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Beginning this week, major ISPs will start spying on US Internet users. With the new program, its a case of "six strikes and you are out" if they think you are pirating copyright-protected content.
After months of discussion on the controversial program to be imposed by the largest ISPs in the US, the Copyright Alert System (CAS) confirmed on Monday this week that the "six-strike" program has now officially gone live. If you have an Internet connection via AT&T, Cablevision Systems, Comcast, Time Warner Cable or Verizon, its a case of six strikes, and you are quite literally out.
Opposed and critiqued by privacy advocates and Internet freedom activists alike, this program will allow ISPs to take six steps, of increasing severity, when handling incidents where their customers are believed to be illegally sharing online content.
Customers would receive a series of warnings, through a "graduate response" approach, for illegally downloading copyright protected material.
When CAS releases the first strike, a customer could be issued a warning. However, should the customer continue to violate policies, other mitigation measures will be introduced, including connection speed throttling right up to and including the possibility of final termination of service.
According to Wired, the various measures include ?temporary reductions of Internet speeds, redirection to a landing page until the subscriber contacts the ISP to discuss the matter or reviews and responds to some educational information about copyright, or other measures (as specified in published policies) that the ISP may deem necessary to help resolve the matter.? Ending with complete disconnection if the customer doesn't comply.
Apparently the plan does not just stop there. The Copyright Act also allows the user to be sued for damages of up to $150,000 per infringement.
Jill Lesser of the Center for Copyright Information explained the situation in a blog post on Monday. ?Practically speaking, this means our content partners will begin sending notices of alleged P2P [peer-to-peer] copyright infringement to ISPs, and the ISPs will begin forwarding those notices in the form of Copyright Alerts to consumers.?
?Consumers whose accounts have been used to share copyrighted content over P2P networks illegally (or without authority) will receive Alerts that are meant to educate rather than punish, and direct them to legal alternatives. And for those consumers who believe they received Alerts in error, an easy to use process will be in place for them to seek independent review of the Alerts they received,? she adds.
What she neglected to mention is that this appeals process costs customers $35 a pop.
CAS tried to get this going in July 2012. Gigi Sohn, president of digital rights group Public Knowledge, told Wired last year that originally ISPs hoped to roll out the program earlier, but major protests against other restrictive Web policies, including attempts to pass certain legislation, caused them to have to wait.
?SOPA and PIPA definitely had an impact. There was some concern, if they moved ahead too quickly, public opinion would be so raw, this would be caught in the whirlwind of bad PR,? Sohn told Wired.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the official six-strikes website allows users to learn more about the history of copyright. It does this by apparently re-directing them to a web page managed by the Copyright Alliance, which is the same group who advocated for last year's "Stop Online Piracy Act," more commonly known as SOPA.
Reportedly the White House has issued an official statement saying that the six-strikes program should ?have a significant impact on reducing online piracy.?
Demand Progress is running a petition where you can tell your ISPs "No 'Six Strikes' Plan - Or We'll Take Our Business Elsewhere." Smaller Internet service providers could find an increase in new business in the very near future.
Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/344335
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Public release date: 26-Feb-2013
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I was happily surprised to see Hunter Walk interview Jason Kincaid, one of the first TechCrunch employees. The interview is here and I’m reprinting it below. Jason joined TechCrunch when it was still being run out of my house (before the city of Atherton kicked us out). Even after “retiring” he’s still no. 11 on the all time tech writers list. Jason broke a lot of big stories. But he also has the rare ability to write thought pieces that shape Silicon Valley culture and thinking. From the moment he joined he was part of the core backbone of TechCrunch. From the article I wrote when he resigned in 2012: Jason has the rare ability in a writer to both break big stories on his own, as well as write strong opinion articles on the topics of the day. Younger writers (who were often older than him) looked to him for leadership and guidance. He could have quite easily run TechCrunch entirely after we left. Jason also became, as he says in the interview, a counter voice to many of the editorial and other decisions we made internally. Jason is not the kind of person who would just go with the flow. If he disagreed with something he’d immediately speak up. We often changed plans based on his input. Anyway, this interview is interesting because it talks about some of the things that happened early on, things that became part of the mythology of TechCrunch. It was great to see this. Early Employees: Jason Kincaid & the Rise of TechCrunch Jason Kincaid, early TechCrunch reporter (@jasonkincaid) Q: When did you join TechCrunch and how did you originally get connected to the team? A: I usually tell a sanitized version of this story, but what the hell. It was March 2008, and I?d just graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in biology, a minor in ?society and genetics?, and zero sense as to what I wanted to do with my life. My good friend Ed McManus (now cofounder of Yardsale) invited me to a party being thrown by an investor in honor of Scribd?s (the ?YouTube for documents?) first birthday. The party was unlike anything college had prepared me for ? and the likes of which I haven?t seen since. Caviar and vodka shots. Sculptures made of seafood. A basement that had been overhauled to resemble a vintage gas station. Waiters
If you need a midweek break at your local watering hole, you might want to check out MyPourPal, an app that connects you with the staff of nearby bars to learn about promotions and the work schedules of your favorite bartenders. We?ve also got a couple of solid games to break up your work week: Sporos, a puzzler in which players use special cells to take over others with careful placement, and Worm Run, a runner in which players use swipe motions to escape a giant ravenous worm.
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What?s it about? A giant space worm is after you in Worm Run, which means you?ll need to swipe madly to make your character jump, run, boost and drop to escape through a series of caves and tunnels.
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