ISPs Kick Off Effort to Stop Your Illegal Downloading

Many of the biggest Internet Service Providers have a new plan to keep customers from illegal downloading, and they're rolling it out over the next few days. The "six strikes" Copyright Alert System involves six notices, sent with increasing urgency, that your ISP suspects you of peer-to-peer piracy. A Time Warner Cable rep explains the process it will use to PC Mag:

• Following each of the first two offenses, emails will be sent. Among other things, they'll include instructions for legal downloading.
• If you ignore the emails and the bad behavior continues, the next notice will be a landing page you'll see when you open your browser. You'll have to agree not to engage in illegal activity in order to surf the Web.
• If the P2P activity still continues, the next notice will be a pop-up with a number you'll have to call before Web access is restored.
• Other "mitigation measures" include Internet throttling or mandatory educational materials that must be reviewed.
• After a six-month period of no infringements, you're sent back to square one and the process starts over again with any future infringements.

Though many ISPs already warn customers who are suspected of copyright infringement, this is the first standardized approach that has been dreamed up. Participating ISPs include AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon. (More ISP stories.)