Y'know those nasty DMCA warnings your ISP would occasionally send you? Or maybe the "Six Strike" program that many ISPs in the US has adopted back in 2013? This was, in part, thanks to the "Copyright Alert System", a system created by the Center for Copyright Information that would essentially monitor P2P traffic for illegal content such as movies, warez, music, etc. and then alert your ISP to send out DMCA warnings to their subscribers, giving them "Six strikes" before some sort of action would be taken against their account. This could be anything from bandwidth limitations, internet speed throttling, or even preventing access to the web unless they contact the ISP. Sounds spooky, right?

Today, the Center for Copyright Information has announced that this CAS system is being shut down.

After four years of extensive consumer education and engagement, the Copyright Alert System will conclude its work. The program demonstrated that real progress is possible when content creators, internet innovators and consumer advocates come together in a collaborative and consensus-driven process. CAS succeeded in educating many people about the availability of legal content, as well as about issues associated with online infringement

So what does this mean, exactly? ISPs who were using the CAS "Six Strike" policy are no longer required to send out these DMCA warnings to their internet subscribers.

While some might see this as a "victory", pirates should still be on the look out. CAS isn't the only system used to track your pirating tendencies, there are always other companies out there that do the same and some can be even more strict. CAS might be gone, but you can be sure the MPAA/RIAA will be looking into more effective methods of dishing out DMCA warnings.

CCI Statement Source

 

[Aletron9000]

Woop woop! I call this a win!

 

[the_randomizer]

Good thing I don't pirate movies or music, admittedly, I used to in 2004-2005, while I never got in trouble, I did get a talking to by my parents and my brother, and I did feel rather embarrassed. Still, hopefully things won't be as draconian in general, maybe even YT videos with video game content won't be asininely stricken down.

 

[flame1234]

even YT videos with video game content won't be asininely stricken down.

This won't affect that. Those are YT policies, systems and procedures.

 

[Deleted User]

Good thing I don't pirate movies or music, admittedly, I used to in 2004-2005, while I never got in trouble, I did get a talking to by my parents and my brother, and I did feel rather embarrassed. Still, hopefully things won't be as draconian in general, maybe even YT videos with video game content won't be asininely stricken down.

You got off lucky. While I never got in trouble either. Unfortunately one of my close friends got into legal trouble over piracy of a music album(don't recall the band was some famous death metal satan worship group)

This friend of mine received a nice DMCA letter much like the topic of this thread and thought nothing of it, and just threw it away. However about a week after he was greeted by a police officer at his house whom confiscated his computer and gave him a court order.

Cue a bunch of fines and a court mandated ban on him having access to the interwebs for a few years besides for school/work.

What does this have to do with this current thread you may ask? I figured a majority of users here would be saying the same thing that nothing has ever come from these warnings with them. So I figured they would like to hear about what a "worst case" scenario would have been and how lucky they where.

Not saying Im against piracy everyone has a different reason for it. But this system in general was flawed and Im happy that it is now gone.

 

[Raylight]

My pirating days have gone down after joining steam

 

[kprovost7314]

Wait this was a real thing?

 

[Imacaredformy2ds]

Yay for freeShop

 

[RaMon90]

I prefer to buy the game i really like much, if it's expensive then i wait for price drop.

 

[SickPuppy]

I got some of those DMCA warning letters before the CAS system was invented, back in 2008. Haven't looked at a torrent site since. After that I did make it a point to never spend another dime on anything movie or music related ever again, besides cable tv.

 

[xile6]

Man i got an email before. Was the stupidest thing to. They said i downloaded some movie which i didnt. That was the first warning.
Second warning i downloaded a Tv show that i missed (i have on demand but it wasnt on there since the show just went off an 1hr ago.) watch the show, delete it and then 2 days later i got an email talking about it.

But i am glad that this is gone. We shall see how this effect other people.

 

[Foxi4]

Trump's America, everybody. More and more freedom every single day.

 

[I_AM_L_FORCE]

Meanwhile in the UK...

 

[Deleted User]

Good thing I don't pirate movies or music, admittedly, I used to in 2004-2005, while I never got in trouble, I did get a talking to by my parents and my brother, and I did feel rather embarrassed. Still, hopefully things won't be as draconian in general, maybe even YT videos with video game content won't be asininely stricken down.

Jeez, your parents are like the exact opposite of mine. My dad was the person who taught me how to pirate lol

 

[flame1234]

Jeez, your parents are like the exact opposite of mine. My dad was the person who taught me how to pirate lol

@the_randomizer
It really depends if your parents were short of money or not. Mine weren't. Have definitely heard it both ways.

This hobby is pretty underground. It'll be awhile before the ESA (game industry equivalent of MPAA, RIAA) care about romhacking, if they ever do.

 

[DarkCoffe64]

To all of you that got letters of DMCA or something like that, how did it ever happen? In all of my years of pirating stuff, I've never, ever got in trouble with anything nor got any YMCA letters. My only guess is that Italy is full of old people that don't even know what the hell the internet is.
I mean, did you guys posts in some other forums what were you pirating? In that case, that might explain some things.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

To all of you that got letters of DMCA or something like that, how did it ever happen? In all of my years of pirating stuff, I've never, ever got in trouble with anything nor got any YMCA letters. My only guess is that Italy is full of old people that don't even know what the hell the internet is.
I mean, did you guys posts in some other forums what were you pirating? In that case, that might explain some things.

That's not how it works. The way CAS worked (and how the other companies that do this as well work) is it monitors torrent trackers for copyrighted data. It looks for IP addresses uploading whatever data, and if that data matches with copyrighted content it sends the ISP that the IP is associated with a notice of copyright infringement (which usually includes the IP, the copyrighted content you were torrenting, and the time it was captured) which the ISP then sends on to you.

You wouldn't see any of these DMCA warnings yourself, because the DMCA is an act based in the US and only applies to US companies (for the most part). Countries outside the US could, essentially, ignore DMCA warnings if they really wanted to

 

[SickPuppy]

Jeez, your parents are like the exact opposite of mine. My dad was the person who taught me how to pirate lol

My dad was a pirate too, I remember him copying my uncles records onto 8-track tapes.

 

[Xzi]

Trump's America, everybody. More and more freedom every single day.

Hilarious. I'd be surprised if Trump was aware of anything on/about the internet, save Twitter.

Peerblock has been fantastic for keeping away these notices and copyright trackers, I'd definitely suggest it for anyone who uses torrents.

 

[DarkCoffe64]

snip

Interesting. So, this is relevant only to torrents? I guess then that it doesn't applies to direct downloads.
Well, the more you know

Countries outside the US could, essentially, ignore DMCA warnings if they really wanted to

And now my mind goes thinking about those people that get the DMCA letter, look at it and are like "What's written here, I don't know english" and ignore it.

Also, out of topic, wanted to write it in your profile but can't access it, sick avatar dude. Really freaky, I like it.