798 (129) - All U.S. Internet Providers will be policing downloads by July 12, 2012

[skindyedindigo]

Originally posted by seshido at 798 (129) - All U.S. Internet Providers will be policing downloads by July 12, 2012
Originally posted by ragnarok_08 at All U.S. Internet Providers will be policing downloads by July 12, 2012
Originally posted by teagues_veil at All U.S. Internet Providers will be policing downloads by July 12, 2012
Originally posted by fuyuhimi at !Important Mod Post

Comments

[hippydippymama]

Things I don't get about this (or I don't think they get about this):

1. Yeah, cause it's so hard to STEAL INTERNET. It's not like wifi is swiftly becoming easier to find than good cell service- OH WAIT. How do they plan to limit people using hotspots to download, or using someone else's internet? What about apartment buildings or dorms or airports where the number of users is impossibly great and impossible to throttle without punishing those who aren't downloading?

2. How can they prove that the files were illegal? What's illegal? If I rip my copies of House, that I bought on DVD, they're identical to the files I download. How can they prove that the owner of the internet account is the one who downloaded illegal files? Can they gain access to our hard drives? What if they aren't even saved to a hard drive- flash drives, anyone?

3. If files are broken up into .rar files, and renamed, which is not exactly hard, how do they intend to determine which is which? Just going by file size won't work, an average TV episode is 350 mb, and breaking it up isn't any big thing, plenty of legit files are around that size.

4. Have you fools learned nothing? Remember when MU bit it? Remember when Anonymous CRASHED THE DOJ? Yeah. Please don't provoke the hackers.

[gonzo21]

Bloody bonkers innit, they're going to cut off somebodies internet because their neighbour piggy-backed their wifi? There will be legal claims a go-go over this one. The only winners will be the lawyers.

[hippydippymama]

This is why red-light cameras don't hold up in court when someone else is driving your car, or they can't prove it was you beyond a reasonable doubt. I get that this is the service provider and not the legal system, but it's still a service you pay for, and I can't IMAGINE they would be given the right to just riffle through our hard drives.

[gonzo21]

The other thing people could do if caught would be to stand up in court with a legitimately bought version of things they are accused of downloading. And then what's the case against them exactly? Would be hard to see a court convicting somebody of downloading a digital copy of something they already own.

[hippydippymama]

I actually do that ALL THE TIME because my kids tend to ruin anything on a disc with alarming regularity, and so it's easier to get downloaded copies that don't skip than try to rip the ones I own.

The only thing I can see is that they aren't going to try and bring charges against anyone, just take away their internet. They can just put in their TOS that any downloading of XYZ results in a termination of service, and they just don't give a shit if you actually did it or not. But it's just so ridiculously easy to hack people's wifi, even if they have it secured (not that I've done this, I just have a lot of family and friends that work in IT) and again, HOTSPOTS.

[gonzo21]

It's a shame you're not bound by the European court of human rights. They decided a while ago that cutting off somebodies internet was a violation of their basic human rights. So while they are trying to bring this system into the UK, and will probably succeed in doing so, when they do, it will be challenged in the European court.

The free market should sort this out though. If the big ISPs in America start sending out letters, all it takes is for a small up and coming ISP to start advertising that they won't send out letters, and boom, they should start picking up customers like nobodies business.

[hippydippymama]

The problem in that in several places, a lot of cable companies have effected monopolies. For example, where I live (Utah), the only way they could get a cable company to come out in the 70-80s when this was still a functional desert of less than 100,000 people, was to offer one company a monopoly. So Comcast is the only game in town, and it would be very hard for a start-up to compete with them. Running an ISP also requires MASSIVE infrastructure in terms of tech support, servers, manpower, hardware, etc. It's not something you can just run out of your basement. What I think is far more likely is that they will be discover an astonishing amount of service theft if they start shutting down people's internet, which isn't all that easy to prove in court, either.

Also, most ISPs are reasonably dependent on the media for their contect, and the RIAA basically threatened to starve their wives and children if they didn't do this, because they weren't getting anywhere with legal avenues. They killed MU and five other filesharing sites popped up to replace it, all much better protected and not located in easily prosecutable locales. (Yeah, you go after Pirate Bay in Sweden, lemme know that works out for you, chumps.)

Really we could avoid all this unpleasantness if they would just GET WITH THE PROGRAM and realize that increasing amounts of people just don't use their TVs anymore, especially young people who can't afford both internet and cable, and a laptop, and a TV. If you asked someone under the age of 35 which they'd rather have, they'd go with internet + laptop, every time. That's why Netflix and Hulu have been so successful, and the literal ONLY REASON people download or livestream is because there's no reasonable way to get TV shows without a cable connection and a digital TV in a timely fashion (and no, the next day is not a timely fashion.) If you make it free or cheap and easy to access, people will use it. People overwhelmingly prefer, on the whole, to pay for the things they enjoy.

I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS. In case you couldn't tell. =P

[gonzo21]

Ah, of course, yes, I remember somebody telling me once about the terrible state of competition in america for, most things. For a supposedly free market economy, things in the States actually seem to be very tightly sewn up by monopolies that exercise absolutely control over pricing.

My partner used to live in LA, and I found it bizarre that where she lived, she had only two choices of internet providers.

Here in the UK, I can choose from... off the top of my head at least 40.

And yep, it's absurd the way they refuse to adapt, and instead stick their heads in the sand. They have no goodwill anymore either, I think consumers are so sick of being ripped off by the entertainment industry, that nobody thinks twice of ripping them off in return.

I mean. 3D cinema prices for a start. Reeeeaaallly?

[skindyedindigo]

I keep trying to read this because I know that it has some very intelligent points. Stupid sinuses. Making reading and focusing like glass shards in my brain.