The New AT&T: American Tracking & Takedown
Duncan Riley
56 comments »
AT&T is to begin working with the RIAA and MPAA in a concerted effort to track down and punish AT&T internet users who download pirated music and movies.
According to the LA Times, AT&T have decided on the move after beginning to sell pay-television services, apparently they now see their interests as being more closely aligned with Hollywood than their millions of customers.
The New AT&T: Go directly to jail and do not pass go?
Dave Winer gets it 100% right:
If there were a death penalty for corporations, AT&T may have just earned it…What a lack of awareness of their relationship with customers. They should do things to reward customers for being smart enough to have chosen AT&T as their Internet service provider. Instead, they would make their customers the stupidest people on the planet, choosing the only ISP that will send you to jail to create a new business model for them. Instead of competing to provide great service at the lowest possible price, they want to drive their customers to financial ruin, for having made the mistake of choosing AT&T
There’s something very, very wrong when a company starts conspiring against its users. Perhaps the days of the customer being always right have passed? Certainly there will be many AT&T customers who will soon looking for internet access from alternative providers
What a shocker. Who’d have thought the NSA’s telecom of choice would find another way to fuck over users? Piracy is wrong, but it isn’t an ISP’s job to police the web and turn over their customers.
Hmmm, i’ve got at&t. I’ll be calling the billing dept tomorrow to cancel. this is BS!
besides that i had to recently upgrade “my modem”, because of the crappy one they originally gave me.
At&t.. you suck
This is absolutely unbelievable!
the funny thing is, nob9ody is going to use their services to watch moview/tv/etc.
att&t is loosing customers to cable because they offer phone, cable, and internet for $100;
this is why they even are considering tv/movie services.
Ok here is my view (full post, click my name) - this is part of the Apple iPhone deal. Worry enough people, they will start buying. And who is the biggest? Apple. Hello.
In what I consider a criminal move, AT&T’s CEO at the time sold off AT&T Broadband to Comcast and then took the CEO position at Comcast. How was that not a conflict of interest?
Do you have any idea how much money the guy made on both ends of the deal?
It is pretty unreal how upset people get about their right to steal other people’s intellectual property, but what’s new.
“There’s something very, very wrong when a company starts conspiring against its users.” Actually, conspiring against its illegal users, who are also very likely breaking their TOS they agreed to also. What shadowy conspiratorial cabal would do such a thing?
So just for the record, if I start using the forum to trade kiddy porn links, will TechCrunch keep my email address secret? Because I bet a lot of sickos would appreciate you being on their side in protecting their privacy rights.
On the plus side– B S Meter has it completely right. Disagree with someone in the marketplace, for whatever reason? Don’t give them your business. A lot of times instead you’ll see people calling for legislation because they’re too lazy to move.
It is just scary how corporations can come after you for supposedly breaking copyright law — as if they are the law enforcement themselves! The RIAA has been THREATENING people with lawsuits if they don’t pay a fine upfront. That is not extortion?
Hope all users doing illegal activities online go to jail.
This decision reveals the goals of a company that has no brain. Whata stupid. If they think that they can policie the web they are wrong.
By the way, I ‘ve never seen a company that want that your consumers go to jail. Funny.
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http://saladadecevada.blogspot.com
Anyone think this is because of/a clause of the Apple iPhone partnership?
#11 ventureblogalist - look at my comment above - and my link
Whom do you prefer to analyze your data?
Google trying to serve you more ads you actually might click?
Or… AT&T?
Does anybody know if this change to AT&T allows customers to get out of their contracts? I assume it does as they would have to change their TOS (they should have something in there about customer privacy, but who knows).
If so AT&T can say goodbye to everybody who knows about it. Let’s hope it gets picked up in the media or us nerds let everybody knows what’s going down.
Wow, I guess at&t just had too many customers and decided to solve that problem…
AT&T go to jail? Now I do agree that they need to figure out an advertising model and distribute this stuff freely with the inconvenience of a 15 to 30 second spot.
But the reality here is that this content is Illegal, against the law,it is owned by someone else! I know you all do not agree with the laws governing these issues, but the law needs to be changed before you claim you have a
legitimate right to freely obtain and distribute something that (in the eye of current law) you stole.
I agree that the timing is pretty suspect, but lets stop calling for people to be thrown in jail because they find it is in their interest to join the copyright holders in an effort to enforce current law, if you do not like it you do have the power not to buy their internet service, I know, I just gave up Time warner’s $45 a month service for at&t’s $25 service (a little slower but not bad).
I can very easily go right back to Time Warner as well as another Wireless service that is also available in my community.
and let’s not forget that Goolge (via youtube.com) and myspace.com are dangerously close to getting hit big time in their cases, they seem to be leaning toward feeling that they are vulnerable because myspace.com is working hard to implement so called “Fingerprinting” technology to prevent users from uploading this content, and I believe that google is now starting to let everyone know that they are working on their own technology to do the same thing.
If google and myspace did lose this case who do you think is next in line? ISP’s of course, while I do not think that is his reasoning for this move, it might be part of it.
Now, do you really feel that 1 person should be able to go out and buy a copy of Spiderman 3 and then distribute it freely to millions of people, I like free stuff just as much as the next guy but I find it hard to advocate that,
Now let’s also keep this in perspective, they are most likely going to get the people who are doing this in access, keep your theft to a minimum and you should be ok.
Paul says “It is just scary how corporations can come after you for supposedly breaking copyright law — as if they are the law enforcement themselves! The RIAA has been THREATENING people with lawsuits if they don’t pay a fine upfront. That is not extortion?”
No Paul, that is not scary, if they took your copyrighted content and spread it around freely you can file suite against them in the Civil courts and tell them that they have to pay $X amount to settle or you will take the case to trial and try to get the larger penalty. That is how our Civil justice system works, if you did nothing wrong, go to court, hopefully at least 4 of the jurors agree with you and you walk away paying nothing.
We are talking about RIAA, have you guys forgotten how they go after people? remember the subpoenas ? remember they getting people’s hard drives and so on.
Its really about an industry not wanting to change its business model, i dont understand what is the big deal, in one side you have the EMI, Apple deal, which is basically ITunes Store without DRM, haven’t we been wanting this for a long time ?
So if they can accept now music without DRM, why can’t let people have their shows, music videos, etc …
I mean most of the content nowadays people get, is tv shows, music videos and so on.
I could these with a TIVO or VHS recorder or any other device that can record analog or digital signals, we did this for radio before, now is the same.
What’s the big deal ? the same tv shows are show on tv anyway.
They should work on monetizing the content, through video ads and so on.
this is just an opnion, i am not advocating piracy, just saying that clearly a business model needs to be changed.
I don’t think it has to do anything with the iPhone as some have suggested. If anything I think it bad for the iPhone that this is happening. Consumers won’t understand there may be nothing related to this and ATT cell service. They just understand that ATT is a brand and will associate this with the cell service and iPhone.
Ever heard of cutting the branch on which you are sitting yourself? AT&T is out to prove it. Good Luck to them
I strongly agree with Somebody (comment 18) !
bad idea and bad move.
way
1. illegal search and seize
2. violate privacy rights
3. violate sherman act for the act of monoploy and engaging illegal business activties.
4. violate free of expression & press
5. violate all trade agreement
6. violate international business activties
7. violate shareholders rights
8. engaging illegal corprate scandal
9.
10.
Advice for AT&T….
Do it on communist, socialist, stalinist, fascist, overseas countries. Not U.S.A! The only way to stop pirate movies and music is adverstiment on TV. AT&T have lot of money refuse to spend ADS on TV.
If I work highest AT&T position or Chairman board. I would fired the guy who wants to jail AT&T customers who accidently download MP3 or movies. I would end up losing marketshares, stock ownership, and AT&T customers.
If AT&T wants to jail 10 year old…that i want to FIRED employee.
Lack of experience… Geeze, who hired that guy?
Go find better business model or people will end up switch to Verizon.
They could end up with very few customers if at all and that will make their job of tracking down customers very easy indeed. Maybe that is what they are aiming for.
They got billion dollars. They haven’t spend on commerical on TV to educate kids. Back in 1980s I have seen lots of AT&T commerical. Christmas tone, school grades, etc..
Today, I see ZERO.. ZERO commerical…
Would a father who worked AT&T should arrest its own son who download MP3?
Can you get arrested for viewing youtube videos?
Oh well, no iPhone for me then. I’ll keep my services elsewhere now.
PS I don’t download illegal movies, but I will have nothing to do with an ISP that scrutinizes my online activity.
Our justice system should be taking on the likes of AT&T in court for more than this violation of privacy.
The telecoms promised a comprehensive broadband network by 2006. Yet folks are still on dial-up and they have enjoyed at least $200 Billion in incentives. Imagine the opportunities passing by the U.S. because the telecoms didn’t follow through with the promise. We’re 15th in the world in connectivity now…how much further will we drop?
Here’s a site with an explanation…I think there was a PBS special at some point too.
http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm
America is going to pay dearly for the increased corporatism/fascism of the past 20 years.
I thought Ed Whitacre was an ass when he ran SBC and started trying to shake down Google and the like for access to his
feudal serfscustomers. Clearly he’s an even bigger ass now that he’s chairman of AT&T.I was entertaining the idea of getting an iPhone. I think I’ll wait.
This is the first and probably only time I will say I am happy to have my broadband through Comcast.
Check out AT&T’s share price plummet in the next few days…
This really sounds like these confederates not wanting to let go slavery….change your business model now!
to answer a couple of people above - this is not about the right to pirate mp3s & videos - this is about the right to have internet privacy.
The stupid thing is AT&T’s customers have the option to go elsewhere, and no doubt they will.
at&t seems to be on its way down… thank god i switched providers… not dat i download ne copyrighted material
btw can AT&T be sued for sharing n monitoring users… if it can then i’ll suggest someone using it do it!!!
If there were a responsibilty award for companies, AT&T should have earned it.
There is something very, very right, if companies finally start to take action and repsonsibility against criminal usage of their services!
AT&T = Arrest, Track & Torment?
People can still exchange stuff freely and easily, without their privacy being invaded, it’s called ENCRYPTED FILE SHARING. See http://www.gigatribe.com for an example of the many solutions that are popping up…
Hey, wouldn’t it be nice if they would use this secret technology to track and stop terrorists?
Oh wait, they wouldn’t do that. It would violate somebody’s privacy.
So they’ll go after bittorent users instead.
yeah a customer does have / to think:
- my own ISP wont harm me ….
- ATT is doing evil here - RB
another reason NOT to buy the iPhone from ATT. Im gonna wait until I can get an unlocked version and take it elsewhere.
@37 - Yeah right, everybody knows that file swapping finances terrorism.
AT&T has been the “wrong choice” for a long time now. This nonsense is no surprise.
Just another reason why I’m gonna have to wait to get an iPhone until its available on Sprint or Verizon. AT&T is a joke. I’m also switching (for other reasons) from AT&T Yahoo DSL to Comcast next month. I don’t download pirated music/video, but its the principle that my privacy is violated by AT&T. And when some new medium/format becomes available in the future, I don’t want AT&T using my info for sales or for other purposes such as piracy reporting.
remember which company topped the list of WORST privacy policies on the web ? That was google sometime back. i guess AT&T ’s in some sort of a competition to better google on this. There are better ways of promoting a servie, provide reliable quality service 24/7
Yeah! Good job AT&T
Downloading those movies was affecting the entertainment industry . Many sites are providing those music and movies for some charge . Downloads are original and instant download .
So…. not going to buy the iPhone because of this?
Corporate Fascism is the right name for the new threat to our freedom, coming not from big government but big corporations, who are becoming more powerful than governments, unencumbered by transparency or democracy…
http://enigmafoundry.wordpress.....e-fascism/
Bravo to AT&T for protecting intellectual property! This is the best thing they have going from them as far as I’m concerned.
They have no choice but to protect somebody’s rights: either the rights of the people who took the risks and did the work, or the rights of the people who did nothing to earn them. They made the right choice.
Want to see what our quality of life would be like if intellectual property wasn’t protected? Visit a third-world country.
wow. I find some comments here pretty surreal.
I guess all those dummies claiming that it’s smart move from AT&T in the name of law wouldn’t mind being filmed and watched 24/24 in their own house? I mean, they’re not killing anyone or doing illegal stuff, right ?
When I taught Bus Law, I asked my students how many businesses sue their customers? They said all of them!
While I do see lawsuits for non-payment, I can’t think of any other business model besides IP law which criminalizes the customer.
But I’m warning all of you that students believe in the police state, nanny government system controlled by oligopolistic corporations dictating catch 22 laws.
Join the resistance! http://www.theresistancemanifesto.com/
Once again, the out-of-touch suits get it TOTALLY WRONG. Instead of tracking and killing pirates, how about creating a content repository and charging a monthly access fee to download as much crap as you want? If they adopted the eMusic model, and added a $2 per user “media tax” on every bill…and allowed free consumption of content, it would be exactly like a water bill. Nobody counts the minutes they spend in the shower.
“American Tracking & Takedown”
Very nice!
Um, piracy is illegal. So how is AT&T bad for helping law enforcement stop illegal activity? You wouldn’t be crying if they were giving up child porn rings.