The media giants, in conjunction with, internet service providers (ISPs) are about to institute a massive program to stifle on-line piracy. The program, entitled the Copyright Alert System (CAS), is to be operational by the end of March.
Spearheaded by the Center for Copyright Information, a consortia consisting of the Motion Picture Assoc. of America, the Recording Industry Assoc. of America, and a variety of music makers and TV and movie producers, as well as ISPs : AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, and Verizon, the CAS is intended to target parents who may not be aware that their children are media pirates.
The CAS is 'six' strikes and you are out! Yes, six. The first strike is to simply warn offenders that illegal file-sharing has been detected on their account and leads them to legitimate sources for obtaining on-line content. By the fifth strike however much more drastic actions take place. For example, after the "fifth violation" Verizon will lower the users Internet connection to a max speed of 256 kilobits/second for up to 3 days (a very slow connect speed). Time Warner subscribers will receive worse punishment - a suspended account until the offenders calls TW and speaks with a customer service rep about the error of their ways and what further punishment awaits any new offenses. This is a sea change in the attitude of the ISPs as in the past their policy and retort to copyright holders was, 'it's not our problem'.
Critics of the Copyright Alert System point to several major issues. One, being that the open WiFi nodes, which users keep open to let anyone in the local area use for free, ie Starbucks, would have to be excluded from the alert system. Second, the Alert system does nothing to stop hard-core pirates, in part, because it only targets peer-to-peer applications. Professional pirates don't even use Bit Torrent any longer but have moved onto file-locker sites. Acknowledges Gigi Sohn, a CCI Board Member, "It's not about stopping the hard-core uploader/downloader. It's about educating a new generation of music and TV fans." What?
My Opinion
Copyright, like current Patent laws, have become absurd to an extreme. These laws do not offer much protection, particularly at the international level, and both need massive reform and overhaul. Instituting the Copyright Alert System as a means to "educate" the next generation of teens to the unlawful practice of copying copyrighted content is a bad idea on many levels - not the least of which is that the vast majority of people in the U.S. pay for the songs, movies, and TV shows they watch over the net - wether through iTunes, Netflix, Spotify, AmazonPlus etc. Yes, there is piracy at the fringe but the hard-core pirates are too hard for big media to deter and prosecute so they look at the smaller fry - it's really silly and make big media and the ISPs look really petty.
Best and Happy Movie Going!
Jim Lavorato
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