On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 12:20 PM, david <gnome@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Rob wrote: <SNIP> >> The other guys are doing the same, but to them, cutting off families' >> Internet access based on an unproven accusation and making copyright >> infringement a criminal act (or the facilitation of possible copyright >> infringement, even if no actual copyright infringement takes place) are >> examples of things they think *are* reasonable compromises. > > Hmmm, it seems to me that if ISPs can prove copyright infringement, they're > monitoring their traffic contents, so they're no longer just common > carriers. Which means WE should be able to sue them for letting spam arrive > in our mail boxes! ;-) > > -- > David All the ISPs are doing is watching bandwidth. They're not watching content. They just 'logically assume' that there aren't too many sources of data that provide 4GB of data unless it's a movie, and if it's a movie it's copyrighted, and if it's copyrighted then it shouldn't be 'copied'. This isn't Big Brother. It's just logic. They don't need to _prove_ copyright infringement because if they don't cut someone off after determining that there is a high likelihood that the customer is transmitting copyrighted data then they potentially become liable along with the customer. And since the original agreement signed by the customer states they won't use the connection to transmit copyrighted data in any manner contrary to the local laws more power to them for doing it. As far as I've heard, at least in the U.S. they don't cut anyone off for copying one 4GB item even if it is a movie but they can watch for aggregate bandwidth. When it starts to be 200GB/month - the point where Comcast has told me they will cancel my account and cut me off completely & forever - then they are probably right if the bandwidth is coming from an 'unlikely' IP. They know where NetFlix and Hulu are streaming from, and those are legal because they are licensed. They can guess when it's coming from a file sharing website or using BitTorrent that it _probably_ isn't. A few GB from those sites probably won't result in a court appearance. 10 Terrabyte likely will. Cheers, Mark _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
