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Totally agree, I'm feed up with (and you didn't mention this part) the triple+ dipping that the movie industry pulls. $16 a head for the movie at the theater, then ~$16 for a DVD, then ~$16 for the DVD with the never before seen footage. WHAT!? I paid ~$80 for my family to see it at the theater and you didn't show us the whole thing!? And the whole CD thing I've been sayin that for decades. Is it our fault the Music industry was blind to the possibility of the internet and single sales.

"Content theft is estimated to cost the U.S. economy $58 billion, 373,000 American jobs and $16 billion in lost employee earnings every year, and to cost federal, state and local governments $2.6 billion each year in lost tax revenue."
What BS! What jobs are being lost? Where? They'll say jobs are being lost without giving a single specific instance. And the Fed is losing out on money?? Oh please! Listen, when Big Govn't can print all the green backs it wants I really don't feel any sympathy for them when they cry about not having money. Print your own and let me keep mine.
Those BS numbers came right out of the MAFIAA's orifice.

Well, there goes the Internet.

So, if the ISPs can decide to police and throttle your internet, on their own whims, what else can they do? What happens if they suddenly decide that they want to protect everyone from other 'evils'? Will Verizon start throttling porn downloaders? If the ISPs do that, though, I'm pretty sure the internet will take a good blow to the stomach, whereas this... is more like someone slamming the door on your foot. Really, really, annoying, but not going do any lasting damage. To take the metaphor further, if the person -in this case, the ISP- realizes that they can get away with something like slamming the door on your foot -in this case, policing piracy-, they might get bolder and kick you in the shins -policing other things-.

Ending the bad metaphor, I honestly don't know what to think. I'm not for the government stepping in and regulating everything, but at the same time, this is getting out of hand. ISPs are getting bolder by the day; first they throttle Netflix, then they begin putting internet caps -an idea I have mixed feelings about-, and now they want to police your internet. If someone doesn't do something soon, Big Brother isn't going be the government, it's going be your ISP.

Because seriously, who thinks it's going stop here? Once you feed the dog a little meat, it's going want more. As far as I'm concerned, this is a seriously threat for the freedom of the internet.

Now, I know there's going be some person who says, "Internet isn't a right, jerk***! The ISPs can do whatever the hell they want, because they're the ones running the lines!" Cool, cool. I can't argue that; the ISPs do run the lines, they pay the upkeep, they do all the work while we download our gigabytes of movies and games. Thing is, if the phone companies -the ISPs, actually, as the phone and internet lines run together- said that they were going tap your phonelines so that they could make sure that criminals weren't breaking the law, wouldn't you get upset? Because, seriously, in order to police pirating you have to monitor people's internet... which means you'll see other things. This is why in the olden days, when there was actually an operator who put you through to whoever's phone line, Sally the operator had dirt on everyone in town. Only instead of Sally the telephone operator it's Sally the internet pirating monitor, who sees everyone else, as well as the gigabytes of questionable content you just downloaded.

Even assuming a perfect world where ISPs didn't take this as a hint to go even further, whoever's in charge of monitoring everyone is going to be in a pretty good position of power. Don't want your church buddies to know what you downloaded last night? Well, pay up.

Assuming no Big Brother conspiracies, assuming that the ISPs don't get power hungry, assuming that the RIAA stops acting like it rules the world, this is going cause problems on a smaller scale that's going be just as annoying.

yep, it's already underway . . . (details removed)

Notice of Action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Abuse Incident Number:
NA00000
Report Date/Time:
Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:49:19 -0700

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Subscriber:

Comcast has received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works made on or over Comcast's High-Speed Internet service (the 'Service'). The copyright owner has identified the Internet Protocol ('IP') address associated with your Service account at the time as the source of the infringing works. The works identified by the copyright owner in its notification are listed below. Comcast reminds you that use of the Service (or any part of the Service) in any manner that constitutes an infringement of any copyrighted work is a violation of Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy and may result in the suspension or termination of your Service account.

If you have any questions regarding this notice, you may direct them to Comcast in writing by sending a letter or e-mail to:

Comcast Customer Security Assurance
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
1800 Bishops Gate Blvd., 3rd Floor East Wing Mount Laurel, NJ 08054 U.S.A.
Phone: (888) 565-4329
Fax: (856) 324-2940

For more information regarding Comcast's copyright infringement policy, procedures, and contact information, please read our Acceptable Use Policy by clicking on the Terms of Service link at http://www.comcast.net.

Sincerely,
Comcast Customer Security Assurance

Copyright work(s) identified in the notification of claimed infringement:

Title:
Infringement Source: BitTorrent
Initial Infringement Timestamp: 10 Jul 2011 01:45:05 GMT Recent Infringement Timestamp: 10 Jul 2011 01:45:05 GMT Infringing Filename:
Infringing File size:
Infringers IP Address:
Infringers DNS Name:
Bay ID:
Port ID:

djbrownjr, on 12 July 2011 - 11:07 AM, said:

So, to avoid such notification... respect copyright. What's so hard about that?

If you use a VPN your ISP cannot see what your downloading.

These idiotic corporations are as hard headed as teenagers but unlike teens they have no adult supervision and their funds (to buy political favors and grease palms) sometimes seems endless.

The idiots just don’t get it. The corporations are going to continue using the force of the government gun and the heavy handedness of the government courts to make the public do as they want and nothing is going to stop them short of enough of us standing up and saying ENOUGH! We are the majority, not the corporations. We could control the government if we weren’t so busy with American Idol or this weekends “game”.

While the American public has for the most part slept, watched TV and or drank its way to sleep, the corporations have been busy purchasing political capital (it’s called campaign contributions these days) so as to establish themselves as welders of government power. In this case it was quicker to get other corporations in on the potential scam then to get Congress moving faster. They have us by the you know what and they know it.

In this day and age you gotta have internet connections and they know this and they are exploiting it. What is being proposed here is no different than when any other business exploits the public because of some condition.

We have to start forcing our representatives to represent and US and not corporations who despite the SUPREME COURTS ruling are NOT persons! It’s insane how crazy everything is and yet I bet there is still far more folks worried right now about who is going to win this seasons American Idol then who care about what government and big corporations are planning next.

I’m afraid for my children; afraid that they are going to grow up in the world that was forecasted in BRAVE NEW WORLD and it will all have been possible because people cared more about that box in their living room than anything else.

AlexHumva, on 11 July 2011 - 04:32 PM, said:

You might want to get the facts, all of the facts, before going on a rant.

The ISPs will, contrary to the article, be acting as messengers contacting you on behalf of those whose have a complaint against you re. copyright infringements; they will not be looking for such activities, activities which will in fact be evidenced on the log files of servers that you access for such.

This post has been edited by deepsand: 13 July 2011 - 12:42 AM

TooMuchzk3a, on 12 July 2011 - 12:11 PM, said:

Your ISP won't be the one looking.

And, a VPN isn't going to erase record of your file requests from the logs of the servers from which you download content, logs which contain your IP Address.

The enforcement actions here will begin at the server end, with your ISP simply acting as the messenger who delivers the complaint to you.

BlueCollarCritic, on 12 July 2011 - 03:53 PM, said:

Force them to do what? Decriminalize theft?

deepsand, on 13 July 2011 - 12:48 AM, said:

Lawl, welcome to capitalism.

And I believe that the point was that Blue feels that the government has been baught out by the corporations. From the entire post, I gather Blue wants less "campaign contributions" and more government involvement to make sure that regular citizens have some power over the corporations that Blue feels take advantage of us.

This constitutes punishment without trial. I am opposed to it as I am opposed to anarchy. I'm not smart enough to have the ansawer, but I am certain this is not the answer.

TheOldTopkick, on 13 July 2011 - 03:51 PM, said:

In a sense, yes. However, given that the ToS of the ISP are part of a Contract of Adhesion, such that the context here is Contract Law, no.

So, absent any Statutory or Regulatory Law to the contrary, it's a perfectly legal procedure, one that is no different in principle from those followed in many service industries.

Razor91869, on 13 July 2011 - 08:06 AM, said:

Blue seems to be of the mistaken notion that not having an unfettered right to copy the content of others owes to acts of Congress and Big Business, when in fact such restrictions are enshrined in our US Constitution.

deepsand, on 13 July 2011 - 04:22 PM, said:

I'm glad you used the word "sense" as that seems to be what is lacking here.

TheOldTopkick, on 13 July 2011 - 07:49 PM, said:

Consider that these are Contracts of Adhesion that the end user voluntarily enters into. Where, then, is the "sense" in holding that the user has the arbitrary right to adhere only to those provisions of his liking of the moment?

Yet one more reason to leave USA & live in a Free country!!!

MLStrand56, on 14 July 2011 - 04:20 AM, said:

You're moving to Disneyland?

MLStrand56, on 14 July 2011 - 04:20 AM, said:

There is not such thing as free countries, just a country whose corruption is not as well known

This post has been edited by Razor91869: 14 July 2011 - 05:03 AM