• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 2, 2008

Hollywood execs have been attempting to convince Internet service providers to fight copyright infringement by deploying filters that will screen out pirated material.

This concept is problematic enough, given that filters are notoriously bad at screening out unlawful material. Current systems are easily fooled by encryption techniques, which means they miss infringing material. On the flip side, filters can wrongly tag material as infringing when it's not, such as when users are making fair use of it in a parody.

But some proposals have gone even further, calling not just for the use of filters, but for the disconnection of accounts suspected of uploading or downloading infringing content.

There are many reasons to object to these proposals, which would cut off a major means of communication -- leaving people without e-mail, online news or other Web services that users take for granted. Among others: ISPs are terrible at figuring out which users are infringing copyright.

Researchers from the University of Washington studying peer-to-peer networks recently reported receiving hundreds of takedown notices wrongly accusing them of copyright infringement.

In fact, the idea is so bad that in Europe, regulators recently prohibited EU members from passing laws that would have required ISPs to disconnect users after three accusations of piracy.

Nonetheless, it's now come to light that at least one major U.S. ISP, Cox Communications, has been quietly cutting off some alleged file-sharers for a while. Cox has only done so very rarely -- less than one-tenth of 1% of users have been disconnected, according to a Cox spokesman.

Still, it's troubling that Cox has taken it upon itself not only to police the Web, but also play judge and jury and disconnect users who may not have done anything wrong.

It's also disturbing that Cox attempts to justify itself to users by telling them -- wrongly -- that federal law requires the company to disconnect them. "Under the DMCA, we have the responsibility to temporarily disable your Internet access, until such time as you take the necessary steps to remove the infringing files and to prevent further distribution of copyrighted material," the shutdown notices state, according to a screenshot posted by TorrentFreak.

In fact, the DMCA in no way requires ISPs to cut off people based on mere allegations of file-sharing. As Public Knowledge points out, the statute encourages ISPs to develop policies that provide for termination of the accounts of repeat offenders -- not merely people accused of copyright violations, but those who have actually infringed.