Film Consortium Urges ISPs To Dump Ineffective "Six Strikes" Policy For Pirates

An anonymous reader writes: The Internet Security Task Force, a group of businesses working to protect content creators and consumers from the negative effects of piracy, has called for an end to the Copyright Alert System, saying the anti-piracy initiative is not only ineffective but actually makes things worse. The group suggest that it be replaced with a new system based on Canada's Copyright Modernization Act. Mark Gill, ISTF chairman and President of member company Millennium films, says "We've always known the Copyright Alert System was ineffective, as it allows people to steal six movies from us before they get an educational leaflet. But now we have the data to prove that it's a sham." The Copyright Alert System (CAS) is set to expire early July.

Comments

Wait, what?

[xevioso]

From the article:

"The incendiary acts behind the move appears to be the wide-spread pirating of 2014 action blockbuster The Expendables 3, about which Mark Gill comments that it “has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times, the CAS only allowed 0.3% of our infringement notices through to their customers. The other 99.7% of the time, the notices went in the trash"

And how the hell would they know this? It's not like snail mail letters have GPS attached to them so the sender will know you have opened them. How do they have any idea at all in any way shape or form how often these letters were received, opened, read or followed? I smell a rat...

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more concerned with the claim that The Expendables 3 has been viewed more than 60M times. Viewing crap movies like that causes far more damage to the public than any possible money lost by the studios.

Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[flopsquad]

What kind of crazy, Wild West law allows anyone to legally break into a movie studio and abscond with the film masters for up to 6 movies?!!

Ohh, they were doing that thing with the word "steal" again, where they accidentally used it instead of "make a copy in violation of copyright law."

Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible

[jaa101]

Since "good" refers to something physical, I see you've decided to respond with the predicted "it's not tangible, so therefore it doesn't count" excuse.

This completely ignores the fact that things do not have to be tangible to be considered to have a measurable value. Your time, for example, is worth money both to yourself and your employer.

Nobody is saying that there's no value in copyright violations. What they are saying is that it is not theft. I like the car analogy for this one:

• Theft: Somebody come and steals your car parked outside your house. Now they have a car and you don't.
• Copyright Violation: Somebody comes and makes a copy of your car parked outside your house. Now they have a car and so do you.

See the difference? And remember that it was you who said it makes no difference as to whether the things are tangible or not.

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

File sharing can't drive those prices up. If piracy results in fewer people going to theaters, the reduction in demand will force prices down. If movie watching suddenly became more popular, prices would not go down, they would go up, especially when theaters are routinely sold out. That's how commerce actually works.

The greatest harm file sharing could do is: reduce the expected ROI on major movies, which in turn results in fewer movies produced, and less money spent on the movies being made (which might reduce their quality). At the moment, the market is awash with more movies than anyone can watch, and the amount of money spent on some of them is ridiculous. So, I don't see that harmful consequence happening at all.