What a 'Six Strikes' Copyright Notice Looks Like

The new Copyright Alert System, a.k.a. the 'Six Strikes' policy, went into effect on Monday. Comcast and Verizon activated it today. Ars Technica asked them and other participating ISPs to see the copyright alerts that will be sent to customers who have been identified as infringing. Comcast was the only one to grant their request, saying that a "small number" of the alerts have already been sent out. The alerts will be served to users in the form of in-browser popups. They explain what triggered the alert and ask the user to sign in and confirm they received the alert. (Not admitting guilt, but at least closing off the legal defense of "I didn't know.") The article points out that the alerts also reference an email sent to the Comcast email address associated with the account, something many users not be aware of. The first two notices are just notices. Alert #5 indicates a "Mitigation Measure" is about to be applied, and that users will be required to call Comcast's Security Assurance group and to be lectured on copyright infringement. The article outlines some of the CAS's failings, such as being unable to detect infringement through a VPN, and disregarding fair use. Comcast said, "We will never use account termination as a mitigation measure under the CAS. We have designed the pop-up browser alerts not to interfere with any essential services obtained over the Internet." Comcast also assures subscribers that their privacy is being protected, but obvious that's only to a point. According to TorrentFreak, "Comcast can be asked to hand over IP-addresses of persistent infringers, and the ISP acknowledges that copyright holders can then obtain a subpoena to reveal the personal details of the account holder for legal action."

Comments

Only the clueless will be hit by this

[ciurana]

Netflix Instant Play monthly cost: less than $10, vs. IPREDator or equivalent VPN at about $5. Get a half decent Usenet or BitTorrent client, and the system has been circumvented.

I suspect that ISPs adopted these measures more to appease the content providers than to fight the actual problem.

Why won't the content providers address the obvious, and just make the content available through Netflix/iTunes/Amazon/VUDU/etc. soon after release? Such venues would enable them to profit from the home user who'd then download and pay without a hassle, and at the same time protect secondary international markets where other deals may be in place.

I guess these people learned nothing from Napster, iTunes, and music stores.

Cheers!

E

Re:Only the clueless will be hit by this

[Unknown Lamer]

Seriously?

First of all Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, etc all suck. I definitely won't be switching to any of them. They don't work across platforms and are infected with digital restriction crap (for instance I don't have access to ANY of them) with the Linux distributions I run. They aren't remotely standards complaint. There depending on proprietary crap like flash and silverlight. Both aren't widely supported anymore (if they ever were) and what support exists is disappearing fast. iPads, many Android tablets, and other devices don't support either format not to mention other devices on the market. Firefox for instance isn't getting updates beyond security. I don't use chrome either. Not to watch movies/tv shows online anyway.

Actually, at least Amazon Prime's "free" content (my roomate has a Prime account, I have XBMC, and we share a living room...) and Hulu are just using RTMPE... utterly broken, and it's pretty great. There are easily available XBMC plugins (bluecop repository) that integrate reasonably, and the experience is at least better than cable. Which sort of makes me wonder (given that DVDs have effectively been DRM free since ever and bluray is easily broken by people who really care) why the video industry even bothers with DRM. I'm kind of bummed that I can't use stuff like Netflix, or actually buy tv series and whatnot on Amazon (buying the permission to stream DRM encumbered crap from a third party isn't exactly buying if you ask me... just let me download the files, I don't upload my music to the pirate bay trust me I won't upload the movie either guys).

I hate being treated like a bad person just for wanting content that doesn't look horrible on a 50" screen without atrocious DRM (bluray's whole thing where new discs can prevent you from reading old discs or anything at all at the hardware level is just plain evil, and they wonder why the optical media industry is dying).

Re:Only the clueless will be hit by this

[guevera]

Why won't the content providers address the obvious, and just make the content available through Netflix/iTunes/Amazon/VUDU/etc. soon after release? Because a) they're whole strategy is to safeguard their cable revenue and b) netflix money is not cable money. Netflix costs $9 month. Cable costs 5-12 times that. You think some of the richest companies in America want to give up that kinda money? You think they'll give that up without a fight? Would you?

Re:"In-browser popups?"

[bhcompy]

I imagine it's through using their DNS

Pop-ups?

[flyingfsck]

Who in this day and age still has pop-ups enabled in their browsers?

Re:"In-browser popups?"

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is legal to edit the source of a web page on the fly, why is it illegal for media boxes to skip advertisements on television programmes?

Re:Who's making these laws?

[sqrt(2)]

In many regions, there's not even any collusion necessary, as there's only one ISP available for broadband.

Re:Who's making these laws?

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations have a right to run their businesses however they want

You state that with such conviction. It's not true.

Not even in the US with its institutionalized bribery and corruption is this true. It is FAR from true in many other places.

Re:Who's making these laws?

[oztiks]

Corporations have a right to run their businesses however they want.

Corporations don't have the right to run whatever however they want. As an executive or director you MUST always act accordingly and responsibly and you MUST maintain an ethical stature and operate within the confines within the law *.

As a rule of thumb any new policies and procedures a company institutes which later affect another business' income, then for the suffering business suing for loss of business is quite possible and quite winnable regardless of any clauses in contracts that say things like "we can disconnect you for any reason".

They weigh these new rules knowing that the risks of such things are low and they also know that a big and nasty enough legal defence can make those take down notices not worth the paper they are printed on. This is just an ass covering process for the ISP, nothing more.

* Though seeing this is in practice is a rarity, it is actually supposed to be the norm.

Re:"In-browser popups?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Comcast tampering with web pages not their own to insert messages?

If they are, then they are making unauthorised derivatives of a copyrighted work.

Sigh.

[ledow]

A pop-up I wasn't expecting inserted into my normal web browsers, and breaking any secure sites that it might pop up on prompting security warnings, asking me to click a button, sign-in, etc.?

Yeah, that won't be a scam, will it?

How about this - you have these people's address and billing details, send them a damn letter by recorded delivery if you want them to read it.

Personally, everything I've been advising my users NOT to do for the last ten years would ensure that those warnings are ALL ignored and/or the person runs off to check their antivirus because they are quite obviously not supposed to be there when you have typed in www.google.com or whatever.

Re:Lots of workaround

[gsslay]

Thus traffic from your IP can be assumed to originate from other computers. .. if you want to download crap, your traffic will use TOR to originate from another IP.

"I'm not downloading copyright material illegally, I'm just aiding anonymous others to do it, and they are anonymously returning the favor." Yeah, the FBI and judges will have absolutely no problem with that.

You can get $2-$5/mo virtual servers powerfull enough for VPN.

Hang on, didn't you say it was crap not worth paying for? Here you are paying for it, and presumably spending time watching/listening to it. Your time has absolutely no value that it you actively seek out crap to waste it on? Or is the value of this "crap" conveniently flexible enough to fit whatever point you want to make?

Re:"In-browser popups?"

[shentino]

Because big corporations have more rights than individuals.

Even completely ignoring the blatant corruption and bribery involved in politics, the corporation having a superior legal budget gives them a very strong de-facto immunity to many things you'd get hanged for as a person.

How long until...

[Beorytis]

...someone takes the CAS screenshots from TFA and incorporates them into a phishing scam popup?