BitTorrent Users Seek Compensation from Comcast
Written by Ernesto on July 23, 2008Comcast is facing a nationwide class action lawsuit for cutting off the BitTorrent traffic of their subscribers. The lawsuit aims to stop the misleading advertising used by Comcast, and to compensate BitTorrent users for the disruption to their service.
August last year we reported - based on findings from network expert Robb Topolski - that Comcast actively disconnected BitTorrent users. Comcast initially denied our allegations, even though we had proof to back up these claims, and they continued to do so for months. Now, a year later, there is no doubt that Comcast offered a degraded service to BitTorrent users, and they now face a nationwide class action lawsuit (doc).
“Comcast surreptitiously installed receiver packets to keep people from using file-sharing programs when it promised it wouldn’t,” Alyson Foster, an associate at the law firm Gilbert Randolph alleges. “Of course the competition is fierce in telecommunications, but they were trying to get an unfair leg up.”
Robb Topolski, who is now the plaintiff in the nationwide class action lawsuit against Comcast, told TorrentFreak at the time: “We have had two Comcast techs confirm Sandvine in use, but neither confirmed or denied its connection with the RST interference. For me, seeding is possible. I can reach my upload speed limit, but there sure is a lot of interference. Since your article came out, I too have received many reports of seeding being impossible. I’m not sure if it’s regional, or what!”
These reports however, were soon picked up by the mainstream press, and eventually led to an investigation by the FCC. Two weeks ago, the FCC announced that it will order Comcast to stop interfering with BitTorrent traffic. FCC chairman said that Comcast slows down BitTorrent users independent of the amount of traffic they use, and that the company failed to communicate their network management practices to their consumers.
It is now up to the federal court to decide if Comcast’s BitTorrent users deserve to be compensated, and whether the company need to stop their misleading advertisements. Foster said the amount of the damages has yet to be estimated, but the alleged damages are expected to exceed $5 million.
Previously: Does BuckCherry Think The BitTorrent Community is Stupid?
Next: ISPs To Send “Hundreds of Thousands” of File-Sharing Warnings
71 Responses
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Something tells me the courts aren’t going to compensate file sharers…
@ Johnny Neurotic - There are legitimate businesses using bittorrent (not just “file sharers”). The courts might have to rule in favor of those affected.
Something tells me you are wrong. If those who sue can prove content shared was legal, they can win. Plus the FCC called Comcasts tactics illegal. This is a win for file-sharers, and I’ll bet the suit will win as well.
Finally the FCC does something right.
i hate comcast and america, fucking ruining every country. hopefully america will hit a depression it cannot get out of and will die
nope . this has nothing to do with p2p or file sharers . this is just a pure simple business crime .
what comcsast did is illegal and will have to pay for they crime
“Receiver packets”? Ok, she’s a lawyer; I’ll cut her a little slack on the techno-mumble-jumble.
#4
you sound like a 12 year old grow up.
P.S. no one care what the hell we do over here until some a-hole such as yourself opens their trap.
How do we claim our reward?
The precedent set in this case will allow for other ISP’s to be sued as secretative bit throttling begins to become illegal.
The idea that only 5 million dollars is enough compensation is a little bit hilarious. There should be major fines for the sort of fraud that was perpetrated by Comcast, as well as full refunds for internet services that were not what the customers were promised. Every single customer should be given a full refund for the period of time in which Comcast was actively committing fraud against them, AS WELL as a compensatory fee for wasting their customers time. Afterall, if their customers had been properly informed of the nature of the service they were pruchasing, they may have selected another ISP. This should be something like $400/year/customer + wasted time compensation + a consumer fraud charge (business crime, like @4 said). Of course, mass payouts like that never happen. 5 million to Comcast is like a gram of coke to Columbia. If all it costs Comcast is 5 million dollars to commit fraud in place of updating their infrastructure, than clearly they will pick $5 million every time. Even a telecommunications CEO can do that cost analysis.
The main thing to remember is that these people have been caught red handed with their pants down.. now to see if they will get away with it or (hopefully) pay a huge fine via a class action suit.
A couple of hundred million would be great.. but then i’m looking at this from a biased point of view. ;-)
Basically a large enough sum so that it will make others scared to ever touch these waters again and a large enough sum to teach (the giant) Comcast a lesson they will never forget.
Cheers!
CJ
http://www.ezee.se
#4
+1
and #7, dude, he got a point, why always USA should start doing same shit ?
F*ckin anti piracy shit started from USA and now they are trying to open their branch in other countries.
They are F**king growing very fast and i am very sure they will sue others also, same like they are doing in USA.
I JUST HATE ANTI PIRACY COMPANIES AND THE USA DUMB WRONG ACTIONS !
THE USA DUMB GOV SHOULD GROW UP ! ! !
I don’t exactly see the courts taking the side of torrents users to the point of compensation but I think it’ll knock ISPs off abit in throttling torrent traffic… hopefully anyways.
I have Comcast and cannot wait until this goes through if it in fact does go through. I’ve noticed quite a drop in my bit torrent traffic speed, but in my area Comcast has a monopoly and there aren’t any real alternatives for highs-peed internet access.
That being said… I would just like to point out #10 “Mr. Afghanistan”… really? I mean I’m not sure if you comprehend the topic or if you are stereotypically and/or jokingly making fun of “foreigners”… or perhaps your just that incompetent with the English language and the grand example of truths in stereotypes… either way your retardedom made my day.
Seeing how the idea that file sharing is the root of all evil has been spread throughout the U.S., I highly doubt we’ll receive compensation. We’ll win the case and nothing else.
The United States has certainly paved the way for battling copyright infringement (I’m pro-filesharing however, don’t get me wrong) but other countries have also thrown in their bids to fight alongside the USA. Canada? Sweden? Ireland? Don’t you guys read any of the articles that TorrentFreak posts or do you just click right to the forum and start complaining about the USA?
What Comcast did was deplorable however, and as one commenter said I think they should be forced to reimburse their customers the entire length of time in which they paid for a service they did not receive, as well as a fine for failure to reveal the true nature of their internet service.
As for proof of legitimate use of Bittorrent, http://www.ubuntu.com should be enough, not to mention all the other uses companies may use.
Oh, and Blizzard (you know, the guys working on Starcraft II?) uses a miniaturized Bittorrent client to distribute their preview videos.
I lawl at you #11.
As a Comcast user, I like the idea of their card being pulled. The $5million doesn’t really matter so long as they are made an example of. An example that shows these big companies that they can’t toy with their users like this. Some common decency and respect would go a long way.
@”The idea that only 5 million dollars is enough compensation is a little bit hilarious.”
$5 million is simply the minimum amount that must be in controversy to get federal jurisdiction — it’s obviously a minimum, as the damages here are huge.
@4 You suck donkey dick.
has newtorrents been shut down and shud rlslog be worried
???????
As a comcast subscriber I would love to be compensated for the last year or so of service due to bandwidth throttling. But if comcast were to pay each of their customers ~$550 would they still be able to do business? In reality if the government could stop comcast from bandwidth throttling I would be happy.
Good luck to them. About time someone stood up to these corp scumbags, gave them a taste of the their own legal medicine. Take ‘em to the effing cleaners!
How much money does Rob stand to make?
I hope they stick it to comcast and they have to pay legal costs, pay somebody to mail out notices of reimbursements to all their customers, pay somebody to sort and respond to replies, pay somebody to mail the reimbursements, pay somebody to deal with the bad PR, the CEO should be terminated with prejudice, terminate senior IT management, stop using outsourcers for phone support, and try to make a quality product instead of basing your business model on the fear potential legal issues.
P.S.
Xbox Live Marketplace puts OnDemand to shame…Comcast’s days are numbered.
5 million.. thats it? Why cant we make up numbers like the industrys do?
I pick… 5 billion… what its just couple more zeros.
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