Under CAS, ISPs Will Slow, Suspend Repeat Infringers, ISPs Announce
Major ISPs are announcing their Copyright Alert System (CAS) implementation plans this week. They include mitigation measures -- to be delivered after multiple alerts -- that would slow Internet speed or temporarily suspend a subscribers’ Internet access, despite previous statements that the CAS would not result in users losing connectivity. The CAS, facilitated by the Center for Copyright Information, is a collaborative effort on the part of AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and copyright holders to educate and redirect subscribers who are accessing infringing content through peer-to-peer networks. Explanations company officials gave to us about their CAS implementation plans in some cases differed from what was posted on the ISPs’ websites. The system began this week, after a delay, the participants said Monday (CD Feb 26 p10).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
AT&T’s implementation is “focused on customer education rather than punishment,” said Vice President-Public Policy Brent Olson in a statement. When AT&T receives notice that a subscriber has accessed infringing content, it “forwards a copyright alert to the subscriber advising them of the allegation and educating them about online copyright infringement,” according to the company’s CAS page (http://bit.ly/15jmXjf). “If AT&T receives additional notices for a particular subscriber account, the copyright alerts will escalate, culminating in measures that may impact the customer’s high speed internet connection.” After receiving four alerts, the subscriber “will be required to take an extra step to review materials on an online portal that will educate them on the distribution of copyrighted content online,” Olson said. A company spokesman told us the mitigation measures would “impact the customer’s high speed Internet connection” only by requiring the user to visit the online education portal.
Time Warner Cable will not notify users that CAS is being rolled out, a spokesman told us. “The pool of customers that are likely to be impacted by this is relatively small,” and the consequences that come with the system are “not so severe as to cause panic” among the subscribers, he said. Notices under CAS are similar to how TWC handles instances of infringement now, he said. As customers receive alerts, they will be directed to information about what the system does and how it works, he continued. “You will get a very clear understanding of what the stages are” through the notices, he said. TWC won’t share with copyright holders any information about which users are served notices under CAS, the spokesman said. “There is no information exchange” between the company and copyright holders, he said. The other participating ISPs made similar pledges to subscribers in the lead-up to CAS implementation.
The first two notices will be delivered via email to TWC broadband subscribers, said the spokesman. TWC is not taking steps to make sure customers open the emails, but “there’s still several more levels” before the mitigating measures begin, so subscribers will have time to alter their behavior even if they miss the emails, he said. The third and fourth notices will appear as pop-up boxes when subscribers attempt to access the Internet through their browsers, he continued. The notices will “require you to acknowledge that you've been notified and agree to stop” accessing infringing content, he said.
The fifth and sixth TWC notices will block Internet access for subscribers through their browsers until they call a “special, dedicated [phone] number” and speak with a Time Warner Cable representative, said the spokesman. Upon receiving a notice in any stage of the alert system, a subscriber can file an appeal, he said. The representative later clarified that Internet access to sites “where an appeal can be filed (CCI, etc.) continues even while the screen is up."
Cablevision subscribers can challenge notices after receiving five alerts, according to the CAS alert page on the company’s Optimum Internet service site (http://bit.ly/YYiwFt). “There is no need to challenge the first set of CAS Alerts you receive” because they “are simply meant to inform you of allegedly illegal activity that you may not be aware of,” the page said. If subscribers choose to challenge the later alerts, they must do so within 14 days of receiving the alerts, the company wrote: If users choose not to appeal, “your Internet access will be temporarily suspended for 24 hours.” The website doesn’t explain what the first four alerts entail or what users should do if they want to file an appeal -- which “can be initiated from the Alert Review page at the Optimum.net Account Center” -- but have temporarily lost access to their Internet service. Cablevision had no comment.
Verizon subscribers will see reduced Internet speeds if they continue to receive alerts, according to the company’s CAS page (http://vz.to/15jkgyr). The first and second notices will be delivered via email and automatic voicemail, the telco said. The third and fourth alerts will redirect subscribers’ browsers to a site where Verizon provides “a short video about copyright law and the consequences of copyright infringement” and requires subscribers to acknowledge that they've received the alerts, the company said. It said subscribers who receive the fifth and sixth alerts -- at which point they can initiate the appeals process -- will be redirected to a site where they can file an appeal, agree to an immediate “2 or 3 day” reduction in Internet speed to 256 kbps -- “a little faster than typical dial-up speed” -- or postpone the temporary reduction for 14 days. A Verizon spokesman told us the company would only slow subscribers’ Internet speed after the sixth notice.
Comcast reassured users on its CAS page (http://bit.ly/VaxEmi) the company “will never use account termination as a mitigation measure under the CAS.” The company wrote that the alerts will consist of an “in-browser alert and email to that customer’s primary email address” that “will contain information about the content owner’s notice and may require customers to acknowledge their Acceptable Use Policy and Terms of Service obligations.” The site said subscribers who receive more than four CAS alerts will see the mitigation measure of “a persistent alert in any web browser under that account until the account holder contacts Comcast’s Customer Security Assurance professionals to discuss and help resolve the matter.” The mitigating measure pop-ups won’t “interfere with any essential services obtained over the Internet,” according to the site. Before mitigating measures are imposed, subscribers can appeal, the company said.
The first two alerts to Comcast customers will be within their browser, and the first alert can be dismissed immediately, while the second in-browser alert must be acknowledged by signing in as a comcast.net user, the operator said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/XiZBHi). It said the third and fourth alerts will “make the language about the repeated allegations of copyright infringement more pronounced and urgent” and must be acknowledged by the primary account holder.