How Verizon's 'Six Strikes' Plan Works

An anonymous reader writes "With the 'six-strikes' anti-piracy plan set to begin in the U.S. soon, TorrentFreak has gotten its hands on a document showing how Verizon in particular will be dealing with copyright-infringing users. For your first and second strike, Verizon will email you and leave you a voicemail informing you that your account is involved in copyright infringement. For your third and fourth strikes, the ISP will automatically redirect your browser to a page that requires you to acknowledge receiving the alerts. They'll also play a video about the dangers of infringement. For your fifth and sixth strikes, they give you three options: massively throttle your connection for a few days, wait two weeks and then throttle your connection, or file an appeal with an arbitration service for $35. TorrentFreak points out that the MPAA and RIAA can obtain the connection information of repeat infringers, with which they can then take legal action."

Comments

Problem solved quickly....

[sofar]

If everyone runs their WIFI AP's open.

Does it go both ways?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I place copyright infringements with Verizon to get people blocked? We all know that the MPAA and RIAA use their internet connections for infringement, so it should be no problem for us to throttle their access.

Somehow I bet that only a select anointed few will be allowed to make these evidence-free complaints against the rest of us.

Re:Getting off easy

[icebike]

I agree. Because this would require them to provide evidence and a sworn statement under penalty of perjury.
As it stands, any unsubstantiated claim by anybody or any automated process seems to convict you in Verizon's eyes, and even to contest the claim costs you money.

Question: Do those making such claims have to put up money up-front?

Re:I live a few hundred feet from a coffee shop

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because Verizon would never setup their FIOS routers with an easy to crack password by default that many people may leave in place. Never.

Re:can someone please explain to me

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

why you would use torrent freak when there is Amazon, Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, and dozens of other ways to get video online.

Torrent freak is a news website. I expect you meant bittorrent - or more generally piracy in any form.

I've got two problems with all those "legitimate" sources:

1) Privacy - I believe it is fundamentally unfair to require that a person's viewing habits be tracked in a profile in a database somewhere that he has no control over or even the right to see the contents of -- especially when combined with all of the other cyber-stalking that corporations do nowadays. Bittorrent at least only identifies you down to an IP address and other forms of piracy are even less trackable.

2) Copyright Business Model - I belive people do deserve to get creative works for free (both cost-free and freedom to tinker-free). That doesn't mean I think the creators need to work for free, I just think that a policy of digital scarcity neuters the potential of the internet to benefit humanity as a whole. We need to be working towards methods of compensation that do not rely on distribution fees, but as long as digital scarcity is a money-maker for the entrenched interests there is little incentive to explore alternatives. I don't think any individual pirate is going to make a difference in that regard, but in aggregate it can.