AT&T will begin sending out anti-piracy warning notices to subscribers caught downloading copyrighted content from torrent sites starting Nov. 28.

The new anti-piracy measures are part of a joint agreement between the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and five major national ISPs to help curtail content theft.

TorrentFreak obtained internal AT&T training documents that outline how AT&T will deal with customers suspected of illicit downloading. After a series of warnings, AT&T intends to block access to websites suspected of copyright infringement until a customer successfully completes a course on online copyright law. Eventually, those caught repeatedly downloading pirated movies and music could face legal action after AT&T turns over the identities of suspect customers. Gone from early draft proposals are suggestions that ISPs will throttle or suspend service altogether for repeat violators.

Late reports indicate that other ISPs participating in the copyright enforcement action — Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon — will also launch their own programs on the same date.

Most at risk are customers who frequent peer-to-peer file sharing sites. Tracking BitTorrent traffic is a priority for the newly-launched Center for Copyright Information (CCI) — a joint venture run by the ISPs in coordination with the MPAA and RIAA.

While not all peer-to-peer file traffic consists of illicit swapping of copyrighted works, some high profile torrent sites are among the first choices for consumers looking for free movies or music. CCI believes its Copyright Alert System (CAS) is primarily an educational tool for consumers who may not realize they are stealing copyrighted content. With its “six warnings” policy, CCI wants consumers to take action to protect themselves, their Internet accounts, and home networks well before any legal action is taken.

The latest implementation of the Copyright Alert System has watered down some of its earlier provisions, which could have put a customer’s Internet account at risk of being speed throttled or canceled. For now, consumers will receive six warnings about any suspected copyright infringement:

• The first three strikes carry no consequences and are intended to serve as informational warnings that the downloading of copyrighted content may be taking place;
• The fourth and fifth strikes will trigger forced browser redirects to a copyright education page and an online course on copyright law that must be successfully completed before the customer can once again visit suspect websites;
• Strike six means AT&T (and presumably other ISPs) will turn over the IP addresses of repeat offenders and comply with any subsequent court orders requesting the identity of the customer for possible legal action. AT&T does not say it will terminate the customer’s account, but does remind customers to be mindful of its Acceptable Use Policy, which does allow them to terminate service for illegal acts.

Edward Stroz

Consumers caught allegedly downloading copyrighted content can protest their innocence, but a $35 refundable filing fee is required to begin the arbitration process. If a consumer proves the files downloaded were not illegally obtained or that their account was flagged in error, they can have the warning canceled and get their filing fee refunded. But there are no penalties for CCI, its copyright tracking arm run by MarkMonitor, or the ISP if the copyright tracking system gets it wrong.

Critics of the copyright enforcement scheme claim it delivers too many benefits for CCI and its industry backers and insufficient protection for consumers misidentified during copyright infringement dragnets.

For-profit copyright tracking companies have made false allegations in the past, forcing CCI to hire an “independent and impartial technical expert” to verify the accuracy and security of the tracking technology used. CCI hired the firm of Stroz Friedberg as their expert.

Critics charge Stroz Friedberg is actually a recording industry lobbying firm, who worked with the RIAA for five years, earning $637,000.

Eric Friedberg

“It’s a disappointing choice, particularly in light of CCI’s professed desire to build public confidence in CAS and the fairness of its processes,” University of Idaho Law Professor Annemarie Bridy told TorrentFreak. “It would have been refreshing to see an academic computer scientist or some other truly independent party appointed to fill that important role.”

Bridy calls CCI’s Copyright Alert System lacking in transparency and stacked in favor of copyright holders, not consumers.

Stroz Friedberg’s appointment has also raised eyebrows among others that suggest their past lobbying violates the spirit of a Memorandum of Understanding signed by all parties requiring “independent and impartial” oversight.

“CCI’s choice of a former RIAA lobbying firm makes it clear that the copyright owner parties to the Memorandum of Understanding were more interested in appointing someone they trust than in appointing someone the public can trust,” Bridy adds.

Network World columnist Steven Vaughan-Nichols worries this is just the beginning of another copyright enforcement overreach:

The name of their game is to monitor your network traffic, with the help of your friendly ISP. Their justification for this is the usual made-up “facts” that content theft leads to “more than 373,000 jobs, $16 billion in lost wages, and $2.6 billion in lost taxes.” Yeah, I’m also sure someone downloading copyrighted porn leads to cats and dogs living together.

One reason I can’t buy into all this is that, as TorrentFreak points out, the Center’s expert who vouches that this all works is none other than Stroz Friedberg, a former RIAA lobbyist. Oh yeah, he doesn’t have bias for paranoid copyright protection companies.

What this means for you is that if your ISP is AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, or Verizon, they’ll be watching your use of BitTorrent and letting CCI decide if you deserve some warnings, an end to your Internet service, or a full-out lawsuit.

[…] The RIAA, the MPAA, and other copyright “protectors” have never done anything for content creators. They’re all about protecting the businesses stuck with old, broken, pre-digital business models. Even that wouldn’t be so bad, except historically they’ve always vastly over-reacted.

We all know the stories of some poor slob who’s been slammed with tens of thousands of damages for downloading a song. What you may not know is that all the powers that be have to do is to claim something is copyrighted, whether it is or not, and multiple websites can be closed in minutes or your entire digital library can be destroyed.

Does that sound like paranoid fantasy? I wish.

[…] Oh yeah, I feel really sure that the CCI and friends are going to do a good job. Welcome to the new copyright world, same as the old, where you’re always considered guilty rather than that quaint idea of being considered innocent before proven otherwise.

CCI admits sophisticated pirates will probably never get caught by its Copyright Alert System, because most of them are moving to secured Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology that effectively masks their identities. TorrentFreak notes sales for VPN’s are skyrocketing, many headquartered far away from the reach of the United States in exotic, subpoena-proof locations like Cyprus, the Seychelles, Romania, and Ukraine.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/RT Thom Hartmann Copyright Alert System 3-20-12.flv[/flv]

RT’s Thom Hartmann presided over a debate about online copyright theft control measures proposed earlier this year by the entertainment industry and Internet Service Providers. Appearing with Hartmann are David Seltzer, Attorney & Mark Bledsoe. (March 20, 2012) (12 minutes)

Connected Nation, a broadband advocacy group with ties to some of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies, is accused of rewriting a Florida state budget amendment to divert proceeds from a federal broadband grant to itself.

A growing scandal over broadband map funding and allegations of political maneuvering and favoritism has now extended into the offices of several state Republicans now accused of doing the group’s bidding to change funding allocations in ways that could ultimately threaten Florida’s broadband grants.

Connected Nation’s involvement in the state’s broadband expansion efforts began in earnest in 2009 when the group won a $2.5 million contract to map broadband availability in Florida. A follow-up federal grant for $6.3 million to extend broadband deployment brought the group’s lobbyists back to Tallahassee to secure a “no-bid shot” at that new money for itself, which turned out to be a big surprise to the Department of Management Services, the Florida state agency charged with overseeing the project.

The grant award mandated that money be spent on additional broadband mapping and broadband expansion specifically for libraries and schools. When DMS hired contract employees to manage the project for the next two years, Connected Nation declared war on the effort, considering it their turf.

The Miami Herald called the lobbying battle that then ensued as “an audacious display of lobbying clout [that] got the Legislature to force DMS off the contract and steer the grant to [Connected Nation] instead.”

The newspaper reports the end effect of the bitter feud is a less than useful broadband mapping operation and a threat from the federal government it will yank back what remains of the grant money if things do not improve… quickly.

Connected Nation told the newspaper it defends its position as creating value for taxpayers and citizens. But the group also openly admits its broader goal is to increase broadband usage, which directly benefits its telecommunications partners, which the newspaper says includes AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.

DMS officials are just as willing to play hardball in the statewide dispute, accusing Connected Nation of producing erroneous broadband maps and being responsible for “repeated performance problems.” They announced last year they would not renew Connected Nation’s contract.

Political observers note DMS probably did not realize who they were dealing with, and Connected Nation’s high powered lobbyists descended on the state capital to pull the rug completely out from under DMS, yanking the entire project away from the state agency and assigning it to another.

Holder

With the help of several Florida Republican legislators and the governor, DMS found itself without a broadband project, as lawmakers transferred it to Florida’s new “Department of Economic Opportunity.” The ultimate decision approving the transfer of broadband matters to an agency that suggests an allegiance to the private sector came from Florida’s governor Rick Scott.

The governor’s office muzzled DMS protestations. Marc Slager, deputy chief of staff for Gov. Rick Scott, acknowledged to the Herald he told DMS to stand down because “we don’t need to have different people from the governor’s agencies advocating an issue.”

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and Connected Nation is not through paying back DMS for interfering in their Florida plans to capture broadband grant funds. The group is taking its time working with several Republican legislators to cut more legs out from under the government agency.

With respect to the $6.3 million broadband expansion grant, the newspaper reports Connected Nation last year simply rewrote a state budget amendment, inserting themselves as the grant winner.

“Attached is a document that reflects conversations we’ve had with Chairman Weatherford, the draft language is consistent with the bill, and it is language we believe the [Legislative Budget Commission] would approve,” wrote Alli Liby-Schoonover, from Connected Nation’s lobbying firm, Cardenas Partners, in February 2011, making the change.

What a broadband mapping group was going to do with the money intended to wire schools and libraries remains unknown.

Courtesy: CQ Press

Lobbyists for AT&T and Verizon are an integral part of Mitt Romney’s campaign for president, reveals a new report exposing K Street involvement in presidential politics.

“K Street Lines Up for Romney,” produced by CQ’s First Street Intelligence, shows one candidate above all others with an open door policy to money and assistance from some of the nation’s largest corporations: Mitt Romney.

Romney has never been a registered lobbyist, but he seeks advice and contributions from more lobbyists than any of the other candidates, and has a long list of lobbyist supporters, advisers, and contributors.  This select group of Washington insiders is quietly positioning themselves to benefit from a Romney presidency. With their dollars, advice, and endorsements, K Street definitively lined up in support of one candidate – Mitt Romney.

Among those corporations are both AT&T and Verizon, who either employed lobbyists now working directly with the Romney campaign or work with corporate-connected money bundlers, who raise enormous campaign contributions on behalf of the Romney campaign.

“The two biggest telephone companies, Verizon and AT&T, also stand to gain from a President Romney,” according to the report.

For example, money bundlers at Ogilvy, DLA Piper, and Ernst & Young are all directly connected to Verizon Wireless.

AT&T hired Romney Campaign Adviser Lobbyists Ronald Kaufman (working for Dutko) and Vin Weber (Clark & Weinstock).

Some of the reports highlights:

• Ten current and former lobbyists are directly affiliated with the Mitt Romney campaign as advisers and staffers.  These lobbyists have represented 256 clients who paid their firms over $88 million since 2004. (Lobbyist Campaign Officials)
• 16 registered lobbyists are acting as bundlers to Romney’s campaign.  These lobbyists have represented 324 organizations and a combined $196.9 million in lobbying expenses since 2008. (Lobbyist Bundlers)
• In 2011 bundlers and advisers to the Romney campaign represented 174 organizations and $54.7 million in lobbying expenses.
• 332 lobbyists have donated to a current GOP candidate in 2011.  Romney dominates the field, receiving 304 contributions. (Lobbyist Contributors)
• Two lobbying firms are positioned to gain from a Romney presidency: (Scorecard)
  • Dutko employs lobbyists that are Romney advisers, bundlers, and contributors
  • DLA Piper has multiple lobbyists that have contributed heavily to the Romney campaign.

This dollar-a-holler astroturf effort failed to impress Longmont voters, who turned back a Comcast-funded opposition campaign to open up the city's fiber network.

Longmont, Col. residents turned their backs on a Comcast-funded campaign to block the opening of the city’s 17-mile fiber loop to competing broadband providers in a strong vote of approval.

As of early this morning, 60.8% of voters approved Ballot Question 2A.  Just 39.2% opposed the measure.

Longmont’s fiber network, built in 1997 and paid for by the Platte River Power Authority, has heretofore been off-limits to the public.  Colorado’s 2005 corporate welfare laws guarantee that taxpayer or ratepayer-funded broadband networks are kept away from the public that paid for them, for the protection of companies like Comcast and CenturyLink.

This results in the construction of showcase institutional fiber optic networks open to government, public safety, hospitals, and libraries… and practically nobody else.  Once built, institutional networks often go underutilized.  In Longmont, at least two-thirds of the city’s fiber optic network still goes unused 15 years after it was built.

The city government hoped to open the fiber network in time to bolster their application to Google to construct a gigabit network for residential and business customers, but after Google selected Kansas City for its fiber project, Longmont wants to keep its options open.  Passing the ballot question does exactly that.

“I’m glad to see 2A won,” Mayor Bryan Baum told the Times-Call. “I think it shows that money isn’t the determinator.”

Longmont voters were subjected to one of the most expensive pushback campaigns they’ve ever seen, thanks to Comcast, who spent $300,000 and counting to get the public to turn against the fiber network ballot question.

George Merritt, a spokesman for the cable-funded group Look Before We Leap, claims the vote results show “the measure’s narrow margin of victory.”  Merritt’s group relied heavily on a highly-suspect 2006 case study by University of Denver professor Ron Rizzuto that claimed 80 percent of community-owned Wi-Fi broadband networks failed to make money.  But the group didn’t make any distinction between Wi-Fi and fiber optics, and more importantly they left out the fact Rizzuto was inducted into the Cable TV Pioneers in 2004 for service to the cable industry.  Rizutto’s “study” was a classic case of dollar-a-holler research on behalf of the New Millennium Research Council, a creature of the telecommunications industry.

New Millennium Research Council -> Issue Dynamics -> Comcast

In fact, the Council is a “project” of Issue Dynamics, Inc., a for-profit, high powered Washington lobbying firm. Issue Dynamics’ client list includes Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and the United States Telecom Association – the trade association for the telecom industry.  The direct relationship between Rizzuto’s findings, and cable companies like Comcast who paid for the research, never made it into the report (or onto the group’s website).

This is the second time Longmont voters have cast ballots on the issue of the city’s fiber optic network.

In 2009, voters faced another cable industry-funded astroturf effort, with $245,000 spent to successfully defeat a similar measure.  This time, thanks in part to public exposure of the companies pulling the strings behind the astroturf campaign, voters rejected the propaganda onslaught and passed the measure.  Cable bills have also increased several times since the 2009 measure, a reminder to the public why competition can make a real difference.

With the passage of 2A, the city can choose to leave the network exactly as it is today or partner with another provider to offer services to the public.  It’s now their choice, not Comcast’s.

You can look all over this astroturf group's website and never find the fact it's bought and paid for on behalf of Colorado's largest cable company -- Comcast.

The next time Comcast or CenturyLink wants to increase your rates because of the “increased costs of doing business,” you might want to ask them why they have collectively spent more than $300,000 on an astroturf campaign to stop the city of Longmont, Col. (pop. 86,000) from using excess fiber capacity to provide competition to the phone and cable company without raising taxes a penny.

Longmont voters are headed to the polls today with a simple question to answer: should the city be allowed to open their fiber network to all-comers to provide competitive video, data, and telephone services to city residents.  Longmont’s fiber network was constructed in the 1990s as part of its electrical infrastructure.  Some utility companies buried enormous amounts of fiber intending to use it to electronically collect usage data from ratepayers so meter readers could become a thing of the past.  Like in other cities, Longmont now has a fiber network that is woefully underused, and the city wants to open up the tremendous excess capacity for telecommunications uses.  They are even open to allowing Comcast and CenturyLink to use the network to help service their own respective customers, but the thought a new competitor (including a community-owned provider) might deliver service over that network has created an absurd $300,000 Hissyfit.

Comcast has been caught funding the majority of the opposition, the so-called “No on 2A” and “Look Before We Leap” projects, sponsored primarily by the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association, which counts Comcast as a member.

But visitors to the campaign’s cheesy website never realize who is running the show because the effort hides its association with Big Telecom.

It’s a classic example of Astroturf Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.  Scare residents into believing the city will raise taxes or go into financial distress.  Raise uncertainty by claiming important details are being left out.  Encourage doubt by comparing the advanced fiber network with anemic public Wi-Fi failures of the past involving Earthlink (remember them?).

But the No on 2A campaign is also willing to check themselves into a deluxe suite at the Hypocrisy Hotel, accusing city officials of hiding the names of their pro-fiber supporters and backers, including (gasp!) a company based in France!

The No on 2A website breathlessly relates the incriminating documents were unearthed from “previously secret emails just made public thanks to a Colorado Open Records Act.” They suggest a nefarious connection with Alcatel-Lucent because that company, which sells products and services related to fiber networks, communicated with the city in a handful of e-mail messages last summer.  You know those French, always up to something.

When it doubt, blame the French for being in on it.

The rich, buttery irony of a “group” secretly funded by the state’s largest cable company accusing others of keeping secrets is ignored at Kabletown.

But then I’ve received e-mail from Alcatel-Lucent (and Comcast) myself.  And I have a French last name.  Sacrebleu!

The website’s “opponents,” evidently gleaned from the few hundred residents that signed their visitor’s book, includes names like Joanna Crawford, “Garrett County,” and El Cordova, which we think could be the name of a Mexican pro-wrestler, we’re not sure.

City officials are stunned by the sheer amount of money being spent by cable and phone companies to keep competition far, far away.  So apparently is the local media, which has taken to identifying the “grass roots” opposition right down to their job title and name of the lobbying firm they work for.

Take Times-Call, which helpfully discloses “Look Before We Leap” spokesman George Merritt is actually a senior strategist for Onsight Public Affairs of Denver.  That’s a real nice way to say “lobbying firm hired to develop social media strategies to snooker influence public opinion on behalf of corporate clients.”

You know you’re not dealing with a neighborhood group lobbying to reduce road speeds in the neighborhood or sign a petition for improved trash collection when you read Leap’s financial disclosure reports:

• $120,913.64 to mass communications firm SE2 of Denver for a variety of services, including mail pieces, consulting, two television buys and ad production and design.
• $70,500 to Rocky Mountain Voter Outreach of Denver for “canvass, management rent and miscellaneous associates.”
• $37,500 to OnSight Public Affairs for consulting.
• $22,000 to Drake Research and Strategy of Boulder for polling.
• $15,776.84 to Zata3 for phone work.
• $12,260 to Holland and Hart of Denver for legal expenses.
• $8,000 to EIS of Grand Junction for consulting.
• $4,334.65 to Campaign Products of the Rockies, of Denver, for a voter file, mailing lists, stickers and yard signs.
• $2,500 to Mark Stevens of Denver for research.
• $743.75 to Tim Thomas of Boulder for general campaign work.

The whole dog and pony show of Big Telecom money has bemused Longmont mayor Bryan Baum, who supports the 2A measure and believes the distortion campaign has gone way over the top.

“It doesn’t really matter at this stage of the game,” Baum told the newspaper. “It’s going to the electorate. The electorate will vote. And we will know on Tuesday how they voted – if they believe a $300,000 ad campaign, or if they believe the people they’ve entrusted their votes to.”

Some of that $300,000 has also gone into vilifying a real grass-roots effort in support of the Longmont fiber initiative — Longmont’s Future.  Comcast’s front group tried to raise questions about where that pro-fiber group got their backing and money.  The newspaper discovered Longmont’s Future isn’t backed by any French conglomerate or nefarious outside interest.  It’s the work of Jonathan Rice, who operates the website all by himself, spending a grand total of $353 to fight Comcast’s $300,000.

“Every single candidate for office and every incumbent, in every race, supports this measure,” says Rice. “But Comcast and its friends are more interested in profit than progress, and continue to run a smear campaign to spread misinformation and outright lies – they recently posted Mayor Baum’s name as an opponent of 2A when he is actually a vociferous supporter.”

Community Broadband Networks has compiled a series of articles detailing the project and helping to expose the so-called “grassroots” opponents.  We encourage readers to become better acquainted with the underhanded tactics community broadband opponents will use to stop anything that resembles competition.