A 53 year old grandma had been accused by unnamed Hollywood studios as being a movie pirate. The studio accused the woman of having illegally downloaded 18 movies and filed a complain against the granny with Qwest Communications. The woman was notified that her ISP account was going to be canceled because of the pirate complaint, which the woman denied.

In a recent article it also stated that:

If ISPs are to become copyright cops, a role that companies such as Comcast, Verizon, Cox, and others appear to be warming up to at the request of the entertainment sector, then what this case suggests is that there’s a need for better safeguards to prevent people from being wrongly accused and cut off from the Web.

“This goes to show that there’s a problem with due process in these kinds of situations,” said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for Internet users and technology companies. “If you’re going to kick somebody off the Internet, there’s a lot of procedures that need to be put in place to protect the innocent. It doesn’t look like those were in place here.”

When the smoke finally cleared the grandma was cleared since Qwest Communication found that her network had been compromised. But what is disturbing is the lack of due process that took place prior to the woman being cleared. She was guilty just because a movie studio said so.

I believe that the FCC needs to setup rules and guidelines to regulate the ISP’s who appear to have become just pawns for the movie companies.

Comments welcome.

Source.