How MPAA & RIAA Quietly Control User Access to Online Content - Top US World News | Susanne Posel Daily Headlines and Research
How MPAA & RIAA Quietly Control User Access to Online Content - Top US World News | Susanne Posel Daily Headlines and Research
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as BT, Sky, Talk Talk and Virgin Media are participating in a program
to send an estimated 2.5 million “educational” letters to customers
that are under suspicion of committing internet piracy next year.
This 4 year old scheme remained in negotiations between ISPs in the
UK and the entertainment industry that wanted to see copyright
infringement stopped with the empowerment of ISPs to contract access to
certain customers identified as constant “pirates”.
Lobbyists for the entertainment industry reportedly
“wanted much harsher repercussions to be set in place including access
to a database of those who download illegal torrents on a regular basis,
which would essentially allow for the possibility of legal action
against them.”
Instead, the entertainment industry settled for having the
opportunity to monitor the customer’s download behaviors of
participating ISPs and keep track of the IP addresses of those
offenders.
Under the Voluntary Copyright Alert Program
(VCAP) holders of copyright and members of the music and film industry
will be able to track what ISP customers are “downloading on internet
file sharing networks”.
By 2015, when the recorded IP addresses of those customers are
cataloged, the warning letters will be delivered with only 4 warnings
allotted each ISP customer.
Currently, those ISPs participating in this scheme have not specified
“what will happen if the user is still illegally downloading after the
4th letter.”
