[citation][nom]jellico[/nom]Yeah, this is completely crap. I already got one warning a couple of weeks ago (Comcast). It's not like I'm downloading a bunch of movies and CDs. I missed an episode of Sons of Anarchy, so I downloaded it. Honestly, I don't see how this is any different than asking to borrow a friend's VCR recording (for those of you old enough to remember when people actually did stuff like that). I actually got into watching Sons of Anarchy from an episode that I downloaded to see what it was all about. I then proceeded to purchase all 3 seasons (and then the 4th season when that came out).The warning message included the file name, size, and a warning that it is a copyrighted work (I'd like to know how they can prove that without being able to run an MD5 hash of MY copy of that file). Ok, so now that they've annoyed me with this, I'll just end up getting a subscription to a proxy/anonymizing service like BTGuard. Comcast and the RIAA and the MPAA (and any of these other groups) can go frack themselves, because now I'm not going to spend another dime purchasing their stuff.[/citation]
Yes, there are studies that people who download actually buy the material like you. With this monitoring crap, the ability to download and determine whether or not you like the material before you buy will once again be limited. From that viewpoint, this becomes another way for copyright owners to foist crap on their customers.
What would be really interesting is if sales of legitimate material decrease once this is fully implemented by all ISPs.