"Six strikes" Internet warning system will come to US this year

Even as France looks set to scrap its three-strikes antipiracy scheme known as HADOPI, US Internet providers are inching forward with their milder "six strikes" program. But the head of that effort says the system is about education, and it is coming by the end of the year.

Last year, the newly formed Center for Copyright Information (CCI), along with major ISPs across the US and representatives from the recording and film industries, agreed to come up with a six-stage warning scheme that would progressively impose warnings—and eventually penalties—on alleged online copyright infringers. Collectively, once deployed, the system could cover 75 percent of all American Internet users. The Copyright Alert System, as it’s formally known, was originally slated to deploy by the end of December 2011, a date that was then pushed back to July 2012. Now the CCI’s head, Jill Lesser, tells Ars the group is on track to launch by the end of the year. However, Lesser provided scant new details about the program.