Comcast, Cox cooperating with RIAA in antipiracy campaign

Update: 11:37 a.m. PDT To include quotes from a Cox spokesman.

Update: 4:05 p.m. PDT To include Comcast's statement that the 2 million notices sent out was not part of any new policy.

The Internet service providers that have agreed to work with the recording industry to battle illegal file sharing are starting to come forward.

Joe Waz, a senior vice president at Comcast, the nation's second largest ISP, told a gathering of music industry executives that the company has issued 2 million notices on behalf of copyright owners, according to multiple people who were in attendance.

Comcast said Wednesday afternoon that the 2 million notices Waz referred to were part of the company's standard practice and not a new policy.

"Comcast, like other major ISPs, forwards notices of alleged infringement that we receive from music, movie, videogame, and other content owners to our customers," Comcast said in a statement. "This is the same process we've had in place for years--nothing has changed. While we have always supported copyright holders in their efforts to reduce piracy under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and continue to do so, we have no plans to test a so-called 'three-strikes-and-you're-out' policy."

Comcast's Joe Waz, in a photo from March 2008.

(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET)

Waz made the comments Tuesday while part of a panel at the Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville. This was the same event where an AT&T executive told the gathering that the nation's largest ISP was cooperating with the Recording Industry Association of America by sending notices to customers accused of illegal filing sharing. The letters are part of a trial program, the executive told the audience.

In addition, sources confirmed that Cox Communications is also assisting the RIAA in the group's new campaign to use ISPs to help discourage consumers from pirating songs.

In December, the RIAA shocked music fans by announcing the termination of a years-long strategy of filing copyright lawsuits against individuals. Instead, the lobbying group for the major recording companies would seek the help of Internet providers. The RIAA said it had lined up a group of large ISPs to help, but declined to disclose which ones or how many.

To copyright owners, the shift in strategy is a victory. For a long time, people in the music and film industries have complained that broadband providers were profiting from piracy. Many in the entertainment industry have called on ISPs to lend a hand in plugging up the flow of illegal content.

To those who advocate for Internet users, however, any plan that threatens to shut off someone's Internet access without hard evidence is unfair. RIAA leaders have said that the group's graduated response program would include punitive action for repeat offenders, which could include suspension or even termination of service. RIAA managers say they support due process to protect people from being falsely accused. But what the due process looks like has yet to be determined.

Comcast was careful to state that it isn't considering terminating customers' service.

An AT&T spokeswoman said that the ISP has not threatened anyone with the disabling of service but acknowledged that warning letters sent to customers, the company says it reserves the right to terminate service.

She said the company sends a letter from the RIAA and adds its own cover letter. The company informs the customer that the problem could be that a teenager in the home has downloaded unauthorized material or that someone else is doing so via an unsecured Wi-Fi connection.

As far as Cox is concerned, the practices that the RIAA is asking ISPs to adopt have been standard since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed in 1998. The company acknowledges that it will, in the case of chronic offenders, shut off service. A Cox spokesman said this about the company's policy:

When we receive notifications from RIAA or other copyright holders stating that their copyrighted material is being infringed by a customer, we pass that information along to the customer so they can correct the problem, or dispute the notice directly with the copyright holder if they feel the notice was sent in error. This notification is the most helpful thing we can do for the customer and is expected of us, as an ISP, under the DMCA. We attach a copy of the notice from the copyright holder with our message to the customer.

The spokesman said that the company has issued "hundreds of thousands" of warnings to customers but has terminated service on less than one tenth of 1 percent.

There's data to support the claim that warning notices work. In the United Kingdom, research done by Wiggin and Entertainment Media Research found that seven out of 10 people surveyed said they would stop downloading unauthorized content if they received a notice from their ISP.

Note to readers: Have you received a warning letter from AT&T or another ISP? If so, e-mail me by clicking on the link in my bio below. Please include your contact information. I won't reveal your name in any story if that's what you prefer.

Research in the United Kingdom shows that 70 percent of those surveyed would stop pirating music if they received a notice from their ISP.

(Credit: Wiggin)

[cohaver]

i have already found over 1000 tools to go around what RIAA and ISPs are doing . Countries around the world make spy software to not be traced thousands of programmers daily make spam and other type of no trace data . Formats encryption. ISP are going spend millions fighting this RIAA going have to pay them to fight this. End user going go crazy over a letter of suspected copyright infringement what if end user has a botnet that uses his computer to trade copyrighted media. Crazy These ISP are not smart enough to fight this.

[contentcreator--2008]

Re the botnets --- actually it seems fairly constructive for an ISP to make a consumer aware of a botnot running on their machine. You are legally responsible for the equipment you own of any kind, if this finally made people clean out all their spambot nets I think we'd all be ahead.

[blacknebraskan]

I don't think their aim is to stop all media theft, but to simply find a way to effectively slow it. And I think that the average ISP customer will be scared straight after receiving a scare letter from their ISP. Of course, any person determined to get media at any cost is going to find a way to do it. But I guarantee the average user isn't going to go through the trouble of trying to tussle with their internet provider.

[viper396]

@cohaver. That's just arrogance talking. In reality nobody can ever say with absolute certainty that they won't get caught. Acting like you can always outsmart your own ISP is asinine since they in fact control your internet connection. Whether it's 1000 tools or not the average person is not continually going to go thru that much trouble just to avoid detection.

[oldguytoo]

cohaver
you must be a thief and a criminal.

[pentest]

You morons need to knock off that BS about if you complain about loss of privacy you have something to hide.

Why don't you retards get it over with and move to China?

Tor FTW!

[pentest]

Your ISP would have to break a lot of laws to track what you are doing via Tor or a VPN.

[thelemurking]

Makes me wonder what the RIAA is offering ISP's to play as their personal police force. Surely the ISP's wouldn't do this sort of thing for free.

Then again, I wouldn't trust Comcast on any front... I would imagine they would do it because it's cheaper than actually upgrading their infrastructure to provide adequate bandwidth. Slay the hogs and the problem is solved!

[Lerianis3]

Well, while I have Comcast, I have to agree. Funny thing..... since their 'bandwidth caps' I know that I have used more than 500GB's a month on 3 occasions, and yet I haven't gotten any letters from them..... weird that.

Personally, if I got a letter like this..... IGNORED! One, they would have a hell of a time proving that it was actually ME that downloaded the copyrighted thing in question since I have a wireless network that, while passworded out the wazoo, is not foolproof.

[contentcreator--2008]

Lawyers are used to weasels. I doubt you'd want to go there. It would be "probably cause" for a search warrant, I'd think. You'd be better off stopping than risk having someone come seize and search your computer, don't you think?

[Deejay1001]

Another reason I am glad I am not with Comcast! Ahhhhhh!
As usual, there are two sides to an issue, but the issue of piracy and the RIAA seems to be clearcut black and white. There are not many people in the middle of the issue.

The RIAA has made a boatload of money over the years. The only thing that has changed is the format of the distributed music. First vinyl, then 8-track, then cassette, then CD and now DVD/HD-CD. They contend that you cannot transfer (legally) any of these formats. You are purchasing the hard product, not the rights record the music as you see fit to meet your needs. This is why many oppose the RIAA and prefer to pirate music instead of paying for it. A sense of justice. Yes, you still have those with no morals and do it because they are cheap. Quite frankly, I am tired of spending my money on the same songs because I want different formats.

RIAA - WAKE THE F UP!! Your run is over and if you want to survive, try a different business plan. Oh, by the way, we don't want you to tell us what we should listen to and buy anymore. We are smart consumers, which is why we download the music via other outlets.

[eswinson]

It will be interesting to see what will happen next. I don't think any ISP would dare to terminate 2 million subscriber accounts just to help out the RIAA. At a minimum that is over $75M in monthly revenue. They can't sue them all... so what will they do next? My guess is this is not as well thought out of a plan as they would like you to think. It pretty much amounts to saber rattling and a bunch of unwanted spam.

[umbrae]

The ISP's are profiting from piracy now. I doubt they would be doing this without kick back from the RIAA for each notice. I would suggest any Comcast, ATT, or COX customer start contacting them now about this practice and not wait to receive a letter.

[Michichael]

I'm so incredibly shocked that Comcast is going along with such a stupid and unfounded scheme.

I don't think they realize just how easy it is for somebody to bounce data off of a connection. Oh and let's not forget that there is no burden of proof anywhere before you start getting "warned" and penalized. All they have to do is say that they think they might have maybe seen something. I can't wait until they get hammered for trying to penalize somebody for downloading the latest WoW patch...

They honestly need a network engineer to sit in on these meetings and laugh in the face of the RIAA/MPAA. I wonder what part of the Comcast terms of use states that they reserve the right to do deep packet inspection to comply with these ridiculous requests.

And let's not even get started on the invasion of privacy by an ISP...

I'd love to see this entire process be completely transparent so the public can call the RIAA on it's bull.

[contentcreator--2008]

A worthy "Right to privacy" is diminished when it is turned into "license to steal" It looks an awful lot like wearing a ski mask into a bank.

If you "privacy proponents" make a habit of paying for content in the proper fashion, cease illegally sharing copyrighted content, the need for draconian measures ceases.

[Lamppost0]

I don't download illegally AT ALL. No movies, no music, no software, nothing. Yet I am incensed at the loss of privacy this is fostering. If you think only Bittorrent users are upset about this, you are either an RIAA flack or completely ignorant.

Mark my words: any ISP that markets itself as not working with the RIAA (by offering customers "privacy") will make a metric ton of money.

[K1821voc]

I agree along with these game changing, scary letters they are sending out they should also be able to look at and censor everything we do on the internet so that they can keep people from even talking about copying music, oh and while they are at it they probably should make sure every song installs a rootkit in the machine that allows it to be played once then is deleted so that the user can't do anything else with it.

After all with copyright infringement being one of the most important issues we face as a country today what's the difference if a few more rights and freedoms that are really just "licenses to steal", are taken away to ensure that this very dangerous activity ceases.

[dumbspammers]

You are, to be charitable, either an idiot or an RIAA emplyee. How about you jerks at the RIAA start serving the *statutory* jail sentences for distributing rootkit viruses on audio CDs, like SONY BMG was caught doing? Or is it only illegal when consumers break the law, and it's OK as long as big, rich syndicates do things that are knowingly and deliberately breaches of Federal criminal codes?

Pot, kettle, black. I don't buy CDs or DVS, but I do buy individual MP3s and albums from *independent* artists who are not RIAA members. I don't download music, either; there's nothing being published by the RIAA members that's worth listening to. Not only is it not worth buying, it's not worth stealing, and if you gave it to me, I'd trash it.

[Lerianis3]

Frankly, contentcreator--2008.... if the companies actually made stuff that was worth the money that they want to charge for it, most people wouldn't download anything illegally, and by most I am talking about 90+% of the people out there.

Unfortunately, when businesses like to charge way to much for craptacular content, whether it be music, games, movies, etc........ they are killing themselves.

[K1821voc]

hm... if you are replying to the original statement by contentcreator--2008 then I agree totally with you, if you are replying to me, then obviously the parts like "game changing, scary letters", and my last paragraph "After all with copyright infringement being one of the most important issues we face as a country today what's the difference if a few more rights and freedoms that are really just "licenses to steal", are taken away to ensure that this very dangerous activity ceases." weren't obvious enough and I should have included a /Sarcasm off at the end of my post. Anyways, I fully agree with what you said and do the same, and am pretty sure measures like this will just cause more people to do the same,

[ittesi259]

I'm sorry where in your ISP's Terms of Service does it indicate you have any expectation of privacy? That being said.....deal with it.Thats about as dumb as a "I can't believe my company monitors my computer use". There is no expectation of privacy.

[contentcreator--2008]

@Lerianis3 --- that argument is tired. If you don't think it's worth the price dont buy it --- but dont steal it either. That would allow business models to adapt rationally. But you can't not pay and then take it. That's just not tenable, that's not a marketplace, that's a mob. There's no "right" to other people's content.

The selfish greed of the thieves means everyone is less well off.

[R. U. Sirius]

You can kiss my you know what RIAA troll. I don't use P2P for music or copyrighted material, so you have no right to spy on my content usage (which is related to my legitimate business clients and is private information). My right to privacy is in the constitution of the United States. Show me where it is written that you have a right to usurp that WITHOUT a warrant and WITHOUT probable cause.

[viper396]

@Lamppost0, what makes you think that being on the internet entitles you to complete privacy? Where exactly is that written down? Everyone pretty much agreed to losing a certain amount of privacy just by being on the internet.

[R. U. Sirius]

@Lamppost0

Oh really? No right to privacy huh? So your RIAA data is more important than my data? So then please give us your email account info, passwords, bank account login ID's, etc. if there is no right to privacy.

[HlLLARY CLITON]

draconian measures indeed, simply mass mailing threatening letters, now theres a act of desperation for ya

[professionaladventurer]

I'll just say it: Copyright infringement is illegal.

I personally find it easier to go to blockbuster and rip rental DVD's to H264 (which I do every time I rent - after all, what happens if my 20 month old son damages the rental copy?). Just take that a few steps further. Is $0.99-3.99 worth it for a movie .vs download something from somewhere that you "might" get all of? Do you really need to watch some POS hand held in-theater (you are paying $60+ a month for broadband, I think you can afford to go to a movie) movie?

[protagonistic--2008]

I personally find it easier to not download or even purchase anything that comes through the RIAA and MPAA. I am starting to get a very nice library of music purchased form independent artists, many of whom are much better than the drivel that the music industry is promoting. If people refuse to buy the product the RIAA will eventually die the painful death it deserves.

[teh_chrizzle]

uhh, ripping movies is copyright infringement too. plus by circumventing the copy protection you are also committing a DMCA violation. you're a criminal too, bit torrent or no.

it doesn't matter if piracy is wrong or that it's illegal. it's effortless, widespread, and it's unstoppable. resources spent fighting piracy are wasted. you might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow morning, the odds of pulling that off are about the same as stopping piracy.

so they will sniff traffic and bust a handful of people. then the torrent community will go to encrypted connections and it's back to the drawing board. what then? make encrypted connections illegal and destroy e-commerce? better make VPN illegal as well.

it's impossible to push piracy off of the internet, and even if you could, it would just mean a change in tactics (hard drive parties, wireless mesh, you name it) and the files keep getting shared. in fact, it would probably increase at that point since bandwidth wouldn't be a limiting factor.

if you think it's hard to police file sharing now imagine having to police the sneakernet when people are swapping terabyte hard drives.

"here steve, have a copy of my entire DVD collection."
"thanks bob, here's a copy of mine... and a copy of bill's."

[K1821voc]

this ^^

Draconian measures don't stop the behavior, sure they might force some people to change their behavior but in the end they are just going to alienate more of their customer base, and in some cases just gives another excuse for some people out of principle or protest to enter into the very behaviors the measures are trying to stop.

[ittesi259]

When you rent a movie you are paying to view it, and ripping it is copyright infringement because you are now making a copy to avoid paying the full price. So yeah...copyright infringement is illegal, and you friend, have admitted to breaking the law.

[pentest]

teh_chrizzle

You are a moron. It is more than possible to make a bit for bit copy of a DVD or CD that doesn't circumvent any copy protection.

Doing that to make backups is a legal right. The DMCA is unconstitutional any way. Stupid RIAA shills.

[dumbspammers]

So the upshot of this is, the RIAA would rather see hundreds or thousands of end-users who have been improperly accused of illegal file sharing, sue their ISPs, so that the RIAA doesn't have to continue to spend millions of dollars on suing the wrong people, and they won't have to continue to attempt to kidnap minor children (yes, the RIAA really did pay someone in Oregon to attempt to kidnap the minor child of a "soccer mom" who was improperly accused of illegal file sharing).

I can see the ISPs changing their tune when the EFF and ACLU get hold of a few juicy screwups to take to court.

[Lerianis3]

What? Could I have a citation for that claim that the RIAA paid someone to kidnap the minor child of a soccer mom? If they truly did that, they are in more trouble than just people being pissed at them. That is a CRIME, and kidnapping of a child and even COLLUSION to kidnap a child is anywhere from a 20 year to 50 year in prison offense.

[viper396]

@dumbspammers making up completely bogus stories about the RIAA kidnapping people only ruins any credibilty you have. You're not accomplishing anything usefull.

[oldguytoo]

dumbspanners is nuts. I bet you don't even know what makes up the RIAA. They are not criminals as opposed to all of those who are defending what they see as their right to illegally download music. The criminal geekdom is more dangerous to our society than the old fat cat record label president. Supply and demand will take its natural course with them. Computer geeks who promote these illegal downloading and sharing activities are the real threat to our society by undermining the creativity of those whose copyrighted property is and has been at risk; Thereby damaging an industry that is legitimate. It's these type of comments from dumbspanners adn the like that give computer geeks a terrible reputation.

[pentest]

"They are not criminals"

Yes, they are criminals. They rob consumers as well as artists and they act exactly like the mafia does.

[Chapmaniac]

Hey, RIAA - I'm humming a song in my head!
Hey, MPAA - I'm playing a scene from a movie in my head!

And I'm not gonna stop!

[Dalkorian]

Then you can go to prison too. ;-)

[unknown unknown]

The exceptionally poor nature of the evidence the RIAA and their stooges like Media Sentry, BayTSP, and Prof. Doug Jacobson gather has been exposed by experts, the RIAA has to go extra-judicial where they don't have to prove anything, just mail off a claim.

Hopefully anyone falsely accused and disconnected will go after the RIAA for their mistake.

[badasscat]

The problem for the ISP's is that by this action, they now make themselves liable for the content passing through their pipes. The DMCA provides a safe harbor exemption for service providers; they have now voluntarily removed themselves from that.

So it won't be people going after the RIAA. It will be people going after the ISP's. And they will pay for it.

My thinking on this is twofold:

a) like the lawsuit strategy, the RIAA knows this can't possibly work permanently. It's a temporary bandaid to buy time. That's their goal. Meanwhile, they will use the time they're buying to come up with a strategy to replace this one once it fails.

b) as soon as somebody sues an ISP and the case makes its way through the court system, the entire house of cards crumbles just as it did with the lawsuit strategy. Because somebody is going to beat an ISP, and the legal tide will then be turned against them. With the safe harbor provision no longer protecting them, they will be in for a flood of lawsuits.

Everybody on that side must know this - I don't believe they are that stupid. They all have lawyers who know the DMCA as well as I do (or should, I guess you never know). All I can think is that the RIAA is paying the ISP's more than the ISP's have calculated they will lose in the oncoming lawsuits. And that all parties concerned realize this is at most a five year program, after which the legal morass will make it impossible to continue.

The ISP's are still going to be the big losers here, though, because losing that safe harbor status is like popping a cherry - you don't get it back. They have opened themselves up to liability forever.

[drbyte]

Most people who use torrents and rapidshare type services have collected so much stuff, if the whole thing was shut down tomorrow there would be plenty to watch and listen too for years to come.

A little too late I think. Besides, the services that ignore the RIAA (and without bandwidth caps) will get some subscription boost.

[darfjono]

the DMCA and all "intellectual property" laws are a joke.

@contentcreator--2008:

you're either a very very bored troll or a paid employee of an illegal cartel. either way, you have no legal power to do anything.

[R. U. Sirius]

From the article:

> Comcast, the nation's second largest ISP, told a gathering of music industry executives that
> the company has issued 2 million notices on behalf of copyright owners

Okay Comcast, the bluff is called. Let's see you disconnect those 2 million accounts. If you do, let's see what happens, shall we?

[pentest]

That would be awesome. I almost hope they are stupid enough to do it.

People need to ditch Comcast. Why pay for a shared connection?

[arbulus]

What scares me about this is how the ISP or the copyright holders are able to know who is "illegally sharing." Are the ISPs engaging in deep packet inspection on everything that passes through their pipes and then sending takedown notices to people are are sending and receiving music and movies outside of the online stores? Or are they just sending takedown notices to anyone sending or receiving torrent packets?

If the latter is the case, then torrents need to be outlawed, because a blatant blocking of one protocol is wrong. If they're going to do it, then they need a legal precedent for it.

If the former is the case then we have a SERIOUS violation of customer privacy. I do not want every single one of my packets inspected just so the ISP can find illegal sharing. This is equal to the police listening to every single phone call that is placed in the US just so they can be on the lookout for criminal activity. The potential privacy violations here are horrendous at best and criminal at worst.

The methods that the ISPs use to determine who they send takedown notices to MUST be made public and held up to scrutiny.

[tm_anon]

I second the motion.

[jtjt145]

Even though there are different ways to get around their restrictions, I hope the customers will chose with their feet, and go to a different ISP.
We have had enough enduring of bullying by the MAFIAA and other like-minded corporations.
Out with them!

[arbulus]

If AT&T, Cox and Comcast are doing this, then there's only just a couple of ISPs left. In my area I have NO choice of ISP. None, whatsoever. ISPs are monopolies in most areas.

This is a point that people must understand:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREE MARKET WHEN IT COMES TO ISPs.

I don't get to choose, I don't get to vote with my feet, I don't get to vote with my wallet. I have the ISP that is here or I have no internet access at all.

[pentest]

Where do you live?

I live in an area with lots of choices and there are barely 200k people here. About 10 DSL companies, most local, satellite, lots of dial up, and of course Comcast, the worst choice except for dialup.

If you have the means, a dedicated 1 (or even 10) Gbps connection to Internet 2 is possible, although I doubt any private residence does that!

They are only doing this to slow down abusers that are on the PIPE all the time. This will help them avoid sending users notices about bandwidth capping and make them look better as service providers.

[dadsgravy]

Greed needs a lot of protection.

[JCPayne]

@Contentcreator--2008 | Regarding a search warrent that is why you have a net worked LAN. And run a NAS from the router hidden elsewhere in the house. Maintain all MP3s on that device none on the PC. If u must turn over
your PC they wont find MP3s on it nor tracess of one onwyour PC hard drive if u use a NAS. Whenever u want to play your music use file sharing to stream it from your NAS.

[viper396]

There is no way to completely hide the fact that you also have a NAS box on a LAN especially if they browse your PC and search your local network. Search and confiscation warrants usually cover "PC equipement" for which a NAS box would be included.

Going thru alot of trouble to hide a NAS box full of MP3 might only show an active attempt at subversion. They can argue that you obviously know what you were doing was wrong if you go to that much trouble to hide a NAS box full of MP3's in the attic.

[LoboStrolls]

They were fighting P2P even though we were downloading legal linux distributions. Internet broadcasters are fighting to stay online. We are sliding down down the technology scale in relation to other countries. Anyone else feel like we are going the wrong way?

[tetsuyo]

Does any of this really matter? People will continue to trade media files online no matter what. Certain laws are made to be broken if they are made by lawmakers who dont understand technology or the culture of it. Just like with the alcohol prohibition there comes a point where it is just not worth it and the law gives in to the popular culture. What i am saying is that the general public need not be afraid of threats like this because the popular culture is on their side. Entertainment industries need to adapt to the desires and needs of the public not the other way around and what we have seen with internet file sharing is that it is driving the technology and culture of the internet. So as the internet gets more and more ubiquitous in peoples lives, so will the sophistication of file sharing. The music industry will have to offer a different model to adapt. If there is a "sneakernet" in the future it will be the next big thing that kids want to be a part of and the RIAA with its draconian methods will have created it.

[Farthing Haypenny]

I agree completely, we have monopoly service providers and that is a large part of our problem. Crappy service, low levels of innovation and high prices are inevitable.