Digital Media

Google Voice now blocks just under 100 numbers, which might not satisfy AT&T but might get the FCC off its back.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Google says it has found a work-around that should allow it to restore access for Google Voice users to most of the local lines it had blocked before AT&T complained about its practices.

AT&T and Google have been engaged in a war of words over Net neutrality and the obscure practice of "traffic-pumping," exchanging letters with the Federal Communications Commission on an almost weekly basis over the past month. Google wants to ensure that broadband Internet providers such as AT&T adhere to the proposed Net neutrality principles, while AT&T wants Google to be held to the same standard as other local telephone service providers.

And so, AT&T had objected to Google's practice of blocking Google Voice users from restricting calls to certain local telephone numbers that host a disproportionate amount of traffic-heavy telephone services like phone sex lines and conference call services. No phone service provider really wants to connect calls to those lines, considering the hefty fees that local operators charge for those calls, but AT&T is required to provide access to those numbers under federal regulations.

Leaving aside the notion of whether Google Voice is subject to the same rules as AT&T--you can guess where each company stands on that question--Google announced Wednesday that it has found a way to limit its block on those particular calls to only the worst offenders. In other words, instead of blocking access to entire telephone prefixes, Google said it has blocked less than 100 specific telephone numbers belonging to the so-called traffic pumpers.

Will this mollify AT&T? Probably not. But Google actually threw AT&T a bone, calling on Congress to change the laws regarding these services.

"While we've developed a fix to address this problem, the bottom line is that we still believe the Commission needs to repair our nation's broken carrier compensation system. The current system simply does not serve consumers well and these types of schemes point up the pressing need for reform," wrote Richard Whitt, Washington telecom and media counsel for Google.

TiVo said Wednesday that it is suing AT&T and Verizon over three DVR patents. The complaints seek damages and a permanent injunction.

Simply put, TiVo is pursuing the same legal playbook it followed against Dish/EchoStar. The patents in question include 6,233,389, 7,529,465 and 7,493,015.

TiVo recently won another legal victory against EchoStar, which was found in contempt of court in its legal spat. TiVo won $103 million in damages, but the case will have another hearing in November or so. EchoStar appeals continue. Meanwhile, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is reviewing TiVo's patents at Echostar's request.

In a statement, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said:

We will continue to pursue enforcement where necessary to stop infringement of our intellectual property.

On a conference call, Rogers noted that TiVo was still going to generate value through partnerships and distribution deals, but wanted investors to recognized the company's intellectual property portfolio.

The lawsuits against AT&T and Verizon come as TiVo reported a fiscal second quarter net loss of $2.9 million, or 3 cents a share, compared with a profit of 3 cents a share a year ago. The company reported revenue of $57.3 million, down from $65.2 million a year ago. Wall Street was expecting a loss of 5 cents a share.

Rogers called the quarter "solid" since the company delivered adjusted EBITDA of $5.2 million. TiVo said it has been focused on distribution via the likes of RCN and Best Buy. The company also said DVR rollouts with Comcast and DirecTV are on track.

Updated August 27: to correct amount of quarterly net loss.

A fake report on CNN's iReport site alleged that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson had been found dead.

(Credit: iReport, screengrab from Business Insider)

Reports began to surface Sunday charging that AT&T had blocked broadband access to parts of the notorious (and powerful) Internet forum site 4chan, which the telecom company confirmed on Monday. Late in the evening, a fake story surfaced on CNN's iReport citizen journalism site alleging that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson had been "found dead in his multimillion dollar beachfront mansion" after a cocaine overdose.

Suffice it to say that the two events are likely connected. Access to 4chan has since been restored for AT&T broadband customers.

For those who stepped in late: 4chan is sort of like the Internet's equivalent of a league of pirates, den of thieves, or whatever other sort of anarchic analogy you prefer. Decentralized and relying on anonymity, the participants issue large-scale pranks both online and offline, from teaming up with video site eBaumsWorld to launch the "Porn Day" campaign on YouTube to spamming Twitter's trending topics.

The fake iReport disappeared from CNN quickly, perhaps because it read that Stephenson was found "delirious" when "a friend called 911 after a night of what he called, 'male dancers everywhere and the best blow west of the Mississippi.'"

Last October, iReport was the victim of a prank in which a more believable user-submitted story reported that Apple CEO Steve Jobs--who has a well-publicized history of health problems--had suffered a heart attack. It wasn't true, but it was online long enough that Apple's stock took a dip.

AT&T spokesman Michael Coe told CNET News in an e-mailed statement that a denial-of-service attack was what stemmed the temporary block of 4chan traffic and that it has since been restored. "Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org," Coe wrote. "To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic."

"Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question," the AT&T statement continued. "We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers."

This post was updated at 9:25 a.m. PT.

Riding the success of the iPhone, AT&T, apart from trying to keep the phone exclusive, seems to be learning from Apple in another way--its retail stores.

The company announced Monday that it has done a major makeover to more than 2,200 retail locations across the country. The aim is to provide consumers and small-business customers with a better hands-on experience when shopping for devices and service plans.

According to the telecom giant, the overhaul brings a refreshed, more intuitive organization of products and services. For example, all wireless devices now show up on new power-enabled displays, making it easier for customers to experience and compare features such as touch screens versus full QWERTY keyboards.

These store enhancements are also part of the company's effort to prepare for the nationwide introduction of Netbook data plans and the availability of AT&T ConnecTech services. These services include a nationwide next-day in-home service and 24-7 remote support for Netbook computers.

Personally, I think the makeover is good news. The last time I was at an AT&T store, there was not much else to do about a phone besides look at it.

However, I'd rather see AT&T overhaul its sketchy 3G connection for the iPhone, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now that would make great news.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

If you want to quickly buy a phone, or just check out what AT&T and Verizon Wireless have to offer, it just got a little more convenient.

Amazon announced Thursday its beta launch of AmazonWireless, a new Web site that offers cell phones and service plans from, for now, AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The online store features Amazon-style shopping, without the rebate hassles that cell phone carriers are notorious for, and free two-day shipping on a large selection of phones.

During this beta-testing phase, Amazon plans to expand the selection of phones and services as well as add carriers. It will also be testing features and gathering input from customers.

According to Paul Ryder, Amazon's vice president of consumer electronics, AmazonWireless is designed for both existing cell phone customers who want to upgrade and those who want start a cell phone service.

AmazonWireless currently offers more than 120 phones, including a large selection of high-end smartphones, as well as the latest budget models. Customers can use their existing Amazon accounts to upgrade their phones or shop by carrier, phone feature, price, color, and brand. You'll also find other familiar Amazon features, such as bestseller lists, product descriptions, and customer reviews.

It's important to note that not every phone offered by the carriers is listed. For example, I checked for the iPhone 3GS just now and it wasn't even mentioned.

Instead of a bloody price war between cable operators and phone companies in the TV market, battle lines are now being drawn over who has the most compelling new features.

Digital video recorders, on-demand services, and more recently Web sites such as Hulu.com have taught people that they don't have to be beholden to a TV schedule. But the TV industry is about to be shaken up even more as phone companies and cable operators, which are all vying for your viewing eyeballs, add new features to their services to lure customers.

So what's it mean for you, the consumer? Well, it's not likely to mean lower prices on the services you already buy. Verizon Communications has already started moderately increasing the price of its service bundle for new customers. But what it's likely to mean is that consumers will get a lot more bang for their buck. When it comes to TV, that means a lot more access to the shows and movies you like, when you want to watch them, and on any device you want to view them on. At least that's the promise.

Whether the dream lives up to the expectation is another story. While some of these new services are being rolled out as we speak, some are still being tested and aren't quite fully baked. But at the very least the revolution is quietly under way and TV viewing could be a whole lot different in just a few short years.

"I think what we (Verizon and AT&T) are doing is pressuring the rest of the market to respond," said Shawn Strickland, vice president of Fios product management for Verizon Communications. "So Comcast can't just respond to what we are doing in a single market, but they have to respond to AT&T too and it drives innovation in the entire market."

For years, not much had changed in terms of the TV viewing experience. Programmers would highlight their popular shows and vie for top ratings in Nielsen surveys. And viewers would sit back and enjoy their favorite shows. Aside for some competition from satellite providers, for the most part, the cable industry had enjoyed a near monopoly on the TV market. That is until the phone companies came along with their dreams of marrying Internet technology to the TV.

Who would have thought just a few years ago that it would take the old stodgy phone companies to stir things up in TV? But that is exactly what's happened as AT&T has entered the TV market with its U-verse service and Verizon Communications has taken on cable operators with its Fios service.

In just a few short years, these phone companies have gone from playing catch up to their rival cable providers, to actually leading the industry in terms of innovation with new interactive services that leverage their Internet-based networks.

But the cable industry hasn't sat idly. The major players in the market, namely Comcast and Time Warner Cable, have been upgrading their networks to add more capacity both to their Internet services and to their video services. And they've been forging ahead with new digital video recording features and video on demand content. Now, they are about to take the biggest plunge yet into the uncharted territory of online on-demand access to TV shows and movies.

For consumers these new services will soon offer broader access to more content, on more screens and at times that are convenient for viewers and not TV programmers. And thanks to the wonders of the Internet, consumers will also be able to interact with what they're watching.

More interactivity for viewers
For the phone companies, the future of TV is also about deepening the experience and providing more interactivity for viewers. For Verizon's Fios customers this means being able to discover new shows by checking what is the most popular content being watched in their neighborhood. The company also offers sports and news widgets, and its working on social-networking applications that will integrate TV viewing with Twitter and Facebook.

For AT&T's U-verse customers it means taking a TV event and providing a deeper dive. During the PGA Masters golf and the March Madness NCAA basketball tournaments this spring, AT&T partnered with CBS Sports to provide Web-based applications to coincide with TV viewing (CNET News is owned by CBS.) During basketball games, statistics and scores were added to March Madness fans' online brackets so they could be viewed as the games were unfolding.

And Masters golf fans were able to view multiple video feeds on their TV screens to keep up with action at different points on the course. Viewers could also check the score board online to see how the leaders were shaping up. And this information wasn't just available online or on TV, but using an application for the iPhone, it was also available on mobile devices.

"With this kind of experience viewers start to have more control and a deeper engagement with the content," said Jeff Weber, vice president of video products for AT&T. "This is very clearly for customers who care about these types of events, but it gives them an opportunity to be engaged in a way they couldn't before."

But Weber also acknowledged that viewers were primarily interested in watching these sporting events. And he said there was a fine line between balancing the deeper richer experience with not interfering with the primary activity of TV viewing.

"At the end of the day, the killer application is still watching TV," he said. "So we needed to deliver ESPN with as good a quality or better than the cable companies into the living room. But now that we have done that, we are pushing ahead to make it a much richer experience for the consumer."

Verizon's Strickland said adding interactivity to the TV viewing experience also increases the opportunity for advertisers. And it offers a new way to monetize the TV viewing experience.

"The TV is the best entertainment storefront out there," he said. "People spend an average of six hours a day in front of the TV. And interactivity with that audience provides a lot of opportunity to advertisers."

This aspect of the new television age may or may not appeal to consumers. But the truth is that providing TV service and creating content is expensive. And as more people gravitate toward watching recorded TV shows and skipping advertising or even viewing video on demand content, TV providers and the programmers that create the content need to find ways to make money to augment losses in the traditional business model.

Because the phone companies have built their networks using IP technology, they've been able to push the envelope in terms of interactive features. And in the case of Verizon, its fiber architecture has also given it a considerable amount of bandwidth capacity to push the envelope in terms of on-demand services. As a result, today Verizon is offering more than 100 channels of high-definition content. And it's able to match cable competitors in terms of video on demand services.

Cable upgrades
But the cable companies haven't been sitting on their hands for the past few years. They've been upgrading their networks and innovating too. Comcast already has Docsis 3.0 technology, which greatly increases broadband speeds and network capacity, in at least a dozen markets. Time Warner Cable was one of the first companies to introduce its start-over solution that allows viewers to start a TV show from the beginning if they come into the show late and haven't recorded it.

But the boldest move by the cable companies is about to get off the ground. Leveraging existing relationships with TV programmers, cable is striking deals to put more video content online. The popularity of Web sites such as Hulu.com, which offers mostly broadcast TV shows for free online after they air, along with other free online video programming, has spurred the cable companies into action.

Time Warner Cable has been trialing a service with HBO that allows people in Milwaukee to watch on-demand HBO TV shows and movies on their laptops. And now Comcast and Time Warner, the media conglomerate and former parent company of Time Warner Cable, are working together to test a new authentication system for accessing Turner Broadcasting content from TNT and TBS.

On Wednesday Comcast and Time Warner announced their new plan to provide authentication to securely distribute video online to cable subscribers. The companies highlighted the importance of allowing their viewers to access content, which they've already paid for via a cable subscription, from anywhere, anytime and on any device.

"This a very logical next step in the evolution of TV," said Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast during a press conference Wednesday in New York. "Comcast alone has had 12 billion on-demand streams. iTunes has had about 6 billion downloads. This is how consumers want to get their content."

Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner agreed. "Consumers have spoken," he said. Bewkes added that putting video online for viewers to watch anytime they want on any device will greatly expand the audience and actually provide more revenue opportunity for advertisers. He used HBO as a perfect example. He said that when the company decided to add HBO content on demand for free that viewership went up and people were able to follow more shows. He said he is willing to work with any TV provider to make the Time Warner content available elsewhere.

While it's important to give people a choice in where and when they watch something, Bewkes also noted that the most important thing is simply providing access to the content.

"There has been so much focus on broadband," he said. "But don't miss the importance of the video on demand aspect. Whether its over a set top box or broadband, it will have a dramatic increase in audience."

The French National Assembly ignored a vote last week by the European Parliament and approved its "Création et Internet" three-strikes bill on Tuesday.

The measure supported by French President Nicolas Sarkozy punishes digital pirates by suspending Internet service if they are caught illegally sharing copyrighted material. The vote comes a little more than a month after the same government body rejected the proposal.

It seems the vote by the French Assembly is in direct opposition to the European Parliament, which last week passed a measure prohibiting EU governments from terminating a user's Internet access without a court order. The European Parliament also adopted an amendment that said, "Internet access is a fundamental right such as the freedom of expression and the freedom to access information."

The bill passed in France's National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, by a narrow margin of 296 to 233. The legislation essentially creates a new government agency known as HADOPI (the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet), which will be tasked with sending notices to illegal file sharers.

The way it would work is that suspected offenders would receive two warnings about their illegal activities and on the third suspected offense, their Internet access would be cut off for anywhere from two months to a year. Users will also be put on a "three-strikes" blacklist so that they can't sign up for service from another ISP.

The legislation has proven to be quite controversial in France and throughout the world. It is considered one of the most aggressive digital antipiracy regulations out there, which has helped it win the support of the music and movie industries.

But consumer and free speech advocates have opposed the passage of such legislation, arguing that it denies accused Internet pirates the right to challenge the government's charges in court. Opponents of the legislation also fear that it will pave the way for governments to violate its citizens' personal privacy rights.

The bill had been expected to pass the General Assembly in France in early April, but Socialists, who opposed the measure, rallied at the last moment, and surprisingly defeated the measure.

It was reintroduced to the assembly in late April and was debated and discussed until the vote Tuesday.

Even though the entertainment industry for years has lobbied for more active policing of the Internet, France is one of the only countries to put together such stringent legislation. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, have not introduced strict legislation yet, but instead are encouraging partnerships between ISPs and the entertainment industry to fight piracy.

At least one major ISP in the U.S., AT&T, has already agreed to work with the music industry by sending notices to consumers suspected of illegally distributing copyrighted content. And in the U.K., ISPs have agreed to help the entertainment industry fight piracy in lieu of new legislation.

But other countries, such as Sweden are also taking a heavy handed approach to fighting digital piracy. France's strict piracy legislation comes less than a month after a Swedish court found the founders of the peer-to-peer site The Pirate Bay guilty of infringing copyright. The four defendants were each sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay 30 million Swedish kronor ($3.6 million) in damages to copyright holders. The Pirate Bay has already been mentioned as one of the sites that could be easily taken out under the new French law.

For years, digital technology and the Internet have provided a virtual buffet of digital content from which millions have feasted for free.

Whether it be downloading movies illegally found with the help of the Pirate Bay, ripping a movie rental from Netlix to a computer hard drive, republishing an unauthorized copy of a news photograph to the Web, or sharing music on peer-to-peer services, the people who create this content have begun to send a message: "no more free lunches."

Copyright owners around the globe have gone on the attack. They're backing antipiracy legislation in France and Sweden. They're lobbying Internet service providers in the United States to crack down on customers who download files illegally. They're pressuring hardware and software companies to prevent their products from being used as "pirate toolboxes." They're threatening legal action against Google and other sites that aggregate news without permission.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of the new resolve of copyright owners came on Friday, when a court in Sweden found the operators of the Pirate Bay, likely the best known hub for file sharing on the Web, guilty of violating copyright law. In a case that is sure to be appealed, the four men were sentenced to a year in jail and fined the equivalent of $3.6 million.

"There might be just a point here where the culture is changing on what's legitimate behavior online," said Mike McCurry, the former White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton and co-chairman of Arts+Labs, a collaborative group of technology and media companies. "I think perhaps something of a tipping point has been reached where people are finally saying that activity we thought was just okay or skirting around the edge has tipped over into something both dangerous, criminal, and unfair."

The outcome of all the antipiracy efforts may be that jobs are spared and investor value is preserved. It might also mean information and digital entertainment becomes more expensive and less accessible. What the content creators have yet to prove is whether these moves will make any difference. They have little to show for previous efforts.

"It's not that they might not obtain their short term aims," said Danny O'Brien, International outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for Internet users and technology companies. "But what is the long-term goal? What is the end game? You take out The Pirate Bay and people will still make copies of movies. People will continue to share music online...It's been five years since Grokster. How has that helped the music industry?"

The $3.6 million the Pirate Bay was fined is only a fraction of what copyright owners say they are losing each year as a result of copyright infringement.

(Credit: Mats Lewan/CNET)

O'Brien is referring to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that peer-to-peer file-sharing services Grokster and Streamcast could be sued for encouraging copyright infringement. The decision effectively forced Grokster out of business and set a legal precedent against peer-to-peer services. Yet, such services continue to operate and illegal file sharing, at least by most measures, has only grown.

Nonetheless, copyright owners aren't waving any white flags.

Layoffs, ISPs, and Kindle
There aren't supposed to be any free lunches, say executives from media and entertainment companies who spoke with CNET News. The tab for all that so-called free content is being picked up by stunt men, makeup artists, secretaries, sound engineers, editors, truck drivers, and lots of other people who work for media and entertainment companies, according to the executives. They maintain that at a time of massive corporate cutbacks and layoffs, media and entertainment firms have to cut a little deeper because of piracy.

So, the stakes are higher now for content creators. They say they will prevail for that reason and because they understand technology better, are marshaling more resources and enjoy more support among International lawmakers than ever before. The most recent endorsement came Friday, when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a gathering of techies in London that his government "will support the legal framework that enables the private sector to create content."

Copyright owners also point to other important, if hard-won, victories.

•  YouTube once swelled with pirated clips of movies, TV shows, and music videos. In the last year, however, the site has begun filtering out illegal content. The move came after media conglomerate Viacom filed a $1 billion copyright lawsuit and as YouTube began partnering with Hollywood in a bid to offer premium TV shows and films.

•  Amazon handed over control of the Kindle 2's text-to-speech application when the Authors Guild claimed the function violated copyright law and could cut into sales of audio books.

•  In cooperation with the film and music industries, AT&T has begun testing an escalating system of warnings or graduated response. The ISP says it would never terminate service without a court order. Apparently, not all ISPs are as squeamish (go here to see a copy of a warning letter from Charter Communications).

One important finding from AT&T's test is that the company said it sees a drop in illegal downloading from people who have received a warning. With more experience, copyright owners and ISPs will only get better at discouraging illegal file sharing, said Rick Cotton, NBC Universal's general counsel.

"What's important is all the creators of the broadband Internet be working together to reduce pirating activity," Cotton said. "What needs to be clear is that accessing copyright content illegally is simply not acceptable. We need strong messaging, in the form of technology barriers and speed bumps that make it difficult to access pirate sites. There does at some point need to be some consequence (in graduated response by ISPs). My expectation is that there will continue to be dialogue but ultimately the test is effectiveness."

The end of free?
As for the motivations of media and entertainment companies, there is perhaps one more reason for drawing a line in the sand against piracy now. So far, free hasn't turned out to be a very profitable business model.

The decimated newspaper industry, which has given away stories on the Web for years, is talking about charging for content--again. Digital music services that depended on advertising sales to support themselves, such as SpiralFrog and Ruckus have gone bust. Imeem, an online social network that focuses on music, has staggered recently and has asked financial backers for more support.

Even YouTube, with its 100 million users, has struggled to generate cash. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said last week that he expected the site to one day charge for some content. The statement is a startling revelation coming from the chief of the world's mightiest advertising company, and seems to underscore YouTube's struggles to squeeze profits out of ads alone.

This is not the first ad-market crunch the tech sector has seen. During the dot-com bust in the early part of this decade, ad-supported companies scrambled to charge for services that they once gave away free. Most of those companies disappeared.

Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School and author of the book "The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It," says it's too early for free services to be written off.

"I wouldn't say (this is) the end of free yet," Zittrain said. "There is a vibrant set of activities to occupy people's leisure time that isn't fee-for-product. Whether blogging, video making, tweeting, or interacting on social networks, the number of things to do while staring at a screen that require no monetary investment at all has climbed significantly.

"In a down economy," Zittrain continued, "one might surf for an hour rather than spend $15 at a multiplex."

Author's note: I recently asked a public relations executive at a major entertainment conglomerate why, if piracy is hurting everyone, more celebrities aren't speaking out against it. "I've got two words for you," he said. "Lars Ulrich." Apparently comedian Jack Black was willing to risk condemnation from cyber-groovies. The video above is an antipiracy message he made two years ago.

Note: This is a companion piece to the story "Has online piracy reached a tipping point?"

AT&T made news last month for acknowledging that it had begun sending warning notices to customers accused of illegal file sharing by the music industry.

Executives from the nation's largest Internet service provider said the notices were only part of a test. The company could have saved itself some trouble and just asked the advice of Charter Communications. Much of what AT&T is experimenting with, Charter has been doing for years.

AT&T said it only recently began issuing "cover letters" to customers accused of downloading unauthorized material. These cover letters accompany the cease-and-desist letters it receives from the music industry. The ISP acknowledged notifying customers the company has the right to cut off someone's service, but executives there insisted that it's only legal boilerplate. The company has no intention of suspending or terminating anyone's service because the Recording Industry Association of America has accused them of file sharing. AT&T would need a court order first.

By contrast, a Charter spokeswoman said that ISP has been sending its own warning letters--or what she called a "heads-up" letter--since 2001. Charter's notification is sent in addition to the warning letters sent by copyright owners. A music industry source told me that while the RIAA is trying to prod some ISPs to do more to combat piracy, other ISPs adopted strategies years ago to deal with illegal file sharing. Some of those programs closely resemble the kind of graduated response the music industry favors.

What this shows is that the music and film industries may not have too hard a time as they attempt to enlist ISPs in their war on copyright infringement (To see a story on whether piracy has reached a tipping point, go here).

I still haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of AT&T's test cover letter, but a reader was kind enough to supply me with a warning letter he received this month from Charter. He was accused of downloading content owned by NBC Universal.

While AT&T said the language in its cover letter about service interruption or termination had little relevance, Charter's letter doesn't mince words.

"Charter reserves the right to suspend or terminate the accounts of repeat copyright infringers," the company informed the customer in the April 4 e-mail. Later in the message, the company added: "If Charter continues to receive DMCA notices regarding your account or if you violate any other clause of Charter's Acceptable Use Policy, we will have no choice but to terminate your account."

Anita Lamont, a Charter spokeswoman, said this kind of language is industry standard.

"The warning of possible suspension/termination is required by the DMCA," Lamont wrote me. "Our DMCA notice reminds our subscribers of the requirements of our posted acceptable use policy."

She didn't, however, say whether the company has made good on the threat to terminate service.

I've included the copy of Charter's letter so customers of AT&T and other ISPs preparing to follow in its footsteps can get a look at what might be coming (Note that I've deleted identifying information).

--------

From: Charter Abuse Tracking System
XXXX@charter.net
Subject: [IP Address deleted] Notice of Copyright Infringement
To: (name removed)@yahoo.com
Date: Saturday, April 4, 2009, 10:30 AM

Dear Internet Access Subscriber:

Charter Communications ("Charter") has been notified by a copyright owner that your Internet account has been involved in the exchange of unauthorized copies of copyrighted material (music, movies, or software). We are enclosing a copy of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice that Charter received from the copyright holder.

It is possible that this activity has occurred without your permission or knowledge by an unauthorized user, a minor who may not fully understand the copyright laws, or even as a result of a computer virus. However, as a Charter Internet account owner, you can be held liable for this activity.

As a personal computer owner and a user of the Internet, we ask that you be aware of the following: Violations of federal Copyright law can result in civil and/or criminal liability, including payment of monetary damages, costs and attorneys' fees to the copyright owner. See 17 U.S.C. §§ 504-506. In addition, Charter's Acceptable Use Policy explicitly prohibits copyright infringement by Charter High-Speed Internet users. Specifically, Section 3 states:

NO COPYRIGHT OR TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT

Customer will not use, or allow others to use, the Service to send or receive, or otherwise use any information which infringes the patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets or proprietary rights of any other person or entity. This includes, but is not limited to, digitization of music, movies, photographs or other copyrighted materials or software. Customer must obtain appropriate authorization from such other person or entity prior to sending, receiving or using such materials. Customer represents and warrants that Customer is the author and copyright owner and/or authorized licensee with respect to any hosted content and Customer further represents and warrants that no hosted content violates the trademark, copyright, domain name or intellectual property rights of any third party. Charter assumes no responsibility, and Customer assumes all risks regarding the determination of whether material is in the public domain, or may otherwise be used for such purposes.

Charter is registered under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). Under the DMCA, copyright owners have the right to notify Charter if they believe that a Charter customer has infringed the copyright owner's work(s). If Charter receives a notice from a copyright owner alleging any Customer has committed copyright infringement, Charter will notify the Customer of the alleged infringement. Charter may determine that Customer is a repeat copyright infringer if Charter learns that Customer has engaged in online copyright infringement on more than one occasion. Charter reserves the right to suspend or terminate the accounts of repeat copyright infringers.

We ask that you take immediate action to remove the infringing material from your computer and stop its exchange. If Charter continues to receive DMCA notices regarding your account, or if you violate any other clause of Charter's Acceptable Use Policy, we will have no choice but to terminate your account. You may view Charter's rules and policies at http://www.charter.com/site/policies.aspx.

If you need assistance in removing the referenced infringing material, please refer to the Security Center at http://www.charter.com.

If you have any questions about this matter, please contact us at (phone number deleted). Representatives will be available to take your call Monday through Friday 8am - 8pm, and Saturday and Sunday 8am - 5pm (CST).

Sincerely,

Charter High-Speed Internet Security Team http://security.charter.com