[bediger]

This is a rubbish article. It confuses "theft" with "infringement". Mostly, it calls the action of infringement an "offense", but at one point it calls it an "infraction", The article fails to say who decides if an "offense" or "infraction" occurs. Usually, conviction of a crime requires some kind of judicial activity, but other sources report that mere accusation of infringement is what counts as an "infraction".

This whole scheme is most un-American. No presumption of innocence is made, no judicial review occurs, and there is no procedure in place to redress mistakes. The RIAA is a known un-American organization, seeking to undermine basic constitutional rights like Freedom of Speech, Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, due process of law, and presumption of innocence. I call upon the ISPs in question to stop performing un-American actions, and diassociate themselves from the nearly-fascist RIAA and MPAA.

[bugsy]

That's a very interesting perspective, I hadn't thought of that, the media's coverage of this topic is so one sided and lacking detail as to be useless.

It's amazing that, unable to prove their case in court, they are resorting to deals with the ISP oligarchy to monitor and control the populace in this way.

Unanswered questions are what will qualify. Technically if I come to hacker news and someone has posted 5 out of 7 paragraphs from an AP news article in a comment, that is a copyright violation. Under the principles outlined, the poster and perhaps all the readers could end up being blacklisted from internet access, which for many people who use the internet to work would result in unemployment and homelessness. I know the response will be "don't be silly we would never do that for a small infraction" but who don't really know that at all. Criticize the wrong people in corporations or government and it's a simple matter to find someplace that you've quoted too many sentences from an article, and now your access is cut off and your dissent squelched. There is no judge to appeal the sentence to, and no proof required that the quote wasn't fair use.

This is about establishing a mechanism to control the populace and squelch dissent. Not copyright violations. Those are just the excuse.

[wmf]

I'm a big fan of due process, but a lawsuit hardly seems like the right process when someone downloads or shares a $20 movie without paying. (It's worth noting that when the MPAA sue people, the people complain that they can't afford to defend a suit, but when the MPAA try some other tactic, people complain that the courts should be used.)

[r0s]

Indeed, the whole point of these industry deals with each ISP is to circumvent the legal system.

Ungrounded claims of theft and massive losses can't face the light of legal evidence requirements.