AT&T to warn online music rustlers

AT&T, the US's largest ISP, will cooperate with the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) in tossing written warnings at downloaders of copyrighted material. But it won't cut offenders off - at least not "without a court order," according to a senior AT&T exec as quoted by Cnet News. Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior executive …

[Kanhef]

A voice of reason

Nice to see an ISP executive who knows that it is not their job to enforce copyright laws. Hopefully smaller ISPs will follow their lead.

[Anonymous Coward]

wait, just wait

Until you get your first notice and it's NOT originated by the RIAA, but from internal ATT snooping on your datastream. The door is already open since they let NSA snoop into everything. wankers

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed someone...

What about Verizon? They're also fairly large, and they also happen to be my ISP. I have more than a casual interest in seeing what their policy is.

[Jeremy]

Wow

You won't hear me saying this very often (as one of their customers, no less) but good one, AT&T... About time someone told the RIAA and their UK counterparts to piss off.

[raving angry loony]

Proof

They better be able to prove that the individual doesn't have the rights to what they're accusing them of pirating though. Or has the US gone over completely to the Napoleonic code of "guilty until we can beat a confession out of you in a court of law"?

[Henry Wertz]

False disconnections

"At least, that's the plan. The flaws in the RIAA's scheme are that the ISP has to play along and that the threat of a service cut-off has to be credible."

AND that they assume the ISP is competent to collect this information to begin with. Which given my experience is not the case.

Mediacom cut me off when I was not even pulling or sharing any content! 1st warning, they shut my service down until I phoned in to ask "WTF?". I was torrenting my ass off though, stupidly enough I was shut off for downloading a TV episode (not a movie or music), but it was one I actually downloaded.... Second warning, about a month later, I had not pulled or uploaded so much as a byte since the 1st warning (no azureus, etc.); I commented on the phone that I suppose something "crossed in the mail". Given what I know now I should have asked what they thought I was doing, since it was probably in fact over nothing. *Third* warning, they kept asking if I'd gotten the letter they mailed me. After about a week I assumed the letter was never coming, I went into the cable company office...They wanted me to sign some form saying I wouldn't do it again (essentialy making it "4 strikes" with them I guess). I did, and to make sure "I wouldn't do it again" I cancelled my service. I FINALLY got the mail they sent (postmarked *A WEEK* after they started calling to ask if I got it, and with a typo in the address, so it took 3 or 4 more days to show up rather than overnight..) They accused me of downloading **UFC WRESTLING**!!! I can't stand wrestling! And the IP address was wrong, I have logs to prove it.

I've now heard from a few people that have had this happen to them or people they know (not the 3rd strike necessarily, but having service shut off for no reason). After my experience, I conclude they have a corrupted user<->IP database, and now that others are being falsely shut off I assume it's widespread. I was going to tell them my suspicions at first, but frankly for supporting "3 strikes" they can fuck off and die. I expect they'll lose MANY customers once they start shutting off more people at random.

[Andrew Norton]

In other words...

Nothing has changed. Things are exactly the same as has been the last few years, but some people have decided to spin this as 'news'.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey RIAA

Suck it down!

[Jay]

Downloading?

I thought they usually went after the people who are sharing/making available stuff, which is uploading.