Entertainment industry and ISPs set up ‘Graduated Response’ plan to combat piracy

Private and public approaches to online copyright enforcement are often quite different. Some governments seize the domain names of any site they believe to be engaged in infringement, others turn a blind eye to illicit file-sharing.

The mechanism preferred by the big recording and movie studios in the United States is the so-called ‘graduated response’ scheme, whereby Internet users are punished for infringing behaviour.

Some of America’s largest Internet Service Providers -including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon- are close to an agreement with filmstudio's and record labels (MPAA and RIAA) to set up a framework of measures to deal with errant subscribers.

The ISPs and the entertainment sector intend to combat piracy as follows:

- Copyrights-holders track infringing Internet users and send notices to ISPs

- Upon notice, ISPs send warnings, called “Copyright Alerts”, to subscribers

- If subscribers fail to improve their behaviour, further warnings will be issued

It is expected ISPs will agree to sanction subscribers if they ignore their warnings. However, unlike the legislative sanctions that are now in place in the UK, experts believe the controversial “third strike”, i.e complete termination of the subscriber’s account- will not be required by the entertainment sector. Currently there is no mention of temporary suspensions either; Announcing such sanctions could scare away the cooperating ISPs customers.

Likely sanctions could be throttling a subscriber’s connection through to limiting web browsing, or providing access to only a limited amount of websites. Other more soft measures include copyright-awareness programs.

The agreements between the MPAA, RIAA and ISPs in the United States are completely voluntary and a good example of self regulation and private enforcement of IP rights. The ISPs will amend their Terms of Service to accommodate such agreements.

In March, during the House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet, it became increasingly clear that the US government would be backing voluntary agreements to deal with the subscriber end of infringement, rather than the legislative change approach favored for dealing with file-sharing and streaming websites.

“Voluntary cooperative solutions are a priority focus and we believe that, in combination with law enforcement action, voluntary actions by the private sector have the potential to dramatically reduce online infringement and change the enforcement paradigm,” said U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel.

The costs of the ‘graduated response’ will be shared between the entertainment industries and ISPs, which means that regular Internet subscribers are likely to be the sponsor of this enforcement approach.

References: TorrentFreak, CNet: here and here