange for something... cheap deals on digital content, or something of the sort. In reality they will do very little to enforce this. The second this starts costing them customers they'll drop it like a hot potato. Remember, they have absolutely no incentive to help the dieing media industry police their content.
All of my content at home is purchased and legal. What kind of suspicious behavior can I do to make Comcast flag me as a pirate (without having to actually download pirated content)?
I can't wait to learn what they consider to be "copyright infringement." Watch a video on YouTube that wasn't legally licensed? Have someone post a picture on your Facebook wall that wasn't licensed from the photographer? (That's more likely than it might seem at first - think "wedding pictures.") Read a forum that has links to pirated material? Want to jailbreak your phone?
Say goodbye to Internet access.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
A third party interfering with a business deal made by two others is tortious interference. You would have to have pretty deep pockets to prove it, and it would have to be a pretty clear-cut case where there was no harm being done, say, a Bittorrent stream of a Linux distribution.
Just asking from a purely hypothetical position, but would an user downloading from an SSL encrypted usenet provider be found out by this system?
I'm glad I have TDS Metrocom's sweet wireless service at the office.
Goodbye Time Warner at home, though!
Participating ISPs can choose from a list of penalties, or what the RIAA calls "mitigation measures," which include throttling down the customer's connection speed and suspending Web access until the subscriber agrees to stop pirating.
The only reason why I could see them doing something like that is because they may be held liable. Oh wait, DMCA gives them Safe Harbor. So what exactly gives them the power to stop the service that I pay for because I may be using it for something illegal. It's like my phone getting shut off by T-Mobile because I may have used it to call a dealer to buy some pot. I see class action lawsuits in the future for these companies.
The best part about this is, they will not increase the sale of any of these products at all.
If you cant afford it in the first place, you wont be buying it.
All this does, is actually hurt our entire civilization, especially those who cant afford these things. Things that are so easily copied and hurt no one by allowing poorer people access to them. There is no loss of sale and it only benefits the poor. Especially those burdened by health issues who pay 15k a year for insurance plans, who barely scrape by in todays world with min wage jobs, people who dont have a say at all in this country... people who try to just better their lives through knowledge using free programs, and perhaps building a future they can one day afford buy these "THINGS".
The benefits of piracy have outweighed the negative.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, made 2 billion dollars in 2 months. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 made a billion dollars in 1 week. Avatar made over a billion dollars world wide in ticket sales alone, not to mention blu-ray sales, netflix etc on top of that. These 3 items were ALL readily available through piracy. They were also pirated heavily. Did it actually negatively impact the sales? Perhaps a tiny bit, but c'mon. The amount of money those 3 items generated, prove that no matter how much something is pirated, it makes a FUCKLOAD of cash regardless.
Without piracy, ITUNES would never have existed. iTunes is a very profitable buisness for music, and apps. ALL of which are still pirated today.
Trying to end piracy, is basically denying the poor of things they otherwise could never afford. How will that ever benefit humanity?
With US ISPs playing copyright cop, darknets and other anonymizing techniques will be active by default in all P2P clients by the time my country rolls out similar laws.
Being a step behind the US means workarounds will be mature and widespread by the time I have to deal with this...
Sales will start falling off immediately after July 12th but they won't feel the hit until into the fall. I'll take a guess that it will take less than a year for the total collapse of the music industry due to sales falling to near zero. If they choke off file trading, people won't be able to find new music so they will stop buying.
What took them so long? I guess since they could not get laws passed they wanted, they are going to do an end run and get the ISP's to do their dirty work.
The free, unmonitored, unfiltered, open internet we know today will be unrecognizable ten years from now, mark my words.. Bottom line: the internet as we know it is incompatible with controlling, big money corporations. Period. They fear it like the plague, and will never stop at trying to break it, or control it. And they have the resources to do it.
In places like china and the middle east your internet access is filtered and monitored due to fear of upsetting the government's rule.
In this - supposedly free country- your internet access is filtered and monitored due to fear of upsetting corporate profits.
I just can't see the difference.
Small fines are better than strange random law suits, right? The big law suits were full of silly numbers. At least these numbers do a better job of fitting the crime-- and I do think that downloading is a crime.
This is what proxies and VPNs are for.
After all, right off the bat. Comcast and Time Warner -are- two of the big media companies and copyright holders now. Of course they're more than willing to police their ISP networks looking for copies of their content.
Where is the due process? Just who (MPAA,RIAA vs Comcast,Verizon,etc) is making the determination that there is a violation to be acted on? We already know MPAA and RIAA have been getting it wrong in a lot of cases. Would Comcast, Verizon, and other ISPs be in any better position to get it right?
I hope they are not so stupid as to ass-u-me that torrent protocol connections automatically mean copyright infringement. What I download is GPL and other free license software.
I suspect there will be more use of HTTPS and SSL, too.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Republicunts would sell you out too.
Corporations run this world, your life is meaningless shit to them. They will have you killed if they want you out of the way.
This will of course be the end of Youtube. You simply wont be able to upload anything. Even home movies with a copyrighted song in the background.
No, its the most effective bandwidth reclamation program, as it will drive people away from these carriers, and for those that stay the ISPs will use the program to get rid of their heaviest users by falsely claiming they are violating.. and cut them off.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Dont forget there are some Sat services too that now provide decent bandwidth up and down.
No, its not entrapment, but they are an enabler.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
my internet provider isn't a big media player.
Fuck them and the lobbiest sluts the senators fucked to get us to this point.
Be seeing you...
Look closely at your contract and you will find you are SOL.
Even if it doesn't explicitly say they can monitor and take actions to "protect the integrity of their network" like most all do, they left a clause in where they can change the terms at any time. Your only recourse is to be able to cancel without penalty.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
No slashdot for 2months!? C'mon now!
Why do you think your workplace has an internet connection? For business purposes?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I only know of the EFF that are active in fighting these assholes and many times winning. Fuckit I think i am going to donate another $100 to the EFF with a note to fight these bastards some more. Fight them in the courts and beat them at lobbying asshole Washington to pay attention to our rights or get voted the fuck out.
Oh, lol, you were calling the parent an asshole!
You are, in their eyes, The Problem.
"Who said we get to download first and decide at our whim only that we like it?"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
If the ISPs start policing copyright policy, would that not cost them their common carrier status and make them liable for all activity on their networks? Any subject matter experts on common carriers present?
If only the ISPs would spend some effort of notifying customers who are infected with viruses and are sending out spam and such. Funny that they cannot bother to deal with that, but can be the RIAA/MPAA police.
Just what I needed to convince me to move out of this country.
I am John Hurt.
Remember in the United States you have a copyright for every new expression you utter at the moment of fixing in a medium -- no registration is required. If everyone would complain official to their ISP when someone else violates any of their copyrighted expressions, you would soon see the ISPs not enforcing this idiotic agreement. Remember 'fair use" is an affirmative defense, so even if the copyrighted expression seems de minimus, that is not for the the copyright holder or the ISP to decide.
I thought that extra-judicial punishment was illegal in the US. Shows what I know.
Move to an top level encrypted torrent programs. That includes secure torrent files (if they do not exist, go out and invent them!). It might not be possible to hide your IP. But it is possible to encrypt the torrent and other p2p traffic with an high level encryption. If the current RSA-4096 bit encryption is not good enough. Go and invent an better one.
The pure greed of MPAA and RIAA is an shame to the creative industry. As in the end most artist do get little for the work while the companies them self make all the profit. In fact, MPAA has never made so good profits. Yet they claim piracy is damaging them. But that claim is not supported by any evidence and is therefor an lie.
On MPAA profits for 2011, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/piracy-once-again-fails-to-get-in-way-of-record-box-office.ars
Even RIAA admits that P2P is not only to blame for drop in cd-sales, http://www.zeropaid.com/news/91984/riaa-admits-p2p-not-solely-to-blame-for-decreased-music-sales/
I would switch ISPs if I ever got a notice like that. If they are inspecting my traffic, what else are they inspecting?
will be a change in the riaa and mpaa business models that adapts to the current business environment. They can piss in the wind all they want, I guess they like wearing it.
See? Slavers have rights too! Why don't you care about them?
Swap DVD's and loaded USB drives. You can borrow as much media as you contribute to the pool, in GB.
So these morons are really stupid enough to fire 1/3 to 1/2 of their customer base just to make the media cunts happy? I pay over $100 / month for my internet service. If my ISP really enforces this I am going to look into other options for the cheapest possible internet connection.
Although I think there is a local ISP who is not in on this stupid deal. I just checked and they now have even faster connections than my ISP. I may have to just switch to them when this goes into effect and tell them exactly why they are losing me as a customer.
The first step is to start using private trackers. And the smaller the better. Invites for the best ones are going to become even more like gold dust. The second step is to look into fast anonymous VPNs preferably based outside the US.
This must be the ultimate wet dream of the MAFIA. If the ISPs actually enforce this I think I may actually have to start boycotting them by not buying any more blu-rays or music CDs. unless they are used and even that may not be a great idea.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Please sir, may I have some more gruel?
Take the Red Pill.
and its backbone. With any luck, when it happens, the politicians won't have a chance to play musical-chairs again with common carrier/service classifications.
Merely turning on encryption doesn't get you anonymity.
The same people who are increasingly unhappy that our congress critters are willing to go down on any, and I mean any, lobbyist who accidentally pocket dials their phone number. And I am someone who, despite objections from my friends, supports Intellectual Property -> this copyright law stuff, where it's valid for the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years, has got to be fixed. I really, really need it explained to me why copyright is receiving more powerful protection THAN PATENTS.
The only thing that tells me is that our society has stopped inventing sh*t, and just wants to continue profiting from the previous generation from now until the end of time.
I am John Hurt.
No significant increase in revenues will result from this bullshit -- and they'll claim that this measure "wasn't effective enough", cite more bullshit made-up statistics about piracy, and try to leverage even more of the same sort of bullshit.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Opportunistic Encryption. I keep expecting there to be a driver for everyone to encrypt their traffic. So far, not happening very much. It's still vulnerable to a man in the middle attack, but I don't think the consumer-grade ISPs are quite at the point of setting that sort of thing up yet.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
And gentlemen, you are so funny: "ooohh booh hoo where are the ethical ISPs??? ohhh runs around ohhh *faints*"
I have four words for ya: I love these darknets YEEEAAHHHH
and developers :)
That is all.
This is the crux of the problem. Consumers don't want to waste money one stuff they don't enjoy. Big media is okay with letting people have stuff for "free" as long as they get some money from advertising when it's shown on TV or played on the radio. Consumers don't see much difference between ad-supported-free and P2P-free.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"Since ISPs are the Internet's gatekeepers". That's the problem. There is no gate. You can't tell us they are the gatekeepers when there is no gate to being with. The internet doesn't work that way, although these morons at the ISPs seem to think it does.
The ISPs have just screwed themselves. Now an offended party will be able to sue under the claim that an ISP failed to protect. One ISP will be compared to another and those that police less will be sued. So we will have an expense in policing and a legal hazard hanging over the head of every ISP. So now that we understand the first huge problem this creates we can view the second huge problem. People intent on violating copyright laws and the like will become familiar with easy to use dark or encrypted distribution which ISPs can not control. That puts a lot of power in the hands of people that normally could not use good encryption with ease. So we will see a host of crimes that are out of view of all police agencies and either too expensive or just impossible to penetrate. Traffic in child pornography, smuggling or even trafficking in human beings could all increase due to this nonsense from the ISPs. It has long been established that if an ISP provides no censorship at all then there is no liability for defective censorship. They have really screwed up this time.
Great movie. Also I smile while reading slashdot and a passage reminds me of a particular quote (which you have to hear to get it):
"TROOOOOLLLLLL!!!"
P2P-free introduces the possibility of finding things I like instead of the advertisers. When somebody monetizes a P2P service effectively, I'll consider paying for shit. Until then, big content got paid. Fuck 'em if they want to get paid twice.
Usenet, Usenet, Usenet, Usenet, Usenet, Usenet...
Damn, I've been wanting to say that for 20 years!
Private Servers, encrypted, with limited newsgroups, Dnews-like.
Many have said that Usenet (i said it again) is the very best distributed model out there. Time to tweak and resurrect it, IMO
resist propaganda
Well, if I don't need to download any music, tv or anything else, and every service has tons of commercials like youtube etc, then I really don't need tons of bandwidth or transfer cap.
Good - I can get that cheap internet, and I hope everyone does, cutting their profits effectively in half.
...will fail because this violates wiretap laws.
I am officially boycotting Hollywood, including their ISP cronies who happen to be affiliated with Hollywood. I refuse to patronize any business that sidesteps the legal process and shifts the financial burden of copyright infringement detection to others.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
More censorship. It is still censorship, even if the government doesn't do it. Watch unfair rates skyrocket, to pay for it.
Because entertainment is how sheeple are distracted from actual news. The Friday afternoon bombshell leak, which goes unreported or unnoticed because by Monday morning some celebrity got arrested or awarded for something, or died, and that takes over the airwaves.
I don't believe this myself, but it's as good a theory as any.
The real answer lies in some of the decisions around copyright and ACTA/SOPA/PIPA. Patents protect things that the government wants to be public domain for economic reasons, allowing business to profit from a temporary monopoly followed by a boon in generics. Extending copyright means increased export of copyright goods, it's a simple economic valuation. So I can sum it up in two words:
trade deficit
Reduce buying of cheap Chinese goods, and I guarantee you the support for long copyright will wane among national level politicians. Include oil imports as well (even if we are a net exporter we can still balance trade by reducing imports), and you have no incentive to sustain the long copyright.
Most of the content that I download is TV shows that I already pay for, I just don't want to watch them at the times that they air. Most of them are also not "On-Demand". I certainly don't want to watch them in some crappy web-based format that buffers every 10 seconds for 800x600 resolution. That leaves downloading them in High-def. I can get them in under 10 minutes and watch them whenever I want.
I'm an amatuer photographer, how can I contact those ISP to watch for my copyrighted photos? What about other hundred thousand other artists whose name you never heard of, are the ISP gonna protect them too? Or is it just that our privacy isn't worth as much as those big name entertainment company greedy profit?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If picture worth a thousand words, how many megapixels is it? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
You can prevent ISP's from spying on your traffic by using an encrypted tunnel such as hushtunnel.com. Most proxies available are SSL based and as such are prone to trusted man in the middle attacks. Hush Tunnel uses SSH and is the easiest way to protect your online privacy, encrypting and anonymizing your internet traffic with a single click.
http://www.change.org/petitions/no-more-attacks-on-file-sharing-culture-and-technologies-pledge
So the choices are either go slower or go home basically.. I will chose go slow.
For those of us that still remember 300baud dial-up, people today really don't know hat 'going slow' is.
But if *everyone* encrypts, i predict that they will just lower the bandwidth caps for 'non blessed data' ( so you can still stream THEIR content ) to make it impractical to share, especially in a torrent fashion where you share to large groups of people, not just your close friends. ( and it will totally destroy things like FreeNet )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...one could wave a magic wand and make it impossible to copy "illegally" for a month. And then watch the revenues go *down*...