Digital Home Thoughts: ISPs Agree to Serve Up Six Strikes

"American Internet users, get ready for three strikes "six strikes." Major US Internet providers—including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable—have just signed on to a voluntary agreement with the movie and music businesses to crack down on online copyright infringers. But they will protect subscriber privacy and they won't filter or monitor their own networks for infringement. And after the sixth "strike," you won't necessarily be "out.""

The music and movie industry have had a love/hate relationship with the Internet. Well, maybe mostly hate. Since the Internets have come along, you would think that piracy is rampant and that the entertainment industry is in dire straits. In response, there have been lots of attempts to protect their revenue stream, from Digital Rights Management, to lawsuits, to online services. The latest effort to stem the tide sees a new partner, the ISP, act as a middleman. ISPs have acted as a relay before, but not in this great capacity. The measures seem much more reasonable than other attempts, like France's ill-fated "three-strikes" law, but I have worries that there is can be abuse and too open a system for mistakes. That the alerts and violations can be audited by an independant reviewer goes a long way to mitigate that concern, that there is a filing fee seems unfair. At least unless, if the reviewer finds the complaint issuer at fault, they are the ones to pay the fee.