Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 146 posts

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#61

Post by dionidium »

slyall wrote: post #57
dionidium wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

References to 150-year copyrights is (deliberate or not) pure obfuscation. We're talking about downloading the latest box office hits†, not century-old texts bound by unjust extensions to copyright. † Edit: in most but obviously not all cases

According to the media companies it is just important to cover those century-old texts as the latest Star Wars movie. People are exactly as guilty (and should feel exactly as guilty) download one as downloading the other.

Sure. But it's not intellectually honest to justify downloading terabytes of the latest Hollywood blockbusters on the grounds that it's unfair that those downloads are treated the same as century-old texts. You're smuggling in an irrelevant grievance.

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#62

Post by jonknee »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #43

"Don't violate the law over our network" is not an unreasonable expectation, and "we will shut off service to people that violate the law using our network" is not an unreasonable penalty. It's hard to imagine any business of any kind taking the position "feel free to violate the law over our network" or deciding that they just won't do anything about it if people do. Imagine a restaurant that could see you operating…

> Imagine a restaurant that could see you operating an illegal handgun market out of the corner booth and just decided that was fine as long as you tipped your server alright

Imagine a better analogy because telecom service providers have nothing to do with restaurants (or almost any other type of businesses, regulated utilities are pretty different!). It's more akin to a power company cutting off power to someone who they accuse of using the power that they paid for to make counterfeit handbags. It's quite possibly true, but as a regulated utility it should not be up to them to decide. As long as their services are being paid for they should not get to cut people off.

If AT&T was actually concerned with their network being abused they would go after spammers and robocallers, not someone who downloaded an HBO show. This is one of the concerns of telecoms being media companies.

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#63

Post by vorpalhex »

dionidium wrote: post #60
kragen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story doesn't have any such details. Please remember that the most famous such case, the prosecution of Aaron Swartz until he committed suicide, was for downloading academic papers from JSTOR, presumably including many century-old texts, and that the current best system for obtaining academic papers you're legally allowed to get — Sci-hub — is on the receiving end of a series of lawsuits from companies who didn't…

The prosecution of Aaron Swartz, a farcical tragedy, has nothing to do with this story.

It has everything to do with the story because it shows that most copyright claims are done in absolute bad faith and consumers are given no real tools to defend themselves.

Right now for the majority of people who get a DMCA, there is nothing they can do. There is no functional appeals process, there is no office in charge of handling bad DMCAs. Shy of actually going to court with a lawyer and attempting a suit, if a company files a bogus DMCA then you are boned.

That is an abortion of free speech and property rights, and the Swartz case is a perfect example of that. Most of the papers Swartz obtained were supposed to belong to the public, and yet he was sued into oblivion for DOING NOTHING ILLEGAL. He had no counterclaim short of going to full court with lawyers, something entirely out of his grasp and reach, and because he felt he had no alternatives to having his life ruined, he committed suicide.

It's not a farcical tragedy, it's a flipping shame for the human race.

edit - language

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#64

Post by rootusrootus »

ronnier wrote: post #35

How does this differ from the deplatforming we've recently seen with Twitter, Apple app store, Gab from hosting providers, facebook, youtube, etc?

There are a lot of platforms to choose from, but my house is only physically connected by one high speed ISP.

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#65

Post by dionidium »

vorpalhex wrote: post #63
dionidium wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prosecution of Aaron Swartz, a farcical tragedy, has nothing to do with this story.

It has everything to do with the story because it shows that most copyright claims are done in absolute bad faith and consumers are given no real tools to defend themselves. Right now for the majority of people who get a DMCA, there is nothing they can do. There is no functional appeals process, there is no office in charge of handling bad DMCAs. Shy of actually going to court with a lawyer and attempting a suit, if…

Whatever else we might disagree on, let's be clear that I agree with you about Swartz.

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#66

Post by [deleted] »

rootusrootus wrote: post #64
ronnier wrote: post #35

How does this differ from the deplatforming we've recently seen with Twitter, Apple app store, Gab from hosting providers, facebook, youtube, etc?

There are a lot of platforms to choose from, but my house is only physically connected by one high speed ISP.

[deleted]

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#67

Post by yantz »

rootusrootus wrote: post #64
ronnier wrote: post #35

How does this differ from the deplatforming we've recently seen with Twitter, Apple app store, Gab from hosting providers, facebook, youtube, etc?

There are a lot of platforms to choose from, but my house is only physically connected by one high speed ISP.

You can still connect to a low speed ISP much in the same way that people banned from Twitter or YouTube can still use much smaller platforms with a lower reach.

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#68

Post by rootusrootus »

zipwitch wrote: post #46
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming I'm parsing the sarcasm correctly, they can't sign on for any other ISP? So you get a choice of one depending on where you happen to live? I'm used to what's called local loop unbundling in the UK and Europe - which is the removal of the last mile monopoly, and all ISPs simply putting a DSLAM in exchanges. Initially this was localised, and there were smaller local players, but they're now effectively all nat…

For much of the US the situation is something like this: You have ISP #1, who have relatively modern infrastructure and bandwidth. You may or may not have ISP #2, who have antiquated infrastructure they don't maintain that delivers bandwidth circa 2005. You probably also have ISP #3, who use alternate delivery technologies (wimax, satellite, etc) to deliver low bandwidth at exorbitant prices.

That's my current experience. Comcast is very fast and low latency. The next best is DSL that maxes out at 2 Mbps. After that my only choice would be some form of wireless.

So if Comcast decides not to sell me service, I'm screwed. They could charge as much as they want and to a point I'd just have to suck it up and pay. I assume the reason it isn't multiple times more expensive is because there is some regulation from the PUC capping what they can charge.

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#69

Post by rootusrootus »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #52
cft wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law in America is enforced by the courts, not by private corporations.

They aren't enforcing the law. They're managing their risk as a business, by not doing business with people who could put them at legal risk. If they were "enforcing the law", they'd send you a fine for tens of thousands of dollars and throw you in jail if you didn't pay it. If a gun store owner knew a guy was buying a gun to shoot up a school, wouldn't you want him to refuse to sell it? Wouldn't you want to hold the…

They're not just any business, they're a regulated utility provider selling me service over infrastructure I helped pay for. The regular rules of business don't exactly apply.

Re: AT&T to cut off some customers' service in piracy crackdown

#70

Post by rootusrootus »

yantz wrote: post #67
rootusrootus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of platforms to choose from, but my house is only physically connected by one high speed ISP.

You can still connect to a low speed ISP much in the same way that people banned from Twitter or YouTube can still use much smaller platforms with a lower reach.

My tax dollars helped pay for the infrastructure that the ISP is selling me service over. It's a little different from Twitter or Youtube, who are just a site on the Internet.
Post reply on HN