Extortion against users of non "six strikes" ISP's

[viking60]

The six strikes and you are out is a protection system for the Music industry to avoid illegal downloading of copyrighted material. And obviously more protect worthy than privacy.

This is voluntary system for the ISP's although they are getting very "motivated" by the authorities because they can do what the government never would be able to pass in the shape of a law.

In the shape of a law the privacy issues need to be addressed..

Among the ISP's participating in the six strike before you are banned from the internet you will find:
AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon

But they have a problem:
Not every ISP is participating in this program - so they had to get creative to ensure control over the internet.
Warner Brothers came up with the brilliant idea of sending warnings to everybody that uses those other ISP's and they are simply presuming that the users there are downloading illegal material.

So they send the warnings and they also send you the fine. So you should not get comfortable with using ISP's like Charter, CenturyLink and Cox .

They do not use strike but the presumption of guilt is clear:

“Your ISP has forwarded you this notice. This is not spam. Your ISP account has been used to download, upload or offer for upload copyrighted content in a manner that infringes on the rights of the copyright owner. Your ISP service could be suspended if this matter is not resolved. You could be liable for up to $150,000 per infringement in civil penalties,” the notices begin.

What follows next is an offer of cash settlement to make any nasty legal proceedings go away.

“If you click on the link below and login to the Rightscorp, Inc. automated settlement system, for $20 per infringement, you will receive a legal release from the copyright owner,” the notice adds.

There is no evidence of the people receiving this actually have done anything wrong and when confronted with this Warner Broters state:

“The notices give consumers an opportunity to settle the identified infringement for a very nominal sum of $20 per title infringed–not as a measure of damage, but as a concrete reminder that our content has value and as a discouragement of future unauthorized activity.”

Warner Brothers have absolutely no idea who the infringer is so everybody simply gets the fine.

Some people are scared enough to pay - It is not clear if that constitutes an admission of guilt or simple fear.

Guilty until proven innocent -indeed!

A case for the EFF?

[rolf]

This is concerning and not too fantastic but a little more evidence is needed.

I followed the link in your graphic along to the Reddit thread and I think there is still some controversy about this claim. To be sure, as a simple magazine reader, I didn't do an exhaustive search.

At this point, however, the last comment from OP at Reddit is a little suspicious:

It's a very long email. I'm not about to composite screenshots of the whole thing, and I don't know where I could post it without making a gigantic wall of text on here.

[viking60]

That is my source. So I cannot tell you much more.
If it is true then it is hopeless. That industry must be inspired by the wild west movies.

[dedanna1029]

They all are here, viking.

How about we get further confirmation, another source, from one of rolf's favs?
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Warn ... ned-124546 - they picked up TorrentFreak's story. I'm betting others will, too, and we will get down to the original source.

From back when the "policy" was implemented, More info from ArsTechnica, and The Daily Dot.