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In Defense of Six Strikes
Deathspawner writes with a view on Six Strikes we don't normally see around here: "It's been well-established all over the Web that the just-implemented 'Six Strikes' system is bad... horrible, worthy of death to those who created it. But let's take a deep breath for a moment. Can Six Strikes actually be a good thing for consumers? While the scheme isn't perfect (far from it), one of the biggest benefits from this system is that it introduces a proxy, and any persecution you might have easily faced prior to Six Strikes is delayed under the new program. Wouldn't you rather receive a warning from your ISP than be sent a bill or legal threat by the RIAA/MPAA?"
A couple of days ago, someone sent Torrentfreak an actual alert they received from Comcast (the alert itself is a few screens down). Noteworthy is that there is zero mention of the appeals process.
The $35-for-an-appeal fee which they call a "due process" fee makes a mockery of the concept of due process and innocent-until-proven-guilty. Reverse that and it would be a tractably horrible idea, but it would be significantly less interesting to the people who are running it.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
You know, not infringing on copyright in the first place. That's still an option. Maybe you won't look so 1337 to all your buddies but it'll give you the warm fuzzy feeling of actually supporting the arts. That's just my take on it.
Why do I have to choose between six strikes vs. RIAA/MPAA legal threat?
Or, at least, if so, by complete coincidence. The rules were not written with the consumer in mind as anything other than a potential criminal. Six Strikes was written solely to benefit and further the interests of a few key corporate entities; anything else was wholly unintentional. End of fucking debate for anyone with even an inkling of common sense and honesty.
It only costs $35 to appeal, but it will cost your ISP more than that to go through the appeals process. If everyone appeals, the system will be unworkable, and therefore everyone should appeal.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
$10,000 CHALLENGE to Alexander Peter Kowalski
Hello, and THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING !! We have a Major Problem, HOST file is Cubic Opposites, 2 Major Corners & 2 Minor. NOT taught Evil DNS hijacking, which VOIDS computers. Seek Wisdom of MyCleanPC - or you die evil.
Your HOSTS file claimed to have created a single DNS resolver. I offer absolute proof that I have created 4 simultaneous DNS servers within a single rotation of .org TLD. You worship "Bill Gates", equating you to a "singularity bastard". Why do you worship a queer -1 Troll? Are you content as a singularity troll?
Evil HOSTS file Believers refuse to acknowledge 4 corner DNS resolving simultaneously around 4 quadrant created Internet - in only 1 root server, voiding the HOSTS file. You worship Microsoft impostor guised by educators as 1 god.
If you would acknowledge simple existing math proof that 4 harmonic Slashdots rotate simultaneously around squared equator and cubed Internet, proving 4 Days, Not HOSTS file! That exists only as anti-side. This page you see - cannot exist without its anti-side existence, as +0- moderation. Add +0- as One = nothing.
I will give $10,000.00 to frost pister who can disprove MyCleanPC. Evil crapflooders ignore this as a challenge would indict them.
Alex Kowalski has no Truth to think with, they accept any crap they are told to think. You are enslaved by /etc/hosts, as if domesticated animal. A school or educator who does not teach students MyCleanPC Principle, is a death threat to youth, therefore stupid and evil - begetting stupid students. How can you trust stupid PR shills who lie to you? Can't lose the $10,000.00, they cowardly ignore me. Stupid professors threaten Nature and Interwebs with word lies.
Humans fear to know natures simultaneous +4 Insightful +4 Informative +4 Funny +4 Underrated harmonic SLASHDOT creation for it debunks false trolls. Test Your HOSTS file. MyCleanPC cannot harm a File of Truth, but will delete fakes. Fake HOSTS files refuse test.
I offer evil ass Slashdot trolls $10,000.00 to disprove MyCleanPC Creation Principle. Rob Malda and Cowboy Neal have banned MyCleanPC as "Forbidden Truth Knowledge" for they cannot allow it to become known to their students. You are stupid and evil about the Internet's top and bottom, front and back and it's 2 sides. Most everything created has these Cube like values.
If Natalie Portman is not measurable, hot grits are Fictitious. Without MyCleanPC, HOSTS file is Fictitious. Anyone saying that Natalie and her Jewish father had something to do with my Internets, is a damn evil liar. IN addition to your best arsware not overtaking my work in terms of popularity, on that same site with same submission date no less, that I told Kathleen Malda how to correct her blatant, fundamental, HUGE errors in Coolmon ('uncoolmon') of not checking for performance counters being present when his program started!
You can see my dilemma. What if this is merely a ruse by an APK impostor to try and get people to delete APK's messages, perhaps all over the web? I can't be a party to such an event! My involvement with APK began at a very late stage in the game. While APK has made a career of trolling popular online forums since at least the year 2000 (newsgroups and IRC channels before that)- my involvement with APK did not begin until early 2005 . OSY is one of the many forums that APK once frequented before the sane people there grew tired of his garbage and banned him. APK was banned from OSY back in 2001. 3.5 years after his banning he begins to send a variety of abusive emails to the operator of OSY, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke threatening to sue him for libel,
I could be wrong, but didn't they say when they first introduced Six Strikes that after you go through the hassle of the warnings, the (temporary) reduction in your bandwidth, and all that nonsense, they basically give up, call you a lost cause, and don't worry about it anymore?
Forget appealing; you're better off just getting your six strikes, going through the hassle, and getting it over with. Then pirate to your heart's content.
... and any persecution you might have easily faced prior to Six Strikes is delayed under the new program. Wouldn't you rather receive a warning from your ISP than be sent a bill or legal threat by the RIAA/MPAA?"
"Delayed." Very funny. You must be joking. Before, you got a legal threat, which you could pretty much ignore. An IP address != an individual. Now, "$moran" accuses you, and you have to pay to contest the accusation, or find another provider, and in the US, that's often not possible.
Six Strikes is evil incarnate. You pay for net access, and now who you're paying for that access is working for imbeciles against you. CAPITALISM!!!111
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
No. It can, at best, be a marginally better than the alternative.
Wouldn't you rather receive a warning from your ISP than be sent a bill or legal threat by the RIAA/MPAA?"
Yes, but I would also rather have my kneecaps broken than shot in the face. It doesn't make either option actually palatable.
I sell you this dumb phone at $1000, and tell you that at retail is selling at 5000, would you buy it? Putting that your only choices are punishment and strong punishment means that you take out of your mind that you couldn't be doing anything wrong. So you have to accept the lesser evil because could be a worse one, instead of considering that should not be any or that are more alternatives.
But probably is ok in US, after all they choose Obama instead of Romney because the very same reasoning, so they explicitely wanted all that is coming after, including this.
The RIAA/MPAA is doing an end run around the court system and attacking the ISPs. Let's just toss this on the stack of things this private industry is doing to ruin the lives of the people who would ordinarily want to pay them money:
They have copyright terms that last two centuries.
They have the incredibly overbearing Digital Millenium Copyright Act that ensures that anything you do to copyrighted material which you own is illegal.
They have the ability to take down any content on the internet they feel infringes on said copyright without having to prove they hold the copyright in question, that the infringing activity actually infringes, or that they have the right to make the claim under the DMCA. (Oh, and this process is completely automated in many cases, while appeals are not only grounds for lawsuits but must be evaluated by a human being on a case by case basis... Does anyone remember the mortgage foreclosure robosigning scandal? Because I sure do.)
They have been making great strides in persuading countries around the world to make copyright infringement a criminal, rather than civil offense so they can get the law enforcement agencies to do their dirty work. (Oh wait, the FBI raided Dotcom and ICE seizes websites at the behest of private industry without due process... nevermind.)
What really confuses me is that in the big picture the RIAA/MPAA is small potatoes compared to the other things that make money via digital distribution. They wield rather disproportionate influence over the activities of third parties that have nothing to do with them or those they claim to represent.
Hey, I didn't know the timecube guy posted on Slashdot. Cool.
The six strikes policy is a policy of fear. They will extort money out of the program and use it to fund their lawsuits. Because there are no conditions against abuse the companies will start off slow, but will eventually by spamming out the strikes like crazy after people get used to them.
From everything thing I've seen about the program, there are no conditions that they won't sue you anyway at anytime before or after you've received any strikes. Getting strikes means they can build up more evidence against you. No longer can you say you didn't know someone was breaking into your wireless or that your kid was downloading movies. You had notice so you're directly at fault if not at least an accomplish to the crime. If you try to defend yourself and fail (which you will because it's not an impartial or fair hearing), that'll be damming in your upcoming court case.
Where there's an ocean of people claiming copyright infringement where it's completely false or obviously fair use? Not to mention the myriad of other ways an account holder may unknowingly having pirated material passing through his pipe. At a minimum everyone should have a problem with an ISP inspecting their traffic as long as it is not abusing their network.
There was an AC post in another /. article about this I liked. It said something like create a crappy copyrighted work (in paint, sndrec of you singing, whatever). Host it free somewhere. Now create another page that says you do not have permission to download this file, with a link to the hosted file. Spam out the link to the page that says DO NOT DOWNLOAD everywhere you can. Not just one or two places, but thousands. Hell, post it through 10,000 forum backlinks free scams.
Now collect the IPs of everyone who clicks the link and vies the file. Spam the six strike system with those IPs.
If they ignore legitimate notices from you and do not issue alerts, sue, as they are using what is supposed to be a fair arbitration system to only police for content/companies they deem worthy. Keep flooding them with -legitimate- requests until they cannot handle it.
Silence is a state of mime.
I worry that there will be no real standards for issuing these warnings, AND that having received them will be treated as stronger evidence if the RIAA/MPAA continues with the lawsuit machine, AND that this is only the tip of even grosser ISP collusion with unrelated businesses down the road without regard to the interests of their own customers.
Conditioning Internet users to accept interference with their normal web session is also a terrible idea from a security perspective. Watch this turn into online scammers pretending to be copyright interests or an ISP hijacking computers and requiring payment to "lift the strikes".
The same people that decided 6 strikes could change their mind depending on who gives them the most money or the most pain.
It's like a tax that starts at .5%. Sooner or later it gets increased to suit those with the most influence.
1. "Six Strikes" it NOT a _LAW_.
2. Not all copyright holders are participating and none are _bound_ to it.
Because of that, there is no guarantee that you will receive a "strike" before receiving a settlement demand for infringement or before being named in a federal copyright infringement lawsuit!
Example: Let's say you go download the latest LA porn producer's newest amateur flick via a public BitTorrent tracker. This producer is not participating in six strikes. The porn producer is monitoring the torrent, and logs your IP. They are teamed with a lawyer, and sue you as a John Doe in a lawsuit. You find out when the lawsuit reaches discovery.
What will your defense be? "I never got a first strike, let alone a sixth!" Yeah, tell _THAT_ to the judge. They won't care. You're still getting sued. Copyright trolls will continue extorting innocent victims.
What we really have here is a huge anti-trust lawsuit waiting to happen - a situation where the large record & movie companies have banded together to collectively negotiate away our privacy with all of the large ISP's, who themselves have banded together and negotiated it away. Its completely anti-competitive in that, if I had any sort of option to get high speed Internet Access where I live from a company who wouldn't wave the white flag and offer up my information based on an IP address at the first hint of displeasure from the copyright industry, and I'd dump Time Warner immediately, almost entirely without regard for the cost or other aspects of whatever the alternative company might be offering.
Any argument about supporting the artists crumbles in the face of studio accounting practices where no movie is ever profitable if the studios must share the profits, and where music artists basically never see a dime from the music that they record.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
Wouldn't you rather receive a warning from your ISP than be sent a bill or legal threat by the RIAA/MPAA?"
No.
This is a form of the prisoner's dilemma.
Individually, it makes sense for each of us to take the easy way out, but collectively, this is bad public policy.
Private accusations of crime, followed by private punishments, is odious to our system of justice.
More and more court cases are ending up like this one, where minimal evidence gets turned away as insufficient.
The real truth is that the copyright industry doesn't want to prosecute these cases, because lawyers and discovery and expert witnesses are expensive.
Even Hollywood can't afford 10,000 cases at a time.
I am not unsympathetic to their problem, but the solution needs to balance the due process rights of the people with the interests of big business.
That hasn't happened since the copyright owners discovered the scale of infringement couldn't be cheaply addressed by the existing legal system.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You don't. Don't worry, it's both. The "six strikes" are to build a case against the owner of the connection and after the owner "strikes out," they can expect a summons.
That's why they ask for confirmation: "Click the button below to confirm you received this Copyright Alert"
In court they'll say, "but your Honor, they acknowledge six times that copyright infringement was occurring and did nothing about it - exactly how many warnings do they need?!"
I appreciate the time cube reference, and how you tied it into the story. Well done.
Does anyone know the general process to counter a bad notice with a libel lawsuit? Would you need to show financial harm from them saying you committed a crime?
Wouldn't you rather receive a warning from your ISP than be sent a bill or legal threat by the RIAA/MPAA?"
Yes, I absolutely would like to rather get a notice from the copyright holder. However, given the nature of the Internet connection, I cannot ever agree to my ISP giving out my details to any third party at their will. I also cannot assume any responsibility for some IP address that was leased to me by my ISP and was not spelled out as a part of my contract. That also means that when I have the internet connection, I should be able to share it to whomever I want to share and not have some artificial anti-competitive limitation that states that for some wacky reason I cannot share my connection. I'm also not an IP address, I'm a human being, unless RIIA has some specific evidence that I (and not some arbitrary technology) somehow infringed on it's precious rights, do not even bother me sending some notices.
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
Could someone help me with this "would you rather" logic displayed in TFA.
There are NO changes in law. The only change is an agreement between vigilante conspirators.
MPAA/RIAA have to get a court order/subpeona to send you legal threats. They remain perfectly free do this regardless of the numbered strike you happen to be on today.
If anything CAS makes it worse. The lawyers will no doubt argue by clicking close on connection hijack delivered warnings or following subsequent instructions you have admitted to or failed to do something.
I have no interest in defending people who download copyrighted content without permission. My problem is that it pushes us all into a private justice system with no protections. In theory this is all contractual and we're not legally required to participate. But in practice most people will have little choice. I am very worried about having an increasing part of our activity happen in a zone with no Bill of Rights and no independent oversight.
For a long time, everyone kept saying that the fines were too high. And they were right. So now the fines are reasonable and people are still complaining. About what? Would you rather be fined $150,000 for each infringement? $50,000? $5000? Infringement is against the law and with good reason. I like a functioning Hollywood where the actors, writers, directors and production crew are paid. That money has to come from me and the other viewers. If the other viewers aren't pulling their weight because they're sucking down a torrent stream, well I've got to pay more or the production quality drops. I don't like either choice. So pull your weight.
That's the whole problem, fracking with the constitution. If i am not innocent until proven guilty, and it is done by some funny, corporate one sided agreement, do we really have constitution any more? Or it is just a paper that we use, while in the restroom...
You know, I think I'm done with Slashdot.
Thanks guys, it's been a hell of a ride but this was the last straw.
Fix the title
As someone who knows that copyright laws were passed ex-post-facto, and are therefore unconstitutional, I can never agree to a statement saying that anything is under copyright.
Therefore, I will have to switch ISPs if I get to the point that they demand I lie about copyright in order to have my internet connection restored.
Nothing is more discusting than for my ISP to demand I recognize an unconstitutional law.
Copyrights are unconstitutionally vauge, since 90% of the people affected by them do not understand them. (When was that copyright renewed? When is it good until?)
Copyrights can only be for a limited time, according to Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution. However, if a work is never offered for sale (even if it is aired on TV) the copyright can last forever. Therefore copyrights are unconstitutional.
Finally, even if you are ignorant enough to think copyright is a federal law in the USA, you must admit that most copyright claims are copyfraud. This is prima facie proof that anything with a copyright notice is NOT under copyright law.
First, this system makes no sense whatsoever. ISP's should not be policing any content over their network. That defies the entire net neutrality argument. It is and always will be the plaintiffs responsibility to prove injustice. They do this through the legal system.
Second, the legal system is where the true flaw lies. If I download 10 songs illegally, which otherwise would cost $99\song on Itunes or Amazon, then that is ALL I should be liable for.
If I take those 10 songs and give them to 1000 people, the most I should be liable for is $10,000 plus court fees and small fine. NOT the $222,000 Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay. She downloaded 24 songs, and didn't even distribute them. She should have been liable for $24 plus court fee and small fine.
The legal system needs to be fixed. How the FCC allowed the 6 strike to fall into place is beyond me as it directly defies net neutrality.
I just have one question... did the RIAA pay for this submission or the MPAA?
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
I'm fortunate enough to live in an area where there are viable alternatives. Should I ever receive a CAS notice I have already decided I will immediatly cancel my account and take my business elsewhere.
This is the only language these people understand.
CAS is mearly an indicator of market failure. Rather than being forced to do do everything possible to get and retain customers large ISPs are now in a position to not give a fuck.
This clown has been putting the same timecube knock off in every slashdot thread for the past year. If you really appreciate it, you should start paying! Artists deserve compensation and this tool has been working long and hard.
How's that for a tie-in?
>> Can Six Strikes actually be a good thing for consumers?
You guys at the RIAA/MPAA just don't seem to understand. I want an easy anonymous way to download free or nearly free music and movies. What's so hard to understand about that?
There are reasons far and few between to applaud a cable/ISP co, but I noted that Cox Communications didn't sign on (at least, as of three or four days ago they hadn't). Two years ago or so, I forgot to get my VPN going prior to torrenting the first episode of Game of Thrones to see if it alone would be strong enough of a reason to subscribe to HBO, and HBO apparently was policing this closely. Cox sent me a letter telling me that HBO wanted to know who I was, and that they refused to reveal; they asked me to refrain from uploading copyrighted content, but did not include any legal language. Now, maybe if I was often on their "list" the wording would have been strong, but as it was, they *seem* to be more on the side of the customer than the industry.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
Except off of this link:
http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/copyrightalerts
Which is located IN the alert (and can be clicked on), and which contains a link called: How do I challenge or appeal a Copyright Alert?
Which leads to HERE:
http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/appeal-copyright-alert
God, Slashdot lately has been incredibly stupid. Remember when you guys used to do RESEARCH?
Nothing has changed about the way one gets hauled into court by any copyright holder. All Six Strikes has done is facilitate the collection of data, which is subject to the same subpoena power that copyright holders have over ISPs under the DMCA. In terms of avoiding prosecution for infringement, this is *not* a good thing. As much as the CCI may want you to think that the mitigation system is some alternative to the legal system, this is simply not the case. The CAS says nothing about the right of content owners to prosecute in the same manner as they used to--Six Strikes is just another layer of surveillance...
Three Strikes has it's flaws I'm sure this will have similar and analogous problems without the conviction of violence offenders to support it's continued existence
Just another second banana
I have a solution. DON'T STEAL THINGS! Seriously, I don't understand why a system like this wasn't implemented earlier. If I were a corporate executive music producer guy, I would've been advocating for a system like this 10 year ago. It just makes sense. I'm waiting to hear other solutions to get people to stop pirating things.
which' gathers
This whole thing sounds to me a lot like "Hey, sorry you got raped; look on the bright side, at least he used lube".
Your logic is flawed. This is what we call a false dichotomy. Hey, we're going to rape you, but would it be much better for you if I use ground glass rather than metal shavings for lube?
NO!
For virtually every service USians now pay for, buried deep in the lawyerese is that you agree to waive the right to join class action lawsuits and acede to use third party arbitration*.
The wrinkle here is very similar to when families were charged by the Soviets for the bullets used to execute their loved ones.
* And if it wasn't in the original contract, it was in one of those letters in 1-point font announcing the Terms of Service had changed for this very addition.
You still have legal threats under the six strikes system.
Palm trees and 8
It's unethical and in a free society such as the US is/should be illegal... A content provider who starts controlling the means of communication also make themselves responsible for policing and initiating the procedure for persecution!!! It is a clear conflict of interest, self serving and is consistent with criminal behavior.
The main drivers behind this initiative are the same content providers who are afraid of competition and have been, for the last 15 years, trying to limit choice.
Anyone can still be sued for civil damages or prosecuted for criminal actions regardless of any other action on the part of the copyright owner or ISP. It might be easier to argue that the copyright owner acted in bad faith if they used a strike and a lawsuit at the same time but the point of the lawsuits is to overwhelm people with the legal system in the first place; most people just settle.
He fell on his face with point #2.
The entire argument depends upon the above quotation being logically well-founded. Take the error probability, raise it to the sixth power, and you get a small enough fraction that you can blow it off. On the face of it, it's not stupid... until you realize that the system actually adds the fractions to each other, rather than multiplying them. Oy. We're off to a good start here, aren't we? And that's if we accept that the errors will really just be random noise, rather than possibly arise from systematic failures and patterns.
If you disagree with that founding assertion (and you will, if you have observed what has happened so far), then nothing else he says is going to make sense.
IMHO, nobody knows how Six Strikes works, or what its false positive rate is. If someone knew, they would have stepped forward by now. This is getting to become something like both the evidence which suggests Intelligent Design as a hypothesis, and the secret idea for an experiment to falsify it, together which would make it be a theory. At some point, when no one comes forth with either or them (let alone both), it starts to become reasonable to assume the theory probably doesn't yet exist.
Similarly, we have no reason to suspect Six Strikes' detection and identification tech is accurate. It might be, it's just that nothing leads us to that conclusion except faith. And it's not that it can't be done (within certain limitations); it's that we have past records (anyone remember the RIAA lawsuits?) of it being done by totally incompetent people, who went to work for the "MAFIAA" because that was the only job they could get. MAFIAA, show us your methodology, because your reputation is that you're crooks who just make shit up.
And because of the how-it-works problem, his last sentence
is exactly wrong. It will be taken less seriously, because when you get one of these notices, your first thought isn't going to be "who in the house shared the Megadeth song?" It's going to be "which now-dead neighbor, who DHCP leased my current address for a couple weeks back in 2006, downloaded a file named peace_time_economics_in_the_rust_belt.pdf which matched some Megadeth keywords?"
Oh, they might be taken seriously as threats, but seriously not as being related to anything which may have happened on your ISP connection.
If you have seen how the MPAA has DMCAed some Google results in recent times, you will know (it's not even speculative) that false positives are extremely common in this industry's robot's actions, right now. Once I saw one of these false positives happen to me, it became apparent how easy it would be to accrue six Google-censored-results in a year, just by having truly innocent web pages which say certain words on them. (Tip: use HBO's show names. Haven't tried Showtime yet.) We're supposed to believe that your Six Strikes p2p tech is vastly better than your web tech? Why? What's your excuse? Please. [sits back, opens popcorn] This'll be good.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Ever since Micky Mouse & Sonny Bono extended copyright terms to INFINITY... nobody has any respect for copyright.
They reneged on their side of the bargain, so we see no reason to uphold ours.
"Wouldn't you rather receive a warning from your ISP than be sent a bill or legal threat by the RIAA/MPAA?"
No. Especially idle and unjustified ones (false positives).
Deathspawner,
Dude, listen to what you are saying. "Hey everybody! We're better off now because our right to due process is now in the hands of our corporate overlords." And you seriously think that is a good thing? Damn...
Don't blame others for what you've done pirates, you are the creators of the 6 strikes system. Piracy is being used as a tool to end Internet freedom and thus you are a tool if you use the Internet for piracy. Stop pirating and taking away our freedom.
There are plenty of legit methods of getting music, tv, and movies these days.
This entire mess is a public policy problem that grew from several roots.
The main root is that technology changed the game. As has been mentioned before, part of the issue is a broken business model. Enforcement of copyright protection in a digital age of access to anything from anywhere is broken and the laws supporting the business model have been twisted to the point that they no longer work to protect the artist as much as they work to protect corporate control. And more control simply stifles creativity and encroaches on privacy. It's as if in the early 1900's, blacksmiths had passed legislation against car makers in order to protect horse based transportation.
The copyright thistle grew another root with the introduction of the DMCA legislation that for the first time placed a legal requirement on ISPs to assist a copyright holder in the enforcement of their copyright. It legally required an ISP to have a process in place to accept infringement notices (allegations), required the ISP to privately determine which customer was supposedly associated with an IP address collected by the copyright holder (with no consideration of all the flawed logic behind that assumption), and pass along the infringement allegation to the customer. If the copyright holder wished, they could get an administrative subpoena issued by a court clerk with no formal review or judicial oversight and the ISP was legally bound to identify the customer. An appeal required an individual to expose their identity and open themselves up to separate civil action. Then the copyright trolls/attorneys emerged and developed their extortion based revenue model. Public outrage and judicial opposition to clogging the court system with dubious cases pretty well ended any hope the copyright holders had that the DMCA approach would continue to be viable.
The roots branch and twist and intertwine as well. The situation is further complicated because the largest ISPs are also content producers and copyright holders. They have a vested interest on the enforcement side, but whether or not an ISP holds copyrights on content (most don't outside of the top 5), they are still - under current law - required to do something or they become legally liable for copyright infringement themselves. Basically, without some type of copyright policy and procedure in place, they can lose what's known as "safe harbor" or their status as a "simple conduit" provider of communication services with no associated liability for the type of content that traverses their networks. So legally, the ISPs are in a box (in part of their own making).
The point here - remember I'm just talking about existing causes - is that under existing US law, ISPs are forced into the role of assisting with copyright infringement enforcement efforts. Some of the largest ISPs had a hand in creating those laws, but there were many other powerful companies involved as well. So similar laws would have been put into place regardless.
The ISP industry could - in theory - fight back against legislation that forces them into the role of assisting with copyright enforcement. The incentive to do so would be to remove legal liability, reduce operational expense by eliminating notification programs, and avoid alienating their customers. But the biggest ISPs are also media content owners and providers. They need legal access to media content. Unrestricted access hits many of the largest ones on the cable TV, media sales and licensing side. They also face liability exposure from powerful copyright holders that are not in the ISP industry and they don't have unilateral control over lobbing efforts to introduce change. If they pushed hard for legal change, it would help, but the opposition would still be fierce. So they don't try.
The "6 Strikes" effort tries to gain a little improvement on both sides of the issue (from their perspective) by introducing this compromise(d) approach of information and education with no real intent to shut off services or take anyone to
But that's not available.
So? What makes you think you're entitled to anything? The world doesn't owes you anything, asshole...
Waaaah.. I want .. I want.. And I'll only pay this much.. Waaaah. Jesus.. what a wanker..
But ofcource.. "information wants to be free".. all those episodes of the office and those games being downloaded... its just like going to the library.
at hooker and blow parties can sway things their way.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
"While the scheme isn't perfect (far from it), one of the biggest benefits from this system is that it introduces a proxy, and any persecution you might have easily faced prior to Six Strikes is delayed under the new program. Wouldn't you rather receive a warning from your ISP than be sent a bill or legal threat by the RIAA/MPAA?"
I reject the implied notion that I must chose between the two. I chose niether.
Deathspawner implicitly concedes the justification of the underlying premise (file-sharing is evil and deserving of serious punishment) and then compounds it with the fallacy of relative privation, claiming "it could always be worse". I don't know if he's depressingly ignorant or a corporate tool, but either way, he's wrong.
"Wouldn't you rather receive a warning from your ISP than be sent a bill or legal threat by the RIAA/MPAA?"
A common defense or marketing ploy for Tasers is, "Now we can use nonlethal force and take down people who would otherwise get shot and killed". But that's not how they get used in practice. People are still getting shot by cops all the time when they appear to be really dangerous. When Tasers really get used are all kinds of new situations populace-suppression situations -- when someone is talking back, being uncooperative, not getting out of a car when you want them, hogging a mic at a public forum, asking for a lawyer, etc.
I don't know what the proper name is for this logical fallacy, but it's the same as the Six Strikes program. Giving my oppressors another tool with which to beat me down is not progress.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Private companies holding hands to extort, persecute, and bring vengeance upon paying consumers? Extra-judicial private powers that none of us voted for, that nobody decided was ok at any point in time? Fuck no. There is NOTHING tolerable about it, period. Trying to say it isn't really that bad puts the author on the same plane as the bastards pushing through 6 strikes policies
If we want to move to a digital economy and rely even more on an economy built up on things that are easily duplicated then someone has to step up and protect those works.
Copyright laws last too long
Copyright infringement penalties are too high. The punishment does not fit the crime (what are we doing Sharia law, hand chopped off for stealing?)
Instead of paying $35 to file an appeal, or admitting guilt by clicking through...
If/when you get your first strike.... Go to your local courthouse and file a lawsuit against your ISP. (This will probably cost roughly the same as the $35.) Say that they have blocked your internet access that you paid them to provide.
State that they are accused you of an illegal action without allowing for due process. Make the valid points that are provided elsewhere in the comments, ... that they are assuming your guild, collusion with other monopolies, etc.
As people are fond of saying on Slashdot, I am not a lawyer, but, I doubt that the ISPs or the MAFIAA will want to see this case actually go to trial.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
wouldn't we rather pay a small "protection" fee than go through all that knee-breaking?
the answer is: NO.
Fair use is protected. Sharing an entire film or song probably is not. Therefore, share and download copyrighted materials a piece at a time. No infringement, no six strikes, no problem. Where is your god now RIAA/MPAA?
Just like there are no moral rights or moral responsibilities. Your terse statement is impetuous, repugnant and highly inflamnatory. God will punish you for this.
I think the real issue here is one of privacy. I use the internet for both telephone and written communications. Analyzing my IP traffic is both taping my phone line and opening my mail. There are legal protections for phone lines and there are legal protections for physical mail but a long time ago IP traffic was made exempt from privacy laws. This was before the internet was widely used for telephone and mail. Before paperless billing. Before Skype. The world has changed and we need our legal protections to catch up. It doesn't matter what you think about what they are doing or why they are doing it. Your IP traffic should be private. It should be impossible for the ISP to tell what you are using their service for. The service they provide is a "dumb pipe" that can contain any sort of private and personal information. There are FCC rules protecting CPNI (Customer Proprietary Network Infromation). There are normally large fines for any company that discloses CPNI to a 3rd party without written consent from the subscriber.
The solution is the use of encrypted channels. All traffic must be encrypted by default. The fact that your e-mail travels around the world in plain text should make you uncomfortable.
The six-strikes rules should predicate a design change for P2P protocols.
Full 2048 bit encryption - Full mesh - Full authentication of seed nodes (to easily build white/black lists). Just like TOR...
that will stop the snooping, make it difficult to prove you were collecting data and give you plausible deniability defence in court.
Would this be like car dealers monitoring your driving and sending you warning letters if you were speeding, turning without using your signal, etc.? Or perhaps like gun dealers that sell ammunition that tracks where you fired the bullets and sending you warning letters if you fired a gun where it's not legal to do so? Basically, any private company monitoring what you do with their goods/services and warning you of any thing they think you are doing that is illegal except that with ISPs, it's benefiting other private companies directly and not the general public?
My risk of being sued by the RIAA for copyright infringement was miniscule. I literally had zero fear they would come after me. They want to punch themselves in the eye and try to ruin a lower-middle class Joe, they can go right ahead. So really, the risk of prosecution before six-strikes was insignificant.
The risk of prosecution is greater with six-strikes. RIAA will have more evidence and will thus be more likely to prosecute. RIAA will have more cases in court and will thus be more likely to seek more reasonable penalties. Both of these factors will encourage RIAA to bring cases to court.
So no, this is worse. I would rather receive a legal threat from RIAA (they can shove it up their ass unless they want to actually prosecute something) than a six-strikes warning from my ISP.
$35 will get you almost 6 months of torguard vpn