Verizon Rolling Out New 6 Strikes Anti-Piracy Policy; Throttles Offenders to 256kbps

[dgstorm]

This news isn't directly related to Android stuff, but it is a Verizon story, and it pertains to their internet service, which is likely important to all of their users. A recent leak reveals the details of a new Anti-Piracy Policy that Verizon plans to implement in the near future. This new policy has apparently been developed in concert with the MPAA and RIAA to follow the US based Center for Copyright Information (CCI) guidelines.

This new policy seeks to do several things. First, it will prove as both an early warning system and educational awareness for folks who are violating copyright laws. Additionally, on the back-end, it will help Verizon and any other parties involved to create a trail of evidence to gather for any potential lawsuits against offenders. This new policy will be a 6 strikes procedure. Here's a quote with the details,

For users’ first two alleged copyright violations, Verizon will send out an email and a voice message informing them that “one or more copyright owners have reported that they believe your account has been involved in possible copyright infringement activity.” For users’ third and fourth alleged offenses, Verizon will “redirect your browser to a special web page where you can review and acknowledge receiving the [previous] alerts” and will also “provide a short video about copyright law and the consequences of copyright infringement.”

Finally, after the fifth and sixth alleged violations, Verizon gives the users the option of having their speed cut down to 256Kbps for a limited time. If they continue to rack up violations after that, reports TorrentFreak, then the MPAA and RIAA can obtain a court order forcing Verizon to hand over “the IP-addresses of such repeat infringers in order to take legal action against them.”

This seems like a fairly balanced approach for the industry to figure out a way to "police" copyright violations, but there is one caveat. This new policy will also apply to businesses. This basically means coffee houses, hotels, fast-food restaurants, apartment complexes & other small businesses can also find themselves subject to these rules. This would mean they have to figure out a way to enforce these rules on their free WiFi connections. That could be a daunting task. What do you guys think?

Source: BGR

 

[4low4fun]

What exactly falls under this copyright policy? Is this just for people who download torrents?

 

[52brandon]

lol, good thing I don't support any new music anyways. Talentless emo crap. Even rappers now shopping at lady GAP

 

[micrors4]

What if I am on crappy DSL, does that mean I get a speed boost for pirating?

 

[jspradling7]

So they'll use a sweeper to scan for copyrights like they do virus's?

 

[mykl376]

What about free "public" wifi, not affiliated with a business? Is the MPAA going to sue some big, or small, city government because some unknown person pirated?

It sounds like an ok idea, until you think about the headaches it could cause in a situation like that. They should track the device, not the connection.

 

[micrors4]

And how the hell are they going to scan all the traffic of all their users accurately, that will take some serious hardware and money.

 

[Narsil]

There must be some fiscal/control/power incentive for Verizon to do this. Otherwise, why would they care? They neither own nor profit from entertainment copyrights, other than, perhaps, FiOS instant movie rentals.

 

[52brandon]

There must be some fiscal/control/power incentive for Verizon to do this. Otherwise, why would they care? They neither own nor profit from entertainment copyrights, other than, perhaps, FiOS instant movie rentals.

perhaps the threat of a lawsuit for failure to comply with laws to prevent piracy?

 

[GuiltyBreak]

And how the hell are they going to scan all the traffic of all their users accurately, that will take some serious hardware and money.

Enterprise Network sniffing tools/probes at their towers. Verizon has the money..

 

[pollardhimself]

Guess its time to buy a VPN!!

 

[Tonik]

Reread peeps. This is verizons response when it is reported to them. It's in the first couple of sentences of the policy quote. They are not scanning, they are responding to complaints.

 

[tech_head]

lol, good thing I don't support any new music anyways. Talentless emo crap. Even rappers now shopping at lady GAP

+1
Can't stand the new stuff. All sounds the same. Too much auto-tune, because they can't sing or hold pitch.
Bad mixes that a muddy and have no definition. Compressed to the max with no dynamic range. Pushed so loud is the only thing you hear.

They need t get some new talent and some real engineers to mix and master.

 

[xeene]

vpn > mpaa/riaa

 

[tjk629]

Seedbox

What about free "public" wifi, not affiliated with a business? Is the MPAA going to sue some big, or small, city government because some unknown person pirated?

They would and they probably have. There have been companies that tried to include people with insecure networks in their piracy suit. Their logic was that people would use their network to pirate.

Of course it was thrown out cause it was stupid.