Internet providers to act against online pirates

Reuters ^ | Lisa Richwine

[monkeyshine]

Consumers who illegally download copyrighted films, music or television shows might see their Internet speed slowed or access restricted under an industry anti-piracy effort announced on Thursday.

U.S. Internet service providers, including Verizon Communications Inc, Comcast Corp, Time Warner Cable Inc, Cablevision Systems Corp and AT&T Inc agreed to alert customers, up to six times, when it appears their account is used for illegal downloading. Warnings will come as e-mails or pop-up messages.

Read the rest here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/07/us-internet-piracy-idUSTRE7667FL20110707

[monkeyshine]

I have cable internet, but I do not have an email address from my internet provider... or maybe I do, but I never use it and don't remember ever setting one up.

People with unsecured networks could become victims of pirates and the cable companies, both.

My real question though is, why do the cable and telecom companies even care? AFAIK they earn nothing on the sale of movies or music or other entertainment sold over their pipe. From a purely capitalist Machiavellian view, if I were the cable company I would want MORE piracy, so that I could use that as leverage to extract payments from the likes of Apple iTunes and Netflix and the like. They sell the stuff and send it over my pipeline, I would want a cut. Wouldn't you?

Of course, as a consumer and patriot I believe these companies should lose their monopoly status. It is time to let the consumer choose, not congress or the FCC.

[Proud_texan]

I'm stumped as to how they're actually going to detect if it's copyright content. Do they have a bit pattern for every bit of copyrighted data and they're going to comp all their traffic?

I expect this is simply window dressing and what they'll end up doing is flagging downloads from a handful of web sites. Otherwise it just doesn't seem doable to me.

[donhunt]

99.9% of about everything in the world has something to do with money.

[McGruff]

Anybody notice the Internets are about twice as fast today. Coincidence?

[McGruff]

Anybody notice the Internets are about twice as fast today. Coincidence?

[The Duke]

My real question though is, why do the cable and telecom companies even care?

They care because they are going to be made legally liable.

[TheOldLady]

Click the Pic

My vicious cat Rocket cruelly cuts one from the herd

It was the one who didn't donate

Become a monthly donor and end FReepathons

[monkeyshine]

It would be a big hurdle to make them legally liable. The content owners would have to prove that it is possible for them to stop it and at minimal effort or cost, and still I don’t think there are any damages to recoup.

I agree with the poster above, it has to do with money, but imho they have to be angling in some way to get cut in on the transaction. I figure they think along the lines of “Why should Apple and Netflix etc get 30% of every movie and we who transmit it and maintain and expand the infrastructure to make that possible on a large scale get zilch for the effort?”?

[nerdwithagun]

I for see work arounds for this. I sympathize with anti-pirating, however the tactics they use are horrible. Sue anybody and everybody. When you buy stolen property, it has to be proven that you knew the property was stolen. When you download via torrent, how are you supposed to know what is stolen or not?

[max americana]

I’m a moderator on one of the anime and torrent sites, and one thing people should realize is that peerguardian should be maxed to the hilt to sniff out the MPAA/RIAA watchdogs because they are there.

Now what is the difference between a copyrighted file? ATT cannot make the distinction. Try downloading an anime fansub straight after the raw version were captured and turn around within 24 hours complete with subs. That anime has not been copyrighted in North America. I doubt ATT would know the difference and can be argued in court.

[nerdwithagun]

That is very interesting information. Thank you for sharing that info and One Piece rules. :D

[max americana]

>One Piece rules. :D

LOL, I do the quality check for a sub group who does BLEACH, and we got so much cease and desist letters, it became our wall of honor.

My kid sister loves OP, but I couldn;t stand it. Naruto I could take, and could see it’s popularity.

[af_vet_rr]

My real question though is, why do the cable and telecom companies even care?

That's simple - they want you and I to get our movies and TV shows through them, not through any other means, illegal or otherwise. Bandwidth is ridiculously cheap, the various TV tiers are not as cheap and they can charge a lot more if they can tie you to their TV services. As a matter of fact, they don't even like iTunes or Netflix, they think you should not only be paying for internet access, but that you should also be paying them to use the Netflix or iTunes. Basically you would be paying three fees - one to the ISPs for internet access, one to the ISPs for using Netflix or iTunes, and one to Netflix or Apple for iTunes.

Of course, as a consumer and patriot I believe these companies should lose their monopoly status. It is time to let the consumer choose, not congress or the FCC.

Don't forget that not only are they granted government-sanctioned monopolies, but in some cases have received a lot of taxpayer money or given special breaks to build out their networks through grants, tax breaks, etc.

I agree with you completely - it pisses me off every time I hear them talking about ridiculous bandwidth caps and I look around and all of them are doing it and all of them are charging nearly the same prices.

Time to let the free market decide and time to end these government-sanctioned monopolies.

[af_vet_rr]

I for see work arounds for this.

The ISPs are already ahead of you - they are implementing limits on the bandwidth. It doesn't matter that bandwith and the machinery has gotten cheaper and cheaper every year. The ISPs want you to watch TV shows and movies through their cable box, not off the internet, legal or illegal. They want as much money as possible, and they walk all over us through their monopolies and buying off the Congress critters.

This is a problem when you have government sanctioned monopolies. In a true free market, we could shop around and find the ISP that best suits us, not a TV or telephone provider that was decided upon 30 years ago that managed to take over internet service as well.

People in other countries laugh at us. They have faster and cheaper internet service and you get a lot of choices. Here you pick either the telephone company or the cable company. There are a few upstarts, but they'll get bought out by the existing telecoms. I hate going to Europe or Japan and then coming back to our internet access. Unfortunately some of the European countries are headed down the same dark road we are headed down as far as censorship or other restrictions.

It won't be too far off in the future where the liberals running the telecoms and in the federal government start making a serious effort to block a lot of sites, probably in the guise of "protecting the children". Take a site like Free Republic. We talk about guns here. That would be a big no-no to a lot of liberals, and since we have such few choices for internet access, it's not like we can go elsewhere.