Top ISPs Poised to Adopt Graduated Response to Piracy
news.cnet.com
news.cnet.com
That's crazy scary!
(Apologies for the potentially-mocking structure of my response; I intend only to point out that, when hacking is on the table, identity can be forged)
While they rely on technical system to stop piracy, they will fail.
For now it is more a societal behavior problem than a technical one. The only way I see to fight efficiently piracy is to make easier to pay than to pirate things. I predict a very long mouse and cat fight.
Secondly, the mass p2p shakedown schemes should give you a fair idea of what this agreement means. Some lawyer says you infringed a copyright and has some obscure document "proving" it There have been plenty of white papers written showing how completely misleading and fraudulent the evidence put forward by these lawyers are. Do you seriously think that this new agreement will be any different? Hell, they don't even have to convince a judge, they just have to claim there's a wolf and AT&T will be there to kill the sheep.
After reading this, I still don't understand how the RIAA/MPAA are convincing ISPs to get on board. What's in it for the ISPs besides a bunch of angry customers?
The RIAA/MPAA is telling ISPs "if you cooperate, we won't sue you." The ISP is thinking "If I cooperate, I'll lose N customers, which costs me less than being sued."
Sure, you'll be mad, but I'm pretty sure that the ISP is correct in thinking that the vast majority of its customers won't care.
The more effort the ISP's put into this initiative the more it costs them in terms of labor and upset customers. It therefore seems pretty obvious that the optimal solution for an ISP is to join the program but put in the minimum effort possible.
I predict that file-sharing tools will evolve much faster than the ISPs' half-hearted anti-piracy efforts. The result will be a lot like the RIAA lawsuits of the last few years. Occasionally someone will get unlucky, but the odds of getting caught will be so low that pirates will not be deterred to any significant degree. The only real result will be continued ill-will towards publishers, which will probably result in a net boost to piracy rates.
As both ISPs and the content owners become more monopolistic, their long-term class-linked interests become more aligned.
Monopolies cooperate with other monopolies to the strengthening of all monopolies in general.
The first step is to crack down on piracy. Next step is to 'bundle' licensing deals in Cable/Internet bills.
Goodbye freedom of the internets, forever.
Trust me, they've been working on doing this for a while, and they're trying to do it in as many countries as possible in the same time, so that they can give each other as example, and hope that people will take the new laws for granted. It's their evil master plan.
RIAA and MPAA are by far the most dangerous entities for our freedoms online, more than the Government itself is with their own initiatives for censorship. But what RIAA is trying to do all over the world is at least one level above what governments were trying to do already. People must revolt and put and end to this before it's too late.
But if they can show that 'everybody is in danger', i.e. see these 'rogue hackers' are attacking not just companies but the CIA, the Fed, etc., then it becomes politically easier for them to go through with stuff like this.
LulzSec is playing into their hands.
They are terrifying the public, with the constant headlines and giving these idiots the political initiative to 'control' the internet.
Now they can say, these anonymous hackers are pirating and hacking. They need to be stopped. Large Co is now the victim, the anonymity of the internet that these hackers hide under is the enemy, so they are going after it vigorously.
This is just the first step. But believe me, the end game is: Everybody suffers. Privacy for none.