Undeterred users

Students on a tight budget look to cut costs wherever possible. It may mean living off Ramen noodles, getting crafty with old clothing items or skirting federal laws to avoid paying for music, movies and TV online.

But major media companies have grown tired of their products being used without the proper compensation. That’s why the companies, along with large Internet service providers, launched a copyright surveillance system one month ago today to educate and potentially penalize Internet users suspected of sharing or downloading unauthorized copyright material. Those users are given up to six strikes by ISPs.

The Copyright Alert System works in three stages that experts say do little more than give users a slap on the wrist. And the difficulty in punishing these users, experts added, highlights the challenges of regulating Internet activity — especially from an industry that has sustained an estimated $58 billion per year in losses from piracy.

Participating CAS members include five of the nation’s biggest ISPs: AT&T, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Comcast.

Many students said the system’s potential punishments will likely do little to change their online behavior. However, the feeling of being monitored may prevent users, especially younger and more casual pirates, from downloading illegally, said Jessica Bonczewski, a senior environmental science and technology major.

But as a regular downloader of movies and music herself, she added, the act will not force her to click away from consuming such content online.

“I do not think that anything will change with the Internet… unless the consequences for doing those activities becomes much more severe, such as significant fines, jail time, etc.,” Bonczweksi said. “There needs to be serious consequences in place in order to make bad activities slow and stop.”

The system’s first step is education, in which ISPs will send alleged violators warnings listing when and how they illegally downloaded or shared content. After that, users must acknowledge that they received previous messages. The third and final stage includes a more serious message, urging users to contact the ISP or face consequences, including slower Internet speeds.

Although CAS does not apply to public access Wi-Fi, critics said the program could deter public hot spots from providing free connection and sacrifice user privacy.

Neurobiology and physiology major Dania Shafei said even sending warning messages through pop-ups could give hackers more ground to create confusion, especially when pop-ups can initially be ignored or marked off as yet another advertisement.

“I don’t download movies, so I don’t have much to worry about,” she said, adding the system would tackle the root of the program if it targeted users who watched or shared movies online.

These supposed loopholes, “the lack of direct consequences,” and the system’s general educational purpose will likely do little to alter people’s habits, sophomore psychology major Lisa Gabrielle said.

Sophomore Emily Cheung agreed, adding that, while the act means well, casual pirates caught in a culture of illegal downloading would likely be undeterred.

“There is really a culture around illegal music and movie downloading,” she said. “Unless you can change the culture and the social norms surrounding music piracy and such, it will be very hard to change people’s behaviors.”

At the end of the day, six strikes, it seems, do not do much, said Anne Bowden of the university’s Office of Legal Affairs.

“The CAS is not a law,” she said. “It is a voluntary collaboration among Internet service providers, motion picture and recording industry associations.”

Targeting illegal online streaming of movies, students said, would tackle the real problem, especially as free music streaming services like Spotify slowly kill the need for downloading. According to the NPD Group, 40 percent of people who downloaded through peer-to-peer services in 2011 stopped piracy in 2012, likely because of the birth of online streaming options.

Systems like CAS, then, may not kill piracy — but the rise of online streaming options just might.

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