ISPs in the USA to start monitoring customers’ downloads starting July 1, 2012
March 17, 2012 53
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With SOPA and PIPA out of the way, what other magic tricks does the entertainment industry of America have up its sleeve? How about having ISPs (Internet Service Providers — your Internet company) play copyright cop. Last year in July major ISPs across the USA agreed to ramp up efforts to clamp down on piracy. Since that time, we really haven’t heard much more about this copyright policing. Now, a few days ago the CEO of RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) announced major ISPs in the USA (Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, etc.) have agreed to start monitoring what their customers download starting July 1, 2012.
Copyright Cop
Under the agreement signed by the ISPs and RIAA/MPAA, ISPs adopt what is called a “graduated response” to piracy (i.e. illegal download of intellectual property such as movies). Customers who are accused of file sharing will initially get one or two “Copyright Alerts” informing them of their infringements and asking them to stop. If, after sending these alerts, the customers in question still continue to pirate they will receive “confirmation notices” which ask consumers to confirm they got the Copyright Alerts. If customers continue to pirate, ISPs can choose between a variety of tougher measures (dubbed “mitigation measures”) such as throttling Internet speed or restricting Internet access until the customer stops pirating.
The RIAA/MPAA wants ISPs to build database which keep track of customers so they can flag the number of times a customer has been accused of illegal downloading.
This agreement between ISPs and RIAA/MPAA has been years in the making and has received political support, particularly from the White House.
Why This Is Important
This is important simply because all your Internet access and activity is seen by your ISP. If they wanted to, they could very easily tell you what you did on the Internet on what day, e.g. you visit X website at X time on X day. Thus, this is probably the most significant and effective step taking to date to fight piracy.
It isn’t important that ISPs are monitoring and logging their customers’ Internet activity; ISPs have been doing that for a while for stuff like cooperating with law enforcement. What is important is ISPs are now doing this to assist corporate America — not law enforcement. Where is the check that prevents abuse?
Issues With This Plan
The biggest issue with this plan, in my opinion, is how ISPs will determine who is downloading and if that downloading is legit or not. Now don’t get me wrong. ISPs have extremely intelligent engineers who have tricks to figure out what is being downloaded by who. What concerns me, however, is when ISPs get it wrong, i.e. false accusations. Also, what about shared networks? Is it OK to punish multiple users just because one person on the network is downloading something they shouldn’t?
The other major issue with this plan are privacy concerns. As mentioned above, ISPs have always had the ability to monitor Internet usage because they have had to comply with law enforcement requests. However, that was for law enforcement; not for the RIAA/MPAA. Law enforcement requests usually require probable cause and the approval of a judge through a warrant. What gives the entertainment industry of America the right to bypass these basic American rights? Where does the monitoring begin? Where does it stop? Are ISPs allowed to share data on people with other ISPs?
What about censorship. Isn’t throttling someones Internet access a form of censorship? This is the same Internet access that has been dubbed a “human right” by some organizations around the globe.
Finally, what happens if a customer refuses to stop downloading? Are they taken to court? Fined? Sued? Do consumers have a say in the matter? What can they be liable for?
The Bright Side
Not all is gloomy. ISPs have the choice of waving mitigation measures for individual customers, if they so decide; and none of the ISPs have agreed to permanently shutdown subscribers. Furthermore, I can see less lawsuits being thrown at consumers simply because people can argue in court the entertainment industry had tools to stop the pirating but they didn’t so they can’t hold people accountable. Finally, there are bound to be services and software that crop up to beat the system, for those that are really bothered by this.
Conclusion
This just feels dirty. The potential for abuse is high and privacy is bound to be trampled upon. I’m no lawyer but this feels like a violation of rights us American take as for granted. Only time will tell how this plays out. Here is hoping for the best.
Let us know what you think about this plan to monitor people’s downloads in the comments below.
[via CNET]
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Hello, Ashraf.
I noticed that “kit temple” has what may be a good idea, for some.
I *think* that “kit temple” was saying that, like the telcos, there is the possibility of sub-contracting a broadband line.
I’m pretty sure that a T3 line can be ‘sub-let’, maybe DSL, & other broadband also.
So, you’re DBA [doing business as] “moonlite internet services”, so he can tap directly into Att&T’s backbone line.
I know that the local library has/had their own T3 line.
However, I don’t think that this is actually a “software” issue, because any ISP, from a local telco, to an international carrier, is going to be using hardware to control their servers 1st, then software to ‘monitor’ the requests.
Remember, your browser sends a request for a file to the server, which then either responds w/ the file, or passes off the request to the another server.
In either case, there WILL be a record of the request, & the response, as that is the way that ALL servers are set up, to my knowledge.
But his point is that, some broadband subcontractors could sublet a connection to the trunk line, or the backbone.
Way down south in Georgia, I get my broadband thru the local catv, which, apparently gets theirs from BellSouth.net, which is what I see when I do an online speed test, @ speedtest.net.
Have a GREAT day, neighbors!
It is interesting that the FBI has crossed the globe to extradite the owner of Megaupload, from a compliant country, for alleged breaches of copyright, but have done nothing about the myriad illegal restrictive trade practices of the MPAA and the RIAA.
Both the MPAA and the RIAA have failed to realise that they are in a battle they can’t win and that their behaviour is driving the increase in piracy. They have managed to offend so many people, even those who would normally buy music and movie DVDs/CDs, that, on principle, ordinary people are increasingly bypassing such practices as exorbitant pricing and the absurd region release system. More and more audio artists and movie producers are turning their backs on these two organisations and releasing their productions independently, at reasonable prices, directly to the world market, with great success and very profitably.
Should the control of ISPs, as designated in your article, become law in the USA (The Land Of The Free?), there are numerous ways to thwart, foil, or even completely render the legislation useless (an ISP. or ISPs, based outside USA jurisdiction could provide satellite Internet connection to USA citizens). Before that happens, I hope that the people of the USA let the White House know their feelings on the matter. After all, no politician or political party can afford to ignore the demand for privacy from half their population, even if the hundred million or so people don’t contribute millions of dollars to party funds.
People power does work.
Oh, and yes, this is a privacy issue NOT a piracy issue.
Agreed, piracy is wrong. But recording studios and artists are seriously to blame for it. Greed drives them to charge ridiculous prices for mass produced items. We read about their excesses every day. If they had sold their products at reasonable prices, piracy would never have become such a big problem. As it is, even with piracy being rampant, they are still making huge profits, yet they salivate for more. Anti-piracy laws will not bring down the prices; it will simply hand them the monopoly to increase it even more. And it is nonsense to think that the US government is not part of this. Looking at the whole picture, it is abundantly clear that this is just a sham to enable politicians to wash their hands in innocence in public. Laws like these always end up punishing the innocent, while hardened crooks thrive. The real crooks, counterfeiters for one, are henceforth going to have a ball.
Are we in Syria or are we in occupied Europe 1940-1945?
Internet is dying!
@Alex:
If we were in China, I would say this is the wong thing to do.
I think that the best method to solve this problem is using a VPN service or simply the Tor Network like what I do.
@Hamza:
I’ve seen Nikita using the Tor Network.
I did not think they could surpass the blond Nikita series, but I think it is at least equal (and is better produced).
We have only had series 1 in Aust, I must google to see if they made more.
They have been replaying all of series 1, and thanks to my age (70), I have been enjoying the repeats.
MPAA & RIAA Says the internet is stealing billions of dollars worth of their property by sharing copies of files, here is how to pay them back with copies….
One way to pay them is with digital copies of real money.
See: http://www.megaleecher.net/Money_For_MPAA_And_RIAA?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBestInternetNews+%28Megaleecher.Net+-+Making+technology+work+for+you…%29
The smart thing to do would be to provide legal access to content at a reasonable price rather tan exorbitant monthly fees for an entire channel of content when all you want is one or two programs. This lets people vote with their dollars for the content they really want to see. Sometimes you can do a show by show subscription through amazon or iTunes but often not for current content — only say after the season is over and the dvds are released.
@donna dawson:
This isn’t the government doing this monitoring. This is two different corporations sharing your personal information to screw you over. Corporate America is the problem, not the government.
What is it going to take to make a greedy person realize that he simply has a stupid idea? How long must we all tolerate the pursuit of the erroneous concept of “intellectual property” before we all admit to ourselves that, no matter how rich, stupid, determined or greedy you are, YOU CANNOT OWN A THOUGHT, AN IDEA OR A PATTERN!?
Ok people, do you believe it now? I have been a hardline activist against these sorts of legislations and have been telling everyone I can to take action, but no one ever does. So this is result.
First of all, the internet is not a human right, it’s a service that can be provided to you for a cost.
Therefore, If you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it.
The problem here is the content producers have been too lazy to keep up with technology and have resisted implementing any sort of DRM into their content or content delivery systems. Now they are so far out of the game, that it will take many years, if ever to implement any sort of content protection as people are not going to pay for something they have been getting for free for so long.
IMO, the content providers have shot them selves in the foot and rather than admit they screwed up, they want to make someone else do the work of protecting their content, so they turn to your ISP because many ISP’s are also content providers and that makes them powerless when the studios demand something like this.
You want to do something to stop this??? Take a very care full look and investigate who supports this crap legislation and who does not, Do your homework and on NOV 6 VOTE for and elect your representatives and officials who can understand common sense and who know what =right and wrong. Spread the word and be adamant about what you believe in. It’s time to look at and vote for the best person to do HIS /HER JOB, not the person who represents your party affiliation.
Don’t vote for the idiots that support this type of legislation, and don’t vote without being informed, it’s time for the apathy to stop. People are smart, the government does not think that is true, so show them who they are working for ….
You people have to stop being such tools. I mean honestly if you don’t like what your isp is doing it’s very simple. Call them. Complain and make it very apparent that you don’t like them monitoring your privacy and CANCEL YOUR SERVICE. You think they are going to continue taking away your rights when they are losing money. Not in corporate America. When you are done canceling your service. What now??? Here’s a idea. Well I can guarantee that you don’t have any other choices for a ISP. So start fighting for less ISP monopolies in this country. Why do you think they can do things like this??? Maybe because so said company knows you have no other choices. Is that fair???? Is that legal??? NO, not really last time I checked, but you SHEEP are allowing this to happen to our country.
There are other important things I would like to point out about this, which I didn’t fully get to last night. Those are points that I believe everyone should carefully look into and inform others about.
This will allow your ISP to spy on everything you do. If they spy your data they will be able to read your emails, IM’s, how many times you called your boss a moron, how many times you sex RP’d online… everything. Theoretically, they can even spy on what you discuss with your co-workers, and secretly share private information with the competitor of the company you work for. Or if you access a porn website, they could tell everyone about it and the things you look at (even your parents or husband / wife). Next, if you access a website about something your admin dislikes, they can easily invent false claims against you to bully you. Imagine being cut off the internet because you are gay or accessed 4chan. Or going to school one day to find out the head teacher mysteriously knows you’re gay or something you only said privately, then everyone finds out and you get bullied. Also, what do you think will happen to people who post bad things about America’s leadership, the US army, uncover war crimes or government abuses, and that sort of thing… especially with the NDAA being around?
If anyone thinks this won’t happen because “they will be nice people and will only use this to catch thieves”, you are more than naive. No, it WILL be used for this and much worse if it happens. I don’t even need to point out what power hungry and control hungry characters are behind this.
But even if (just for the sake of pretending) this will only be used against pirates. Those pirates might have an online job, not to mention friends they talk with and other activities (unrelated to piracy). Cutting anyone off the internet at this day could cost many their jobs, and some even their lives. And then… being humiliated in spite by being sent to classes about copyright and scolded like a 2 year old by some internet provider? This by itself is a hateful practice, which as a mentality was used by communist and nazi regimes to show their power. Those who spoke against the regime but didn’t pose a big threat weren’t killed, but instead beaten in public and left without food and water for days, to show an example to those who disobeyed. At a different scale, this is the same mentality being put in practice here with those “lessons”, against people who might have done as little as downloading a song. We live in a mad world.
Alongside the practical consequences, this is also an insult to all internet users. We are being qualified as thieves automatically, and investigated prematurely to make sure we aren’t stealing. Using the internet will now be a suspicion of theft by itself… also known as being accused of a crime before you even commit it. In any normal world, people would be outraged at such a slap in the face. It’s the same as installing cameras in everyone’s homes, watching them when they eat / go pee / have sex / etc. just to be sure they aren’t raising cannabis in their house. Christ… not even Gaddafi or Kim Jong Il dared to do this.
As for hoping that some ISP’s will stay free, no. This is simply a new attempt to pass a law worse than SOPA. Currently, they paid or constrained ISP’s to pretend they’ve taken the decision on their own. After people would have cooled down and enough accepted this practice, they would also pass a law to make the whole thing obligatory. It’s basically doing it before it’s legal, so people get used to it first and they can later legalize it more easily. That’s why everyone needs to act urgently.
One thing’s for sure: They are up-front trying to make America a dictatorship, and I’m not talking just about this event (the NDAA is another thing). Many laws worthy of the worst dictatorships are being forcefully pushed in the US. The world has a very important choice to take in the next years, and if the wrong one is taken expect us to return to a medieval terror-based leadership. This isn’t a theory or exaggeration, it’s happening under our eyes.
Once again, please post about this everywhere you can and spread the word. Make a topic on all forums you visit (if there isn’t one already), post it on your Facebook / Twitter, and if you own a blog publish an article. We should also contact every news TV station or website and pressure them to speak about it. Please make people aware of the things I wrote in this post also (feel free to re-post all of it) so they can better see what we’re dealing with (as many still think it would only stop piracy and it’s ok). We have a disaster beyond words in front of us, if everything we read about this is true.
Anyone know when Verizon is (or if it will) notifying its customers about this? Seems like Comcast is the only one sending out notifications to its customers and the rest of us have to find out second-hand from the news…
There was a book written about this (predicting it), and they made a movie out of it -
1984
“Do it to Julia”
Verizon just sent me a first notification that they found illegal content, including the name of the files referenced. That makes me want to drop Verizon fast. Is AT&T participating in this nonsense?
I have some good news everyone. It seems the project was delayed until past this July. There’s no specific date as to when they wish to implement it, although evil corporations and ISP’s are still hoping this year.
http://torrentfreak.com/us-six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-delayed-120518/
That likely means they are scared, and have taken notice people are revolted. This is our chance to react and give them a good scare. What I hope will happen is people establishing a date when they can go to their ISP and protest… maybe knock at their door and have a nice heated discussion (I don’t wish to imagine a worse scenario *yet*).
If such happens the project will certainly be killed, and we would further send a message to those who wish to crush the internet so they understand once and for all we’ll never accept it in any form. Including those who support CISPA, who they hopefully understand will also not pass for the sake of both sides and everyone else.
this against our rights .
On a separate note, I would like to inform everyone of something even more important. CISPA is going to expire soon and will be voted in the senate… probably secretly and under the desk like we’ve been used to seeing (so no date is known). Everyone who is against it is strongly advised to call their senators ASAP and firmly ask them to vote against it! I don’t have a link but you should be able to find their phone numbers on google and older SOPA / CISPA articles… I’m too tired and outright sick of the whole thing to look them up myself. I consider this even more dangerous than the ISP initiative, and by all means hope this law won’t happen either :( As usual, please spread the word and re-post wherever you can so everyone knows. We need to show the senators those who oppose it are large in number, since as with SOPA they will not be able to vote on a law that everyone is visibly against. The house already passed it, so this is even more urgent for that reason.
@JoJoBo:
> After all, no politician or political party can afford to ignore the demand for privacy from half their population, even if the hundred million or so people don’t contribute millions of dollars to party funds.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that…
1. looking at the various forms of “representative democracy” worldwide, the representative part is problematic. “People power”, I’m afraid, does not work. It never has, if you look at it a bit more closely. Not during or after the French Revolution, not in the US, not in today’s “Arab Spring/Revolution”… It’ sad but it’s a fact.
2. Research about people’s willingness to give up “some” privacy in favor of “security” shows that a significant majority is willing to accept “a certain level” of government intusion on their privacy (i.e. police, teh military, tax authorities,…) In this way “the people” are willingly loosing their freedom step by step.
3. Politicians (and the parties they represent – rather than the people for whom they’re supposed to act) do ignore “the demand for privacy from half their population”. For (at least) one simple reason: what you call “half the population” is far from the actual 50%. How many people who are allowed to vote do vote, and do so correctly? [Far the latter I refer to Bush Jr.'s 2nd election victory, the proceedings of which were questionned worldwide.] And what percentage of the total population is that?
4. …and when they do not bluntly ignore their voters, they have an army of spindoctors at their fingertips.
But perhaps I’m a bit too cynical?
Greetz,
Pat.
Important: I again received some shocking news from EFF by email (they’re a serious source of information) about a potential revive of the actual SOPA / PIPA.
http://act.demandprogress.org/act/vs_hollywood/?referring_akid=.661516.qyUGJ6&source=typ-tw
It appears Hollywood is trying to shut down all cloud websites. Basically, it wishes to take down Youtube, Google Drive, and all cloud services out there, the same way Megaupload was removed. The article mentions them trying to circumvent congress so they can force their law through without a vote. What this means is most major websites which allow file storage would be gone… and we are back at SOPA as we know it.
This comes just a few days after I heard about the ISP initiative and an update on CISPA. Jesus Christ… has the world gone completely mad? Are those groups desperate beyond limit to shut down this internet? They now want sites like Youtube to disappear forever… who almost entirely addressed the issue of copyright material being uploaded. Is this even about copyright any more, or is that just a pretext?
Yeah, I agree… this is an outright war with the entertainment industry at this point. I don’t feel like fueling the fire here so people can jump to their own conclusion… I just found the article and linked it. There will probably be more information soon, and if that’s true likely another blackout. Feel free to re-post this post anywhere without asking.
To compliment my former comment about calling your ISP and cancelling your service to not only show that you are not going to allow them to do this to you but that you have the control not them. I also believe that if you really feel that the movie industry, MAFIAA, and other sources are going against your believes and rights then stop supporting them. Stop going to the movies, stop buying movies, stop buying music. If you see something that is affiliated with that brand and business then don’t buy it. How are you going to put out a fire when you are constantly “fueling” it with money and power. If they forget who pays their checks, if they forget who made them who they are. Make them remember. Start today.
Anyone here read the fourth realm series by john twelve hawks? Other than the fantasy elements, it is scarily possible. For those that haven’t, a world wide organization is controlling and monitoring peoples lives through a virtual panopticon, http://cartome.org/panopticon1.htm . using credit cards, internet usage and using surveilance carmeras both public and private to monitor our every move. While this is paranoid and weird to think about, think on it for a second. We have the technology, as has been stated aboveit would be easy to track every move you make through your cell phone and car gps systems. This would take it a step farther, if you decide to go on a walk through a park or even in your own neighborhood, they would know. They could know exactly what you are doing nearly every minute of every day. They would know what you watch on tv, they would know what you searched on google, they would know when you went on a diet or broke up with your husband/boyfriend or wife/girlfriend. And with the onset of social media sites like facebook, we are helping them by posting what we are doing every day, in a place where it is impossible to have privacy. They could read your texts, listen to your calls, or even record conversations you had near your phone/computer/tv/in a public place. Before you call me crazy, just think about it, would it be that hard? They would justify it in the name of “advertising research” or “national security” and before you know it the only free people left will be in Somalia.
And this is about step four, monitoring internet access at all times. You see, we are already most of the way there, so just let go and let them do the thinking for you.
I am sorry, this article is poorly written and misleading. First of all, ISP’s are NOT the ones who are tracking your downloads. How the new step program works is an outside company or 3rd party notify’s the ISP about illegal downloading. The ISP then contacts the customer with a warning. Your ISP will not be monitoring you internet usage, since it is not in their best interests. ISP’s are a business. To monitor all their customers would cost millions of dollars and thousands of hours. Its not like your ISP stores a web history of you like your browser does, its all logged as IP addresses, in multiple databases which are not too easy to access. Get a grip.