Archive for the ‘Three Strikes’ Category
Comcast revealed today how it will deal with customers who receive multiple warnings under the newly launched “six-strikes” anti-piracy system
Posted: 2013/02/28 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, Three StrikesUS Copyright Alert System to educate users about illegal downloading
Posted: 2013/02/26 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, Three StrikesThis week marks the start of the new ‘Copyright Alert System’ in the USA. The system aims to educate and create awareness amongst Internet users about their illegal downloading habits. The system uses a ‘six-strikes’ – or graduated response – method to prevent consumers from continuing their illegal downloading.
The system is a collaboration between five major ISPs, RIAA, MPAA, IFTA and A2IM and is regulated by the Center for Copyright Information (CCI). The system works through a graduated response approach. The organisations in this project monitor peer-to-peer networks. Once illegal filesharing is detected and confirmed, content owners identify the Internet Protocol (IP) address used by the computer making the file available. Each IP address is associated with a specific ISP, so content owners notify the ISP to which the address is assigned and the ISP then passes a Copyright Alert on to the customer assigned to the address. The customer’s identity is not disclosed to the content owners.
The said consumer will receive a letter from their ISP through which they are made aware of the broader consequences of illegal downloading for the entertainment sector and society as a whole. If infringements continue, customers can be obliged by their provider to be subjected to a form of ‘mandatory education’; the consumer will be redirected to a website where he will have to acknowledge that he has received the warning Eventually, users that continue to misbehave online risk slower bandwidth connections.
The system does not aim a criminal approach to the problem, so “six strikes” is not likely to result in arresting, suing or fining consumers that engage in downloading illegal content. Instead, matters are being addressed on the basis of the subscribers’ relationship between the consumer and the ISP. The aim is to educate consumers on responsible Internet use and raise awareness about copyright in order to prevent future infringements. Whenever a customer feels unjustly treated, there is the opportunity of challenging the alert and request a review by the American Arbitration Association. The system is the industry’s response to the attempts of US politicians to take legislative action against online piracy that are fruitless to date.
Today the MPAA and RIAA, helped by five major Internet providers in the United States, will start to warn BitTorrent pirates
Posted: 2013/02/26 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, Three Strikes“Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme Starts Monday
Posted: 2013/02/23 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Three StrikesThe much-discussed U.S. six strikes anti-piracy scheme is expected to go live on Monday. The start date hasn’t been announced officially by the CCI but a source close to the scheme confirmed the plans. During the coming months millions of BitTorrent users will be actively monitored by copyright holders. After repeated warnings, Internet subscribers risk a heavy reduction in download speeds and temporary browsing restrictions.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-starts-monday-130223/
Hollywood summoned New Zealand Prime Minister John Key to meetings in the United States to discuss his country’s “3 strikes” anti-piracy law
Posted: 2013/02/08 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, Three StrikesThe French Hadopi anti-piracy agency will send out 1.1 million “strike” warnings in 2013 in relation to copyright infringement
Posted: 2013/01/23 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Three StrikesAt the same time, Hadopi have published new figures on how citizens are consuming both legal and not-so-legal content online and reporting successes in getting people back into official stores.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/hadopi-plans-large-file-sharing-warning-increase-for-2013-130123/
With support from Google, researchers Joe Karaganis and TorrentFreak’s Lennart Renkema commissioned a public opinion survey on file sharing and copyright enforcement
Posted: 2013/01/21 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Google, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Online advertising, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, Three StrikesSee also:
TorrentFreak is a blog dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing.
The website was started in November 2005 by a Dutchman using the pseudonym “Ernesto Van Der Sar”.[3][4] He was joined by Andy “Enigmax” Maxwell and Ben Jones in 2007.[4][5] Regular contributors include Rickard Falkvinge, founder of the Pirate Party.[6] The online publication eCommerceTimes, in 2009, described “Ernesto” as the pseudonym of Lennart Renkema, owner of TorrentFreak.[7]
Verizon’s “Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Measures Unveiled
Posted: 2013/01/11 in Bandwidth Management, Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, Three StrikesDuring the coming weeks the controversial “six-strikes” anti-piracy system will kick off in the U.S. While none of the participating ISPs have officially announced how they will handle repeat infringers, TorrentFreak has obtained a copy of Verizon’s full policy. Among other things, offenders will have to watch a video about the consequences of online piracy, before their speeds are reduced to 256kbps. Also worth mentioning is that the copyright alert system will also apply to business customers.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/verizons-six-strikes-anti-piracy-measures-unveiled-130111/
France likely to abandon Hadopi. Any new approach does not include the possibility of criminal proceedings against individuals
Posted: 2012/12/12 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Three StrikesIt would seem that France’s controversial graduated response approach (known by the name of the agency enforcing it, Hadopi), which is likely to have inspired the US Copyright Alert System and New Zealand’s new “three strikes” law, will be abandoned in favor of other measures.
The French Minister of Culture, Aurelie Filippetti, and her advisor, Pierre Lescure, have recently presented an alternative approach to combating piracy. This approach consists of three regulatory tracks; giving intermediaries more responsibilities with regard to reducing illegal content, reducing the visibility of illegal content in search engines and addressing the sources of revenue of sites that infringe copyright. As opposed to Hadopi, the new approach does not include the possibility of criminal proceedings against individuals.
More:
http://www.futureofcopyright.com/home/blog-post/2012/12/11/france-likely-to-drop-hadopi.html
Hollywood’s Total Piracy Awareness Program Set for January Launch
Posted: 2012/12/07 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, Three StrikesBeginning in a few weeks, the nation’s major internet service providers will roll out an initiative — backed by Obama and pushed by Hollywood and the record labels – to disrupt and possibly terminate internet access for online copyright scofflaws without the involvement of cops or courts. But that doesn’t mean Hollywood is done filing lawsuits or lobbying Congress.
“It doesn’t mean you give up on litigation,” said Chris Dodd, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, speaking at an industry gathering here Thursday. “It doesn’t mean you give up on legislation.”
Much more:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/12/online-pirates-beware/
The much debated “six strikes” anti-piracy scheme was supposed to kick off in the United States today, but this is not going to happen
Posted: 2012/11/29 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Three StrikesThe Center for Copyright Information has announced that the ISPs are not ready to send warnings just yet, citing Hurricane Sandy as one of the reasons for the delay. The scheme is now expected to take off early next year if everything goes according to the updated schedule.
“Due to unexpected factors largely stemming from Hurricane Sandy which have seriously affected our final testing schedules, CCI anticipates that the participating ISPs will begin sending alerts under the Copyright Alert System in the early part of 2013, rather than by the end of the year,” CCI’s Executive Director Jill Lesser explains.
“We need to be sure that all of our ‘I’s are dotted and ‘T’s crossed before any company begins sending alerts, and we know that those who are following our progress will agree,” Lesser adds.
It’s unclear how Hurricane Sandy affected the launch, but it’s unlikely to explain the delay of more than a month.
TorrentFreak has learned that the main problem is to get all actors, including the ISPs and the American Arbitration Association, lined up to move at once. This proved to be much more difficult than anticipated.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-plan-delayed-till-121128/
Ofcom Says UK ISPs Must Decide Who is a Subscriber for its Piracy Code
Posted: 2012/11/24 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Three StrikesThe UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has told a Westminster Media Forum event that it will be the responsibility of each broadband ISP to decide which of their customers are officially defined as “subscribers” and thus susceptible to the new copyright infringement rules, which are designed to clampdown on “illegal” internet piracy.
One week left before US faces clamp down on piracy
Posted: 2012/11/22 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, Three StrikesAs Americans settle in for the Thanksgiving weekend of food and family, filesharing traffic traditionally shows a modest rise. But those downloading content may look back on this holiday as the last golden weekend of piracy if the major ISPs have anything to do with it.
More:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/22/us_piracy_crackdown_cci/
Ofcom Study Reveals the Extent of UK Internet Piracy by ISP Customers
Posted: 2012/11/20 in Blocking, Copyright, Enforcement, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Three StrikesThe communications regulator has today revealed that 47% of UK internet users are unable to “confidently identify” whether the online content they download, stream or share is legal or not. Meanwhile some 16% of users aged 12+ said they had “accessed online content illegally” between May to July 2012.
Ofcom has a duty to gather “independent data” and establish trends in the area of online copyright infringement, which is a necessary step before the Government’s much delayed Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEAct) finally begins to take practical effect during early 2014. This is important because otherwise there’s no fool proof way to know whether or not the new rules are actually working.
The DEAct, which will be forced upon broadband providers through a strict new code of practice, requires ISPs to clampdown on internet piracy by issuing Notifications Letters (warning notices) to their customers when such activity is detected upon related accounts. Initially this will only apply to the biggest six providers (e.g. BT, EE, O2, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and Virgin Media). Users whom fail to heed the warnings could face further service restrictions and or court action by Rights Holders.
According to the study, which was funded by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and conducted by Kantar Media, the actual levels of infringement “varied considerably“. For example, 8% of internet users were found to have consumed at least one music track “illegally” over the three month period, while 6% did this for films and just 2% for video games and software applications.
Other Key Findings of the Study
• When looking only at those internet users who had consumed any content online over the three month period, 31% of those consuming any film content and 23% of those consuming any music content had done so illegally. Books had the lowest incidence of illegal consumption among those who had consumed any e-books online, at 11%.
• Online copyright infringers across all the content types were more likely to be male (58%).
• Overall volumes of illegal content consumed online varied by category. Volumes were highest for computer software (47% of all computer software products consumed online were estimated to be illegally obtained), followed by films (35%) and music (26%), whereas it was lowest for books (12%).
• The survey data shows that for music, film and TV programmes, those who consumed a mixture of legal and illegal content claimed to spend more on that type of content over the 3-month period than those who consumed 100% legally or 100% illegally.
• When asking infringers why they download or stream/access content illegally, the most common reasons cited for doing so were because it is free (54%), convenient (48%) and quick (44%). Close to a quarter (26%) of infringers also said they do it because it means they can try before they buy.
• Factors that infringers said would encourage them to stop infringing included the availability of cheaper legal services (39%), if everything they wanted was available legally (32%) and if it was clearer what is legal and what isn’t (26%).
• Forty-four per cent of all internet users aged 12+ claimed to be either ‘not particularly confident’ or ‘not at all’ confident in terms of what is legal and what isn’t online. Confidence was lower amongst females (51%). Although the proportion increased with age, 12-15 year olds (42%) claimed confidence was lower than all other age groups up to the age of 44.
But perhaps of most interest was the impact that Ofcom’s warning letters could have. Apparently 22% of respondents indicated that a letter threatening to suspend their internet access would put them off piracy, which fell to 16% for a letter informing them that their account had been used to infringe and 14% for a threat to restrict internet speeds.
The idea of account disconnection (“suspension“) is strongly opposed, not least because many people and businesses share their access out and thus such a move could result in huge numbers of innocent people losing internet access (now considered to be a human right by the United Nations and many others). In the meantime it’s become incredibly easy to mask unlawful activity on broadband connections (e.g. VPN, Proxy Servers) and many critics, including some well publicised court cases, continue to question the reliability of IP address based evidence in general.
But Ofcom notes that consumer research offers only one perspective on levels of online copyright infringement and says that a “complete view” of the problem can only be produced when the data is “considered alongside direct measurement of infringing behaviour on file-sharing websites and available industry data” (e.g. network traffic volumes by protocol, such as P2P); future studies will focus on this.
It’s similarly interesting to note that those who downloaded or streamed illegal and legal music content (as well as some other types) had consumed a higher number of files legally than those who did it ALL legally, which produced a higher spend on digital music (individually purchased or via subscription).
Overall music online copyright infringers were responsible for illegally downloading or streaming over a quarter (26%) of all digital music consumed on the internet. Music infringers who accessed both legal and illegal content online claimed to spend the most on the category as a whole , spending on average £77.24 over the 3-month period. The 5% of internet users aged 12+ who only accessed illegal content, spent much less (£13.80).
The full report is huge and if you have a few days to spare for reading then it can be found at the link below.
Ofcoms Online Copyright Infringement Tracker Benchmark Study Q3 2012
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/other/telecoms-research/copyright-infringement-tracker/
“Six strikes” anti-piracy system goes live this fall, appeals to cost $35
Posted: 2012/10/18 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, Three StrikesThe Center for Copyright Information has revealed more details about its “six strikes” system, which it calls the Copyright Alert System (CAS). In a blog post published Thursday morning, the program’s head, Jill Lesser, announced that the CAS “will begin in the coming weeks.”
Lesser added that it will use an analysis system called MarkMonitor to identify infringing activity. That system “uses both trained professionals and automated processes to identify illegal downloading of whole movies, TV shows, and musical recordings, and the system is designed to eliminate false positives.” Finally, the CAS has given further details on its review process that will take place at the “mitigation stage” (strikes five through six), which will be administered by the American Arbitration Association.
Much more:
