[earthmaan1]

Will XBMC be a target ?

Beginning today, AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon have all agreed to start spying on their users.

That's right. The US's largest Internet Service Providers are implementing a new "online infringement" plan to identify and punish, with virtually no due process, users suspected of downloading copyrighted content.

After a year of back room dealing with the MPAA and RIAA, the nation's top ISPs have agreed to use the so-called "Copyright Alert System" (or "Six Strikes") to go after customers suspected of file-sharing

Following a series of escalating warnings, the plan would allow ISPs to slow down, or "throttle," the Internet connection of suspected copyright violators.

And if you want to contest the accusation? That will cost you $35.

The new plan would jeopardize open and public WIFI networks, and lead to widespread wrongful accusations for those who share a network at home, in a WIFI hot spot, or in the workplace.

Six Strikes is designed to safeguard the profits of America's wealthiest industries by tracking, targeting, and punishing internet users.

[natethomas]

I'm going to guess no? XBMC doesn't download copyrighted content, so six strikes doesn't really apply to us. Mind you, I'm no fan of the policy; I just don't think it'll affect XBMC.

[Robotica]

Even the falicitating argument is weak; XBMC is to well designed.

[Bstrdsmkr]

XBMC is perfectly safe.

Despite what the industry wants you to think, it's NOT illegal to download anything. No one has been convicted of downloading copyrighted material under US law. Those few who were convicted, were for uploading.

What is illegal under the DMCA is making a copy of a copyrighted work for non-personal use, which the courts have determined occurs when one makes their personal copy available on the internet and it is downloaded by one other person.

A few cases tried to make the claim that downloading a work constituted making another copy and therefore the downloader was also breaking the law. All of these cases so far have been dismissed based on the fact that in a one-to-one uploader to downloader situation, only one copy results and therefore no second crime has been committed.

The only possibility left is facilitating or contributory infringement. This tort requires that the foundation have both a knowledge of probable infringement, and a means of direct control or intervention. XBMC has neither.

[natethomas]

Despite what the industry wants you to think, it's NOT illegal to download anything. No one has been convicted of downloading copyrighted material under US law. Those few who were convicted, were for uploading.

This is only partially accurate. While no one has been convicted for downloading copyrighted material, that is simply because no one has ever been tried for downloading copyrighted material. The question of whether downloading copyrighted material is also copyright infringement remains untested in the courts. Until someone is sued for downloading and successfully wins the trial (and the appeal), one should never assume safety.

[davilla]

I would not want to be the one that actually as to pay for testing this theory.

[Jezz_X]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/201...downloaded
"Jammie Thomas-Rasset is set to pay $9,250 for each work she downloaded. "

A Minnesota woman, one of the last people to be individually prosecuted in the US for illegal downloading and file-sharing, faces a $220,000 bill after a federal court ruling on Tuesday.

The federal appeals court reversed a district court's decision to reduce Jammie Thomas-Rasset's owed damages to $54,000 from $1.5m. Tuesday's ruling (pdf) sets the damages at $220,000 and forbids Thomas-Rasset from making sound recordings available for distribution.

[Bstrdsmkr]

@Jezz_X, that's an unfortunate wording on the part of The Guardian. The actual court opinion is a lot to slog through, but the crime was uploading via Kazaa.

@natethomas, I concede that no tort has been set stating specifically downloading was not a crime, BUT it has been brought before the courts (3 times IIRC) and was dismissed without prejudice each time, due to there being only one copy made so there is some precedent.

In the US, we're supposed to be guaranteed innocent until proven guilty. That tenant indicates that if there's no law against it, you shouldn't be punished for it. Unfortunately, the rights of the common man have been bought by the rich

[bmtphoenix]

Firstly, CAS has virtually nothing to do with XBMC. You may as well ask if your TV is safe from your ISP coming and taking it. Just because it's a tool for viewing possibly illegally obtained content does not mean the association between a piece of software, and what boils down to a company policy, is even remotely relevant. What in the world do you think your ISP could do to XBMC, anyway?

That said, it amazes me how much attention this is getting. When I worked for Time Warner Cable three years ago, if they received a letter from the MPAA or RIAA or their lawyers, they sent letters to your home. If they received another, they put you "IN ABUSE". This meant firmware uploaded to your modem which forced a DNS redirect to a page that required you to call in and have it explained that you were dealing in illegal content. Tech Support may or may not have been able to fix it. Often, you would have to wait for the "Abuse Team" to call you back, which could take days.

Now, instead of that, you get two email warnings. To what address? What email address does your ISP have for you? In my case, I have no clue, I have no reason to communicate with my ISP via email.

Then you get a page that says "click to indicate that you understand you are doing something illegal, and/or hurting content producers/artists/puppies/whatever". Pretty much the same as putting the abuse firmware on your modem, only you don't have to wait to have it removed, you can do it with a click.

After SIX warnings in six months, they MIGHT throttle your Internet access which, according to the courts, was their right to begin with. SIX WARNINGS. After six months, the warnings reset.

To be honest, and maybe I'm being optimistic with this, I have a feeling this is the big providers attempting to get the RIAA and MPAA to leave everyone alone. This way, they can show a judge/court that they're "taking care of the problem", even though this is FAR more lenient than TWC or Comcast have been in even recent years.

[Chuck Bartowski]

With the studios now going after mobile apps that use images, will they start to issue takedowns for the images on TMDB etc? Obviously this is fan based rather than a commercial entreprise but worrying time

[Bstrdsmkr]

It's not unthinkable given their past abuses of the legal system, but these sites are SUPPOSED to be protected by the DMCA safe harbor since they're being used for critique and review

[natethomas]

In the US, we're supposed to be guaranteed innocent until proven guilty. That tenant indicates that if there's no law against it, you shouldn't be punished for it.

This is correct, but it doesn't really apply to downloading without uploading. If someone is shown to have done this and is forced to pay penalties, it'll be because the courts decided the copyright violation laws that are already in the books have been violated. The law against it is potentially already there; we just don't know if it is applicable.

[hunkyn]

I believe this is mostly for someone using P2P clients as per Wikipedia. I believe we are safe with xbmc for now

The Center for Copyright Information employs the services of MarkMonitor (often d/b/a DtecNet) to detect and monitor suspected copyright infringement activity.[7] Although MarkMonitor monitors many infringement venues, the EFF says that at this time, it appears that for purposes of the CAS, the company will only monitor peer-to-peer traffic from public BitTorrent trackers.[8]

A review of MarkMonitor's system for the CAS states that infringement is only considered detected for uploads, when MarkMonitor's BitTorrent client successfully obtains pieces of known-infringing content from a peer in the swarm.[9] The pieces are compared to pieces from an already-downloaded copy of the content, which has already been matched to content samples supplied by the copyright owners.[9]

[Bstrdsmkr]

In the US, we're supposed to be guaranteed innocent until proven guilty. That tenant indicates that if there's no law against it, you shouldn't be punished for it.

This is correct, but it doesn't really apply to downloading without uploading. If someone is shown to have done this and is forced to pay penalties, it'll be because the courts decided the copyright violation laws that are already in the books have been violated. The law against it is potentially already there; we just don't know if it is applicable.

While that is currently true, it shouldn't be.

I guess what I'm getting at is that the laws and the constitution which empowers them were intended to "let 10 guilty men go free rather than risk a convicting a single innocent man." These lobbies are fishing for a judge that will broadly interpret these laws to include whatever they want. Once they have their foot in the door, they just keep expanding. With that in mind, if a law doesn't clearly and explicitly prohibit something, there should be no room for interpretation. As a free citizen, it is your right to do anything you want as long as it is not clearly and specifically prohibited by law.