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Content pirates, beware: ‘Six strikes’ plan launching


Five major Internet service providers, striking a deal with the music and movie industries, today will launch a  program in which they’ll first warn, and then penalize, suspected copyright infringers.

TorrentFreak reports the so-called “six strikes” plan, managed by the Center for Copyright Information, includes AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Legal action has not yet surfaced as one of the penalties. Instead, the emphasis is on education and, if necessary, a variety of restrictions on access for suspected violators.

The ISPs will focus on peer-to-peer systems, monitoring their networks for activity that may involve copyrighted material. After five or six suspected instances, the ISPs may take action. TorrentFreak says only three of the five have indicated what steps they’ll take:

We previously learned that AT&T will block users’ access to some of the most frequently visited websites on the Internet, until they complete a copyright course. Verizon will slow down the connection speeds of repeated pirates, and Time Warner Cable will temporarily interrupt people’s ability to browse the Internet.


Suspected content pirates will be warned and set to the Center for Copyright Information’s new website, which provides information about the program and makes the argument that downloading copyrighted material without paying for it is wrong.


According to a FAQ on the CCI site, violators won’t have their access cut off and there will be no “blacklist” of infringers. There’s also a process for those who believe a warning notice is in error:

If I believe I received an Alert in error is there a process to challenge the Alert?
Yes. The Copyright Alert System includes an opportunity to challenge Alerts once you reach the Mitigation stage, after receiving three, four, or five Alerts depending on their ISP. If you believe you have received one or more Alerts in error you may request an Independent Review administered by the American Arbitration Association within fourteen (14) calendar days of receiving the Mitigation Alert. There is a $35 filing fee, which may be waived if you meet affordability criteria. The fee will be refunded if your challenge is successful.

The plan is in coordination with the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, both of which have focused in the past on suing suspected infringers. This is a kinder, gentler approach. Whether it will be any more effective remains to be seen.

Dwight Silverman | Techblogger, social media manager

64 Responses

  1. agnerd says:

    How will breaking a contract be handled if a provider cuts off a suspected offender? Unless these providers want to allow suspects to cancel their service w/o penalty, this move seems like it would face legal challenges.

  2. w00t says:

    I think it should require a warrant to tap your net.

  3. Ed C says:

    I use an encrypted VPN proxy offshore so how exactly is my ISP going to tell what website I’m downloading from if at all. Only fools use torrents.

  4. Henry McCown says:

    Use a VPN. Problem solved.

  5. DipsoFacto says:

    That must be why Comcast cut off access to my VPN.

  6. davesmall says:

    This will cause a boom in anonymous Internet connectivity services such as private VPN

  7. Pharmer2 says:

    Internet piracy is stealing. Plain and simple.

    • Sean says:

      It is stealing but they arn’t cutting off access to those proven to have pirated software/movies/music… they are cutting off access to those they suspect might be pirating.

  8. Charles Hixon says:

    This copyrighted jingle I can’t get out of my head. I’m doomed.

  9. theBIGcw says:

    Wow, George Orwell, 1984, BIG Brother. Yes, it is stealing when breaking copy right laws, but monitoring the individual transactions on the internet and taking action. Wow

    • Deaconknowgood says:

      At&T does it ALL the time. As a former worker of AT&T I witness first-hand under-hand crap they do to their customers.

  10. Debi says:

    Personally I’d rather see them spend all that time, effort and money and go after the hackers.

    • lmusthaler says:

      I’d like to see the ISPs focus on providing decent service that doesn’t flake out all the time for their paying customers. AT&T’s U-verse service goes out on me several times a day. I lose phone calls all the time because my VoIP has a blip. My Internet goes down multiple times a day, and don’t even ask about how bad the TV service is!

  11. Tom_in_Cypress says:

    The main problem I see in this is that if they are legally allowed to snoop into what someone is downloading, what is to keep them from snooping into what people are emailing?

    Granted stealing is wrong, but the only way for them to know the file that someone is downloading is pirated is to actually look into the file. Emails are just another type of file.

    • lil ol me says:

      emails themselves are rarely copyrighted, altho an attachment to an email may be.

    • Tom_in_Cypress says:

      Lil-Ol-Me, you’re not getting the overall picture. If they can decide they are allowed to look into one type of file you are downloading, what’s to stop them from deciding they can look at another type?

      And, just so you will know, emails actually are protected under copyright.
      ( There are some hoops to jump through if you ever needed to press a case, but in general your work is copyrighted the moment you produce it.

    • ARM1953 says:

      Unless you have written your own email system, then you are using google, microsoft, or some other business’ product and that business does read your emails. There has never been any expectation of privacy on email. In fact, emails are sent cheaply, efficiently so that they are even legible to any third party sniffers that might pick it up in transit. Furthermore, if you write emails on your company’s computing equipment, I will almost guarantee that your company is reading it.

    • Ed C says:

      If you don’t want the ISP to see your email then you need to encrypt them. And the Government will find a way to read them encrypted or not just like they use OnStar in that new GM car to listen when they want too just by cutting the thing on without telling you.

  12. Tom_in_Cypress says:

    I think WOOT is right. This is too easily abused. A warrant should be required to snoop into any digital activity. AT&T has to have a warrant to put a tap on your phone, why shouldn’t they need one to put a tap on your DSL that is delivered over the same phone lines? Cable is a little more complicated, but the same concept applies.

    • Ed C says:

      Personal freedom has taken a huge hit since 9/11 due to politicians not wanting to look soft to the average Joe. This stuff is riding on the back of things like the Patriot Act, trying to see how far they can push people before they break. Unfortunately people aren’t breaking because they are slowly being indoctrinated to “the cause”. Me, I don’t put up with it. I’m old school.

  13. Blarney Stoned says:

    Hey gang, isn’t it amazing how the entire machinery of government and corporations can come together in seamless efficiency so promptly when someone is apparently taking content that is digitally generated, i.e. virtual wealth.

    But Wall Street and Washington can literally steal trillions of real dollars from the American people, while guys like John Corzine can take billions out of private accounts, and amazingly…NO ONE IS PUNISHED.

    Conclusion: Punishment and “re-education camps” are for the little guys. The big dogs get a pass on EVERYTHING.

    Come on, Anonymous…make us proud.

  14. West U Coog says:

    The only ones complaining are the ones stealing stuff. We all know that.

    • Ed C says:

      That and millions of Libertarians like me.

    • David - budalla says:

      No, not really. My family and I use p2p to share pictures, movies, etc., HD home videos especially. Since most ISPs don’t allow residential customers to maintain servers for distributed content, it was a reliable and easy to implement solution. (We do encryption.) For a while, a few years ago, my ISP started slowing all p2p traffic under the assumption all traffic was in pirated material. When I called to complain, I was lectured to for trafficking in pirated media. Their ignorance and false assumptions were appalling.

      I also use to p2p to watch media produced for the internet. Many indie musicians use p2p because it cheaper than having hosted on a dedicated site with bandwidth usage caps. There is quite a bit out there. It is deliberately shared by the content producers. It definitely not “illegal” content.

      What I don’t use it for is for downloading what is umbrellaed into what is called illegal content.

  15. David - budalla says:

    Information and media flows like water. Block its path and it seeks another path.

    Or, (snark alert) instead of drug offender prisons, we can build content pirate prisons.

    Content providers live in a fantasy world where they believe they are above and beyond market forces.

    Provide content at fair, consistent prices, and without the hoops and DRM that makes enjoying online content akin to going to the dentist, and a great deal of their problems with piracy might be alleviated.

    But they don’t and seem unable or unwilling to do so.

    The worst problem I face with trying to enjoy legitimate online content is that, unlike bookstores and online booksellers for printed media, content is distributed among many “exclusive” providers. Amazon, Netflix, HBO, cable, Hulu, etc. each have one or two things that interest me. But to gain legitimate access to all those sites exceeds the cost I can afford. If I could go to one site and pay a dollar for a show or $2 for a movie for a day, somebody would find out that I can be a very good customer. But a subscription to a service that is cumbersome to use and bloated with ads, sorry, no.

  16. Sean says:

    There is a serious problem here. Now I’m not saying someone does this via torrent files… But this isn’t directed at only torrent… it’s all peer to peer traffic. There are several file sharing/management programs in the medical industry. Say I work in the medical field and I send information about a patient to another office(it happens every day). They now have the “right” to look at that information? That happens to be in direct violation of HIPPA.

    • Rusman says:

      I’m sure the data is strongly encrypted and transmitted via some sort of encrypted tunnel. If not, that’s in violation of HIPPA and probably other regulations.

  17. ProjectCarbon says:

    This will solve nothing. In addition to anti virus, now EVERYONE will start using a VPN or proxy service.

    Check with the VPN provider first to make sure they allow torrents, not all do. I recently tried out torguard for free:

  18. West U Coog says:

    Sean are you sending unencrypted patient files over the internet? That’s a HIPPA violation.

    I love how everyone is trying to justify stealing copyrighted stuff! I’m going to Best Buy right now and take a 90 inch TV home, and totally justify it by saying that they are charging too much for it, that’s why I’m not paying for it.

    • Rusman says:

      I agree, West U Coog, it’s kind of funny.

      I understand the knee-jerk reaction, but really, people, think about what you are saying. If you aren’t doing anything wrong by downloading illegal content, then you don’t have anything to worry about.

      I’m sure someone else can probably explain this better, but the ISPs aren’t really looking at your data, they are looking at a certain part of the network packet header to determine if it is of a certain type which only torrents/peer-to-peer programs use. I think a lot of this is actually done inside the switch.

      If someone is that paranoid about being spied on, they probably just need to go off-grid and stay that way. The institutions we use and the government all know far more about you than we think. Think about it, our grocery store knows our buying habits.

      Oh, wait, now I’m starting to sound paranoid. LOL

    • Tom_in_Cypress says:


      No where in the article does it say that CCI is limited to only looking at torrent files.

      Second, not everything on torrent files is pirated. I will grant you that there is a lot of pirated material out there, but not everything.

      It would be like HPD putting license plate cams up on Main Street and checking every car that drives by to see if it is stolen. Sounds great right? Catch a bunch of thieves and no good people get hurt? Until thieves learn to work the system by swapping plates with other cars or something. Then good guys are having to pay some fee to clear their name since they were judged guilty until proven innocent.

    • YeahBuddy says:

      That’s right, Rusman!
      If you’re not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t mind the behavior police peeping into your window. Cameras in your bathroom. Right?

  19. John Whiteside says:

    Given the number of erroneous DCMA takedowns these companies generate, this is really pretty terrifying. There will be mistakes, and people will wind up with seriously impaired connectivity. Which in today’s economy is not a minor issue.

  20. Ed C says:

    What about the poor guy running the RV Park with 200 guests, it applies to businesses as well. If one downloads bit torrent a few times then the other 199 lots and the owner paying a fortune for the access for the lot to the ISP is cut off from the net. What is the owner of the park to do?

  21. Ed C says:

    Just take out “by downloading illegal content” and think about that for a while.

  22. AweStruk says:

    This isn’t just about piracy, read between the lines, it’s about more control.

    For those that don’t know, they don’t have people looking through your files. A firewal or switch does the filtering, logging and restricting in real time. I know because I’ve worked on one. Research Palo Alto devices, real time content filtering based on applications as well as heuristics. To the people saying “its ok, use vpn or proxy”… look into ssl decryption, many devices have it, including the one I mentioned above. The device can peer into the traffic and determine what lies withing the “secure” traffic. You guessed it, they do proxies and anonymizers too. You can then apply quality of service rules to this traffic if you don’t want to completely restrict it.

    The mindset of “the only people complaining are the pirates” is dead wrong. There is more being lost here than the ability to pirate something through file sharing.

    The mindset of “It’s OK because if you’re not doing wrong thre’s nothing to worry about” is even worse than the first mindset. Wake up sheep.

    I do not pirate software or illegally download anything. I’m trying to stand up for what’s right and what should be…

    • Ed C says:

      I see your point but I think decryption doesn’t apply here. They want to educate more than control at this point. Give it a few more years so they can indoctrinate us then they will do decryption like the Government does now.

  23. Tom_in_Cypress says:

    West U Coog,

    Believe it or not, some people are upset about things like this because of the precedent it sets. In this system everyone is considered a potential thief and the burden of proof is on the accused. If they say you did it, you have to pay a fee to invoke a review. The article says the fee may be waived if you are poor, but it does NOT say the fee will be reversed if the review finds in your favor. Not to mention the loss of use of the service you are paying for while you wait for arbitration.

    If BestBuy thinks you have a stolen 90″ TV in your living room, they can’t just cut your cable service and force you to pay a fee just contest their accusation.

    Law enforcement has to have good reason before they are allowed to snoop. And that reason has to be agreed to by a judge who then issues a search warrant or wire tap authorization. How should the CCI and ISPs have more legal rights to snoop, indict and pass judgement than law enforcement?

  24. Ed C says:

    So Dwight, Do you agree with this?

    • It’s not that simple as “agreeing with”.

      I think 5-6 warnings is a pretty fair way to handle suspected infringement. But as is always the case, how the plan is executed will make all the difference.

      A lot of false positives would not be good. If the system accurately catches copyrighted material, then it’s fairer.

      The problem is, P2P is has many legitimate uses. In fact, some movie studios have taken to using BitTorrent to distribute some content. Hopefully, legitimate uses won’t get flagged as being illegitimate.

      The networks are owned by the ISPs, and users agree to abide by terms of service. Those terms prohibit piracy. The ISPs have the right to manage their networks, and this is how they’ve chosen to do it. You have the right to not be a customer. If you think it’s not right, vote with your feet.

      However, the fact that these are the five biggest ISPs in the U.S. means many people won’t have a choice. In Houston, the two biggest providers are AT&T and Comcast, both of which are a part of this plan. There are small providers, yes, but not everyone may have access to them. The reality is you may not have a choice.

    • Ed C says:

      Good answer man! My point is the internet shall in no way be stopped.

    • I don’t think anyone’s talking about “stopping the Internet”. This is about trying to get people to stop pirating copyrighted material.

  25. matt says:

    Here’s what I don’t understand, so internet correct me if I’m wrong. Back during the “red” investigation, ATT was questioned by the government and it went something like this: Congressman “We know spies have been giving secrets to the Soviets and passed that information using your phone lines, how are you as a company not responsible for espionage?” ATT: “We just connect the lines, we don’t discriminate for filter the traffic. We just get payed to connect people all over the world.” My understanding is that argument worked.

    So fast forward….. If they are discriminating or filtering then if someone pirates data using their network then aren’t they now responsible and culpable for a crime?

  26. txlady says:

    Let me preface this by saying I am opposed to digital media piracy. Always have been. No excuses for it. But, that said…

    I get a kick out of the ‘if you aren’t doing anything wrong’ argument.
    If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t mind letting the police into your home without a warrant.
    If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t mind the FBI listening to your phone calls without a wiretap authorization.
    If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t mind the surveillance cameras on every street corner monitoring and recording your every move.

    If you aren’t doing anything wrong — you should still be worred as heck.

  27. Ed C says:

    Yea Right.

  28. henry says:

    Or they could just make their content easily available at a reasonable price……nahh.

    • West U Coog says:

      Or just don’t buy it if you can’t afford it, instead of stealing it. You know, since it won’t kill you to not watch an episode of The Walking Dead.

  29. John says:

    Bear in mind that this is an industry that lobbies Congress intensely with ludicious figures for the money they’re supposedly losing (backed up by no actual data) and have made a practice of trying to keep their product away from people who will generally pay a reasonable sum for it. (Look at HBO – their content is among the most frequently pirated because there is no way to buy it without getting a cable subscription plus an additional fee – for those of us who have cut the cord but would happily pay $10-15 per month for HBO programming delivered online or via iTunes, there is just no choice. And no, I haven’t pirated anything – too much effort – but I understand why people do so out of frustration).

    Going to battle with your customers to force them to use sub-par methods to get your product is just dumb. It’s like opening a restaurant and insisting that people can only eat your food if they sign up after crawling through a mud-filled bayou to get there. If they can get their buddy to sneak some out in his pockets, they’ll do that instead.

    Expect erroneously-accused people to be tossed into a Kafka-esque extralegal process to try to get their Internet service back up to functionality. It’s a very bad thing.

  30. West U Coog says:

    This whole letting the police search without a warrant argument is simply crap. If you think that you are anonymous when you log on to the internet, then you are sadly mistaken. Unless you think that the way the internet works is like a phone call or a letter sent by mail. Your info is bounced around like a ping pong ball all over the internet, your computer isn’t directly linked to another computer.

    Plus I don’t see you people complaining about google mining your info a lot more than the government. Heck google probably knows more about you than you do. Where’s the outrage for that, oh yea, because google isn’t preventing people from stealing copyrighted files from the internet.

    There are also many many legit ways to share file legally, but hey, don’t let that get in the way of trying to convince people that you aren’t stealing.

    • John says:

      Peer to peer file sharing is a perfectly legitimate way to share files, and it gets used for a lot of different things (including sharing pirated materials). The carriers are going to look for evidence that you are using P2P as an indicator that you’re a pilot. The likelihood of errors there is near 100%.

      This is more like deciding that it’s OK to pull over and detain everyone in Texas with a blue Camry because there’s one guy with a blue Camry with drugs in the trunk.

    • West U Coog says:

      John more like getting busted for a bong, I’m sure there are legit reasons for owing a bong, that has nothing to do with marijuana (wink wink).

    • John says:

      No, you’re wrong. P2P is used by educational institutions, it’s used to distribute open source software, Spotify actually runs on peer to peer technology. It’s an important kind of networking with a lot of benefits and use cases, and my confidence in AT&T’s ability to distinguish between legitimate uses and piracy is approximately zero.

  31. rivera says:

    the real stealing is the over priced movies and then tell you that they are losing money from pirating. what they should do is start a netflix based account for movies you download.

  32. Stu says:

    I think we should first address the issue of how long things should have copyright status before we allow them to lock up our entire world.

  33. Jack Sparrow says:

    maybe when they stop making horrible movies like hansel and gretel witch hunters, jack the giant slayer, and dark skies, people will stop bootlegging, what a bunch of millionaire yuppies