Fergie's Tech Blog

AT&T Defends Plan to Detect Customers' Net Piracy

Anne Broache writes on the C|Net News Blog:

An AT&T executive on Wednesday sought to defuse fears that forthcoming tools aimed at identifying pirates on its network will harm the average Net surfer's online experience.

The planned tactic is "not about heavy-handed tactics that go after the vast majority of our customers that want to consume content legally," AT&T assistant vice president of regulatory policy Brent Olson said at an antipiracy summit here hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "It's about making more content available to more people in more ways going forward."

In June, AT&T announced that it was collaborating with Hollywood studios and other copyright holders to come up with technological solutions to prevent users from swapping massive amounts of content in an unauthorized manner. The idea is to target and identify the most salient offenders, according to news reports at the time, but it remains unclear exactly how the technique will work.

posted by Fergie @ 10/03/2007 03:45:00 PM