6 strike and your out...

[Dubh Aingeal]

Major U.S. Internet providers — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable — have just signed on to a voluntary agreement with the movie and music businesses to crack down on online copyright infringers. But they will protect subscriber privacy and they won't filter or monitor their own networks for infringement. And after the sixth 'strike,' you won't necessarily be 'out.'

As such approaches go, this one sounds fairly sane, and ISPs certainly claim the rights to take such actions in their terms of service. The stated goal is to provide enough "education" that the punishment stick can stay in the shed, but there's no avoiding the fact that the "mitigation measures" are the result of private, unverified accusations not vetted by a judiciary. Depending on your view of Internet access—is it a human right as some in the UN think?—such private countermeasures on infringement may look problematic.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Major U.S. Internet providers — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable — have just signed on to a voluntary agreement with the movie and music businesses to crack down on online copyright infringers. But they will protect subscriber privacy and they won't filter or monitor their own networks for infringement. And after the sixth 'strike,' you won't necessarily be 'out.'

What does that mean exactly? How are the ISPs liable Sorta like blaming the US mail for what kind of letters people write isn't it?