This week, Comcast rolled out its Copyright Alert System (CAS) which aims to educate customers of and deter copyright infringement. When sensing a suspected copyright infringement over a customer’s Internet service, the CAS will deploy the first of six potential in-browser warning notifications designed to warn and provide information of the violation. Further infringements will result in a total of six progressive alerts that evolve from information-based alerts, to warnings, to mitigation alerts.
“First, we expect the vast majority of our customers will never receive any Copyright alerts; however we believe that informed awareness about copyrights will help our customers make knowledgeable choices about using copyrighted content online,” states Susan Jin Davis, Vice President of Strategic Services and Communications and Data Services, in a post on Comcast’s company corporate blog, Comcast Voices.
Jin goes on to write that Comcast does not plan to terminate a customer’s subscription through the CAS, although the final mitigation alert will be in the form of a persistent in-browser alert requiring the customer to contact the Comcast Security Assurance (CSA) team who will in turn inform the customer about copyright infringement. At this point in the process, the CSA is the only means whereby the alert can be removed.
The CAS was created by the Center for Copyright Information (CCI). Members of the CCI include Comcast and four other major ISPs, including Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and AT&T. Other members include the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America and other independent producers.
