MPAA Kills Town's WiFi Over One Movie Download

Overreact much?

How did they track him? Hacking or using some sort of privacy breaching method. Fuck them hypocrites.

Now, just wait one goddamn minute. How can some bullshit corporation have more authority than a local government? The local government needs to tell the ISP to deal with the "illegal" download and turn the internet connection back on.

They also do not need to run a filter; they just need to force people to sign up for a log in and attach all sites visited to the username log. If a complaint comes in, then the government needs to contact the owner of that username and deal with that particular user(if they can prove that that user actually downloaded the digital item).

The MPAA and Sony have stepped well outside of their bounds of power and our governments need to reign in these corporations.

P.S.
Tom's really needs to proofread their articles before they post them.

Bad luck... That sucks to be there. I don't think it should have terminated the entire place..

The year is 2065, Squads of MPAA kill droids patrol the ruined streets while RIAA attack helicopters swarm overhead ready to open fire on any detected copyright infringers.

Lame. Kind of like banning the use of steak knives from a restaurant because one person got mad and stabbed somebody.

This is why I think we should put the entire MPAA and RIAA in front of a firing squad and unload a lot of shells.

doesn't open dns block p2p traffic?

This smells of IT personnel who know nothing of how to control internet traffic.

Also, +1 on the proofreading sucking. I'm sure the "country" has $4900 to use for filtering, maybe the county doesn't - but in that case get a good f'ing firewall that you can block ports on! Needless to say you can get wireless firewalls that can block that for far less total and per year - idiots.

So the MPAA is having too much trouble finding and tracking the offending person who actually committed the crime so they are allowed to tear up the public road the criminal used to get away?

This is definitely messed up.

They just need to throw untangle on their network. Oh and tell the MPAA to get the f'k out of their town.

BOT + ipcop = open ports for email, http(s), and vpn. donate money to creators of ipcop and bot

next week:

a twinkie was stolen from wal-mart, so the they cut of the food and water supply to all surrounding villages to teach them a lesson.

seriously, how do they have the right to do that?

Ahhmmm, I'm a not a yank so I could be wrong ,but I smell a 1st Amendment violation here.
And remember you Yankees it is UNALENIABLE rights,, not inalienable,,which means that you cannot give away your rights,,NOR can they be taken away the Constitution does not give that power to congress
:::See Patriot act 1&2...

Son y is responsible for taking down a whole town's WiFi in order to stop a user from downloading a movie of theirs..? lmfao how freaking retarded are they? And ofc noone will even react to Sony. Suckups. Oh well., if they dont tell Sony off in odert o not be ruining it for them , then deal with it. Its a 2 way.

I love the idea of a state sponsored wireless connection in a city. I wouldn't expect much for speed, but enough for average usage.
To take that away is wrong.
Just like Time Warner Cable complaining it couldn't compete against a city sponsored fiber optic program...

What exactly is this going to prove? One person goes astray and everyone suffers for it. A simple warning would have been enough.

Unless there has been somekind of EULA than this is just the same as:
I am a killer, kill a guy. The family victim trace the killer. The police find out that I am the killer is live at Washington DC. I am proved using 1'st degree planning murder. SO ALL PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON DC WILL BE KILL INCLUDING ME AS A PUNISHMENT =)).

Somebody should terminate the MPAA instead.

That would be a way easier way to prevent future crimes. Don't know who it is, but I'll just get all the people and put them in jail. I mean they all are bound to eventually commit a crime, right?

And oh no, 1 movie. what will you do? Going back to it. MAKE GOOD MOVIES AND PEOPLE WILL BUY THEM. Stop making bad movies and blaming the less profit on the fact that people are pirating it.

I feel sorry for universities now. If they disconnect a county, why not close down every uni too? Not sure how it is in America, but I know the biggest seeders in the Netherlands are the students on uni-internet.

Punishing an entire community/group because of one of its members doing something wrong is also an offense. How many times shall MPAA get away with breaking the laws themselves?

Maybe its time for MPAA to begin adapting to the new way the world works and technology is used instead of defending its "rights" adapted in the early stoneage.

this is overkill its looks like the mpaa is going duck hunting with nukes

Couldn't this have been some generic person passing through town and/or staying in a hotel while there on business? Or maybe a hacker succeeded with a virus to Grandma's computer and was using that to download movies? The free internet isnt the problem here and the local gov't should have told them to piss off and investigate it themselves. Sad day indeed.

Someone should get on the MPAA network and download something questionable so they have to shutdown their OWN network...

What needs to happen is the EFF needs to get behind someone (and this town seems like a perfect candidate) and take this crap all the way to the Supreme Court. Hopefully, they will come to realize that the DMCA is a heinous piece of legislation that is vague and over-reached, and rule that damn thing as unconstitutional.

I can appreciate that they want to mitigate the effect of piracy on their bottom line; but they are misusing the force fo law to compensate for their security short-comings rather than putting any real effort into solving the problems on their end.

I find it unlikely the RIAA/Sony FORCED the wireless to be turned off, but that some dickless politician made the call as a preemption of the legal mess. The IT "Director" needs to seriously examine Open Source applications, as this is too easy a task. Not even any fancy shit is needed. They need to fire the dude and hire a teenager, he'd do a better job.
Morons.
Next, taking away the free internet is NOT screwing with your first amendment rights. Go to fucking burger king (they have it free at least here) and blog / tweet till you die bout how much it sucks.

I live near and work with businesses in Cochocton... it's relatively small. This is an example of how capitalism and government are unbalanced. Under threat of lawsuit this small county was told to cut off a utility, which was paid for by the people of Coshocton County. Now we have a paid utility, that is not serving anyone, is the MPAA going to reimburse the people? No. Is Sony? No. If Sony was able to SEE the download happening, they should have taken it a step further by WORKING with the local government, not stepping all over it.

Ahh, one of my favorite Stalinisims: "I would rather punish a thousand innocent men than let one guilty man go unpunished." Thanks for setting civil rights back a few decades, Sony. I agree with most of the above posts.. I find it incredible that anyone in that local government would think Sony or the MPAA have the authority to even request something like shutting off a public internet resource. Unbelieveable.

I agree with TheKurrgan, the county probably got a nasty letter from RIAA/Sony, paniced and caved in. I'm sure somewhere someone downloaded a pirated movie over AT&T wireless, you don't see them shutting down nationally...

cant squeeze blood out of a turnip, but the MPAA and RIAA sure are trying to. The more they do it, the more people copy. Cause / effect. I am sure they sleep at night thinking that they are makinng a difference and people will learn from their example, but obviously they've never stepped foot on a college campus where probably 75% of all movies are copied. OH, wait I forgot the MPAA already completely destroyed 3 families, putting them on the street to starve to death. Why WOULDN'T someone want to copy games? They are killing innocent people...those fucking terrorists.