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According to news reports, USA consumers may be facing a much tougher time if they want to download illegal warez online. In the states, the leading television, music and film companies are going to be working with Internet companies to police people who are downloading illegal files and media online.
Internet providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast will be working under the new ‘Copyright Alert System', which should be in place over the next couple of months. If people are caught downloading copyright files then they could be cut off from the internet and forced to a single landing page. Other penalties include slowing down the connection speeds of the internet service.
Cary Sherman, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America said it was a landmark agreement and that it was an “important step forward in the evolution of the Internet.”
While this agreement only affects people in the USA right now, we would assume that the plans are to expand this worldwide, targeting Europe and the UK in the future. The movie, game and software industry lose billions every year on illegal file sharing and downloading from servers online.
The agreement has been in planning now for years, and the implementation in a couple of months time could really hit the USA consumer market hard. I think almost everyone reading this has downloaded an MP3 or TV show, either through P2P or from newsgroups. The impact of slowing down someone's internet connection or basically cutting them off entirely could mean that hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions will face problems over the coming months. You can read more about this over here.
Kitguru says: This could have a huge impact across America.
Holy crap this is bad news indeed. hopefully it just stays inside america !
“The movie, game and software industry lose billions every year” yeah, and since they’re totally not rich enough just yet, we should feed them more cash.
Seriously, these people give “desperate” a new meaning. They’re a joke, and they just managed to prove it, once again.
“If people are caught downloading copyright files then they could be cut off from the internet and forced to a single landing page. Other penalties include slowing down the connection speeds of the internet service.”
A. I believe the UN just declared Internet Access a Human Right, so cutting someone off from Internet Access is technically infringing a Human Right.
B. Slow Connection? Seriously? They really, really believe that’ll convince people to stop downloading the Movie they’re downloading or the game, or whatever?
Even if this somehow arrives in Europe, about half of Europe will do this. I doubt any more. And even if they did, so what? People will just switch to different country IPs and send this ridiculous new law to hell.
They really, really need to give up on Policing the Internet already, it tugs their masks off and slowly unveils them as the jokes they are.
You will find some of the ISPs will not do this to get the customers who leave the other companies who DO !
I agree with impy, this is ridiculous.
Also, you can be sure that legal downloaders will be accidentally punished, as these new systems will not be flawless in their reporting methods either.
Like Ned said, sometimes they won’t be able to tell the “Steam” Downloaders apart from the “PirateBay” Downloaders, so people will take that 30$ option and have their case reviewed (click bottom of article, takes to other site, more info there), wasting their money over a ridiculous mistake.
This will also make private sites friendlier, the big ones like PirateBay will stop being used as often and people will simply go with Private Sites more and more.
Worse case scenario, many innocents could be affected to the point that companies get pressured to ship Physical Media due to large requests, so instead of being a “major step forward” it’ll end up being a step back, delaying the “move” from Physical Media to Downloads.
And yeah, like Harvest pointed out – They who refuse to cooperate will gain a load of customers once the bans start to settle in. They do say that one person’s loss is another person’s gain after all 😉
I think they fail to understand that the reason a lot of people download is that they simply can’t afford to buy an album, dvd or box set. In these times of economic hardship I wouldn’t be able to afford to live if I had to purchase what I download. Even a couple of albums a month and a few dvds would be out of the question. These laws wouldn’t make me any more likely to buy content, I would just have to go without.
Ha whatever. Those are the lamest ISPs anyways. TWC is where its at. Like Merc said, I can’t afford the stuff I download, if I really like it then when I can pay for it I do. All this is going to do is have them lose customers, since how many times do you think someone will pay $30 when the ISP screws up? I know a lot of people would just say whatever and jump ship for a better ISP. Also wouldn’t this violate the UN internet thing, since 1 page is not the internet especially if it won’t let any device go somewhere besides the landing page.
I think its not that they don’t understand why, its more that they just don’t care. All they see is the income loss for them, they don’t care about people who can’t afford it right now. Even before the crisis started, they were no different. They were always looking for some ridiculous new way to stop the Downloads.
Ever bought a song from iTunes? You can only copy it 5 times. Another “Anti-Copyright” thing they came up with. Now that Apple is trying to get it removed, they’re saying no.
Far as who’s going along with the “Six-Strike Plan” as they call it – AT&T, Inc. (T), Verizon Communications, Inc. (VZ), Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC), and Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC)
Any other ISP should be fine.