Will propose federal legislation requiring them to send a warning letter to customers if they access pirated content.
In an antipiracy panel held last Thursday before a gathering of members of the US Chamber of Commerce in Hollywood, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Los Angeles) has stated his intention to introduce legislation that would require ISPs to send a warning letter to subscribers if they access pirated material on the internet.
Berman said that he intends to introduce the bill along with a cosponsor Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) through the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property.
Apparently the legislation is intended to be part of a broader bill aimed at “strengthening” anticounterfeiting efforts and will mandate that federal agents enforce intellectual property violations by ISPs. It will also require interagency cooperation and begin the use of international attaches to provide information on antipiracy efforts.
Berman said that there would be a “phase-in period for ISPs to notify subscribers, ” and that “Initially, it would be a voluntary program,” but it’s unclear what happens to customers who continue to access pirated content after receiving an initial warning letter.
My guess is that if it does become law that users names and addresses may be formally submitted to copyright holders who would then undoubtedly pursue them for copyright infringement and a recoupment of damages incurred.
But, what makes the matter particularly troubling is that ISPs are suddenly deputized into enforcing content filtering mechanisms for which they have little expertise or competence in handling.
Furthermore, there is no effective way for ISPs to determine if content being shared is copyright-protected or not without actually downloading it to find out, or if the person sharing it has expressed permission from the copyright holder to do so as is the case with video download services like BitTorrent Inc.’s video download store.
Also, it’s also unclear if even merely just STREAMING copyrighted content without proper permission of the copyright holder will be allowed under the legislation, but judging by the popularity of sites like TVLInks and YouTube a provision covering this may just be too much for the ISPs to handle.
Considering that most ISPs are having trouble simply increasing bandwidth and network capacity due to manpower and funding shortages do we really need such a worthless and impossible diversion to drag down our networks even further?
I guess the US government really does love its losing battles .
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The congressman can go screw themselves!
This will not go anywhere. They havetried this before and the legislation didn’t pass. Once groups like the EFF find out…it will be a battle on capitol hill.
Thats the democraps make everything illegal.
Howard Berman is from Los Angeles huh? I wonder who’s contributing to HIS campaign?
@ VampyreBlade….”Thats the democraps make everything illegal.” Well the stupid republicans are not any better! So give it a rest!
@ meyou123 i have the right to my opinion just like you do.
@ VampyreBlade…Yes you have a right to your opinion but blaming one political group for the stupidity of BOTH PARTIES is stupid in itself!
The fact is that BOTH parties are responsible for the copyright laws we have now so give credit where it is due…it is NOT all the democrats fault.
The republicans are just as much to blame weather you want to admit it or not.
@ MEYOU123 I blame the government for alot of stuff cant trust any of the people in power because thats the problem they are in power and have power over our lives. point is i find democraps to be much more restrictive on our rights and lives.
At least come up with a funny name for the repugnentins if you are gonna say something about his opinion.
retardicans?
“@ MEYOU123 I blame the government for alot of stuff cant trust any of the people in power because thats the problem they are in power and have power over our lives. point is i find democraps to be much more restrictive on our rights and lives.”
@VampyreBlade…You can think what you will…but that does not make it TRUE!
The Retardicans are just as much to blame for the restrictions as the democrats are. Blaming one political party for all the anti-p2p laws the US has is crazy.
@Signa…I like “retardicans”…good choice.
meh just came up with it on the spot. sad thing is i usually agree with them in general… at least more so than the one other option.