These efforts are part of the Copyright Alert System, an anti-piracy plan that aims to educate the public. Through a series of warnings suspected pirates are informed that their connections are being used to share copyrighted material without permission, and told where they can find legal alternatives.

During the first ten months of the program more than more than 1.3 million anti-piracy alerts were sent out. That was just a ramp up phase though. This year the number of alerts will grow significantly.

“The program doubles in size this year,” says Jill Lesser, Executive Director of the overseeing Center for Copyright Information (CCI).

Lesser joined a panel at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum where the Copyright Alert System was the main topic of discussion. While the media has focused a lot on the punishment side, Lesser notes that the main goal is to change people’s norms and regain their respect for copyright.

“The real goal here is to shift social norms and behavior. And to almost rejuvenate the notion of the value of copyright that existed in the world of books and vinyl records,” Lesser said.

The notifications are a “slap on the wrist” according to Lesser, but one which is paired with information explaining where people can get content legally.

In addition to sending more notices, the CCI will also consider adding more copyright holders and ISPs to the mix. Thus far the software and book industries have been left out, for example, and the same is true for smaller Internet providers.

“We’ve had lots of requests from content owners in other industries and ISPs to join, and how we do that is I think going to be a question for the year coming up,” Lesser noted.

Also present at the panel was Professor Chris Sprigman, who noted that the piracy problem is often exaggerated by copyright holders. Among other things, he gave various examples of how creative output has grown in recent years.

“This problem has been blown up into something it’s not. Do I like piracy? Not particularly. Do I think it’s a threat to our creative economy? Not in any area that I’ve seen,” Sprigman noted.

According to the professor the Copyright Alert System is very mild and incredible easy to evade, which is a good thing in his book.

The professor believes that it’s targeted at casual pirates, telling them that they are being watched. This may cause some to sign up for a VPN or proxy, but others may in fact change their behavior in the long run.

“Do I think that this is a solution to the piracy problem. No. But I think this is a way of reducing the size of it over time, possibly changing social norms over time. That could be productive. Not perfect but an admirable attempt,” Sprigman said.

Just how effective this attempt will be at changing people’s piracy habits is something that has yet to be seen.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Through a series of warnings suspected pirates are informed that their connections are being used to share copyrighted material without permission, and told where they can find legal alternatives.

These efforts are part of the Copyright Alert System which is headed by the Center for Copyright Information (CCI). The goal of this voluntary partnership is to educate the public and point alleged pirates to legal alternatives.

While it’s known that the costs of the program are split between the copyright holders and Internet providers, CCI has been reluctant to share any financial details. Luckily the IRS provides some insight on this front.

TorrentFreak obtained the most recent tax filing of the six-strikes outfit which covers the company’s operations between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013. The document reveals that the program cost nearly $3 million during that period.

To put this figure in perspective, the CCI previously reported that 1.3 million notices were sent out during the first 10 months. This means that the cost per notice translates to roughly $2, which is rather high.

Looking at how the money is spent we see that the only paid employee, CCI Executive Director Jill Lesser, received $320,000 in compensation. Another $350,000 went to Lesser’s consulting firm, JAL Consulting, which was hired as an independent contractor.

The RIAA’s former lobbying firm Stroz Friedberg received $420,000 for the independent expert analysis of the evidence gathering technology behind the project. After we uncovered the RIAA ties CCI later hired a second independent expert, but the results of this do-over have yet to be published.

The largest independent contractor is the Glover Park Group, who handle CCI’s communication. They received more than $680,000 over the reported period. American Arbitration, who handle the appeals of people who claim to be wrongly accused, was paid $245,000 for its services.

It’s worth noting that the costs for the Internet providers are higher than the amount they pay to the CCI. The ISPs also spend money on the technical setup that’s required to handle the Copyright Alerts as well as extra customer support.

It will be interesting to see how these costs develop over the years. CCI previously announced that more Copyright Alerts would be sent out this year, so it’s expected that the average of $2 per warning will eventually reduce.

Whether the copyright holders will ever be able to recoup their investments remains to be seen.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Copyright Alert System’s main goal is to educate the public. People are informed that their connections are being used to share copyrighted material without permission, and told where they can find legal alternatives.

These alerts start out friendly in tone, but repeat infringers face a temporary disconnection from the Internet or other mitigation measures.

According to a report released today by the Center for Copyright Information (CCI which oversees the program, the Copyright Alert System has had a significant effect. For the first time the group has published actual numbers, covering the first ten months of the program ending December last year.

As can be seen in the table below, 722,820 account holders received a first strike or copyright alert. Of this group, nearly 30% were caught again, generating a second alert. A total of 60,477 subscribers were particularly persistent and reached the mitigation phase after their fifth alert, which is 8% of everyone who received at least one warning.

Around 1.3 million notices were sent out during the first 10 months, a number that will double in the coming year according to the report.

It is relatively hard to interpret these numbers, but the repeat warning percentage of 30% is quite high, especially when one takes into account that people who received their first alert during the last month had little time to generate a second one. In addition, the detection rate is relatively low, not to mention subscribers’ use of anonymizing tools.

It appears that U.S. pirates are relatively persistent. In France, for example, only 9% of all the warned copyright infringers received two warnings, and that was after two full years. Also, only 0.029% of the French got a third strike.

While these “strikes” programs have their differences, the high number of second warnings in the U.S. stands out. One of the issues that may play a role here is that some people don’t read the emails that come in at their ISP address.

The CCI is nonetheless convinced that copyright alerts are able to deter pirates, some at least.

“We are encouraged by the initial data from the Copyright Alert System’s first 10 months suggesting that the program has the potential to move the needle in deterring copyright infringement,” CCI’s Jill Lesser said commenting on the results.

“Our initial research into consumer attitudes – along with what we have seen in our own data – shows that consumers do respond to this kind of educational system that alerts them to infringing activity on their account and helps them find the content they want easily and legally,” Lesser adds.

Another figure of interest is the number of appeals. After three or four alerts subscribers have the option to appeal the evidence at the American Arbitration Association. Only 0.27% of the eligible subscribers did so, which translates into a few hundred people.

The most often cited reason to appeal was “unauthorized use” of the subscriber’s account. According to the report there were just 47 successful challenges decided in favor of the accused subscriber, which is 18% of all appeals.

Overall, the participating ISPs and copyright holders are all positive about the results so far. According to the RIAA’s Steve Marks the program is a respectful and effective way to deal with the piracy problem.

“We are proud of the program’s accomplishments and delighted by our successful partnership with the ISP community. This report confirms that the CAS is working – it’s reliable, respectful of consumers, and an effective way to let them know about all the legitimate alternatives in the marketplace,” Marks says.

Despite the enthusiasm, whether the program has been effective enough to put a real dent in local piracy rates has yet to be seen.

Last year we reported that instead of kicking their download habit, many people took measures to prevent themselves from being monitored. In addition, we observed that U.S. traffic to The Pirate Bay did not decline after the system was implemented.

In any case, it’s good to see that the first set of data is now available to the public. It will be interesting to see how the current trends develop over time.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Copyright Alert System’s main goal is to educate the public. People are informed that their connections are being used to share copyrighted material without permission, and told where they can find legal alternatives.

These alerts start out friendly in tone, but repeat infringers face a temporary disconnection from the Internet or other mitigation measures.

The program has not yet revealed how many people have been warned thus far or how many have been punished. Data obtained by TF earlier this month showed that Comcast had sent out 625,000 alerts to its subscribers.

Today it’s a year since the Copyright Alert System officially rolled out, so it’s time to look back at what happened over recent months.

What stands out most is the lack of news. The Center for Copyright Information (CCI), which oversees the program, has issued no press releases over the past 12 months, and nor have any of the participating parties.

The only time CCI hit the mainstream news is when it lost its company status temporarily, and when it was criticized for its efforts to teach copyright classes at kindergartens. None of these issues were directly related to the Copyright Alert program.

The big question that has to be answered somewhere in the future is how effective the six-strikes scheme is. The ultimate goal of the program is to reduce online piracy, but thus far there has been no clear indication that this is happening.

On the contrary, recent research shows that these type of anti-piracy efforts are rather unsuccessful. This is confirmed by data provided by The Pirate Bay, whose growth in U.S. traffic continued after the system went into effect.

Similarly, there have been no reports indicating an increase in movie or music industry revenues that can be linked to the introduction of the Copyright Alert System.

The only industry that clearly profited from the new anti-piracy measures are the providers of anonymity services. This suggests that many people prefer to hide what they are sharing, instead of kicking their piracy habit.

The above suggests that the Copyright Alert System may not be as effective as the copyright holders had hoped. In a few weeks CCI is expected to release more details on the program’s results, so we might know more then.

Aside from analyzing the effectiveness of the program, CCI is also looking to include other copyright holders and ISPs. No official announcements have yet been made on this front.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The anti-piracy measure is part of the “six strikes” Copyright Alert System, a partnership between five major ISPs and copyright holders. Those who are “caught” receive an email with details on the file that was allegedly shared, and customers who continue to pirate face a variety of mitigation measures, including bandwidth limitations.

Thus far the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), which oversees the program, has released no details on the volume of alerts sent out by ISPs. However, based on information from several sources we can now report that Comcast has sent out more than 625,000 warnings since the system went into effect.

The total 625,000 represents roughly 3% of all Comcast subscriber accounts and an average of nearly 2,000 emails per day. The number of affected customers is believed to be lower though, as some accounts have received multiple warnings.

The information further shows that the number of issued warnings increased slightly over the year. This makes sense as the ISPs wanted to start slow, not knowing what response to expect from subscribers.

At this point it is still unknown what percentage of Comcast customers have received multiple warnings, or how many reached the mitigation stage. The Internet providers are not allowed to share this data in public without permission from the majority of CCI’s Executive Committee.

TorrentFreak asked Comcast to verify our findings, but the Internet provider would not confirm nor deny that it sent out 625,000 alerts.

“We have no official, authorized information to announce at this time,” a Comcast spokesperson said.

The 625,000 number applies to Comcast alone, and the total number of copyright alerts is believed to run into the millions. Comcast is the ISP with the most BitTorrent users in the United States, so it’s expected that the other providers have sent out less warnings.

Part of Comcast’s 1st Copyright Alert

TorrentFreak also reached out to the CCI who did not comment on the number of alerts that were sent out by Comcast. The group told us, however, that they are happy with the progress made so far and are looking forward to the upcoming one-year anniversary of the launch of the Copyright Alert System.

“During this initial period, we have been pleased with the way the system is working and have, on a regular basis, been observing the system and reviewing its progress and effectiveness,” a CCI spokesperson told us.

For those who received warnings last February, the one year anniversary is good news. Under the Copyright Alerts System all “strikes” will expire and reset 12 months after the last alert was received.

The CCI told TF that they are still evaluating the system and will release more details about its scope and effectiveness in the months to come.

“We are in the process now of working with our partners and Advisory Board members to evaluate the first-year of the Copyright Alert System and anticipate sharing ­our observations as soon as they are complete.”

Besides the sheer volume of alerts, CCI will look at a variety of factors to determine the effectiveness of the program. This includes the proportion of subscribers of each ISP who ceased receiving alerts at each step, and the number of P2P Online Infringements copyright holders detected per month.

The number of warnings Comcast has sent to its customers thus far is significant. However, whether this has put a dent in local piracy rates has yet to be seen.

Last year we reported that instead of kicking their download habit, many people took measures to prevent being monitored. In addition, we observed that U.S. traffic to The Pirate Bay did not decline after the system was implemented.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The parties founded the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) which is incorporated as a non-profit company of the same name in Delaware.

TorrentFreak obtained the most recent tax filing of the six-strikes outfit which covered the first eight months of the company’s operations to June 30, 2012.

During this time the ISPs and copyright holders paid a total of $1,377,633 in membership dues, which means that it costs around $2 million per year to keep the company afloat.

The $2 million figure makes sense since the RIAA previously mentioned in its tax filing that it spent $250,000 in CCI membership dues up until March 2012. This would cover half of the $500,000 it would owe per year.

The CCI tax filing further shows that Executive Director Jill Lesser is the only key employee, and that she earned a very modest $43,750 during the first eight months. Looking more closely, we see that Lesser indirectly earns a bit more as $193,750 was paid to her consulting firm JAL Consulting.

The filing further shows that the six-strikes outfit paid $144,093 to their PR firm Glover Park Group, $125,691 for Resource Global’s consulting services, as well as $102,928 in legal fees.

All in all there aren’t too many surprises in the tax filing, although it’s worth knowing how much the six-strikes copyright alert system costs.

It’s not known whether the $2 million in membership dues for the first year is a fixed amount, so it may fluctuate from year to year. Also, it’s worth noting that the costs above only apply to the CCI organization. The copyright holders and ISPs incur extra costs when they track down infringers and process the notices.

In other words, copyright holders and ISPs are likely to spend double or triple the previously mentioned $2 million on the entire six-strikes system.

Now that the first accounts are in we encourage the CCI to also share some data on how many people have received a copyright alert to date. But whatever that number is, for now the copyright alerts have failed to make a dent in traffic to file-sharing sites.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Initially copyright lobbyists opted to embed these “x-strikes” initiatives into law, as France did with Hadopi. However, more recently there has been a bigger push for voluntary initiatives.

In the U.S., for example, copyright holders and Internet providers launched the six-strikes Copyright Alert scheme earlier this year, and UK copyright holders want the same to happen across the pond.

The upside for the copyright holders and ISPs is that there’s no interference from the government. However, this also means that there is very little oversight, which can turn out negatively for consumers in the long run.

To safeguard the interests of the public the Internet Society (ISOC) has published a set of principles which all voluntary anti-piracy measures should adhere to. The group, which is one of the leading players in creating Internet related standards, education, and policy, hopes that initiatives such as the Copyright Alert System will adhere to these guidelines.

“We strongly believe that ALL voluntary mechanisms should employ accountable and transparent practices, including the ability of users to have access to information and to receive clear notifications in advance, the existence of clear and proportionate enforcement policies and, the assurance of protecting users’ privacy,” ISOC policy advisor Konstantinos Komaitis tells TorrentFreak.

ISOC believes that voluntary anti-piracy schemes should be in the best interests of consumers, and not merely a convenient anti-piracy tool for copyright holders.

“Ultimately, voluntary based initiatives should serve the public and its interests. They should not be used as a back door for achieving goals not otherwise achieved through other, more traditional regulatory means,” Komaitis says.

The U.S. six strikes Copyright Alert scheme says its main goal is to educate the public, which appears to be in line with ISOC’s principles. However, the Internet Society notes that the educational messages should ideally come from objective and unbiased parties rather than the copyright holders themselves.

“If education is part of such programs, the Internet Society believes that it should be limited to providing unbiased information and empowering users to better understand the scope and rationale of copyright law,” Komaitis tells us.

“Copyright law is complex — it includes rights but those rights are further subject to limitations and exceptions. Messages sent to users should address all these aspects of copyright law.”

While the Internet Society hasn’t carried out any detailed reviews yet, it’s not certain that the educational messages put forward by the U.S. system are truly objective.

“Now, are the current participants in the Copyright Alert System able to provide such information? Perhaps. But, if we truly wish voluntary initiatives, including ones on copyright, to stand the test of time and if we want them to instill trust, then it is important that any such messages derive from trusted third parties, like academia,” Komaitis says.

“Such trusted parties, being not part of the system’s original design, can ensure a certain degree of credibility, impartiality and confidence to the intended outcomes of the system,” he adds.

Whether the Copyright Alert System will adopt ISOC’s principles or not, the critique appears to be partially justified. As we’ve previously pointed out, the educational messages that ISPs send out are far from objective, with some warning about all sorts of doom and gloom users of P2P software are subjecting themselves to.

On the transparency side there is also plenty of room for improvement. Thus far the U.S. system has not published any progress reports or statistics and none of the ISPs has published their educational messages online so they can be reviewed by the public and copyright experts.

To the defense of the Copyright Alert System, the group’s Advisory Board does include public rights advocates including Jerry Berman, the Chairman of the Internet Education Foundation and founder of the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Gigi Sohn, co-founder of Public Knowledge. Unfortunately, the Advisory Board has little control over what the educational notices state, and other the transparency side they can do little more than making recommendations.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Copyright Alert System’s main goal is to educate the public. That is, informing people that their connection is being used to share copyrighted material without permission, and pointing them to legal alternatives.

While repeat infringers face so-called mitigation measures, the copyright holders and ISPs have made it very clear that no one will permanently lose their Internet access. Nevertheless, AT&T is currently using its Copyright Alert emails to warn accused pirates that account termination is an option.

TorrentFreak obtained a copy of AT&T’s Copyright Alert (posted in full below) which warns that those who share copyrighted files may lose their account. Worryingly, this threat comes before the official mitigation measures are mentioned.

“Using your Internet service to infringe copyrights is illegal and a violation of the AT&T Internet Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy, which apply to all users of your account, and could result in mitigation measures including limitation of Internet access or even suspension or termination,” AT&T writes.

The sentence above points to a footnote clarifying that a termination is AT&T policy as required by the DMCA.

“Pursuant to Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, AT&T’s policy is to terminate services to repeat infringers under appropriate circumstances,” the footnote reads.

The key part here is “appropriate circumstances,” which the Internet provider doesn’t elaborate on.

Several years ago AT&T stated that it would only disconnect repeat infringers if the company was ordered to do so by a court, unlike other service providers such as YouTube and many file-hosting services who terminate accounts on their own.

The issue is a gray area, since the termination section of the DMCA is not clear on whether service providers have to terminate accounts themselves, or if a court order is required.

TorrentFreak contacted AT&T to ask which circumstances could expose a subscriber to losing his or her Internet access but we have yet to receive a response.

If it wanted to, AT&T could certainly identify persistent pirates as the six-strikes scheme requires the company to keep a database of infringing accounts. The scheme further requires ISPs to save this information in case the MPAA, RIAA or other copyright holders decide they need to access it.

So, it is not unthinkable that account terminations could follow, although this would require the copyright holders to obtain a court order or subpoena.

While AT&T’s “alert” doesn’t cross any lines, technically speaking, for the general public the mention of possible account terminations can be rather confusing. It would have been more appropriate to explain under what circumstances subscribers may lose Internet access, while making clear that this is unrelated to the alert they received.

A redacted copy of the Copyright Alert being sent out by AT&T is detailed below.

—

Copyright Infringement Alert

Dear (Primary Account Holder),

We are sending you this alert as part of our participation in the Copyright Alert Program — an industry-wide initiative intended to help users understand their rights and responsibilities in the distribution of copyrighted content online.

Digital content owners routinely monitor file-sharing networks to determine if copyrighted movies and music are being distributed illegally over the Internet. Through the Copyright Alert System, we’ve recently received a notice from a movie studio, record company, television studio or other company that owns copyrighted material that your AT&T Internet account was used in connection with possible infringement of their copyright protected materials.

Your account was identified by its IP address. However, in keeping with the AT&T Privacy Policy, we have not released your name or personal information, and we will not do so except as required by a lawful request for records. But at the request of the content owner, we are sending this alert — which applies to all users of your account — so that the issue may be resolved without further action.

A copy of the original notice can be found at att.com/copyright-infringement, but summary information is available at the end of this email.

What is Copyright Infringement?

Copyright protection gives creators of original intellectual property (such as music, movies, videos, books, artwork, and images) the exclusive right to that work — including control over reproduction, distribution, adaptation, performance, or financial benefit. If you or any other user(s) of your account copy, reproduce, adapt, or distribute copyrighted material without authorization, you are infringing those rights.

Using your Internet service to infringe copyrights is illegal and a violation of the AT&T Internet Terms of Service (TOS) and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), which apply to all users of your account, and could result in mitigation measures including limitation of Internet access or even suspension or termination.*

How Does this Affect Me?

Through the Copyright Alert Program, users are given an opportunity to understand and change behavior that may be resulting in Copyright Alerts. However, if they receive multiple Copyright Alerts, they may encounter corrective action — or mitigation measures — which may limit or inhibit Internet access.

No action will be taken at this point and we’ll let you know when mitigation measures are pending, should any be necessary. At that point, if you wish, you may request an Independent Review which provides an opportunity to challenge this or any other Copyright Alert before any mitigation measure is implemented. (Be sure to preserve any records or information that could be used to show that the activity was non-infringing.)

Other Helpful Information

It is possible that the infringement notice is the result of activity through a peer-to-peer (P2P) program that may be on your computer. These programs can pose issues, so it is important for you to understand what they are and the risks of using them.

You can find information on P2P programs and how to remove them, through the Center for Copyright Information at www.copyrightinformation.org

There are many ways to legally enjoy protected television programs, movies, and music. You can find information on these methods at www.copyrightinformation.org/a-better-way-to-find-movies-tv-music/

What Do I Need to Do?

• Please visit att.com/copyright-infringement to learn more about copyrights, our policies, and the Copyright Alert System.
• Visit the Center for Copyright Information website at copyrightinformation.org for additional information on the industry-wide Copyright Alert Program, as well as information on Peer-to-Peer programs, and more.
• Check to make sure that the activity of all users of your account is in compliance with copyright laws, the AT&T Internet Terms of Service, and Acceptable Use Policy.

Taking the above action should help you to resolve the issue.

Sincerely,
Your AT&T Internet Service Customer Care Team

_{*Pursuant to Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, AT&T’s policy is to terminate services to repeat infringers under appropriate circumstances.}

Important Note: This email contains links to various websites. You may copy and paste the URL(s) into your browser rather than clicking directly on the link.
Copyright Notice

–Summary–
For a copy of the original notice, please go to att.com/copyright-infringement

Notice ID: XXXXXX
Content Owner: MPAA Search and Notify
Contact: Administrator
NA
(+1) 818-XXX-XXXX
XXXXXX@mpaa.org
Content Title: EXPENDABLES 2, THE
File Name: The.Expendables.2.2012.iNTERNAL.720p.BluRay.x264-AVSHD [PublicHD]
IP Address: XXXXXX
Port: 39815
File Type: P2P
Timestamp: XXXXXX

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The results of this evaluation, the most elaborate that has been published to date, was published this week in a 61-page article. Talking to TorrentFreak, Giblin says that the goal of the paper was to evaluate the effectiveness of graduated response schemes on three measures that are closely aligned with the purpose of copyright law.

What’s the evidence that these policies reduce infringement? What’s the evidence that they increase the size of the legitimate market? What evidence is there to show that they encourage the creation and dissemination of a wide range of content?

The paper shows that the graduated response schemes fail on all accounts.

“Rightsholders make big claims that graduated responses are ‘successful’ and ‘effective’ to argue for their continued adoption, but the evidence doesn’t back them up. The paper finds little to no evidence that any form of graduated response reduces infringement or increases the size of the legitimate market,” Giblin tells TorrentFreak.

The paper mentions, for example, that all of the studies that claim to have found a reduction in P2P usage are biased towards copyright holders and not peer-reviewed. In addition, they consistently ignore that people may have switched to other forms of piracy, through streaming websites and cyberlockers.

Similarly, a study suggesting that iTunes sales went up in France after Hadopi was announced, is criticized as the effect may very well be explained by third factors such as the surge in iPhone sales. The results are further put into doubt as revenues in the French music industry as a whole decreased, while there was a clear uptick in nine of the top 20 markets over the same period.

The third measure of effectiveness, whether the “strike” schemes improve access to and the creation of content, doesn’t pass the test either.

“Regarding the third aim, it finds that France is the only jurisdiction to really require rightholders to provide greater access to content in exchange for their new enforcement rights. However, it finds that many existing graduated responses have structural biases in favour of so-called ‘Big Content’,” Giblin tells us.

Giblin says that not all copyright holders are treated equally under the graduated response schemes. The major music labels and movie companies often have more influence, if smaller parties are allowed to participate at all.

Despite this, the major industry players may not see an increase in production either, since there is no solid evidence that fewer people are pirating.

“In reality graduated responses are unlikely to actually result in greater production even of that type because they don’t actually reduce infringement or increase the size of legitimate markets; but this demonstrates a level of structural capture in the lawmaking process that is deeply troubling,” Giblin says.

On the upside Giblin notes that the movie and music industries are breaking revenue records year after year. However, there’s no evidence any of these are the result of graduated response schemes.

In fact, the expensive anti-piracy policies may be a losing strategy which policy makers have to reconsider.

“International policymakers considering adoption need to carefully consider the policy aims they wish to achieve, and evaluate whether a graduated response would actually help them to do so. They cannot simply accept rightholders’ claims of ‘success’ or ‘effectiveness’ at face value,” Giblin says.

“Regulators who already have graduated responses should also do a cost/benefit analysis in light of the evidence, and decide whether it’s desirable to keep them,” she adds.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Copyright Alert System’s main goal is to educate the public. People are informed that their connection is being used to share copyrighted material without permission, and told where they can find legal alternatives.

These alerts start out friendly, but repeat infringers face a temporary disconnection from the Internet, or another mitigation measure.

The program has not yet shared how many people have been warned thus far or how many have been punished. Since these statistics are not available we decided to look at another set of data to evaluate the effectiveness of the copyright alerts.

Ideally, the warnings should stop people from downloading copyrighted content through sites such as The Pirate Bay, resulting in a drop in visitors. However, half a year has passed since the introduction of the six-strikes scheme, and U.S Pirate Bay traffic appears to be unaffected.

The Pirate Bay shared its U.S. traffic statistics with TorrentFreak and the graph below shows how it developed since early 2011. The y-axis starts at an arbitrary point (we were asked not to disclose the full numbers) but it provides plenty of insights nonetheless.

One of the first data points that stands out is the huge spike in traffic during March this year, the first full month after the Copyright Alert System started. Instead of a decline in traffic, The Pirate Bay nearly broke a record number of page views that month, only trailing behind September 2012.

Compared to March 2012, the increase in page views is 31%, and compared to March 2011 this goes up to 113%.

Not pictured in the graph but well worth mentioning, is that February 25 was at that point the best day in terms of traffic for 2013. Perhaps not a coincidence, as this was the day the Copyright Alert System began.

Perhaps all the talk about piracy in the mainstream press piqued the interest of new users?

After the big jump during March this year there was a slight drop in traffic, but the number of page views generated by U.S. visitors was still higher than last year. We should note that the growth rate in 2013 has been slower compared to the year before, but the 2012 pattern is an exception in the bigger picture most likely resulting from the Megaupload shutdown.

So as not to rely on one data source, TorrentFreak also asked ExtraTorrent to share some details on their United States traffic. One of the site’s operators informed us that there are no significant changes in the percentage of U.S. visitors, which floats around 15 percent.

Only time will tell how the number of U.S visits to torrent sites will develop over time. In any case, it is safe to conclude that the six-strikes scheme has thus far failed to encourage a clear decline in Pirate Bay traffic. If anything, it caused a temporary bump in visitors.

Contrary to the above, in 2011 the French three-strikes law caused a 29% decrease in visits to P2P “pirate” sites. Why “six-strikes” has not caused a dent in Pirate Bay’s traffic is hard to explain without further details. It could be that the number of notices is still relatively low, or perhaps pirates are harder to “educate” than expected.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.