ISPs in the USA to start monitoring customers’ downloads starting July 1, 2012
America Home of the FREE… What happend to that term?? seems like its turning into a prison. Controlling everything we do!!! God forbid you speed in your car.. Now you cant download anything…. soon you will have to turn off your tv at 11pm. There is definately no Freedom in the United STATES anymore.. its a thing of the past.. :/
RIAA chief: ISPs to start policing copyright by July 1 2012 !!!!!!!!!
Fritz Attaway, executive vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America, (left) and Cary Sherman of the Recording Industry Association of America, discussed copyright and antipiracy today in New York.
(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)
Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon are among the ISPs preparing to implement a graduated response to piracy by July, says the music industry’s chief lobbyist.
With SOPA and PIPA out of the way, what other magic tricks does the entertainment industry of America have up its sleeve? How about having ISPs (Internet ServiceProviders — your Internet company) play copyright cop. Last year in July major ISPs across the USA agreed to ramp up efforts to clamp down on piracy. Since that time, we really haven’t heard much more about this copyright policing. Now, a few days ago the CEO of RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) announced major ISPs in the USA (Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, etc.) have agreed to start monitoring what their customers download starting July 1, 2012.
COPYRIGHT COP
Under the agreement signed by the ISPs and RIAA/MPAA, ISPs adopt what is called a “graduated response” to piracy (i.e. illegal download of intellectual property such as movies). Customers who are accused of file sharing will initially get one or two “Copyright Alerts” informing them of their infringements and asking them to stop. If, after sending these alerts, the customers in question still continue to pirate they will receive “confirmation notices” which ask consumers to confirm they got the Copyright Alerts. If customers continue to pirate, ISPs can choose between a variety of tougher measures (dubbed “mitigation measures”) such as throttling Internet speed or restricting Internet access until the customer stops pirating.
The RIAA/MPAA wants ISPs to build database which keep track of customers so they can flag the number of times a customer has been accused of illegal downloading.
This agreement between ISPs and RIAA/MPAA has been years in the making and has received political support, particularly from the White House.
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
This is important simply because all your Internet access and activity is seen by your ISP. If they wanted to, they could very easily tell you what you did on the Internet on what day, e.g. you visit X website at X time on X day. Thus, this is probably the most significant and effective step taking to date to fight piracy.
It isn’t important that ISPs are monitoring and logging their customers’ Internet activity; ISPs have been doing that for a while for stuff like cooperating with law enforcement. What is important is ISPs are now doing this to assist corporate America — not law enforcement. Where is the check that prevents abuse?
ISSUES WITH THIS PLAN
The biggest issue with this plan, in my opinion, is how ISPs will determine who is downloading and if that downloading is legit or not. Now don’t get me wrong. ISPs have extremely intelligent engineers who have tricks to figure out what is being downloaded by who. What concerns me, however, is when ISPs get it wrong, i.e. false accusations. Also, what about shared networks? Is it OK to punish multiple users just because one person on the network is downloading something they shouldn’t?
The other major issue with this plan are privacy concerns. As mentioned above, ISPs have always had the ability to monitor Internet usage because they have had to comply with law enforcement requests. However, that was for law enforcement; not for the RIAA/MPAA. Law enforcement requests usually require probable cause and the approval of a judge through a warrant. What gives the entertainment industry of America the right to bypass these basic American rights? Where does the monitoring begin? Where does it stop? Are ISPs allowed to share data on people with other ISPs?
What about censorship. Isn’t throttling someones Internet access a form of censorship? This is the same Internet access that has been dubbed a “human right” by some organizations around the globe.
Finally, what happens if a customer refuses to stop downloading? Are they taken to court? Fined? Sued? Do consumers have a say in the matter? What can they be liable for?
THE BRIGHT SIDE
Not all is gloomy. ISPs have the choice of waving mitigation measures for individual customers, if they so decide; and none of the ISPs have agreed to permanently shutdown subscribers. Furthermore, I can see less lawsuits being thrown at consumers simply because people can argue in court the entertainment industry had tools to stop the pirating but they didn’t so they can’t hold people accountable. Finally, there are bound to be services and software that crop up to beat the system, for those that are really bothered by this.
CONCLUSION This just feels dirty. The potential for abuse is high and privacy is bound to be trampled upon. I’m no lawyer but this feels like a violation of rights us American take as for granted. Only time will tell how this plays out. Here is hoping for the best.
2 Videos Explaining All of this “Watch them” :
Fox News Confirms internet monitoring
Youtube video explaining this:
http://youtu.be/H5OG0R-yS-c
Go HERE to Take Action now”Click link Below”..
Stop this Shit now”Protect your privacy and FREEDOM!!
Petition for RIAA and the Obama Administration: Stop ISPs from launching a massive copyright spying scheme this July 1st
[via CNET]
Petition Letter:
Stop ISPs from launching a massive copyright spying scheme this July 12th
Greetings,
I just signed the following petition addressed to: RIAA and the Obama Administration.
—————-
Stop ISPs from launching a massive copyright spying scheme this July 12th
The Obama Administration has approved of a massive internet spying scheme set forth by the RIAA. This scheme will require all major ISPs to use employees to watch, essentially spy, on he public at every moment in the day and every day in the year. This spying program is being launched so that poor Americans (all Americans that cannot afford to pay a $150,000 fine without going into bankruptcy) will be forced to live without any access to the internet at all and fine them $150,000 each time a copy-written material is downloaded onto a computer whether you already pay for the service or not (even service that isn’t available in America to begin with).
The way this program will work is that employees from all major telecommunication companies (Comcast, COX, AT&T, etc.) will be required to spy on, suspend/ cancel service, force an “education class” about the illegitimate fines that are going to be imposed if any copy-written materials are placed on their computer. If a person, whether or not is the same person that took that class, downloads any copy-written materials on the same internet connection (whether or not in your home or on an unsecured network as well) the service will be cancelled from the ISP. In many counties and states there are already mandates that force people to go with only one ISP, therefore, if you are cancelled, you get no internet service whatsoever other than dial-up which is of almost no use at all.
We need to stop this madness. The RIAA should NEVER have the right to force ANYONE into bankruptcy or into prison for a digital image or video that’s already been paid for by the consumers to begin with. The Obama Administration was fully aware of this information when they supported the RIAA in forcing ISPs to do this to the public. This means the Obama Administration is perfectly fine with having more than 30% (over 100 million people) of the American public in prison or in a bankrupt state due to these faux crimes.
Please spread the word to the rest of the world. We can’t live a sustainable life in fear, or in a fascist nation which has already been proven by what our government’s done to us in the last decade. Let freedom of information live on so we can continue to learn, so we can continue to progress and live free lives… the lives we were born to have. We cannot allow ourselves to be put into a new era of the Dark Ages. We’ve fought for our freedom for too many years to live like this.
