WASHINGTON — In the first 10 months of the Copyright Alert System (CAS), content owners sent more than 2 million notices of alleged peer-to-peer piracy to Internet-service providers, with 1.3 million of those converted by top ISPs into customer alerts.
That is according to a report on the rampup phase in the alert system, which launched in February 2013. The Center for Copyright Information (CCI), which oversees the so called “six-strikes” program, said there are many more piracy incidents and expects to double the number of notices.
The warnings consist of two educational warnings, two further warnings that require acknowledgement and finally two “mitigation” warnings that carry some consequences, such as slower Internet-access speeds.
Comcast, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Verizon Communications and Cablevision Systems are all participants in the program, sending alerts to subscribers suspected of illegally sharing or downloading copyrighted content. The alerts are meant to educate rather than punish, and were developed with input from consumer-advocacy groups, as well as representatives of the music and video industries.
