Six-strikes US copyright punishments will harm open WiFi

You may have heard Jill Lesser, Executive Director of the Center for Copyright Information, explain that America's six-strikes copyright punishment system would not harm open WiFi. Adi Kamdar explains why Ms Lesser's totally mistaken:

Termination may not be part of the CAS, but that's not the point—the program still uses "protecting copyright" as an excuse to seriously hinder a user's online experience. For example, CAS involves not just "education" but also "Mitigation Measures," such as slowing down Internet speeds to 256 kbps for days—rendering your connection all but unusable in today's era of videochats and Netflix.

Lesser doesn't think that's a problem. As she told the radio show On The Media: "The reduction of speed, which one or more of the ISPs will be using as a mitigation measure, is first of all only 48 hours, which is far from termination."

But that's 48 hours of lower productivity and limited communication across the globe, based on nothing more than a mere allegation of copyright infringement.

Don't Be Fooled: "Six Strikes" Will Undoubtedly Harm Open Wireless

• [Xof]

  If copyright holders think someone has infringed their rights, they can sue them.

  That’s what we have courts for.

  This is insane.

  • [oasisob1]

    But courts are expensive and time-consuming and bothersome. Plus all that legal stuff. It’s much faster and easier and cooler to make agreements with other corporations.

  • [fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

    The disgusting thing about courts is that they embody (and on rare occasions stoop so far as to practice) the theory that disputants are equal before the law.

    That sort of nonsense just won’t do.

• [Jeremiah Cornelius]

  All open WiFi should be coupled with TOR. It would be configuration-free to the users of the service.

  Why isn’t this type of AP a raspberry Pi project for DL? Or a common OpenWRT variant?

• [fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

  It would probably be our civic duty as well as entertaining…I, um, mean bad and wicked and naughty, to ensure that Ms. Lesser’s home connection is never without copyright complaints… The consequences are so mild and reasonable that she’d probably enjoy it.

  • [That_Anonymous_Coward]

    For bonus points get the whole board of CCI.

    • [fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

      Given that this mechanism is likely on the fast-track to mass scale abuse (just like DMCA takedowns), it really does seem uncharitable not to spread the love as widely as possible.

      There are hundreds, thousands, of jackboots-in-suits who are complicit in the workaday scheming of the CCI and its vile collaborators. Warm up the dox and let the complaints flow!

      • [That_Anonymous_Coward]

        Just like the DMCA process, I doubt that any ISP will offer a way for regular people to submit complaints.  Only corporations can be infringed, and seek to stop evil doers…

• [crenquis]

  Don’t worry about copyright trolls killing open WiFi…
  Patent trolls, Innovatio, will take care of open WiFi before one has a chance for six strikes.

• [blissfulight]

  What simple countermeasures can a small business employ to make sure they don’t get ‘caught’ by the ISPs for infringing activity?  

  • [crenquis]

    It is possible to set up a wireless router to use TOR (The Onion Router), however, I don’t think that there are any user-friendly methods yet and most of the OpenWRT + TOR projects are in alpha/beta stage.  Just do a search for:  opnenwrt tor
    There was an OnionBox router project that was working towards a hardware turnkey solution, but I haven’t seen any news about it for at least a year.

• [Zachary Horst]

  Stuff like this makes me want to start pirating stuff.

  • [That_Anonymous_Coward]

    You won’t need to.  The company doing the detection for them also sends out DMCA notices for other customers… like HBO.  They reported several pages on HBO.com serving pirated content and demanded Google remove them… I’m sure their system is well tuned.
    http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-wants-google-to-censor-hbo-com-130203/

    • [fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

      Collateral damage never killed anybody important…

• [steckFACE]

  Funny thing about the OTM portrayal is that after you got past the sixth strike- you are left alone?!  Once everyone experiences being warned, getting educated and then 48 hours of reduced-speed internet, then what? 6-strikes seems like a speed bump….
  http://www.onthemedia.org/2013/feb/01/copyright-alert-system-and-six-strikes/

  • [That_Anonymous_Coward]

    It is what they are not saying that is important.
    The record of strikes is kept attached to your ISP records, and will be provided to the **AA’s by court order.  They will use the “evidence” of those 6 strikes to sue people, in a very showy public trial.
    In a civil case, the burden of proof is more likely than not… and having 6 black marks against you from this fine upstanding group should show the court your obviously a criminal who needs to be punished.

• [bill_mcgonigle]

  This would hurt public WiFi and yet it’s being supported by broadband providers who would like to sell more residential lines and cell phone companies who would like to charge for me 3/4G data?  You don’t say.

  BTW, IPv6 would solve this and it’s not being deployed by those same providers.

• [Brendon J. Wilson]

  There is a very simple response to these schemes: organize online to report anyone who supports these laws, rules, provisions, or whatever they’re called for copyright infringement. Multiple times.

  If there’s no penalty for making false or unsubstantiated copyright infringement claims, then that would seem to be an apt solution that will ensure people who support these schemes quickly change their opinion.