Four more large Internet service providers told the US Supreme Court this week that ISPs shouldn’t be forced to aggressively police copyright infringement on broadband networks.
While the ISPs worry about financial liability from lawsuits filed by major record labels and other copyright holders, they also argue that mass terminations of Internet users accused of piracy “would harm innocent people by depriving households, schools, hospitals, and businesses of Internet access.” The legal question presented by the case “is exceptionally important to the future of the Internet,” they wrote in a brief filed with the Supreme Court on Monday.
I like the end result that ISPs are pushing back on this, but don’t mistake this for altruism on their part.
Their businesses make money selling internet service. Were they to support cutting off those accused of piracy, they would be losing paying customers. Further, the business processes and support needed for this to function would be massively expensive and complicated. They’d have to hired teams of people and write whole new software applications for maintaining databases of banned users, customer service staff to address and resolve disputes, and so much more.
Lastly, as soon as all of that process would be in place to ban users for piracy accusations, then the next requests would come in for ban criteria in a classic slippery slope:
- pornography
- discussions of drugs
- discussions of politics the party in power doesn’t like
- speaking out against the state
- communication about assembling
- discussion on how to emigrate
All the machinery would be in place once the very first ban is approved.
Plus, you aren’t disconnecting a person, but a whole family or business.
And since many areas in the US only have one provider, you force that family to cancel all streaming services they might have. It’s a lose-lose-lose situation.
I think a big problem we don’t want to address is now that we’re so interconnected, internet access is a necessity that should be classified as a utility. You can’t just cut off someone’s electricity without notification or process because they did something bad with it and it should apply here too
Not if they get their universal digital ID system in place. It is the wet dream of tyrants of all kinds.
I think it is also the user they disconnect for piracy tend to pay more. They tend to be more premium customers also why should they enforce what happens on their lines. It is an illegal search and seizure. Let the government get a warrant prove something is illegal then the ISP can disconnect them.
I agree with all this, but I think it is all to say: ISPs support Net Neutrality when it behooves them.
Sony can’t have your electricity cut off if you pirate. Because electricity is a utility.
ISPs want it both ways. They want the legal protections of a utility without the obligations.
The solution is to give them the legal protection they want by declaring them a utility.
Those moments when you can’t decide if someone’s username means they’re a science nerd or a Venture Bros. fan.
Me_irl:
Who in their right Minds would want to be a nerd but not a venture brothers fan?
I’m not certain but there’s a high probability that that Venn diagram is just a circle
I wonder if would you get your electricity cut off if you plugged in a 750kW industrial oil drill in your backyard
The 200A main breaker on most homes would trip a little above 50kW. Could you even start up 1000hp without 3 phase?
The people who sell electricity are surprisingly happy to sell you electricity. If you happen to do something horribly wrong and don’t burn your house down, an electrician will be happy to do the repairs. If you have 200 Amp service and draw the full 200 all year long, the most significant reaction would probably be getting a personalized Christmas card.
The headline should read:
Despite best efforts and all odds, ISPs find themselves on the right side of history.
Only because it would hurt their bottom line.
Funny how we can only win when it’s corporations fighting each other.
Bottom line or not there are ways that ISP’s could mitigate the loss that would benefit their bottom like while hurting the consumer.
Example: 1000 users are now nor able to pay or use the internet because of Piracy. ISP says: oh we had 2000 users now we have 1000 easy we will just double the cost of internet on those 1000 users.
ISP’s are like any other company. Pointing it out doesn’t mean it is negative. They are a business ruin their business model and it impacts everyone. I am not saying you are wrong. I just think your comment tries to view this stance in a negative light in the context and something being a business with a bottom line doest not instantly make something negative or make something negative not worth fighting for.
Mitigating the loss isn’t the point.
Pirates account for some of the most significant internet users. Pirates generally buy higher tier plans, and actually use them. These are high value clients to the ISP.
Most households have maybe a handful of people, let’s say, 4 on average, where each can be doing around one thing on the internet at any given time. Some of the highest bandwidth activities that they can legally engage in, aside from bulk downloads (games, files, etc), is video streaming. Most 4K video services are streaming at around 25-40Mbps, across four people, that’s 100-160mbps. Accounting for overhead, most households don’t require more than 200mbps.
These are small fry users for the ISP, since presently 200mbps is very middle-of-the-road for available speeds in most places.
Pirates are usually in the 500+ Mbps plans whenever they’re made available, usually at a significant premium for the speed, and for the unlimited bandwidth that they need for their consumption. They’re the prosumers that see the value in the extra speed and cost… And there’s a LOT of them. Whether it’s casual piracy, like watching licensed content for free on some ad-riddled shady site from overseas, to full on data warehouse pirates who download terabytes of data every month… There’s a large number of users that pirate content of all sorts.
ISPs know this, they see the copyright claim notices, and they know how much of their userbase is going to vaporize if something like this passes.
You think it’s maybe half? That they should just increase pricing to make up for it? Yeah, they did the math, if that was the problem, they wouldn’t care, nor spend the money to fight it.
The fact that they’re fighting against this should be extremely telling that this kind of legislation would significantly impact the business. They would lose a huge portion of their clients. They would need to overhaul the business to stay afloat, if they can survive it at all.
You’re comment is reductive and short sighted. You don’t seem to realize what their actions actually mean, or at least, what they imply. ISPs are not fighting for us out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re not charities. They’re profit mongering business people who only care about the bottom line. So if they’re going to bat against the MPAA/RIAA for something that will benefit their clients who are doing things that are clearly illegal, what does that say about how this will affect their bottom line.
IMO, if this goes through, then we’re going to see more than a few ISPs go chapter 11.
That’s not how pricing works. They already have the price they think makes them the most money. Raising prices means losing customers to competition, netting a loss.
So they would just lose 1000 customers and not raise the price because that would mean an even higher loss.
It’s different, of course when including that all ISPs would be hit with this. One can only speculate what will happen. All those pirates will want alternative ISPs, probably paying extra for privacy. The rest will stay in a dying market where competition for the remaining customers would be fierce, probably with lower prices.
If someone is using municipal water in their meth lab, the whole city block shouldn’t have their water shut off
If someone is using meth in prison, the whole prison should be shut down.
If internet companies want to make an argument like that, then internet should be treated as a utility.
If internet companies want to make an argument like that, theninternet should be treated as a utility.
Not everyday i agree with ISPs but here we are. Guilty of and accused of are two very different things. Innocent until proven guilty.
Hell, I don’t even want to ban users guilty of piracy. Oh no! Sony and it’s BILLIONS of dollars will surely be affected by pirating their dvd of a movie! Heavens to betsy!
You joke but that’s how Sony feels when you buy a used DVD… They just can’t admit it publicly
They must HATE me…There’s a thrift shop just up the street from me. I bought Deadpool on DVD/Bluray combo pack. Still sealed new from factory, for $2.50.
I buy lots of DVDs there. My sisters say my collection is rediculous. She means it in a bad way, like I need to get rid of some stuff. But hell, when it’s $2.50, why NOT buy like 20 movies in an afternoon? And why NOT do that same thing several times a year? Although I will admit I’m running out of room…help! My apartment is filled with DVDs, and I can’t see the walls anymore!
Not for potato supreme. I’m sure labels and sony bought vacations for those sub human coup supporting shits
Never dehumanize fascists or fascist-sympathizers (redundant but ok), it’s always important to remember that bad faith actors or their stooges are human and cannot be entirely eliminated from society, which is why people that fight for positive change have to set the rules such that bad faith actors’ actions are either quickly recognized and mitigated, or have society structured such that even those motivated solely by unempathetic selfishness can only achieve status by masking and contributing positively anyway.
I am not familiar with that, I’m guessing potato supreme is a username or something?
Probably a delicious baked potato dish. Not sure whether cheesy potatoes really care if you’re guilty of piracy, they just want to be eaten.
