Unwavering Pirates Will Have Their Browser Hijacked by ISPs in the US

The so-called "six strikes" anti-piracy scheme is in effect in the US with a few ISPs. There haven't been many details on how exactly the scheme would work, for obvious reasons. ISPs claimed that no one was getting booted off the internet, but that's all they would say.

Now that the whole thing is underway, some details are coming out. Comcast, for example, has illustrated the way it deals with dogged pirates, those who won't stop their illegal copying even after being notified that their ISP is watching.

On first strike, users would receive a message on their Comcast email accounts, which few people even know they have, and through a browser popup.

Comcast would be injecting content into your browser to do this, though it hasn't explained exactly how it works.

If you don't stop, you'll get a second warning and a third. Finally, if Comcast sees that it can't get to you, it will start blocking all web traffic and redirect any page to its warning message until you decide to contact the company.

Again, there are no details on how you can resolve the issue and have your service restored. It's only browsing that's restricted, other services will continue to work, so Comcast can argue that it's not cutting people off, but the result is pretty much the same.

Details about your alleged infringement will be listed in the email message. If you believe you've been accused unfairly though, you'll have to pay $35 to be able to make your case, with no guarantee that you'll win of course.

Some ISPs will similarly block your browser if you're a repeat infringer, others will slow down your connection.

The scheme won't go further than that, apparently, there are no plans to sue repeat infringers or cut them off entirely, at least for now.