It feels dirty to agree with an ISP on something. But even the worst corporations are on the right side of something from time to time I suppose.
Internet shutoffs should require a court order. Not some emails that are “this person did a bad 🥺🥺🥺 no proof but can you please take our word for it 🥺🥺🥺🥺”
Internet shutoffs shouldn’t be a thing, outside of non-payment or legitimate abuse. If I do something illegal, they should have to sue me, not shut off my internet.
Yeah, they don’t disconnect a criminals phone service because they committed a crime and made a phone call. It makes no damned sense.
Actually, that’s been done several times over the decades. As well as banning computer access. The guy caught hacking into the fbi gets his mouse and keyboard taken away.
Only happens as a matter by court order and is a limit on the person not on the corporations. Though if found out after by the court it can be ordered terminated. And you will face further punishment.
government.They are responsible for their own tos
Piracy almost certainly violates their TOS
Maybe not a court order. But I could get behind a process similar to other utilities where you have months or warning and paperwork.
If you do something illegal, you should be arrested.
Copyright infringement lawsuits are a far cry from bomb threats or the like.
Not everything that is illegal is punishable by arrest
So you’re saying copyright infringement is on par with speeding or parking past the meter’s end? Eh, fair enough.
I was just pointing out a logical fallacy. It’s literally impossible to do the thing you said.
This is just facts, they aren’t an opinion
Did you reply to the wrong comment?
I did not
Honestly it is less severe than speeding. Copyright was an invention of the pre-digital era. Now that we all use computers, so many things we do every day are technically copyright infringement that it is absurd to even have these kinds of conversations.
Yeah, I’ve been ticketed for speeding, and that certainly doesn’t come with the threat of arrest unless I’m driving super recklessly or something (but that’s a different offense altogether).
I had to process these requests at a company I used to work for. They do send “proof” (proof in quotes because you have to believe in good faith they didn’t just make it up, which I have to believe they didn’t).
We never shut anyone off though. We worked with business exclusively and only ever sent “scary” letters. Though we had one client that was a major music venue (a very known venue that’s pretty famous) who would get these letters all the time. The irony was too much for me. I ended up calling them personally most of the time because it was too funny.
I remember getting a scary letter because I was torrenting. I thought it so funny because I had to the only person in the world only torrenting freeaoftwarr and public domain works.
Wait then what was it for?
They don’t give a shit about targeting accusations only towards people torrenting copyrighted stuff. Why would they? They have no consequences for being incorrect.
They are doing this automatically. They just grab all the magnet links they can find and target any IP they connect to, regardless of the content.
They have no consequences for being incorrect.
Which is why the DMCA shit is also bullshit.
Multiple false claims should result in you being banned from making future claims.
Add increasing penalties to that.
That’s not how it would work for us. We’d receive a report from the MPAA/RIAA that showed the torrent they were downloading, the IP address involved, if they were seeding or leeching and an affidavit saying that all the information was correct to the best of their knowledge.
The letter we sent basically was a notification that we received that letter (with a copy) and that if we received two more for the same IP (three in total) we would have to release their information to the reporting body and that they could be open to legal action. It also included some information on how to secure their network and check for viruses in case that was the cause.
In my 15 years working there, we never once released information about a client. Because this was business accounts, most clients had multiple IPs (at least a /29) and would cycle what IPs they showed up as on the public Internet to keep them from getting multiple notices on the same IP. The music venue I mentioned had an entire /24.
I’ve never gotten a scary letter, and I’ve certainly torrented my fair share of stuff, both legal and otherwise.
The trick, I think, is to not use cable. I’ve had municipal fiber, Google fiber, DSL, and small local ISP (RJ45 hookup at the wall), and never once had an issue. The last one is probably annoyed at me because I tend to submit tickets and call them within a few minutes of my service going down (happens once/month or so). It’s extra funny when they ask me to check my wifi settings on my router, and I tell them my router doesn’t have wifi (it’s a Mikrotik router, my AP is separate), and that my wifi is absolutely fine, it’s the uplink that’s busted (i.e. I can access all the stuff on my NAS).
I made a promise to myself that once I left the house, I’d never get cable. And that’s a promise I’ve kept across multiple apartments and now my house. We’re finally getting muni fiber, so I’m pretty excited.
It’s more likely you aren’t using popular freely indexable trackers on currently airing popular media.
Try torrenting a current episode of a top 10 watched show within a week of release and see how fast you get one lol.
Yeah, I generally only torrent older media (like a few years old).
I don’t pirate these days, but when I did (and was stupid about it) the emails/letters had pretty exact evidence.
They included the name of the work, my WAN IP address at the time, and the amount of data transferred (uploaded) out from it.
This was in the US and I’m unaware of how such notices work in other countries that work similarly.
That’s all they can get though they have no proof it was actually you and not someone else using your Internet, how they find out is they join the public trackers and just log everyone in it generally even without a VPN on private trackers they have no idea what you are doing
I think their goal is to tie the evidence to the ISP account, not necessarily name exactly who was pirating that work.
They’re 100% only doing this for money, but still, nice to see them in the right for once.
Sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Task failed successfully.
or achieved unsuccessfully?
i cant decide
Something something broken clock
I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.
If you disconnect them you can charge them fees
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A lot of it is the sheer bureaucracy of chasing down actual pirates and weeding them from people who just happen to be on the same IP address.
If one guy visiting an apartment block downloads a torrent from a public connection, what is ATT supposed to do? Shut down Internet to the entire building?
This is an undue burden for ISPs, even if the content isn’t living in a gray zone of legality.
… IP addresses are assigned to modems… They don’t assign IP addresses to… Cables going to buildings I guess lol but ok.
And if you’re in some fucked up place that has the entire apartment complex’s internet going to one modem, then God save your soul.
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted for this. Even with CGNAT and related technologies, each modem still has a unique MAC address at the cable/DOCSIS level (even without loading Ethernet on top).
Where you could be wrong is buildings with large networks, say an apartment building with wired Ethernet to all the units but all being routed through the same WAN(s), but even still I’d hope that the network is managed in a way that it’s not hard to tell which unit is which IP internally. Unrelated but I’d also pray that each unit is on its own VLAN for security.
There are some apartment buildings with shared Internet connections that are just open and public; It’s crappy but cheap if someone can’t afford individual connection
Personally I’d die for Ethernet straight into my unit, I had that once in a new building and it was fantastic (though you still had to pay an ISP individually), if only to avoid cable modems and the like. My current cable ISP wouldn’t provision IPv6 to their very own (old, clunky) modem so I had to go out and buy one that doesn’t care whether or not it’s provisioned.
Some apartments double nat
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this is why everyone should pirate literally anything they can, even if they don’t particularly want it.
er, with a few very gross exceptions that shouldn’t exist.
Ohh for sure, they know that if they get rid of the pirates, they’d lose half their customer base and will struggle to pay the CEOs bonus.
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Their game is just to try to make the ISPs liable; they don’t actually want it enforced. In fact, failure to enforce is the feature. They paint the ISP as complicit in the piracy then sue the ISP for hundreds of millions in damages hoping for a no-fault settlement. That’s a much better revenue stream than suing someone for 10k who can’t pay it.
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Difficult to feel sorry for an organisation whose only responsibility is to generate profit for their shareholders. If their policy happens to align with normal human ethics it is a coincidence and they will not spare a moment to consider the plight of their customers when the shoe is on the other foot. Fuck them. Long live the pirates.
Small ISPs have zero interest in enforcing piracy. They don’t want to lose the customers on their highest tiers. Comcast though, they suck
enforcing piracy
NOTICE
YOU HAVE NOT MET YOUR MONTHLY PIRACY QUOTA
YOU WILL BE TERMINATED,
THANKS.
This is actually how private trackers operate lol, I got banned from one because I forgot to torrent anything in over 3 months since I was playing a huge game during that time.
It’s becoming impossible to monitor. I have 5G Broadband Internet and I share a public IP address with everyone in my area. I look at https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com and it shows thousands of torrents that my neighbors have pulled downloaded.
Wow it actually knew 5 of the 50 torrents I downloaded recently
Didn’t find anything from me… Then again I’m using a private tracker, which should insulate me from that. (Random people knowing, the ISP probs does know… But I don’t think they care)
I didn’t find anything from me either. Since I’m using Alldebrid to download torrents. It’s a torrent cache that downloads the torrents to their own server and then you can download directly from those servers at high speed. And most of the time the files are already cached so you can download immediately.
What is this site? It feels like it’s a tool for anti-privacy copyright narcs. A domain it links to is “antitor.com.”
Especially since it specifically highlights porn in a different color, it labeled my VPN IP as “Likes Porn”.
Weird… I looked up the IP for my church group’s forum and it said the same thing.
Oh another cool site for my bookmarks.
I use proton VPN for torrenting. It doesn’t show I’ve downloaded anything. I think that means my VPN is working? 😅
The ISPs? doing something nice?? for the customers???
Shit, I must have slipped into the wrong timeline or somethingiiNet in Australia used to fight for their users’ privacy until they eventually sold out.
It’s without a doubt motivated by their own loss of revenue but a consumer friendly take is still commendable
ISPs can’t take your money if they cut off your internet
Nope, they just don’t wanna be bothered. But if it’s a win it’s a win.
It means they can fire the one guy that sends the angry letters and get rid of a printer.
Don’t wanna be bothered/Don’t wanna lose that sweet, sweet monthly
It’s less work and cost for them if they don’t have to do this.
This is capitalism 101: whatever makes the most money is what they support. It doesn’t matter who is hurt (or not hurt), or what is right/wrong. As long as they can make more money than they are losing by lawsuits, they will keep doing this. If they can avoid doing anything at all and not get sued while getting paid by customers, that’s even better.
How about this: courts can’t order ISPs to disconnect customers.
To me, that’s like ordering my driveway barricaded because I have too many traffic tickets. If I’m breaking the law, charge me with a crime or sue me. But don’t block my internet access, that’s just uncalled for.
Absolutely the correct stance, nothing dirty about it. At this point, for better and for worse, the Internet is a basic necessity. Imagine having your water turned off because you threw water balloons at your neighbour.
Not water baloons, but some companies will cut off your water if you’re sharing it with a neighbor. (especially if that neighbor had their water cut off for not paying a bill)
Garbage collection services dislike when people throw their garbage in neighbor’s cans even when the neighbor is paying for the larger can (e.g. the disposal volume being used). This has led to some garbage distribution piracy alongside recycling collection crews.
In case you wanted some cyberpunk dystopia in your cyberpunk dystopia.
Where does the cyberpunk come into play with the garbage bins?
Two ways.
The outer layer is the ad-hoc (often underground or criminal) system that serves to rectify a problem caused by the unjust rules of the legitimate system, in this case, refuse pirates who match overflow to underused capacity.
The inner layer comes from service to the community becoming punk when the mainstream becomes destructive. When recycling bandits start redistributing garbage they go from being commensal with their neighborhood (causing some noise pollution and some additional mess) to mutualist (providing a service to the neighborhood they scavenge).
I appreciate the explanation, but I don’t think I follow what that has to do with cyberpunk.
Wikipedia describes cyberpunk as “futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberware, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay”.
I understand the relation to dystopia, and even your comparison to the punk movement, but I don’t get the cyberpunk comparison, lol
Neon lights and vaporwave when you open the lid. It’s the bees knees.
If you move them wrong they start flying around the street at an ever increasing speed.
That’s Cyberpunk: 2077, not cyberpunk, lol
Wow, that’s really odd. My garbage company doesn’t care what I do with my or anyone else’s can. I can even set mine on my side of the street, and as soon as it empties, refill it and move it across the street (there’s like a 15 min gap between them), and they literally don’t care. I also overfill it fairly often, and again, they don’t care. As long as the truck can pick it up and dump it, they’re happy.
Which is absolutely ridiculous since you are paying for the water that you are sharing.
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We all know implicitly that it’s not illegal to share your water because it’s unethical. It is illegal because making it illegal protects the water company’s profits, humanity be damned.
it’s perfectly ethical, unless i’m stealing the water, they’re using the same water i’m using and that means i’m paying for it. It’s literally not a problem.
It might cut flat charges but, get fucked.
I think you misinterpreted, because you two are saying the same thing. It is ethical to share. Therefore, it has not been made illegal for being unethical (because it is ethical), it has been made illegal to protect profits.
oh i think the phrasing just confused me lmao
For sure. Even when it isn’t a law the same outcome happens when corporations get the police to enforce their policies.
How though? If you’re using extra water to share with your neighbor, and YOU still pay your water bill, they still get extra money for extra usage, right? It just comes from your wallet rather than your neighbors.
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Or Nestle asked your water utility to disconnect your service because you’re drinking free water instead of purchasing theirs. Not a direct correlation but closer.
Free water? Where do you live? Here I have to pay for that. 🤣
Well water is a thing
I’ve had those things before. But there is maintenance and power to factor in; so not entirely free.
Power yea maintenance not really been running the same pump for my house for almost 2 decades now
I mean, municipal water most places isn’t free, but for drinking water it’s effectively free.
Imagine having your water turned off because you threw water balloons at your neighbour.
gasp!
I do that ALL THE TIME!!!
I was thinking, imagine the media companies demand the power company turn off your power because you downloaded a pirated movie. Or gas stations stop selling gas to you because you speed.
This is less than interesting.
ISPs don’t want to cut off their income here. I’m certain they have a very good idea of how many of their customers, especially those paying for higher tier plans, are either getting constant DMCA requests, or have a persistent connection to a VPN service. They have a good idea of how much money they’re making from people pirating content, so this position for them is hardly surprising.
At the same time, I’d rather they fight with the copyright trolls than me. Regardless of the reason for why they’re doing it, it’s a good thing to fight for.
IMO, they shouldn’t be responsible for this because they’re not tasked with enforcing laws. They must abide by them, and they have a legal, or at least, moral obligation to report any felonies/crimes that they’re aware of (with varying degrees of obligation depending on the severity of the crime. Eg, I’m less bothered if they don’t report, say, piracy, than I would be if they don’t report CP/murder/violent crimes, etc).
If the LEO’s want a service cut off for a good reason, then let them get a court order for it. They should not be obligated by law to enforce such laws. Any enforcement should be handled by an independent organization, and be filtered through the court system as a check/balance for the whole cabal. They shouldn’t be forced to both find and enforce infractions. Reporting suspected infractions, maybe. Forwarding legal requests to customers, sure (like DMCA notices). Oblige disconnect requests from law enforcement by request (when confirmed necessary by courts in the presence of reasonable evidence), absolutely.
But having the ISPs do all that themselves with little oversight, is both a danger to their clients, to their liability, and to the public at large, mainly in the context of free speech. The ISP is just the middle man, the messenger. They don’t host the content, nor should they police it, or the access you can get to it. I’m all for collaboration in the interest of enforcing the law, but putting the entire obligation on the ISP seems foolish to me.
Cyber crimes is one area of law enforcement that I don’t think should be defunded. It may be that ACAB, but those doing the investigative work, away from public interaction (and possible abuse), are not the root of the problem there.
I dunno, just my opinion man.
I’m not sure how real companies handle this, but I can share what we did in a student organization at my university that provided internet to its members.
Not only could we monitor who was downloading a lot of data, but we also received emails from legal organizations informing us that a specific IP in our network(All members had a public IP) had downloaded copyrighted content. They would ask us to disconnect that user. These emails typically came with an XML file attached, filled with legal information and details about the content being downloaded, often including the exact torrent filename.
We built a system that would automatically parse the XML and forward the email to the user responsible. The subject line may or may not have been “Use a VPN, you idiot!” at some point.
We also maintained a “high score” list to track what was trending. The last time I checked, Rick and Morty was in the top 3, but that was a while ago.
those doing the investigative work, away from public interaction (and possible abuse), are not the root of the problem there
They’re the root of privacy problems, which is a non-trivial issue for many of us.
I want to say as an employee of an ISP I literally dealt with users who essentially couldn’t get high speed internet anymore at their address because we were the only option and their grandkids downloaded movies. This put the entire household at a grave disadvantage educationally compared to other households. It shouldn’t be a thing.
That this is even legal in the first place is insane. Digital communication is at least as vital, if not more vital that postage. Image someone is just banned form getting post delivered or he gets throttled to only once every other week…
Yep, good luck finding a job with no internet.
I’m glad I live in Australia where this doesn’t happen thanks to previous attempts by IP copyright holders (mainly US based ones) to have similar policies forced upon ISP’s here and being told by judges here that the penalties and expectations and demands made by these said IP copyright holding companies was over the top and excessive and thrown out of court……
I think the precedent set here was that downloading a copy of a movie carried the penalty of the monetary cost of obtaining the movie lehally, so its just not worth pursuing. I might be wrong about that.
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Shut down their access to computer stores and the power companies while you’re at it. Only fair. No piracy without computers or power.
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The road that we’re slowly headed down actually leads to a reality not too far from what you describe.
Computers are increasingly becoming a nested-doll situation wherein the end user is only given access to a lower privileged portion of hardware that exists within a larger supervisory system, of sorts. It will all be (and currently is) marketed as “for your security” “features” while owner control of computer systems is slowly being eroded.
