Verizon becomes Net enforcer
p2p news / p2pnet:- Verizon has agreed to become an online enforcer for the Walt Disney corporation. It will warn people Disney suspects of “pirating” Disney its content on Verizon broadband services
“Under the deal, one of the first of its kind in the television industry, Disney will contact Verizon when the company suspects a Verizon customer of illegally downloading content,” says Wall Street Journal. “Without divulging names or addresses to Disney, Verizon will then alert the customer that he or she might be violating the law. Disney will be able to identify suspicious customers through an Internet coding system.”
It’s part of a content arrangement under which Disney will sell Verizon ESPN programming and broadband services.
“New York-based Verizon, one of several telephone carriers launching video services to compete against cable companies, also secured 12 Disney channels, including ESPN, ABC News Now and the Disney Channel for its new television service, Fios TV, which will start rolling out today in Texas,” says the WSJ.
However, “We understand that Disney has issues of copyright but for Verizon the critical issue is privacy for our customers,” it has Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe saying. We’re as committed to that as we ever were,” adding that the company could shut off service to customers who have been “repeatedly warned that they are infringing on Disney copyrights”.
Expect other members of various cartels to announce similar deals.
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
See:-
Wall Street Journal – Verizon to Police Web Customers To Protect Disney From Piracy, September 22, 2005
September 26th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
If your caught downloading infringing material and didn’t take steps to hide your activity then your ISP should take action if they don’t they eventually may be on on the end of a lawsuit themselves .If you are unaware of infringing activity well Verizon is going to politely inform you that someone has been using your connection and you will be better informed what your computer users are up to .
Verizon shutting you off is far better than a RIAA or MPAA lawsuit unless of course Verizon is the only broadband provider in your area and Then I suppose you wait for the next broadband solution to turn up or go back to dial up
September 26th, 2005 at 6:24 pm
There are some corporations (athough few and far between) that want to do what is right with their customers. However, as pointed out, Verizon shutting down your connection is probably better than them being forced to give your data to some **AA. However, a FreeWan connection would be a quite a bit harder to shut down since the only record that there is is a made up ip and mac address (also can be made up). In order for the **AA’s to come down on a FreeWan Cell, they or an appointed agent will have to spend the time and money necessary to physicall visit the cell.
If the only exchange of information over broadband Internet is from FreeWan Cell to FreeWan Cell (over an encrypted stream), then there is very little to worry about. Exchange agreements can be made between FreeWan Cells in order to provide information to their users. As long as any Internet exchange is kept solely between cells, there should be very little to worry about. Also a small box of 50 encrypted DVD’s can be used instead of a huge amount of bandwidth.
September 26th, 2005 at 7:13 pm
I don’t know about you guys but this precedent is what is getting me. In order to do business with Disney, part of the deal is to “make notice” to its subscribers about possible infringement within its customers.
While I agree that it is better that your ISP contact you over it and not the legal beagles; I seriously object to this slimy method of getting ISP’s to police their customers on behalf of the cartels. Wanna bet if you don’t cease and desist (without C&D notice) your net connection will terminate? What’s your odds on Verizion not reporting your ip to the cartel if you refuse?
Given that every major ISP wants to be able to show movies and the like through purchased downloan, this is a really sneaky way of getting ISP’s to do their work for them. Reminds me sort of like they have gotten the government to work in their behalf.
September 26th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
This is just going to motivate changes in the way that p2p operates. Right now there are established protocols within each genre (Films, TV, Music, eBooks, Games) of “The Scene” as to how files and directories should be named and organized for a ‘release’. In most cases, the actual name of the work is brazenly used. This makes it incredibly easy for the copyright police to find a place to start looking for infringement.
I’d like to see what changes Verizon is going to make to it’s Terms of Use document. Currently their privacy policy states that they only monitor specific communications for “Quality of Service” purposes, implying that they are mainly looking at the various protocol layer wrappers around content and not the content of a packet stream itself.
If all of the sudden “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – XviD – Screener – Proper.avi” became RrXye5rK63d.avi and was packed into RrXye5rK63d.rar, RrXye5rK63d.r01, RrXye5rK63d.r02, RrXye5rK63d.r03, etc in a password protected (encrypted) archive, how would Vz know what the heck it was that was flying through the packet sniffer?
Yes, they could have captured it to try and pull it apart and find out, but if it didn’t ‘break’ their system going through, then they’d have little justification to snatch a copy of it under the color of maintaining “Quality of Service”, thus it would become an electronic interception, and therefore an illegal wiretap.
If it was sent through a VPN connection, or other encrypted pipe, it’s unlikely that they’d get very far at identifying the content even if the playable .avi were sent in the clear through the pipe.
So once again, we have yet another scheme that will do little to dissuade the hardcore p2p trader and fill the mailboxes of grandparents, children, the deceased and the techno-challenged with letters scolding them about their alleged behavior on the internet. I suppose it’s better than a lawsuit or a subpoena.
–TG
September 27th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
F*ck you Eisner & F*ck you Eiger.
~ Sincerely, Walt “From The Great Beyond” Disney
September 27th, 2005 at 8:25 pm
Uh, encrypted firewall anyone?
September 27th, 2005 at 8:29 pm
Verizon – We Never Stop Working For Big Brother!
September 28th, 2005 at 4:24 am
This is where a system like AntsP2P can really come in to play a Freewan cell running Ants would work perfectly .
September 28th, 2005 at 4:27 am
If the ISPs want content and be able to compete with the Cable companies its totaly in the ISPs interest when they want your Internet,Entertaimnet and communications services all bundled into one package .