A number of the world’s population are considered pirates—at least by record and production companies that release the majority of creative media.
Artists and mass media giants including Colombia Records, Warner Bros., and Disney claim to have sustained financial wounds from illegal downloading.
Organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America and the Center for Copyright Information are trying to create internet “laws” that can regulate and deter illegal downloading.
One such system is the Copyright Alert System, better known by most as the “six strikes”. The system recently began implementation, and will work its way into the public eye in a matter of weeks.
Internet Search Providers like Comcast or AT&T for example, will monitor and give any information to the copyright holder to carry out punishment.
Fortunately for Georgia State students, the university will not be affected by this new policy.
Only those students who plan to continue acquiring media illegally may feel the heat.
“Libraries purchase or license all of the content we provide,” said Laura Burtle, Associate Dean, and part of Special Collections and Digital Library Services for the Georgia State library. “As I understand it, the six strikes system will be looking for illegally obtained content on peer-to-peer networks like Bit Torrent,” Burtle said.
Essentially, the CAS will curb the activities of users through the use of six strikes, divided into three subcategories.
The first two strikes are considered the education phase: After being busted, the party will be given a warning and will be shown how to obtain the data legally through itunes, or the like.
The second set of strikes are called the acknowledgement phase. In this phase, users are forced to watch a video that also attempts to hinder further downloading. An email may be sent to the violator asking to officially acknowledge that they have shared a file illegally.
The last phase is the mitigation phase. After receiving strike five and six, offenders are asked to choose between a set of minor nuances. The first will slow down the user’s internet connection speed for 48 hours to something reminiscent of dial-up connection, or allow the user to appeal the reduction through the American Arbitration Association.
An important aspect of the system is that no offense that is acknowledged is punishable by law. The violators can only be punished through the CAS.
Though the system may deter file sharing to an extent, piracy as we know it may remain largely unaffected for at least two reasons.
Firstly, the system would encourage ISPs to give private network information to the copyright holder; Something that a large ISP could potentially lose a good number of its customers over.
“What is important about this issue is this is an AGREEMENT between the ISP’s and the entertainment industry,” said David White, a Computer Information Systems major. “It is voluntary meaning they would rather appease the entertainment industry than respect a customer’s privacy and the business relationship.”
It is unlikely that any large ISP would want to reduce their number of subscriptions, especially when they are gaining no financial incentive to follow procedure with complaints.
Secondly, individuals can easily create or obtain a VPN or “Virtual Private Network” to disguise their IP address.
“If you just use it for downloading content or browsing the internet, it will almost always show up as coming from a different location,” said Alex Hunt, an employee at the Atlanta-based company Airsage and Georgia Tech graduate with a degree in computational media.
Seemingly, media publishers are trying harder than ever to punish anyone for downloading their content over the internet at no cost, no matter how numerous or undetectable those offenders may be.
