So what is the chance that your ISP will actually catch you under the new "mitigation" regime?

Factual Questions
1

Interesting article on the topic in case you haven’t read yet:

So now ISPs are going to play copyright cops for Big Content. Barf. Retch. Negative feelings.

What I have yet to read in the discussions is an assessment of how likely one is to get caught if one does “bad things,” and, also, what the bad things are that are likely to get one caught?

I do not do much that is illegal, I think, although my girlfriend, who often uses my wifi, does use uTorrent.

At the same time, I am constantly downloading big files for work, since I’m a writer and translator. In particular, I use dropbox a lot.

So I’m wondering what actually triggers these notices. Use uTorrent once and automatically get a notice? Am I in danger of false positives because of my work?

We all know this system is going to suck and end in FAIL. I’m curious, however, of what kind of pain I can expect in the meantime. Thanks for your input.

2

Did you click the first link in the article proper? They are using the same techniques they were using before: monitoring certain P2P files and poisoning trackers. And you’ll be notified before something bad happens.

But I understand why you are concerned, as this is genuinely frightening. Guilty until proven innocent–with a fee to prove that innocence. “Independent bodies” that work with the companies. And it is really, really easy to trick the current monitors. giving the retaliatory bodies like Anonymous a much bigger arsenal to attack. I only hope that the illegal downloaders spoof enough themselves to poison the system where it won’t work.

3

And my apologies if the above shouldn’t be in GQ. I’m just genuinely alarmed about what is, IMO, a very poorly implemented solution that may be even worse than the lawsuits. I don’t defend copyright infringement, but there is so much potential for abuse.

4

Why would this be worse then lawsuits? No one get’s sued (for 10’s or 100’s of thousands of dollars). Instead they get 6 warnings before they get their internet connection shut off or (more likely) throttled.

5

Sounds like it will only affect P2P, primarily torrents, where the content owner can easily see your IP address participating in the distribution of their intellectual property. Then they fire off a notice to your ISP to begin the process. Your ISP doesn’t actively monitor your usage or take any action without a specific complaint from someone. So, it wouldn’t just be the mere use of any torrent, it would have to be your participation in a torrent that violates someone’s intellectual property rights. As long as you’re not doing that, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

6

I see problems with it being sloppily done … I play MMORPGs, i beta test games for a hobby, mrAru occasionally telecomutes and I use dropbox extensively. We churn through bandwidth legally. If they are going to go by bandwidth to give them the alert of who to concentrate some attention to, we are definitely on the list. mrAru also plays MMORPGs as does aruRoomie. We have a VOIP phone that all 3 of us use and I video chat with my game friends. mrAru doesn’t videochat, but I think our roomie might.

One thing I forsee issues with is sitting in my dropbox right now. I have over a thousand ebooks, and the MP3s ripped from 20 years of assorted cd. I keep them in drop box so they are all available in all 5 computers in the house, my desktop and laptop, mrArus desktop and laptop, and aruRoomies laptop. I own the CDs, and I bought the ebooks, or created the epub file myself because the paperback in question is way out of print and shredding. We as a universe need to redefine this crap. If I own something in 1 media, I should be able to format it into a media I can continue to use, or create an archive edition to safely store it. I know I had around 300 books that are no longer accessible to me thanks to a roof leak in this springs storms. If I had already managed to scan and OCR it into epub files, I would not have lost those books. The decision that is screwing with google books sucks. I am one that believes in the accessibility of data. I do not download torrents, all my files are mine from sources I have bought and paid for. [And a rotating selection of stuff from Gutenberg on my droid] but I do fear being painted with a pirate brush.

7

Then you should be fine.

As far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with bandwidth usage. And as for your gaming activities, that uses relatively little bandwidth anyway.

This new “mitigation regime” referenced in the OP only gets put into action upon a complaint being sent to your ISP that your IP address was participating in the distribution of someone’s copyrighted content.

8

I’m not sure what you’re concerned about here. The only problem you’d have is if you’d start uploading this stuff to other people (even yourself to another location) via something that someone is watching.

9

The levels of warnings sounds like a big improvement over the lawsuits. I’ve seen too many computers where kids installed P2P software on the computer that their parents are clueless about. I did make a note to make sure my ISP knows my email address. I haven’t used the one they gave me for years. It could bad news if the notices go to an unmonitored mail box. I’m not going to assume they can tell the difference between Skype and Hulu and P2P traffic until I see some proof.

10

The problem is there is too little competition. If you could simply drop your ISP for another this would be OK, but in some areas, there is only one or two choices for broadband.

Copyright holders already blanket notices without regard to legality or not. And places like Google and Wikipedia, will allow them, without looking at them.

So say you have a site and it gets a DMCA notice, you fight it and win. Well that copyright holder also files a DMCA notice with Google, Yahoo, MSN etc,

They don’t fight it. They comply meekly. So now you fight your DMCA notice and win. So you were right, but Google and the other search engines won’t reverse that, so your site remains up, but out of search.

Another abuse is anyone can claim DMCA. You don’t have to be the copyright holder. You won’t win, but it’s often enough to get your competition taken down for awhile. You can claim for losses but it’s too easy too set up a shill and claim DMCA.

This is the same thing that will happen here, the copyright holders will simply blanket users with notices left and right. Why? Because it costs them nothing.

You can’t use the traffic cop example as comparison, because it costs the city something to put a cop out there writing warnings, when he could be more useful elsewhere. It’ll cost nothing to copyright holders to blanket issue warnings and get everyone up to the final warning. There should be a charge by the ISP for each warning issued. Maybe $5.00 per warning by copyright holder. This would stop that abuse of the system.

And because broadband is limited, once your in trouble, there’s little you can do. Most broadband providers limited bandwidth now. So you already have an effective way to limit piracy, just keep lowering the download limit.

AT&T will charge you to download Netflix movies if you go over your limit, but you can get U-Verse pay per view and get the same thing.

All this will do is drive people away from torrents and on to more secure P2P networks. If you’re on What.Cd or PassThePopcorn you already have pretty decent security for your torrent downloads. One notice from an ISP reported to either site, will get the user and all his invites kicked off immediately. So this will effect only those on public trackers like Pirate Bay or Demonoid.

It’s a sign of the times though. Torrents have been around too long. Someone will come up with yet another way to DL illegally but more securely.

11

That’s not how the new system works. The copyright holders aren’t going after the sites, they’re going after the ISPs (and ultimately the users). Also, if the article is correct, the user gets 6 chances to comply before anything happens, not one.

12

<TAP TAP> Is this thing working?

They aren’t profiling you based on your traffic. Your ISP will only send you a warning upon receiving a complaint from someone who saw your IP address up/downloading their intellectual property. The only practical way that could happen is if you are participating in a torrent or other P2P network and downloading something you shouldn’t be.

13

or fat fingers, or fuzzy eyesight, or any number of other things could get you or me on that list. My gripe is the MBA/Legal eagles who design these Orwellian systems never account for data entry errors. They always believe they and theirs can do no wrong… How about the burden of proof belongs on the accuser?

14

The technology to do this has existed for years.

15

I won’t claim to be able to understand that article (and I didn’t read it), but isn’t the ability to tell the difference between various types of traffic what allows the net neutrality debate to take place.

16

A friend got caught by this. He had set up the torrent and some people were uploading TV shows he had on his computer. Do you know how he found out? When his ISP cut his internet service. It was only after a call to customer service (My connection is down and I don’t know why.) that they decided to send him the warning.

17

I don’t know that.

18

You mean, you’re uncertain?

19

Ignore this please

20

Apparently it’s not that hard to catch you. This is anecdotal, but I download about 1 movie a week. After reading this thread, I decided to check my isp email for the first time in ages. I got a warning on the 1st of last month for downloading a new release. This was with Utorrent with no attempts at enhanced privacy.