If you haven’t heard about this new “Copyright Alert System” better known as the Six Strikes program, you better educate yourself right now. The gist of it is, the usual suspects (you know, all those people with failed business models) got together and cooked up a scheme whereby they’re going to monitor your internet traffic, decide if you’re infringing their copyrights, and then send you threatening pop-up messages trying to shake you down for some cash.
No really. Â This is actually happening already. Â Comcast and Verizon are already starting the shake-downs, under the guise of “educating” you about copyright infringement. Yeah right, they educate you to the tune of $35 a pop for the right to argue with them about whether you did anything wrong.
It seriously looks like the MPAA and the RIAA have finally come up with a new business model! But unfortunately, it looks like this:
- Accuse someone of doing something wrong.
- Charge them $35 for the right to dispute this accusation.
- PROFIT!
Yeah, I can’t see a single thing wrong with this, can you? Not to mention that in order to try to catch you doing something wrong, they’ve teamed up with your ISP to snoop your internet connections. And if they decide you’ve done something wrong, they inject a pop-up into your data stream to “educate you” on how you can now pay them $35 to clear your name.
What do the ISPs get out of this? Well, for one, Comcast isn’t just an ISP or cable provider anymore. They own NBC now, so they’re also content providers and have a vested interest in this as is. And besides that, if you get your six strikes, they can start throttling your bandwidth until you get EDUCATED. And there’s nothing ISPs like better than throttling bandwidth, since they already oversubscribe everything. This way, they can add MORE customers to that already saturated pipe!
Seriously, fuck this all right to fucking hell. Let me be clear here: I think people deserve to be paid for their creative works. However, we’re not really talking about the creators here. We’re talking about giant industry conglomerates who exist solely to extract money from all sides of the “creator/consumer” equation. The RIAA fucks over artists almost as hard as they fuck over consumers, and they need to die already.
Our current copyright system is severely broken. It is completely unworkable in a digital age, and this idea that we need to save the existing system is completely insane. No, we don’t. We need to reform the system so consumers and creators can both get what they want without giant assbag bureaucracies getting in the way. We need to stop this ludicrous idea that the MPAA and the RIAA somehow deserve to be “saved” because their business models are unworkable in the digital age. NO THEY DON’T. It is entirely incumbent upon them to FIND A NEW BUSINESS MODEL or perish. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway.
Unfortunately, the new business model they seem to have hit upon is fucking terrible. So complain to everybody who will listen about this. This needs to DIE.
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