ISP's End Copyright Alert System
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It seems the ISP's have recognized that the copyright alert system is a failure and have ended it. I'm guessing this is in part due to Trump being elected. They don't want to deter copyright infringement right now because they want to be able to go to the Trump administration and whine about a problem it is.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/28/internet-providers-stop-copyright-alerts/
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I think the biggest part of the failure wasn't so much anything to do with Trump, but rather, the fact that ISP's actually have to do a great deal of work to throttle their customers for alleged copyright infringement. The other problem that comes into play here is that providers generally aren't willing to throttle or even disconnect their customers due to such allegations because of the potential impact that it can have to their profits.
Also, on that note, there is yet another problem that comes into play, which in Canada, was ruled to be a big issue and is the whole reason why the Canadian Notice & Notice system exists in the first place. As was argued in the case of Voltage Pictures LLC v. TekSavvy Solutions Inc (Case No. T-2058-12) back in 2013, TekSavvy set the precedent that an IP address alone is insufficient to require the disclosure of the subscriber identity under FIPPA (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) because the IP address alone does not prove who the end-user on the other side of the computer actually was, nor does an IP address appearing in the pool prove that the user has downloaded the content in full, or that they have shared it in full with another user. I think this is where the US is going to struggle the most, as Canadian law is often cited as the related case law in US cases, and vice-versa as both countries are said to be a "Commonlaw Country". The more troubling part in this case was that TekSavvy (my ISP) actually fought back and recovered some $22,000 in all the costs that they had to pay out for the case, as the case itself was ruled to have had an insufficient merit to pursue the ISP. (Things like this BTW are reasons why I stay with TekSavvy).
What will be interesting to see is how things go now that the USA is stuck with Trump as their president, as Trump has (on more than one occasion) made it clear that his aim is to at the very least seriously limit and censor the internet and what the US people are allowed to use it for, if not shut it down completely, depending on which version of the story from Trump's statements that you look at. Regardless of how this goes, because of the whole Voltage vs TekSavvy ordeal, it's going to be very hard for any copyright troll to continue to troll after any ISP, because you know damn well that this case will be cited as the relevant case law, even though it was a Canadian case.
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Oddly enough I just got a warning. It's the first one I've gotten in a really long time.
Coincidentally, it was for a show that the network puts out for free on Youtube in it's entirety. I'm not sure why they bother complaining about piracy for that particular program.
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Because in the United States, copyright trolls have nothing better to do than to needlessly harass people, even if it's over something that they distribute for free anyway lol
