The Center for Copyright Infringement, designed to offer a "graduated response" to Internet piracy, named its executive director and board on Monday.
Jill Lesser, who previously served as a First Amendment advocate for People for the American Way (PFAW), most recently served as a senior vice president for domestic public policy for AOL Time Warner. She now leads the CCI as executive director.
The CCI consists of representatives of AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon, who have partnered with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The Independent Film and Television Alliance and American Association of Independent Music are also represented.
The CCI's goal is to cut down on Internet piracy through a process that will formalize the notification processes already in place between an ISP and its customers. Under the CCI rules, users will be notified via their ISP if the copyright holder believes that their content has been illegally downloaded.
CCI refers to this process as the Copyright Alert System.
"Under this system content owners (represented by MPAA and RIAA) will notify a participating ISP when they believe their copyrights are being misused online by a specific computer (identified by its Internet Protocol ("IP") address which indicates the connection to the Internet)," the CCI says. "The ISP will determine which of its subscriber accounts was allocated the specified IP address at the applicable date and time and then send an alert to the subscriber whose account has been identified. The alert will notify the subscriber that his/her account may have been misused for potentially illegal file sharing, explain and why the action is illegal and a violation of the ISP's policies and provide advice about how to avoid receiving further alerts as well as how to locate film, television and music content legally."
CCI also begins doing business as a number of judicial rulings have blocked copyright holders' attempts to compel ISPs to divulge the IP addresses of customers without a formal lawsuit. The CCI's partnership between the content creators and ISPs would sidestep that process.
That was what intrigued Lesser, she said in a letter.
"Unfortunately, the ability to strike the right balance was elusive," she wrote. "While laws that protect intellectual property remain strong and enforcement efforts continue, technology has tipped the balance away from the interests of most creators and artists. The ease of distribution of copyrighted content has helped create a generation of people who believe that all content should be free. The notion that artists and creators, and even the big companies that finance, produce and deliver their creations, don't have the right to own and control their distribution, simply cannot be." However, she added, the CCI strikes that balance, providing "a fair process that includes a way for users to challenge notices of alleged infringement," together with an advisory board of consumer advocates.
The executive board of the CCI includes: chairman Thomas Dailey, vice president and deputy general council at Verizon; executive vice president and general counsel Steven M. Marks, currently the executive vice president and general counsel at the RIAA; and members Marianne Grant, senior vice president for the MPAA; Alan Lewine, senior counsel for Comcast; Daniel Mandil, associate general counsel for Verizon; and Brent Olson, vice president of public policy for AT&T.
The advisory board is made up of Gigi Sohn, president and chief executive of Public Knowledge; Jerry Berman, chairman of the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee; Marsali Hancock, president of iKeepSafe.org; and Jules Polenetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum.
Recently, the RIAA clarified that there is no hard date for the implementation of its Copyright Alert System, but said ISPs are still on track to offer it by the end of the second quarter. For more, see ISP Piracy Warnings: What You Need to Know and ISP Copyright Alerts: Your Questions Answered.
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