The Copyright Alert System

[#Michael]

a few weeks ago i heard a very blunt conversation on NPR. The host was interviewing a spokeswoman from TWC about this issue.

They got talking about Strikes 1-4. Basically, nothing happens. They might send you a letter, or put something on a website 'educating' you about piracy. At Strike 5, they make you sign a form and will throttle your connection. Same for Strike 6. Somewhere in this process they make you take an online course about piracy. Even after 6 strikes, TWC will do nothing. They will temporarily throttle your connection, but will not cancel your subscription or report you to the Feds. TWC will not risk losing a customer.

So, you could get 30 strikes and TWC will still do nothing further than throttle.

The Host of the show even asked the woman: "what can you do about people using such things as a VPN to hide their activity?" The woman said "nothing."

My continued point on this though is that the six strike policy shouldn't even be there....they have no authority to even enforce it. Since no law enforcement agency is taking part in this system, at least in Illinois no law states that I have to abide by this. AFAIK, no federal is backing this up either. This system is giving the industry and the ISPs authority to act as a private security force and forcing paying customers to abide by something that may not even be legal.

[Jessica1Lipp19]

What concerns me most is the concept behind it: guilty until proven innocent. Incorrectly identified users will need to spend money to clear their names?

CAS is not a law, it doesn't stop RIAA or MPAA from taking offenders to court, instead it uses ISPs to punish copyright violations, which is against an ISPs own business interest.? You could potentially use a VPN to get around this, but you will need to choose a VPN which doesn't record your IP address, commonly known as no log VPN. Suddenly, Kim dotcom's new mega seems promising since everything will be encrypted.