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U.S. Government Anti-Piracy System Delayed To Later This Year

We reported back in February on a plan being implemented by the Center for Copyright Information and major ISPs to stop the rampant problem of file-sharing over BitTorrent. Back then, it was announced...
U.S. Government Anti-Piracy System Delayed To Later This Year
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  • We reported back in February on a plan being implemented by the Center for Copyright Information and major ISPs to stop the rampant problem of file-sharing over BitTorrent. Back then, it was announced that the plan would go into effect on July 1 of this year. It would appear that the original date is going to be missed.

    TorrentFreak is reporting that the CCI told them that the July 1 date was not set in stone and that the date could slip. The problem seems to be stemming from the fact that not all the ISPs are on board yet. The six-strikes plan currently being implemented by the CCI and ISPs is going to take a long time to actively implement. There’s a lot of different things to consider with such a plan especially keeping it consumer friendly as the CCI claims the plan will be.

    The six-strikes plan will see a user found pirating content being sent a warning by their ISP. The warnings will escalate with stricter punishments for subsequent offenses. It’s more about educating consumers on legal alternatives than flat out punishing users. Although, the ISPs do have the power to throttle Internet speeds after a number of offenses. The CCI claims that the ISPs will not be able to completely restrict access, but I wouldn’t take their word for it.

    The CCI also said that they have found a partner to monitor BitTorrent swarms for signs of piracy. They did not say who the partner was, but TorrentFreak speculates that the delay could be due to this partner. As has been proven time and time again, IP addresses are not an accurate method of finding out the physical address of a person. Since BitTorrent users are only identifiable through IP addresses, they need to find a method that doesn’t target legitimate users.

    I think that the current plan being implemented by the CCI is about the best we’ll get if the RIAA and MPAA must have their way. As long as the CCI makes sure to protect the consumer by not taking away their access to the Internet. I think that a warning is going to be enough to sway most people to legal alternatives, but hardcore pirates have their own way of evading detection. We’ll have to see if the partner that the CCI has hired will be able to detect those of us who encrypt our torrents through proxies.

    The six-strike plan should be implemented by the end of the year at the very least. Of course, the CCI said the same thing last year as well and they missed that date. It’s up in the air right now if the CCI and ISPs actually have the reach to monitor the Internet on such a massive scale. I’m very interested to see how they implement such a plan, but their unwillingness to discuss details makes me not very confident in their ability to deliver.

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