This is something we don’t normally talk about, but it does affect us all. The new “Six strikes” plan is now coming into play from your ISP (Internet Service Provider). It was formally known as the Copyright Alert System. It first launched last July and again in November. This new system might amount to more than just a “wrist slap” for copyright violators. But it is what the CCI and five of the largest ISPs wanted. Those ISP’s include Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable. All five of those ISPs are launching this new six-strikes program this week in hopes to scare you from sharing pirated material.
This new plan is backed by Hollywood studios and ISPs have been a running joke for some time now due to the internal tensions of its backing coalition and the general worthlessness of its sanctions. The CCI insists its system is intended to educate consumers and not to punish them. We should be caring about this six strikes system since it’ll likely slow down the internet.
Last November, documents leaked that Verizon would begin monitoring BitTorrent users and respond to alleged copyright violators in a staged fashion. Which would start with two email warnings. If the user(s) continues, Verizon would push out their third and fourth warnings in the form of intrusive pop ups that force users to confirm receipts. Now if all of that didn’t do the trick, the ISP would go ahead and throttle your speeds to dialup speeds for about 14 days. Now that’s pretty severe for most people.
Those are just Verizon’s methods and repercussions. Each ISP will be free to tailor their restrictions for their users. In October reports came out that AT&T will block users until they complete a copyright course, and then in November reports surfaced that Time Warner will temporarily disrupt your service. Check out this video below produced by the CCI about the Copyright Alert System:
So how would this affect you? Well personally, I’d rather have my internet speeds slowed down then to face any fines or jail time. But before working for Android Headlines, I worked at the Helpdesk for the University of Michigan, and we had a program that would send out emails when users were uploading what looked like illegal stuff. We found that most of the time users had no idea what they were doing was illegal. Also sometimes Skype looks like illegal downloading, not sure how that happens though. This way the ISP’s and the CCI are actually educating users about why this is illegal, and hopefully help stop piracy at least a little bit. Piracy is a big deal, not just with movies or TV shows, but even with apps. In fact over the weekend we reported about Falcon Pro hitting its Twitter tokens limit. But that was only half of the story. The other half was about 60% of the 100,ooo users have pirated the app. Which is quite a bit of money lost for the developer. Since the app is $0.99, that means he lost roughly $60,000 before Google takes their part. Now some people think pirating apps is okay because the app isn’t available in their country. I still don’t think that’s a good enough reason to pirate something that a developer worked hard on.
Be sure to mind your torrents, especially if your ISP is one of those listed in this Tech Talk. This could get a bit nasty, but we’re hoping everyone minds there P’s and Q’s so everything continues smoothly. How many of you use torrents? Well you better be careful if you do.