More On Australian ISP's Action Against Piracy

[chrisso]

Internet providers unveil piracy crackdown plan - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Watching the major morning news today, the tech journalist being interviewed appeared to emphasize ISP's determination to limit their liability to future legal action taken against them by content owners. Interesting.

Another interesting comment in light of recent Gearslutz debate:

The boss of Exetel, a smaller ISP, says while the trial is encouraging, it is unnecessarily limited.

"It is a step in the right direction if Australia believes that the protection of property ownership from thieves is something that a civilised society should provide, but restricting the number of notices sent to 100 a month makes no sense at all," John Linton said...........
Mr Linton says smaller ISPs including Exetel have been taking this approach for seven years "without any cost to ourselves".

"Keeping track of to whom these notices have been sent is also a trivial cost to write the code and no cost to maintain records relating to this process," he said.
"Any statement to the contrary is simply lying nonsense."

[AwwDeOhh]

Originally Posted by chrisso

Another interesting comment in light of recent Gearslutz debate:

Interesting indeed... especially coming from the Boss of an ISP...

wouldn't that negate the whole "undue hardship/cost" argument?
hmmm...

[chrisso]

Obviously in his opinion, yes.
He says the smaller ISP's have been notifying pirates they are infringing with little or no negative cost for seven years.

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by chrisso

...
He says the smaller ISP's have been notifying pirates they are infringing with little or no negative cost for seven years.

Ah, but *why* did he say that? What's his agenda? (I'm not saying he's wrong or lying etc, it's just a curious thing to say in this context.)

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

Ah, but *why* did he say that? What's his agenda? (I'm not saying he's wrong or lying etc, it's just a curious thing to say in this context.)

Funny you'd say that...... when somebody on the tech side tells the truth about this for a change.

All the "charges" the big ISPs want to collect add up to just another way to put more money in their pockets.

Charge the pirates for bandwidth. Charge the copyright owns for notices. Make money on both ends.

Don't even try to say the tech companies aren't cleaning up on piracy.

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

Ah, but *why* did he say that? What's his agenda?

I literally have no idea.
But it's either a fact or it isn't.
He claims the cost is insignificant.

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by chrisso

I literally have no idea.
But it's either a fact or it isn't.
He claims the cost is insignificant.

I have a brilliant idea. Why don't we do a trial to find out what the real costs are?

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by John Eppstein

Funny you'd say that...... when somebody on the tech side tells the truth about this for a change. ...

The truth as he sees it, maybe. Your mistake is assuming that his experience scales to the whole industry.

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by John Eppstein

... Don't even try to say the tech companies aren't cleaning up on piracy.

Why not? Your statement is so broad that it can't possibly be true.

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

IWhy don't we do a trial to find out what the real costs are?

Well obviously that's going ahead.
The numerous warnings are still more of a political move IMO, than an enthusiasm for reducing copyright infringement.
Again, the tech journalist interviewed today, without any prompting from me or Eppstein, clearly saw this as a move by the ISP's to limit liability or prosecution, not an actual move to reduce piracy. More of a "look we're doing something", than anything else.

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

The truth as he sees it, maybe. Your mistake is assuming that his experience scales to the whole industry.

John is not mistaken at all.
The comment is clearly aimed at the whole industry (ISP's), and it's a comment from someone inside the industry.
This ISP executive also goes on to say rather damningly:

"Any statement to the contrary is simply lying nonsense."

Effectively, the line you've been posting over the last few days is 'lying nonsense'.
Now I have no idea myself, so I guess it's an ISP executive's word against yours.

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by chrisso

... a move by the ISP's to limit liability or prosecution ...

That's how I see it, but they are doing it for a different reason. They are currently open to (at least) bad publicity or (at worst) counter-suit from subscribers. They want to make sure that the weight of public opinion is more on their side. "Well, we gave them plenty of warnings, it's their own fault if they persist and get prosecuted." You can bet they'll be less lenient once there's a strong backing in law, because it costs to process multiple warnings.

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by chrisso

Now I have no idea myself, so I guess it's an ISP executive's word against yours.

One minor ISP's word against previously published statements by executives from multiple major ISPs. Uh huh. Who to believe...

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

They are currently open to (at least) bad publicity or (at worst) counter-suit from subscribers. They want to make sure that the weight of public opinion is more on their side. "Well, we gave them plenty of warnings, it's their own fault if they persist and get prosecuted."

Well yes, I agree.

[MTStudios]

Once the automated system is in place there should be no ongoing costs. Regardless of how many notices it sends out. This is equivalent to a web developer saying you must pay to upload new buttons on your website, or the old ones will wear out

All we're talking about is at most a simple line of code in a database that's been added to make it stop once it serves 100 notices. If they're emailing people, there's no reason they can't send an infinite number of emails.

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

One minor ISP's word against previously published statements by executives from multiple major ISPs. Uh huh. Who to believe...

Decent point.
It's interesting all the same.
What do you think his motivation was? (Seeing as you asked the question)

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by MTStudios

All we're talking about is at most a simple line of code in a database that's been added to make it stop once it serves 100 notices. If they're emailing people, there's no reason they can't send an infinite number of emails.

Well to be fair, you need someone to keep track of the person's continued law breaking, and how many previous warnings they've received. Initial contact would also have an administration cost.
I agree with you, it appears on the face of it, a small price to pay for continued supply of high quality content, something the ISP's directly or indirectly profit from.

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

Why not? Your statement is so broad that it can't possibly be true.

Really?

Can't possibly be true?

Let's try another sweeping generalization: The sun comes up in the morning.

Is that so broad it "can't possibly" be true?

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

I have a brilliant idea. Why don't we do a trial to find out what the real costs are?

Why don't we do a trial to find out what the costs of drunk driving laws are?



BECAUSE THE IDEA OF DOING "TRIALS" OF LAWS IS ABSURD, THAT'S WHY!

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

One minor ISP's word against previously published statements by executives from multiple major ISPs. Uh huh. Who to believe...

Look where the profit motive lies. The one without a profit motive for his statements is probably telling the truth.

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by chrisso

Well to be fair, you need someone to keep track of the person's continued law breaking, and how many previous warnings they've received. Initial contact would also have an administration cost.
I agree with you, it appears on the face of it, a small price to pay for continued supply of high quality content, something the ISP's directly or indirectly profit from.

A person's continued law breaking could easily be tracked by a couple lines of code in a database.Once it's set up the only real labor involved comes from the content owner filing the complaint.

If the customer wants to contest the claim he calls a pay help desk line.

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

The truth as he sees it, maybe. Your mistake is assuming that his experience scales to the whole industry.

Well, actually, it probably doesn't.

The way these things usually work is the bigger the company the less it actually costs per transaction.

In other words, cost of operation is higher for smaller companies.

[AwwDeOhh]

Originally Posted by John Eppstein

Well, actually, it probably doesn't.

The way these things usually work is the bigger the company the less it actually costs per transaction.

In other words, cost of operation is higher for smaller companies.

That's what i would figure.
The cost of implementation is a fixed cost. The cost per usage goes down the more people you multiply it by.

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by chrisso

Decent point.
It's interesting all the same.
What do you think his motivation was? (Seeing as you asked the question)

I don't know either, or I would have said instead of asking.
I have a couple of after 5s next month at which it will likely be mentioned. I'll post anything useful (and public).

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by John Eppstein

Really?

Can't possibly be true?

Really. "Tech company" is impossibly broad. I could name several that definitely fall in the "tech company" classification by several measures - core business, product set, exchange listing - that have nothing to do with copyright infringement. If you think a moment,you could too. Even if we limit the definition to "Internet" related companies:

Businesses offering cyberlocker services to infringers - definitely.

ISPs providing hosting for the cyberlocker service - probably.

Second-tier ISPs providing connectivity services to the hosting ISP - unlikely.

Country backbone providers and international providers - no.

Suppliers of equipment to the above companies - no.

You're not clueless about "the internet". You should be able to accurately define what "tech companies" you're talking about.

[AwwDeOhh]

At the same time, there's a major money factor to keep things 'broken'.

Think of all the internet security companies and products. from the big companies like McAfee Norton Kaspersky Eset, ect. to the little shop on the corner or the on-call guy whos main money making endevour is irradicating Malware infested computers and networks.

If things suddenly became "Safe" on the internet, alot of people would be left twiddling their thumbs...
You could say it's a false economy keeping the things the way they are.

...maybe this is Tech's big secret?

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by AwwDeOhh

That's what i would figure.
The cost of implementation is a fixed cost. The cost per usage goes down the more people you multiply it by.

That's too simplistic.
A solution simple enough to be economic at a small scale often does not scale up. I'm very familiar with that scenario, many of the products I work on are large scale.

For a small ISP, you might wrap a few lines of SQL around an Access database on a Windows box and link it to the AAA server. For a large ISP, it's a major project - you have the cost of the redundant (usually Sun) multicore servers and SAN, the licensing of the (usually Oracle) Enterprise database, the planning and provisioning of the necessary bandwidth to the AAA servers and the extra load thereon, the cost of writing and testing the code, and one or more extra people to administer the system, do the regulatory paperwork and handle queries / complaints from subscribers.

For a familiar example,think about a car diesel engine. That's a small scale product, with certain design decisions that make sense at that scale. Now think about a ship's diesel engine. Same basic principle, many different design decisions because of the scale difference.
Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most powerful diesel engine in the world

Regardless of the size of the system, you can't make it fully automatic. It will make mistakes. You either handle the mistakes manually before sending the notices, or you manually handle the calls from the subscribers later. Any such manual process does not scale - the man-hours involved are directly proportional to the number of subscribers / notices.

[Don Hills]

Originally Posted by AwwDeOhh

... If things suddenly became "Safe" on the internet, alot of people would be left twiddling their thumbs...

True,but irrelevant. If we had world peace and an end to poverty there'd be a lot of people out of work too. But we have to deal with the world the way it is, not the way we'd like it to be.

[AwwDeOhh]

Originally Posted by Don Hills

True,but irrelevant. If we had world peace and an end to poverty there'd be a lot of people out of work too. But we have to deal with the world the way it is, not the way we'd like it to be.

Right, but there's nothing saying we can't try and shape the world we live in... to make it a better place.
People used to die from a simple cold, or a scratch on their hand. People worked at their understanding of the how and why, and things evolved. Now, you could say that overpopulation is the consequence, but i'm for one glad that i didn't die when i was 2.

[tvsky]

cant you just see some old clapped out 486 desktop covered in cobwebs stuck in the corner of the server room processing the email forwarding and log processing

and the executives grinning saying , she'll only handle 100 a month!

what a pile of crap!