Initial CAS Report Shows Consumers Receptive to Notice System, Copyright Concerns
The Copyright Alert System’s first 10 months of operations are encouraging, said a report (http://bit.ly/1isdnzM) released by the CAS operator Center for Copyright Information (CCI) Wednesday. Don’t expect the system to bring an end to all copyright infringement, said panelists at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) event Wednesday. The CAS delivers notices to individuals accessing infringing content through peer-to-peer networks and is intended to educate consumers about copyright infringement. If infringement continues, Internet speed is slowed or Web access is suspended temporarily. CAS is a collaborative effort on the part of AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and copyright holders such as MPAA and RIAA (CD Feb 28/13 p12).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
More than 1.3 million notices were sent in the system’s first 10 months, a number that will double in the next year, said the report. More than 70 percent of notices were sent in the “educational stages,” with only 3 percent in the “final mitigation stage,” it said. Only 265 notices were challenged by consumers. Challenges are negotiated through an independent review process managed by the American Arbitration Association, the report said. CCI-commissioned consumer research done before and after the start of CAS found that 62 percent of those surveyed said it’s “never appropriate to engage in copyright infringement,” said the report. More than 60 percent said they were “confused” in determining what content is legal to access and what content isn’t, it said. “Large amounts of authorized entertainment content online has led to an increase in the number of people who report accessing content from authorized sources, with more than 50 percent reporting using such sources for movies or TV shows in the last six months, and more than 70 percent doing so for music."
Those reviewing the report should be “cautious about reading those numbers,” said Jerry Berman, Center for Democracy & Technology founder, at the ITIF event. The system has been active 10 months and “hasn’t gone full scale, so it’s really not a complete sample,” he said. The results are “encouraging,” but the “better message” is that the ISPs are “prepared to keep going down this path,” he said. One can’t “draw any definitive conclusions” from the data, but the “trends are as we had hoped,” said CCI Executive Director Jill Lesser. CAS’s start was “smooth and successful,” she said. Consumers found CAS “easy to use” and “inexpensive” if they wanted to challenge a notice, she said.
"The voluntary nature of the collaboration” on CAS has been “very positive” and a “model for other types of partnerships” among Internet companies, said RIAA General Counsel Steve Marks. Copyright infringement can’t be eradicated, but must be “addressed” in a variety of ways, including “collaborative partnerships,” he said. The “private partnership nature” of the CAS is “quite an achievement,” said Thomas Dailey, Verizon deputy general counsel. The CAS isn’t trying to “cure piracy,” he said. “You're not going to fix it even with an organization as good” as the CCI, he said. “We're not trying to boil the ocean here; we're trying to find a solution that can make a meaningful difference."
The CAS “represents the most comprehensive collaboration by the content and tech communities to combat piracy through a voluntary initiative to date,” said MPAA CEO Chris Dodd in a statement Wednesday. He said the system “is an important step forward in building collaborative programs through which the content and tech communities can work together to protect the rights of creators and innovators.”