HDTV Almanac - ISPs Ready to Get Tough on Copyrights

[alfredpoor]

Have you heard of the Center for Copyright Information? I encourage you to head over to their site and check it out. In particular, look at the “Copyright Alerts” section because it could have an impact on your access to the Internet.
The Center is a joint effort between the copyright holders — the music, film, [...]

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[videograbber]

"The program is designed to give the account owner up to six Copyright Alerts. Consumers who repeatedly violate copyright rules..."

No, consumers who repeatedly trigger Copyright Alerts. They're not necessarily the same thing, though I'm sure they'd like you to think so. So they're doing, what? Deep-packet probing and analysis of all my private content? No problem, right? After all, it's for a "worthy goal". Of course, that could then also provide a great tool for law enforcement and anti-terrorism activities. Who knows what bad guys we might catch? Kiss your civil liberties goodbye. And who's going to pay for all this tech, and expensive equipment upgrades. Why, the consumer, of course. Who else is there?

"There are provisions for independent review of violations so that consumers have recourse if they think that the alerts are in error."

Yeah, this is great. "YOU think WE made a mistake, so PROVE it". Puts the burden on the consumer to prove their innocence. Makes complete sense. Guilty, until proven innocent. That's what this country was founded on, right?

"The news here is that the major ISPs appear to be willing to take a more proactive role in protecting copyrighted material. Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable have all agreed to take part in the program. A cynic might point out that many of these companies are now the owners of copyrighted material themselves..."

ISPs should not be police, or gatekeepers, but there will always be a push for them to do so. You're correct about those particular sources, who, having video delivery systems in place decided to leverage it and provide inet services as well. But the unintended outcome could be a mass exodus from those sources, for ISPs that are NOT media conglomerates, and don't provide police functions.

"this move holds out the hope that the people creating the content that we want for our entertainment will stand a better chance of getting a better return on their investment of time, money, and skill, which in turn could mean that we will be more likely to have new content to enjoy in the future."

Riiight. It DOES hold out that hope. It doesn't mean that's what will happen, though. Just like the hope that restricting consumer rights in the courts from "frivolous" lawsuits would reduce insurance costs. Hasn't happened. Insurance costs have continued to rise, at increasing rates. (See "Hot Coffee".) I do know that big companies have no problem telling blatant lies (claimed "Unlimited" services, capped at whatever # they think is reasonable), and THAT's OK. ???

I'm not unsympathetic to the concerns you raise, and I'm a producer of content as well (computer software), but I'm also unsure what positive benefits that new draconian enforcement measures are going to have. I also don't know how big of a problem this is in the US. I haven't bothered to take the time to find access to this material, though there have been times when I missed an episode of a favorite TV show that it has crossed my mind. He!!, it crosses my mind every time I try to watch a TV show, and find it plastered with bugs, logos, pop-up advertising, and huge weather maps informing me, in the middle of winter, that it might snow. The horror! Back in the day, I could get clean feeds of network programming from C-band satellite and backhauls, but that's long gone.

What I WOULD like to know though is what is being done to address a problem that I KNOW for a fact is extremely serious theft, and that is the blatant and open sale of copyrighted materials in China (and elsewhere). We're talking billions of people, and trillions of dollars. And it's not just being consumed, but sold. That's who they used to refer to as "pirates" (sellers), before they went on their campaign to turn ordinary consumers, e.g. making a one-off for their Dad, into evil "pirates". But that's OK, because US companies can't put the screws to them like they can US citizens. So they decide to fiddle, while Rome burns. Lose sight of the forest, while they're beating around the bushes.

- Tim

[Roger Halstead]

IF and that's a mighty big IF, producers of content made it available at a reasonable (or acceptable) price there would be little copyright infringement except maybe in term papers...er no that's plagiarism.

Also note on low cost streaming media...It'd make more sense as a download, rather than streaming. I rarely stream video without encountering at least a couple of glitches, but I can download files the same size in much less time so the throughput is varying over quite a wide range, or it might be interference. I don't know which, but I don't seem to have the glitches in downloaded material.
Please note that I just read that NetFlix is raising prices 60%.

As I've often said, Cheap or free media is going to disappear and these policing measures are going to add to the price of delivered content, not make it cheaper by stopping copyright infringement. They will still be selling about the same, but the cost of handling it will go up as it will take more resources (people, hardware, and software) to do the monitoring.

In the end, we customers will end up paying more.

Charter is now enforcing their 250 gig cap for residential customers so I'm going to need to go to the ""Ultra 60" account. I don't need the speed, but I do need the total throughput.

[rml]

Tim aka videograbber is right on point. Just what we need: private corporate police inspecting all our net traffic and then rendering effectively unreviewable judgement with essentially no accountability; and for those of us not throttled back or shut off, what will these beneficent ISPs be doing with this new authority to access and inspect all our private information? You might want to think more than twice about turning the ISPs into a branch of Homeland Security. (For those not aware, the Department of Homeland Security is the federal agency that enforces the copyright laws.)

[Roger Halstead]

And...Having DHS, "a government agency" policing for private enterprise makes no sense at all. But then again, the govt has been taking over a lot of things from private enterprise (better known as the free market system)

I doubt most ISPs are thrilled at the idea of having to police traffic unless they happen to be the owners of the copyright material in question.