Comcast, AT&T say No! to RIAA 3-strikes plan
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Comcast, America’s second largest ISP, says it has no plans to become a dedicated Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music copyright enforcer.
This is very bad news for the corporate music industry which has been using the mainstream media to pass on the spurious claims that a) it’s stopped suing people; and b) that major American ISPs have agreed to become Big 4 copyright enforcers.
p2pnet said earlier today, “AT&T has joined the RIAA, believing its customers will put up with anything, including being ratted out to Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA as part of the ongoing sue ‘em all campaign”, based on yesterday’s post.
But, a Media Guy Reader’s Write quotes USA Today as stating:
“AT&T will not suspend or terminate a customer`s Internet service merely based on piracy allegations of a third-party, the company`s top public policy guru says.
“On Wednesday, some published reports said AT&T had begun pulling the plug on customers accused of engaging in illegal downloading of music by the Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry`s main lobbying group. The story got picked up across the Web, resulting in a flood of calls to AT&T.”
Now, “Joe Waz (right), a senior vice president at Comcast, the nation’s second largest ISP, told a gathering of music industry executives that the company has issued 2 million notices on behalf of copyright owners, according to multiple people who were in attendance,” says CNET News.
But, “This is the same process we’ve had in place for years — nothing has changed,” the story has him saying. “While we have always supported copyright holders in their efforts to reduce piracy under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)”.
However, “We have no plans to test a so-called ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ policy,” he emphasises in the story.
Massive corporate consumer control scheme
The Big 4 labels are in the midst of huge international campaign in another phase of their efforts to dominate, if not totally control, the way music is distributed online, and by whom.
Under it, they hope to force governments to toe the corporate line by introducing legislation to compel local ISPs to both identify customers accused by the labels of being illegal distributors of copyrighted music, and to ultimately terminate their accounts.
New Zealand was the first country to officially cave in to corporate demands, but is now wavering under public pressure to abandon the plan, inspired by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music.
France, the first country to get firmly behind the three-strikes-and-you’ re-out legislation, seemed poised to adopt it, but it, too, is coming under increasing public pressure to drop the massive corporate DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control scheme.
In Britain, the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), “argues that ISPs cannot prevent illegal downloading because they ‘are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope’,” p2pnet said recently.
ratted out – AT&T joins RIAA `sue `em all` campaign, March 25, 2009
CNET News – Comcast, Cox cooperating with RIAA in antipiracy campaign, March 25, 2009
wavering under public pressure – New Zealand: safe from Big Music. Or is it?, March 25, 2009
increasing public pressure – French anti-file sharing law targets children, March 25, 2009
cannot prevent illegal downloading – Brits say No! to ISPs as corporate copyright cops, March 16, 2009
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March 26th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Hey Jon:
“AT&T will not suspend or terminate a customerâs Internet service merely based on piracy allegations of a third-party, the companyâs top public policy guru says.
“On Wednesday, some published reports said AT&T had begun pulling the plug on customers accused of engaging in illegal downloading of music by the Recording Industry Association of America, the music industryâs main lobbying group. The story got picked up across the Web, resulting in a flood of calls to AT&T.”
http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/2009/03/att-were-not-tu.html
March 26th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Holy crap!
Comcast..? doing something normal..? in the interest of its customers..?
Nah! Where’s the catch?
March 26th, 2009 at 10:31 am
“Where’s the catch?” RIAA did not pay its bills to the ISPs or refused to pay for DPI equipment.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:15 am
It would appear that the ISPs are unwilling to admit to any 3 strikes program, at least publicly.
I doubt that any “pirates” are influencing them, so who is it that they really fear if they get too chummy with the RIAA?
I’d like to believe it is no longer “politically correct” to be seen as a friend of the RIAA.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
This is the same Comcast which denied any bandwidth throttling and denied messing with customers using the bit torrent protocol.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
@Reader’s
Hey, come on, they totally said they weren’t throttling, and they weren’t.
They were spoofing RST packets — much different. Throttling would make them dicks — what they did technically made them criminals.
March 26th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Go look up what throttling means
I went threw this at another site with the term BLOCKING , which is any impediment to movement
so get over it they just try and use whatever suits them at the time to get it done and if it font add profit well tuff
AIG GREED MUST PREVAIL after all.
March 26th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
” This is the same Comcast which denied any bandwidth throttling and denied messing with customers using the bit torrent protocol.
Yup.
Deny doing it until CAUGHT doing it, then deny some more.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I have internet through one of the subsidies of AT&T. If I receive such a message, I have an answer for them. I have no need of broadband if not to download. At such time I will reduce my account to 56k which is fine for forums and email. I won’t leave them as I want them to understand that such actions will cost them in the wallet, where it means the most. Not only will the above action be taken but others. I have from time to time added various add ons to my phone which will go at the same time…since I already have a representative from the company on the line. I will make sure they understand that it is because of my displeasure at receiving such a message and it will hit them in the wallet every month while I lower my bill.
It’s the one message they will understand loud and clearly by the time I am done.
I won’t go with another carrier for a couple of reasons. One is that leaving them is their hope. That way the competition gets the guy who actually uses the bandwidth they pay for and they figure they will be rid of their problem child. Nope, I will be happy to cut costs if that should happen. Bet on it.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:38 am
“I doubt ‘pirates’ are influencing them”.
How do you figure, when a solid third of Internet users openly admit to “pirating” content?
Not to mention that the ISP’s are busily hyping faster broadband and such with a “wink and nod” to downloaders.
Also the fact that the RIAA’s “evidence gathering” hasn’t been exactly stellar up to this point (they don’t even understand how IP addresses are different from phone numbers, and end up suing printers and dead people etc.)
Also not to mention that the mere existence of VPN technology makes Internet tracking at the very least more complex.
(I really wish TPB would make a version of Ipredator free, similar to the TOR network, but that’s just me.)
Also not to mention that the ISP’s — AND RIAA — understand full well that any attempt at a “3 strikes” type of setup will just radicalize a hell of a lot of people who are most likely at least sympathetic to the “copyfight” ideas, since they already download and share files etc….): they can’t really afford to radicalize a bunch of people who — if they lose their connectivity via 3 strikes bullshit — could just prowl around town or go wardriving, and have all the connectivity they could want, simply by way of some guy’s wireless router left open.
(BTW, there’s a lot of people around our area hear who leave their home routers open, but configure a sort of “welcome message” for people. I don’t use that method myself, but I’m fully aware that it’s available any time it might be needed.)
So they know anything even resembling “3 strikes” is doomed to failure, won’t stop “piracy”, and will probably provoke a lot of bad consequences. Look at “anonymous” and Operation Chanology: they’re basically the world’s biggest “flash mob”, and the Church of Scientology is scared shitless.
You think the RIAA doesn’t feel the same way about 35 or however many millions of p2p users?
Not to mention advocates of the public domain, technological innovation, etc. etc ad nauseam.
This is also why I could frankly give two liquidy shits whether there are “RIAA puppets” in the Obama administration: this is way larger than just a “national” thing, and people don’t — and shouldn’t — care about the existing lobbyist-bought IP laws.
More of the same (woefully inept and morally dubious) lawsuits and harrassment breeds more resistance, and just hastens the inevitable day of serious IP reform/abolition.
Oh well, enough soap-boxing