[Kosh]

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/01/09/035215.shtml

"At a CES forum, representatives of AT&T and other ISPs discussed the need to filter traffic at the network level, to stop the transfer of copyrighted material. An AT&T spokesman said they 'would have to handle such network filtering delicately, and do more than just stop an upload dead in its tracks, or send a legalistic cease and desist form letter to a customer. "We've got to figure out a friendly way to do it, there's no doubt about it," he said.'"

Unfortunately since AT&T controls most of America's telecom backbone this would affect more than AT&T's  poor unfortunate souls customers. It really does look like they are serious about it this time.

[blowfish]

All this will really do is block legitimate content that is trapped by mistake in their filters.  If people really want to download copyrighted material, they will find a way.

You can't stop the signal...

[Topgun]

You can never stop the signal. everything goes somewhere and I go everywhere.

[DeepSpace9er]

the data will just change appearance... music and videos will become different file types, run through filters that mask packet types and unfiltered at the other end. You can never stop....

[WMCoolmon]

"We've got to figure out a friendly way to do it, there's no doubt about it," he said.'"

...

[blowfish]

I have yet to see anyone find a friendly way of doing anything like this.

[DeepSpace9er]

So how did it ever come to this that the RIAA is going to determine what sort of information we can get and receive?

[Hellstryker]

www.demonoid.com (RIP) and www.thepiratebay.org obviously

[Nuke]

i can see this as one of those things that can be abused by the media giants. like intentionally blocking independent content so that you have to go through them to get anything, eventually you wont be able to buy a single piece of media, independent or otherwise, without them dipping their dirty little paws into the profits. thank you for using fascist net!

[MP-Ryan]

I'd love to know how they're going to filter copyrighted from non-copyrighted material.  There are many enormous files that are legitimately downloadable, and not all copyrighted material has copyright information embedded in it... not to mention that it can be easily stripped out.

Not that I really view software piracy and/or copyright infringement as a "good thing" but I certainly don't think ISPs should be filtering client's traffic.  But, of course, they do it all the time already (traffic shaping is a great example).

[SadisticSid]

In my opinion, it'll probably never happen. It's already impossible to filter plaintext spam emails via heuristics with complete accuracy, and the 'spam folder' in every email inbox is a concession to that so that customers don't lose important mails that're occasionally mislabelled. Blacklisting packet content like BitTorrent packets is already impossible because of encrypted protocols. If ISPs take a heavy-handed approach to filtering content at the file, protocol or packet level it'll just push P2P networks and sites down the same route.

The only reliable alternative is whitelisting, and if an ISP wants to whitelist every bit of 'legitimate' content on the internet forever more, they're welcome to try.