BitTorrent News :: Parent Punishes Kid for Triggering a “Six Strikes” Piracy Alert

The “six strikes” copyright alert system has claimed its first victory today. Tipped off by a copyright alert, a father found out that his kid was secretly sharing pirated material. The deviant behavior did not go unpunished and the parent in question ordered the teen to write a “note of apology” to the copyright holder, or else.

After years of negotiating and planning the “six strikes” copyright alert system finally went live in February.

Three months have passed since, and today the overseeing Center for Copyright Information has published a status update. The group explains that everything is going according to plan and highlights one particular case where the educational nature of the program came to fruition.

In a blog post CCI’s Executive Director Jill Lesser brings up a unique situation where a copyright alert triggered a fine example of a homebrew anti-piracy intervention.

“In one specific instance, a parent who was originally convinced he had received an Alert in error, found that his teenager had engaged in the behavior that triggered the Alert and had the teen write a note of apology,” Lesser writes.

While the parent’s initiative is not part of the six-strikes plan, Lesser appears to endorse the educational effort which is in line with the program’s main goal.

Overall there appears to be a very positive vibe surrounding the Copyright Alerts.

The CCI reports, for example, that ISP customer service lines have received “calls of appreciation” from thankful subscribers who had no clue that there were pirates using their connections. In addition, Lesser explains that the alerts also helped subscribers understand the risks of open Wi-Fi.

“ISPs have been able to help consumers take the necessary steps to protect their accounts from being used for illegal behavior,” she writes.

Unfortunately the CCI is not yet ready to announce any public statistics detailing how many alerts have been sent out so far. However, Lesser does suggest that some subscribers have already reached the third stage, which means they have received more than four alerts.

“It’s still very early, but as predicted, there are many more first stage alerts than second stage alerts and – albeit based on only the limited data we have thus far – very few consumers are reaching the third, or mitigation, stage,” Lesser writes.

To us it would be a great surprise if someone has indeed reached the third stage. Thus far we have only heard from one person who received an alert and we weren’t able to find any mentions elsewhere on the Internet either.

We encourage readers who have received an alert, or know someone who has, to let us know. It is still a mystery what language is being used by most ISPs, and we would like to find out more.