Your ISP is the new Internet Police!

Posted on 09. Jul, 2011 by nmejias [archives]

Five of the biggest Internet Services Providers are joining forces in an effort to decelerate and possibly cut off internet access to people who are accused of “Copyright infringement”.

After three years, an agreement has been finalized where AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and Cablevision finally announced that they will be monitoring the internet traffic of their customers for instances of copyright violations. This effort will otherwise be known as the “Protect IP Act”.

The way traffic police will enforce this new Act will be by what’s called a six-strike system. Essentially, after six strikes you will be sent to internet prison as opposed to the three strikes that real law enforcement gives you before revoking your freedom “privilege”.  That said, after your six strikes are up the ISP will reduce the subscriber’s internet speed down to a sluggish crawl in addition to redirecting your service to a so called educational web page about infringement. This Act is backed by the Recording Industry Association of America as well as the Motion Picture Association of America.

90 lawyers have determined this act to be unconstitutional and have written an open letter to Congress along with several professors and IP experts. Click here to read the open letter.

Not to sound contradicting, I’m all for protecting the intellectual property of all developers alike, but on the same token if a program, movie or music isn’t “crack” proof,  someone can (and always will) find a way to get their hands on all this content illegally. Now, I’m not condoning piracy of any kind but people do have the right to view, upload or download what they want from the internet as long as they are a paid subscriber like everyone else. The ISP’s should not be siding with these associations; instead, they should be defending its subscribers as opposed to claiming their place in hypocrisy.

We will continue to track this and update you as soon as any updates become available.

Let us know what your thoughts are by commenting below. Share your feelings, whether you are pro or against this act.

(*The opinions of this post do not reflect those of Everglades Technologies.)

Posted on 09. Jul, 2011 by nmejias[archives]