14 DAY TRIAL // Hollywood studios like MGM, Paramount, Viacom, and others are increasing the stress they are putting on ISPs around the world, and apparently, at least one ISP in Italy has cracked under pressure.
Italian newspaper Repubblica is reporting that one ISP that provides Internet services for Northern Italy has been put under a lot of legal stress by several Hollywood movie studios, which have been sending correspondence about some of its users that are downloading or sharing copyright infringing material.
The ISP is so distraught by the amount of legal warnings it has been receiving that it has moved on to informing customers they will be dropped if they don't stop their illegal behavior.
The legal notices that the ISP has been receiving contains quite a large number of small intricate details, like the client's IP address, the time when each violation occurred, the copyright material involved in the transaction, and even valid digital certificate signatures to authenticate the sender as a real representative of a Hollywood studio.
Additionally, the ISP has also been warned that, if it does not take any measures to stop these thefts from occurring from within its client pool, the Hollywood studios will be forced to take further legal action against it.
One Italian ISP has started sending emails to users, warning they'll be disconnected
Because of this, the Italian ISP has started sending emails to clients in the tune of (translated from Italian):
"We have received numerous reports of unlawful use of his connection from multiple rights holders or their legal departments (Viacom, Paramount, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and other distribution companies)," reads the email. "We kindly ask you to give feedback within 48 hours. In case of failure or incorrect feedback we will be forced to proceed with the termination of service."
In theory, the Hollywood movie studios are practically trying to implement their own international version of the "six strikes" US law, but using nefarious legal threats, and a lack of local legislation that precisely places the blame on ISP and/or users when copyrighted material is being pirated online.
Either way, people hellbent on downloading pirated content regardless will just simply switch their Internet provider, so the ISP in question is only doing damage to its reputation by playing lackey to Hollywood's lawyers.