Well, not really. There's two central problems. One is ISPs taking the side of major industry instead of their customers. It's a big "fuck you" to everyone who pays for their service.
Completely untrue. They are taking the side of what is the best business practice for them.
They should stand up for their customers and protect them, instead of selling them out to the RIAA, etc.
Why? Why should they stand up for those who are breaking the law? What kind of warped thinking is that?
Then there's this whole $35 "guilty until proven innocent" thing, which is a pretty shitty business practice.
I don't care much for that, but the fact is you get something like FIVE notices, before anything bad even begins to happen. With the first few notices, the ISP instructs you on how to tighten your network security and how to avoid accidentally downloading illegal materials.
Quite frankly, if you're busted multiple times for illegally downloading material, then you're either a moron or guilty. Either way, it's not the ISPs responsibility to deal with you.
I'm not under one of these ISPs currently, so I'm not super broken up about it. If the time comes that I do have to get my Internet from someone that is a part of this, I'll probably just get a VPN or something. Or switch entirely to private trackers...or usenet.
Or you could just not pirate content. Either way.
Thank you. They are putting their customers at risk in favor of pandering to big business.
This is what I am looking into. I don't download illegally, it is not for that.
They are not pandering to big business, they are covering their ass as well as helping to crack down on law breakers.
Not at all the same thing.
I get it, there's potential for some abuse here, but I'm just fine with ISPs taking this stance. I don't download illegally, so this isn't a blow to me, at all. Why should ISPs protect customers who break the law? That's completely ridiculous, isn't it? Yes, it's a little fucked up that you have to pay $35 to have your case reviewed if you feel you've been wrongfully accused, but that shouldn't really be an issue if you're not pirating copyrighted material.
Exactly right, dead on.
It isn't ridiculous at all. ISPs are not - or at least, should not be - instruments of the law.
Nor are they acting as such.
Their job is to provide access to the Internet, a basic right in a modern democratic society. They should be silent middlemen, not responsible for the actions of their consumers one way or another.
This is an opinion which clearly hasn't been thought out, or is clearly ignorant on the way the Internet, not to mention our legal system, works.
Either way, just no.
Instead, they've been part pressured, part willingly accompliced to becoming part of the big industry/governmental attempt to shut down the free sharing of information. This is a problem, and is directly opposed to the goals of a free, open society that exists increasingly on the Internet.
Bullshit.
I torrent files all the time, no one has ever said a word. Then again, I only torrent LEGAL files, like computer distributions or other FOSS items. You can torrent files which exist in the public domain all you want, like classic novels for example.
You're pissed because ISPs are helping their customers become accountable for breaking the law. That's just absurd.
This just sounds like people trying to justify their own (oft illegal) Internet activity.
Yup.
Regardless, ISPs have every right to control illegal activity on a service they offer.
Actually, this isn't technically the same thing as what's happening.
The ISPs aren't controlling illegal activity, they are discouraging it and potentially punishing it. Controlling would indicate packet monitoring, which I would have a much bigger issue with from the whole net neutrality concept.
What's happening here is the big media companies are roaming the torrents finding those who are participating in pirating, and they turn over IP addresses to the ISPs to take care of. That's all that's going on here. The ISP is not actively seeking anything.
What I don't like, fundamentally, is the precedent set. ISPs have made it clear who they work for.
Damn right they have.
ISPs work for themselves. They do what is in their own best interest. Shocking, I know.
In an era where SOPA, CISPA, PIPA, ACTA, and so on variants continually rear their head, it's very disturbing to know that the ISPs sit firmly on the side of the people that are trying to restrict the Internet.
Wow, you are confusing these issues quite a bit.
SOPA and PIPA WERE cases where free speech could be restricted by the GOVERNMENT. This is not at all the same thing. This is a copyright holder engaging in the online sharing of their property, and asking the ISPs to do their part to reduce this type of illegal activity.
There's a big difference between government sponsored free speech sanctioning (not to mention the dangerous precipice of due process removal) and ISPs working to protect the laws of their own volition.
Do you truly believe it's the right thing for ISPs to become the enforcement arm of corporate and governmental interests, as opposed to neutral facilitators of access to the Internet?
Except that's not what's happening, so your hyperbole, while certainly rating well on the FUD scale, happens to fall very short when confronted with reason.
But they were protecting the law by PROTECTING PRIVACY RIGHTS. Now they turn over those rights for another "law" that's probably unconstitutional in it's own right.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. I suggest you leave the conversation, and for your own sake, immediately.
