"Six Strikes," Piracy, and Your Internet

During summer 2012, we all heard tell of internet service providers agreeing to a new Copyright Alert System (CAS), intending to curb online piracy.  All we really knew of it back then is that it involved your ISP sending you messages when you were suspected of downloading copyrighted works illegally, ultimately cutting you off when you crossed the line too many times.  Of course the RIAA and MPAA were on board, and brought with them major ISP’s Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner.  Critics, including myself, took issue with this being a potential violation of users’ privacy, as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) containing language that requires ISP’s to be able to terminate user accounts for repeat offenders.  Outside of that, we didn’t have any other real information on how the final impact to users was going to look.

Well this week the CAS went into effect, and ISP’s will now be sending warnings to customers whenever they see something that can be considered copyright infringement.  If you haven’t gotten a letter in the mail from your particular ISP you should be shortly, and hopefully that letter clearly tells you all what’s going on.  In case it doesn’t (which let’s be serious, it won’t), ol’ Tushar is here to let you know what’s up.

The way it works is pretty simple – content owners trawl P2P traffic to see if there’s any of their own copyrighted stuff out there.  If they find some, they track your IP number and report it to your ISP.  Your ISP matches up your IP address with your account information, and SHAZAM – you get, as they call it, an “educational” message saying that there’s illegal content being downloaded from your account.  Your ISP, contrary to fears from last year, will not be monitoring your internet use.  From everything I’ve read, what they’re expressly looking for is peer-to-peer BitTorrent traffic.  The monitoring doesn’t get into email attachments or private online storage like Dropbox and its ilk.  If you don’t use BitTorrent, then I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.  And according to LifeHacker, right now Usenet is probably safe too.

But come on, we’ve all done it at one point or another.

These warnings can be called “strikes,” and in all cases six strikes will trigger the use of a handful of punitive methods at your ISP’s disposal to deter you from repeating this kind of behavior.  Verizon will cap your speed at 256k as punishment (can you imagine coming down from FiOS to THAT?).  Comcast will present persistent alerts in their browser windows, and users will have to speak with Comcast security to be educated in how to download legally before their internet service is unlocked.  Time Warner will have a similar unlock system.  And finally AT&T will force the user to an educational website before unlocking their internet again.   In most cases, after four warnings the user has to agree to a “I’ll never do it again guys, I promise” landing page they’re forced to before they browse the web.  CAS warnings can be challenged to the American Arbitration Association for a number of different reasons, and the going rate for said challenge seems to be $35.  No word on whether or not the user will be reimbursed for winning the challenge.  Also in most cases, 6 months of pirate-free activity and you start back at zero.  Ars Technica was nice enough to post pictures of the Comcast editions of these notices, which you can see here.  It’ll give you a much better idea of what I’m trying to illustrate.  You can check some links to your specific ISP’s CAS policies on PCMag.

You’ll notice I use the word “educational” in this post.  That’s not my word – it comes from the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), the brainchild behind the new CAS system.  In their own words:

“As with any innovative system, the process of building the CAS has taken time. We appreciate the collaborative engagement from the many organizations, companies and professionals involved in CCI who helped advise us along the way. CCI and its partners have worked hard to meet our goal of implementing a system that educates consumers about copyright and P2P networks, encourages the use of legal alternatives, and safeguards customer privacy.”

… Education?  Do the RIAA and MPAA (big surprise they back the CCI) really think that people using BitTorrent don’t know the score?  Back when I used to do such things I did it for two reasons – (1) because it was relatively easy and (2) it was free.  And yes, I fully knew that a lot of it was (3) illegal.  No one’s under any kind of illusion that what they’re doing isn't skirting the law.  If the CCI really thinks that education is the problem, then they’re not seeing things clearly, or simply refusing to.

Now thankfully, this isn’t as bad as everyone thought it would be.  Like I mentioned above ISP’s won’t be sniffing packets or monitoring traffic on everything you’re doing (at least that’s what’s reported).  And I get the idea of people getting paid for their work.  I really do.  But this is just a band-aid to the issue.  Copyright law itself has to be re-examined to see what works and what doesn’t now that digital delivery of content has proliferated at such a grand scale.  We’ve seen people pay for content with services like Netflix and Hulu+, even though we all wish they had more content.  Services like HBO Go on the other hand sometimes leave a lot to be desired.  Warner Brothers’ digital copies of blu-rays?  Forget it, it’s a horrible service that’s not transferable between my own damn machines.  The bottom line is that people are willing to pay for content, as long as it’s fair to the user, structured properly, easy,  and most importantly worth their hard-earned money.

Otherwise, Matthew Inman at the Oatmeal makes a whole lot of sense.

3-Part Harmony: Web Blackout slaps SOPA, MPAA Slaps the Web Blackout, Technical Fowl Slaps the MPAA

SOPA and PIPA lost 3 co-sponsors this afternoon, presumably in response to the blackout protests by many prominent internet sites such as Reddit and Wikipedia.  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) withdrew his co-sponsorship of PIPA while Reps. Lee Terry (R-NE) and Ben Quayle (R-AZ) did the same for SOPA in the House.  To explain why he withdrew his support, Sen. Rubio states on his Facebook page that while he maintains a "strong interest in stopping online piracy that cost Florida jobs," that we "must do this while simultaneously promoting an open, dynamic Internet environment that is ripe for innovation and promotes new technologies."  His statement came in response to overwhelming feedback he received from his Floridian constituents, and further goes on to encourage his colleague Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to stop from rushing this bill to the Senate floor.

While not outright dropping support, other politicians like Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) also wrote on his Facebook page that Congress needs to slow down, citing that it's more important to do this right than to do this quickly.

The  MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) also had their say – they claim that the web blackout is nothing more than a political stunt by technology businesses.  Speaking from what I can only guess is a platform of an ego over-inflated with our money and ticket stubs, here’s what MPAA CEO Chris Dodd had to say to USA Today:

"Some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem."  Further, "A so-called blackout is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently."

Well allow me to retort.

Here’s the thing, Mr. Dodd.  We support the blackout.  We know better, and we support decisions and provisions that protect the rights of our citizens.  My profession is Information Technology and as such I’m a heavy internet user, and I don’t feel punished by the blackouts in the least.  I admire what these sites have done.  And when you speak about an unwillingness to come to the table to discuss options, please don’t do it without mentioning that the MPAA had the luxury of being consulted before SOPA went to a markup session in House Judiciary Committee.  Curiously absent were technical experts from around the country.  Fathers of internet technology like Vint Cerf had to make their opinions known with help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in an open letter on the web.  You see, unfortunately for them, and us, they don’t have a lobby powerful enough to warrant an invitation to the table as the MPAA had.

While the interests of the MPAA and similar organizations can be secured with money and a powerful lobby, the rest of us use the tools we have at our disposal:  knowledge and numbers.  And as for punishment of elected officials?  You’re absolutely right.  They work for us.  For democracy to work, or a democratic republic as it were, the onus is not only on the politicians, but on the people to make their voices heard, so that those who represent us can, in fact represent us.  This is the internet age Mr. Dodd, and the American nerd will be the single strongest force in determining this world’s digital and technological future.

You want to stop piracy?  Fine.  I’m not arguing with you.  But there’s other ways of doing it than firing a missile into a village just to get one man.  What’s required is a surgical strike.  But naturally you and your colleagues would want SOPA and PIPA to go through in their broadest forms.  You wouldn’t mind a void where a host of user generated content used to be, so the exclusive source of what you shamefully call entertainment is in your hands and your hands alone.  Who cares if it stunts American innovation and creativity?  Who cares if this will cause ripples throughout the entire world?  Who cares if entire domains are blacklisted for the crimes of a few?  You’d get yours, and that’s all you care about.

I absolutely cannot wait for the children of the Internet Age to run the show.