Copyright Alert System Rolling Out This Fall

The Center for Copyright Information (CCI) will officially begin cracking down on illegal downloading and other various acts of online piracy by rolling out its Copyright Alert System (CAS) sometime in the next few weeks. The CAS will be used to deliver copyright infringement notices to internet service providers from content owners who detect users that are illegally downloading copyrighted material.

The notices from CAS will be just that: a notice, and it will be up to internet service providers to take further action on offenders. This includes punishments, which could range from throttling download speeds to terminating internet services entirely, depending on the ISP. However, offenders can request a review of their network activity by paying a $35 billing fee. If the offender is found not guilty, the $35 will be refunded.

The Center for Copyright Information has partnered with several major ISPs, including AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon. Each ISP will use their own version of the CAS. In general, though, the system will detect illegal downloading by using a mix of humans and automated processes provided by MarkMonitor.

The CCI noted that they won't have the ability to obtain personal information from the data they collect, and the overall goal of the CAS is to simply inform users rather than punish them. The CCI says that the system is designed to make users "aware of activity that has occurred using their Internet accounts, educate them on how they can prevent such activity from happening again, and provide information about the growing number of ways to access digital content legally."

[via Ars Technica]