Comcast Labels Innocent Customer a Movie Pirate
Written by Ernesto on January 30, 2009Comcast doesn’t really have a good reputation in the BitTorrent community and it’s getting worse by the day. They now have plans to cooperate with the RIAA and disconnect alleged copyright infringers. A worrisome development, especially since they have a tendency to accuse innocent customers.
As we have reported many times before, gathering evidence against copyright infringers is not an exact science. Most recently, Comcast sent out an infringement notice to an innocent subscriber because their administration was not up-to-date
Dave Satz wrote in to inform us that one of his friends was served with a DMCA takedown notice a few weeks ago. His friend, John Aprigliano, had allegedly downloaded a CAM release of “Cadillac Records”, without ever having heard of the movie. Although these takedown notices are just a formality and intended to scare the recipient, John decided to contact his ISP and ask for clarification.
After four calls to Comcast support the truth came out. The infringement notice was forwarded to the wrong person because the MAC-address of John’s old modem was still linked to his account. The Comcast techs eventually corrected the mistake, but this case yet again shows how inaccurate takedown notices can be.
Of course, this is just an exception, without any serious consequences. But what if John had lived in Ireland or New Zealand? He could have lost his Internet connection because of a mistake like this. Not to mention that if Comcast doesn’t screw up, the companies that collect the so called evidence might – it wouldn’t be the first time.
The RIAA is currently trying to get ISPs all across the world, including Comcast, on board for their “three-strikes” or “graduated response” scheme. Earlier this week ZDNet reported that AT&T and Comcast are seriously considering teaming up with the RIAA later this year to hunt down illegal filesharers. Let’s hope Comcast has fixed its administration by then.
Previously: DRM Jams the Gears of War: Crysis and GTA IV Next?
Next: Why the IFPI/Eircom Anti-Piracy Deal Sucks
59 Responses
This is a joke right? That guy didn’t get anything -.- and comcast gets noob torrenters who erally did download some shit cam release everyday. Report that if you do this to every innocent guy,
A division has formed, but in future months that division will turn into a schism as tech backward companies like Comcast attempt to cover gaping network inadequacies with band aids such as traffic management and 3-strike policies, and, in the process drive high bandwith customers to tech forward companies like Verizon.
Comcast is dead. They just haven’t realized it quite yet.
“to hunt down file sharers”
Whats next, gasing them in order to scare others from sharing the stuff they like with people they like?
Did we really reach the point where large international companies team up to “hunt down” ordinary people in order to stop them from actually communicating (which is what file sharing is, sharing information)?
The damn copyright nazis really seem to have lost it, badly. I mean, we just have to abolish the copyright system once for all, since they are now really considering spying on every email we send and on every file we send each other in order to stop us “sharing” information they proclaimed their “imaginary property”. Fsck that! I dont wanna live in a damn ultrafascist surveillance and for-profit-censorship regime.
What did our folks teach us how to prevent the next best fascist regime? Why did we fail?
Unfortunately, they (the industry, and perhaps the ISPs) would not think of this as an inherent fault of the system. Rather, they would merely try to "correct" the problem, even though it is not correctable.
If Comcast is going to work with the RIAA, then one important question is how many voters approve of this. The United States has a democratic government, and thus, the vote is supreme, and people are against it, then such things can be legislated against.
Roze
http://www.10ch.org
In actuality, it is democratic. It is a republic, and it is democratic. It is not a democracy, per se, but the government is democratic. Notice that "democratic" is an adjective, and thus it is democratic because the United States is of the quality as ascribed by the word "democratic."
Also, there is no need to worry about anything Comcast does as long as the people are against it. As I have stated already, if people are against it, then it can be legislated against.
wow, I am SO surprised. Next it will be grandma down the street
The RIAA is on such a suicide mission it's not funny.
If shit gets out of hand they're gonna have a major boycott on their ass and then it's going to be real ugly.
First they screw up the best chance they have for competing with p2p while monetizing on every play (Spotify), now they're gonna try to disconnect everybody.
It's so frustrating dealing with them and their lawyers, I hope you never have to sit down at a table with their lawyers, they're like stupid cops trying to put everything you offer as help against you.
As opposed to guilty? Piracy isn't wrong, pirates are innocent. Therefore all customers slapped as pirates are innocent of wrongdoing since it's not wrong to pirate things.
Don't accidentally double-talk yourself, TF!
since when does the stupid MAFFIA run the internet
Unfortunately since the big ISP's catch too much flack for putting limits and size caps on bandwidth after years and years of selling unlimited speeds and downloads, now they find themselves in a hole. They have to find a legal way to keep them from having to spend oodles of cash they lined their own pockets with in the good times of the internet. You're going to see them using any trick they can find to keep people from using the internet they pay for.
I use to work for a sub contractor to Comcast. We had a person on staff that would spend his day, yes his day, cleansing the Excel file of jobs that had to be done the next day so that it could be entered into our database. I have seen work orders that were created over a year before I saw them that were billed to Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Double Bubble, etc. Comcast's administration is a joke. Most of the time the equiptment turned in gets left at a residents house when they move, the new resident starts using it with out comcast transferring it into their name, or a tech uses a box he just got from a disco for a new install without it going to the warehouse for processing…..sigh.
I suppose for the ISPs, it's killing two birds with one stone. They reduce the traffic on their bandwidth saving them money AND they look good in front of the RIAA and MPAA by throttling BitTorrent. Not that this is a good thing…
The main problem is if the ISPs look good to the people or not by doing this. If the people reject this, then this can be reversed through legislation, through voting, because the United States is a democratic country, and the vote is supreme.
If the people disapprove, then they can be legislated against. The United States is a democratic country, after all, and the power of the vote is supreme.
I received a letter earlier this week, for a video game called Savage 2. I had to tell my isp that the game is free to try.
Wasted paper
Offtopic: United States is not a democratic country. It's a republic.
Ontopic: Comcast was on a losing streak and decided to take out their frustration on innocent people. It shows how ignorant they are when they can't do things legitly.
Will anyone even stand up and defend for themselves?
I can see them being too intimidated by the hassles and by the legal issues.
Hassles and legal issues of what? Defending themselves from the industry? Perhaps there ought to be an organization to offer free legal defense to everyone to whom legal action is brought against by the RIAA.
If, however, you speak of voting, there are no legal issues of voting. The RIAA cannot get you for voting for a pro-sharing representative, because there is something called the secret ballot.
You obviously don't live in the US. Lobbyists (money) are what gets a law passed or dropped and there are almost none working on behalf of We The People. It's not simply because the people are for or against it. The people are against criminalization of medical marijuana yet the laws persist. People are against the IRS taxing every god damn thing yet we still must pay an income tax. I could go on and on.
In theory the US is a Democracy, in practice and behind the curtain it's a fascist dictatorship with a bit of corporate welfaresocialism.
daronk where you useing peerguardan im wondering if it even maters anymore? :(
America does run on votes, not money. Bribery can only go so far in the United States. Look at the tobacco industry, and you will see how the United States runs on votes, not money. The United States is not Zimbabwe, nor is it China, nor is it any other place like that. It is democratic. Is there any evidence that it runs on money? If not, then all you are stating is pure speculation that has no relevance to reality. In the United States, the public opinion is indeed sovereign.
How do you think the RIAA/MPAA got their power to make laws and disconnect anyone they want from the internet?
That could only work when there is no significant opposition to it. As of now, there is no political opposition to this, none whatsoever.
The real reason why they have gotten their power is because the public has (or at least in the past) approved of what the RIAA/MPAA is doing. It is true that most people probably disapprove of the methods of the RIAA, but many people do support the illegality of the sharing of copyrighted content in the first place. According to a Gallup Poll, about 47% of people think that sharing of copyrighted content should be illegal, whereas 45% think that it should be legal. The vote (and thus, the public opinion) is indeed sovereign.
Why don't you come up with evidence that the RIAA/MPAA has had their laws passed through bribery instead of spewing these unsupported assertions?
The first time the Patriot Act was passed, it was without the attention of the public. When it came to the attention of the public, not everybody was opposed to it, which is why it did not become repealed immediately. It is definitely not a case of some tyrannical interest overcoming the public opinion.
The "war" also is not a case of tyrannical interest overcoming the public opinion. The fact is, not everybody in the United States has opposed the "war." At least parts of the public opinion has approved of the war, and more in the past.
The public opinion is sovereign, but it does not mean that "my own opinion is sovereign." Merely because you think one way, it does not mean that the public opinion is the same.
Then, what needs to happen is an advocacy campaign to turn the public opinion around. If the public opinion is not on our side, then it needs to be, because it is most important. The public opinion and the vote is final and absolute, because it is sovereign. Once the public opinion is secured, then all the bad things that the industry and the RIAA &c. has done so far, can be reversed.
peerguardian doesn't matter anymore. The blocklists don't actually block the bad guys.
Oh, shit. I hope AT&T and Comcast really do team up with the RIAA.
That way, we can watch the whole "graduated response" bullshit vanish overnight as thousands of innocent people are sent DMCA takedown notices for downloading game demos, Linux distros, and of course, a fuckton of assorted things they never even actually downloaded.
Fingers crossed, RIAA.
Come on, baby! Dig that grave faster!
Roze your repeated use of the word "Supreme" is becoming tiresome. Also, America runs on money, not votes, bribery is how the show runs out there, and in most "democratic" scenarios.
hmm, thinking about this here, and i can see it from both sides, but isn't the customer always right? and usually, if us customers dont get what we want, we go somewhere else. so if comcast wants to join hands with the RIAA, they would be signing their own contract for money loss.
seriously though… with all of the media options available these days, like digital cable, and on demand, and tivo, etc… people are still paying an arm and a leg to get access to these, so technically, everyone is still making their money… but no… as i look on other websites, i see that people can't even call someone a douchebag on a blog without the possibility of going to court over it?
freedom of speech, and keep it all free man!
Just let Comcast do what they want do. When their numbers of consumers is zero, they know why the numbers is so low ;-) xD
yep, there are plenty of other options rather than comcast, they suck anyways. 0 customers will surely teach them a lesson.
Yes, legislation can be passed to stop this, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Legislation got the US the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Also, I don't see a very large public outcry over this outside of the BitTorrent community. Most people I know in real life are staunchly against the use of BitTorrent. I'm pretty sure that ISPs are getting more pressure from the MPAA than they are from BitTorrent users. I would love it if the general pressure was the other way around, but it seems unlikely in the current climate.
so like i said before lets have the three strikes law and here's a scene that happened to me that COULD happen to you:
you pay your phone bill ( needed to get dsl ) and then they cut it off ( they say someone in area got sympatico highspeed but lets say they label me a pirate and i get my 3rd strike out i go, or as hollywood will eventually get a 1 strike law.
Then walking home before i know this i get bruttally attacked and leaving a trail a blood 500 feet, i manage to get to my home and thinking i can call an ambulance i can't , i pass out and bleed to death. Sound like fantasy. NO. This happened except i didn't die, i managed still to get internet on that line and emailed 500 miles away and thank you teksavvy i got an ambulance while it was 4 hrs late , that shows you if i had not that internet , i may have died.
Thank you bell Canada for wanting to give someone else in my area highspeed internet( that's what the bell guy said after arriving here and switching my line to a poorer speed one too ).
So when anyone here tries to justify these things remember this is whats going to happen when you have a telephone involved. SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE SO HOLLYWOOD CAN GET A DOLLAR. Now that's entertainment.
I agree, telling people to vote isn't gonna do anything. Even if every person that pirates alot of stuff starts voting and trying to pass legislations it wont do shit. First of all there aren't enough people that care and like rhf said, most of the democratic world runs on MONEY not voting. How do you think the RIAA/MPAA got their power to make laws and disconnect anyone they want from the internet? It's wery simple, they have alot of money, they didn't vote for their power, THEY BOUGHT IT.
Thats why we all carry Cell Phones. Who uses a Land Line anymore???
It is a fascist dictatorship? Are you saying that it is like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, North Korea, Zimbabwe, or any of those countries? That is ridiculous.
Look at the tobacco industry. Lobbyists are not omnipotent.
It is a fascist dictatorship? Are you saying that it is like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, North Korea, Zimbabwe, China, Burma, &c.? That is ridiculous.
Look at the tobacco industry. Lobbyists are not omnipotent.
Why don't you come up with evidence that the RIAA/MPAA has had their laws passed through bribery instead of spewing these unsupported assertions?
Try and find the paper trail of bribery.. generally it's pretty well hidden.
I'm sure stuff like the Patriot Act allows complete transparency in regards to the running of a government while in war, Ohh wait, America has been in war for a long time.
Well, even if it is so, it is only because it has escaped the public attention. After all, why is it "well hidden" in the first place? It means that it would only work if the public was unaware of it. If people are against the laws that the RIAA/MPAA has gotten passed through bribery, then they can be repealed, and no hidden bribery can oppose the public opinion.
The first time the Patriot Act was passed, it was without the attention of the public. When it came to the attention of the public, not everybody was opposed to it, which is why it did not become repealed immediately. It is definitely not a case of some tyrannical interest overcoming the public opinion.
The "war" also is not a case of tyrannical interesting overcoming the public opinion. The fact is, not everybody in the United States has opposed the "war." At least parts of the public opinion has approved of the war, and more in the past.
The first time the Patriot Act was passed, it was without the attention of the public. When it came to the attention of the public, not everybody was opposed to it, which is why it did not become repealed immediately. It is definitely not a case of some tyrannical interest overcoming the public opinion.
The "war" also is not a case of tyrannical interest overcoming the public opinion. The fact is, not everybody in the United States has opposed the "war." At least parts of the public opinion has approved of the war, and more in the past.
Mobiles ok in citys & towns. Not much good if you live in the sticks like i do. No network coverage here mate…No landline = no phone.
I brought up Tor on my linux box and the next day my ISP got a takedown notice traced to my IP that I had bittorrented some movie I never heard of. Sadly, even though it is completely legal and in widespread use, I decided to stop running Tor rather than fight the sure to continue flood of bogus notices its use generates. I'm actually pretty pissed about that too.
Agreed, although it will be difficult.
Money would be needed for such an advocacy campaign. I doubt that any of us here have the vast amounts of money to do so, whereas the RIAA &c. has tons of money. I think that, in order to have the money necessary, somebody, like myself or somebody else, should start an advocacy organization, so that everybody could donate to this organization, so that there could be enough money.
Ok, so Cadillac Records it is!
Thanks RIAA you keep giving me advice on what to get! I love you RIAA *sarcasm*
The US has a REPUBLIC government. REPUBLIC!!!. Get it right. Look it up There is a difference.
http://www.thisnation.com/question/011.html“target=”_blank”>http://http://www.thisnation.com/question/011.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
http://www.letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=is+usa+a+republi...target=”_blank”>http://www.letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=is+usa+a+...
The US has a REPUBLIC government. REPUBLIC!!!. Get it right. Look it up! There is a difference.
"Republic" is a noun. As such, a government cannot be republic, but it can be a republic. The United States is a republic. "Democratic" is an adjective. It is also a democratic form of government. It is not a democracy, but it is democratic. For a government to be democratic means for the people to be sovereign. You do not have to be so anti-dictionary, you know.
"Republic" is a noun, not an adjective. As such, a government cannot be republic, but it can be a republic. The United States is a republic. "Democratic" is an adjective. It is also a democratic form of government. It is not a democracy, but it is democratic. For a government to be democratic means for the people to be sovereign. You do not have to be so anti-dictionary, you know.
This is utter bull. It's happened to me, and I'm still paying for COMCAST internet.
They've got some stupid crud every time I try to connect to internet "If you'd like COMCAST internet, please click here for payment methods".
-_-;
Their just desperate cause they know if they dont do this, then their going to have to upgrade their networks which they dont want to do.
Deeeeo breath, there.
It is a democratic republic. The poster said nothing incorrect. Democracy, no. Democratic yes. Is this too difficult to understand?
isn't comcast committing invasion of privacy, well with as much i pay for there service i will definitely drop them if i get any letters and find a new isp and i will do the same for my whole family and friends i guess comcast is on top of the hill and the only place for them to go is down its only natural kinda like gravity lol.
isn't comcast committing invasion of privacy, well with as much i pay for there service i will definitely drop them if i get any letters and find a new isp and i will do the same for my whole family and friends i guess comcast is on top of the hill and the only place for them to go is down its only natural kinda like gravity lol.
COMCAST must be destoryed as a company. DO NOT GIVE THESE BASTARDS YOUR BUSINESS IF YOU DONT HAVE TO!
Roze I like where your coming from but you have a naive rose coloured view of how the system really works..You talk like a layman's lawyer but I think you've been reading the acceptable mainstream books..Then you regurgitate the party line.If you think of yourself as a sovereign person please explain what assumed surrender is please.And what a sovereign person has in common with the IRS.
Because some of us have no other high speed alternatives. I'm actually in the process of trying to get my building to switch over to Verizon, but it's going to be a long process, as it involves them coming in and installing fiber optic everywhere. It's hard to boycott a company when they're the only one.
I got a letter the other day from my ISP provider stating that i had a long list of copyright downloads. now i have downloaded stuff before but never by this isp and that was years ago. the funny thing is not only had i not downloaded any of this on this list but out from it ..it states 0mb/gb downloaded?
Im at a loss and only was able to laugh..but hey if im going to be blamed for something i did not do..then im start doing it why not im catching the blame anyways.
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