Month: November 2014

CEG-TEK’s Growing List Of ISPs, And Their NEW Alliance With COX Communications.

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growing-list-of-isps-sending-dmca-settlement-demand-letters

I am observing “shifting sands” when it comes to the number of internet users who are getting caught in the web of CEG-TEK DMCA-based settlement demand letters, especially with a growing list of ISPs working with copyright trolls like CEG-TEK.

CEG-TEK initially only had 3 ISPs sending their DMCA settlement letters.

For almost two years, I have been telling people that there are three internet service providers who are working with Ira Siegel — Charter Communications, SuddenLink, and CenturyLink. This has been true, and continues to be true.

I have also told people that if your ISP is participating in the “Six Strikes” anti-piracy system — specifically, Comcast (Xfinity), Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision — then there is nothing to worry about (because these ISPs are no longer forwarding Ira Siegel’s DMCA settlement demand letters, meaning that there is nothing at the moment to settle).  This is NO LONGER TRUE.

The “Six Strikes” anti-piracy system was meant to stop ISPs from being used for settlement extortion schemes.

In recent weeks, I have observed a growing list of ISPs sending infringement notices. Most noteworthy is Comcast (Xfinity), which has been sending infringement notices to its subscribers in spite of the “Six Strikes” system being in place.  

What information does Comcast (Xfinity) provide subscribers accused of copyright infringement?

The Comcast notices contain relevant infringement information, yet only reference the “CEG-TEK Case Number;” Comcast has, however, neglected to provide the password so that the accused downloader could visit CEG-TEK’s website to determine what claims they have against him.  

Unintended consequences of not providing all data to subscribers.

The unintended consequence is that in order to see what claim(s) CEG-TEK has against the accused subscriber, the subscriber would be forced to contact CEG-TEK directly to obtain the password corresponding to the Case Number (thus exposing his identity, and potentially incriminating himself when answering questions).

Direct communication with copyright trolls is a big no-no, as you know it is my opinion that communicating directly with them is a bad idea because their goal is to extract a large settlement from you on behalf of their clients.

The growing list of ISPs agreeing to send DMCA settlement demand letters.

As for the 100+ small and mid-sized ISPs who did not join the “Six Strikes” system, with hindsight, we now know that CEG-TEK has spent the last two years on an aggressive campaign to enroll as many ISPs to work with them as they could… “to stop piracy,” of course. 

While it was surprising to us is that CEG-TEK went after Giganews and a growing number of online privacy providers (finding the downloaders where the downloaders allegedly reside), the breaking news is that within this list of ISPs and privacy providers, CEG-TEK has most recently signed on COX Communications to send Ira Siegel’s DMCA letters to their subscribers.

COX Communications, Inc. Yes, COX.

Again, just in case you missed it — COX COMMUNICATIONS is now working with CEG-TEK.

Cox Communications has literally millions of subscribers.  They were almost expected to be part of the “Six Strikes” system, but then they declined to join keeping them free of the “Six Strikes” rules.

On a personal note, Cox used to annoy me when various copyright trolls would sue their subscribers. Instead of housing a subpoena department internally, they used to outsource all of their business relating to their subscribers to a company named NEUSTAR, a company that was complicit and merciless in turning over the records of hundreds of accused defendants in the copyright trolling lawsuits over the years.

In Summary

In sum, with this article I take back a number of things that I thought almost two years ago, namely that the Six Strikes system would kill CEG-TEK’s business.  As you can see from the growing list of ISPs (below), CEG-TEK has responded to the “Six Strikes” system by focusing their efforts on growing the list of ISPs who are working with them.  Now that they have Cox Communications on board, this will be a problem for many thousands of users in the months and years to come.

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The List of ISPs sending DMCA Settlement Letters:

Below is a list of ISPs who have been known to forward Ira Siegel’s DMCA settlement demand letters.  This list of ISPs is obviously incomplete (and I have no intention of updating this list), but what is important is that two years ago, these ISPs were not working with CEG-TEK.  Now they are, and accused internet users are receiving notices of infringement instructing that they visit CEG-TEK’s website and settle the claims against them.

LIST OF ISPs (INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS) KNOWN TO WORK WITH CEG-TEK:
AeroSurf
AirtranNet
Arvig
Ashland Home Net
Bloom Broadband
Blue Ridge Communications
CenturyLink
Charter Communications
CondoInternet
DigitalOcean
EPB Fiber Optics
First Communications
GigaNews
Google Fiber
Hotspot Broadband
Internet Services of Cincinnati (ISOC.net)
MetroCast
Midcontinent Communications
Mid-Rivers Communications
Morris Broadband
NeoNova Network Services
OlyPen Cable
PenTel Data (another name for Blue Ridge Communications)
ResTech
SuddenLink Communications
ViaSat / Exede Internet
Strong
Whidbey Telecom
WildBlue (service through ViaSat)

UNIVERSITIES KNOWN TO FORWARD CEG-TEK SETTLEMENT DEMAND LETTERS:
Rice University
Columbia University
Cornell University
Stanford University
University of Michigan
Wisconsin University
University of Alaska

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RECENT NEWS:

UPDATED COPYRIGHT ENFORCEMENT GROUP (CEG-TEK) ARTICLES (from this blog):
Canada begins receiving CEG-TEK DMCA settlement letters. (3/12/2015)
How time limits / purged records stop a copyright holder from learning a downloader’s identity. (12/18/2014)
CEG-TEK’s growing list of participating ISPs, and their NEW alliance with COX Communications. (11/12/2014)
The Giganews Problem (11/12/2014)
CEG-TEK is now your friendly “photo” copyright troll. (6/13/2013)
CEG-TEK’s new “you didn’t settle” letters sent from Marvin Cable. (3/22/2013)
CEG-TEK’s DMCA Settlement Letters – What are my chances of being sued if I ignore? (2/22/2013)
Why CEG-TEK’s DMCA settlement system will FAIL. (2/22/2013)

RELATED UPDATES:

[2017 UPDATE: Carl Crowell has created a new entity called RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT which has reverse-engineered CEG-TEK’s proprietary DMCA copyright infringement notice system.  Many of you have visited CEG-TEK links thinking that RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT was CEG-TEK, but really they are an ‘evil twin’ competitor.  Since the two entities are continuing where CEG-TEK left off, namely adding ISPs such as AT&T, Frontier, Hawaiian Telecom, Optimum, and Winstream, this article is relevant because it also applies to RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT.]

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CONTACT US.

CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

    NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.  That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.

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    The Giganews VPN Problem

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    The first rule of Usenet is “you do not speak about usenet.”  While writing something like this can upset those I would not want to upset, there is a bigger problem — what happens when the Usenet service provider (or more accurately, newsgroup service provider) fingers you as the internet user who is accused of committing a crime you did not do?

    My mind can swirl with the possible implications of the above inquiry (oh what crimes can one commit), but in the context of this TorrentLawyer blog, there is a Usenet provider which is causing problems for their subscribers by identifying them as being the users who downloaded one or more copyrighted videos.

    Many privacy-minded individuals flock to a service called Giganews because the content they provide is parallel to none.  The problem is that Giganews providers their subscribers with a method of masking the subscriber’s IP address (in conjunction with their Golden Frog service), where their paid service is supposed to hide the identity and the activities of the users while they are logged into the Giganews service.  This is effective for privacy-minded individuals who wish to communicate with others privately (e.g., stream a VoIP phone conversation over an encrypted connection) or mask their IP address from websites they visit.  Similarly, such a service is useful when your ISP monitors your connection for the purposes of what is known as “traffic shaping” — making certain activities happen faster, and slowing down less-favored activities.

    [To those that have been paying attention, these providers are not created equally.  Notoriously, some (e.g., HideMyAss) have turned over the identities of their subscribers causing their arrest and incarceration.  Giganews has also been implicated as being infiltrated by the FBI, and they are known to track and log all of their subscribers’ activities, even those activities apparently masked through their paid service.]

    To the chagrin of those who have placed their trust in their paid service, many have received notices from Giganews implicating them as being the downloaders of copyrighted materials.  They are sent one or more DMCA settlement demand letters from companies (such as CEG-TEK), even when they have not done any downloading at all.

    While in this case I cannot fault any of the parties (accused subscriber, CEG-TEK) who are now enmeshed in a “yes you did,” “no I didn’t” fight, I can fault Giganews / Golden Frog / paid service for mistakenly pointing the finger at one of their users for activities that user did not partake in.

    Now obviously as an attorney, I represent many accused internet users, many of whom “have always been downloaders, and will always be downloaders,” but specifically with Giganews, too often there is an inaccuracy where the wrong user is accused of downloading copyrighted media when that user was not even logged into the Giganews service at the time the downloads allegedly happened.

    This is a problem with timekeeping and recordkeeping, something Giganews (or Golden Frog) should remedy ASAP.

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    UPDATED COPYRIGHT ENFORCEMENT GROUP (CEG-TEK) ARTICLES (from this blog):
    Canada begins receiving CEG-TEK DMCA settlement letters. (3/12/2015)
    How time limits / purged records stop a copyright holder from learning a downloader’s identity. (12/18/2014)
    CEG-TEK’s growing list of participating ISPs, and their NEW alliance with COX Communications. (11/12/2014)
    The Giganews Problem (11/12/2014)
    CEG-TEK is now your friendly “photo” copyright troll. (6/13/2013)
    CEG-TEK’s new “you didn’t settle” letters sent from Marvin Cable. (3/22/2013)
    CEG-TEK’s DMCA Settlement Letters – What are my chances of being sued if I ignore? (2/22/2013)
    Why CEG-TEK’s DMCA settlement system will FAIL. (2/22/2013)

    [2017 UPDATE: Carl Crowell has created a new entity called RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT which has reverse-engineered CEG-TEK’s proprietary DMCA copyright infringement notice system.  Many of you have visited CEG-TEK links thinking that RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT was CEG-TEK, but really they are an ‘evil twin’ competitor.  Since the two entities operate almost the same way, and since they will likely be having the same issues as CEG-TEK did with such providers, this article is relevant.]

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    CONTACT FORM: If you have a question or comment about what I have written, and you want to keep it *for my eyes only*, please feel free to use the form below. The information you post will be e-mailed to me, and I will be happy to respond.

      NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.  That being said, please do not state anything “incriminating” about your case when using this form, or more practically, in any e-mail.

      shalta book now cta
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