America's "Six Strike" copyright punishment system on hold until 2013

The American Six-Strikes regime -- through which ISPs voluntarily agree to punish their customers if the entertainment industry accuses them of piracy -- has been delayed, again, to "early 2013." The Center for Copyright Information (CCI) -- which will act on the entertainment industry's behalf -- blames Hurricane Sandy for the delay.

TorrentFreak has learned that the main problem is to get all actors, including the ISPs and the American Arbitration Association, lined up to move at once. This proved to be much more difficult than anticipated.

Three of the five U.S. ISPs participating in the copyright alerts plan have revealed what mitigation measures they will take after the fourth warning.

AT&T will block users’ access to some of the most frequently websites on the Internet, until they complete a copyright course. Verizon will slow down the connection speeds of repeated pirates, and Time Warner Cable will temporarily interrupt people’s ability to browse the Internet.

It’s expected that the two remaining providers, Cablevison and Comcast, will take similar measures. None of the ISPs will permanently disconnect repeat infringers as part of the plan.

I love that AT&T will force its customers to complete copyright reeducation camps designed by the entertainment industry, and will withhold Facebook and YouTube until they pass the course and demonstrate their proficiency in parroting back Big Content's party line.

I wonder if Facebook will sue them for tortious interference.

Six Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan Delayed Till 2013 [TorrentFreak] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)

• [da_phonz]

  I’m really just about to quit the internet. Who needs this kinda crap to worry about.

• [Walker Shurlds]

  “I wonder if Facebook will sue them for tortious interference.”

  I like how we’re hoping Facebook would do something good.

• [Brian Fitzgerald]

  Government can’t regulate industry to stop poisoning the planet, but industry can twist government to take extraordinarily invasive action to protect against illegal viewing of past episodes of “Friends.”  Next we’ll all have to wear insignia pinned to our clothing to publicly stigmatize us. 

  • [ldobe]

    If the MPAA has it’s way, second time infringers will have the mark of the filmcan branded on their forehead. Third time infringers will be eaten by the sarlac

• [Nunya Bidness]

  On the positive side of things, this could be a boon for smaller ISPs or ISPs who refuse to play ball with the MAFIAA as alleged pirates look elsewhere for connectivity…

  • [That_Anonymous_Coward]

    Except for the huge swath of the country where these providers enjoy monopoly control.

• [Roger Green]

   ”ISPs voluntarily agree to punish their customers if the entertainment industry accuses them of piracy” And what if the “entertainment industry” is WRONG? Re-education courses – how very Soviet. 

• [Michael McIntyre]

  I really want to know how Big Entertainment doesn’t expect to have this crap used against them almost immediately. If accusations are all it takes to be shut down, aren’t we all going to immediately accuse these companies of violations? Even if it’s “legit” accusations, you can’t tell me someone working at some Sony office isn’t infringing right this very minute. Or, perhaps more pointedly, someone in just about any congressperson’s office? How long before we get their internet turned off under this regime? A week? Then we’ll see how long these rules last.

  • [Jardine]

    Do you really think they’d make rules that allow scum such as us to accuse upstanding citizens such as them?

• [fr4nk]

  I had a chat with God today. She told me the natural disasters would continue until the Internet is left alone.

  Your move, ISPs.

• [Thorzdad]

  Early 2013? So, this turd drops in about a month?

• [Gerald Mander]

  TIme to invest in VPN stock.

• [Finnagain]

  “and will withhold Facebook and YouTube..”

  Good! Maybe this will kill that facepants crap once and for all.

• [Cowicide]

  So a hacker doesn’t like their neighbor (or even someone much further away using long range devices)…

  Said hacker breaks into victim’s wifi router and downloads tons of content straight from the MPAA, RIAA, etc. by using a blocklist as a whitelist.

  Good to know… good to know…

  Hmmm…  will these ISP’s make exceptions for congresscritters, etc.?  [evil laugh]

• [daev]

  On the upside, imagine how many more TOR nodes we’ll have in operation…

  I also wonder if this will be as effective as AT&Ts “blocking” of The Pirate Bay a few years back, which only blocked those without the savvy to bypass their DNS by simply picking any of the number of free and open DNS services out there.

• [chris coreline]

  because a ‘three strike policy’ just wasn’t big enough for those wide, open roads. :P

• [Clifton]

  So our collective punishment regime will be delayed not because it’s wrong, not because it’s against established judicial principles, not because it’s blinkered and misguided, but rather because a bunch of the biggest corporations in America could not get their shit together to do something in a timely fashion.  I wish this were surprising.

  I once read the Austro-Hungarian empire described thus: “The government of Austria is incapable of carrying out with thoroughness either an act of justice or an act of oppression.  It sways from one side to the other.  It is a system of despotism tempered by inefficiency.”  That seems very descriptive of the system we now live under.  We have unprecedented freedom of speech and communication, thanks to technology, which the corporate technology providers would like to take away as soon as it becomes a nuisance to anyone, only they just can’t get around to it very quickly.