ACNS Summary

ACNS stands for Automated Copyright Notice System. It’s an open source, royalty free system that universities, ISP’s, or anyone that handles large volumes of copyright notices can implement on their network to increase the efficiency and reduce the costs of responding to the notices. The system is a flexible design so that it can be implemented on just about any network, using already available network equipment such as routers and packetshapers. It is not intrusive and does not invade the privacy of the networks users, and it let’s the university or ISP enforce its own policies with regard to network abuse and copyright infringement. The system could also be utilized to handle abuse complaints, viruses, worms, trojans, and other malicious network activity.

Copyright holders are already trolling the Internet for copyright violations – finding computers and users that are illegally distributing copyrighted content and notifying the ISP’s of these users that a copyright violation has occurred. We are offering a way to automate the handling of these notices by attaching a computer-readable data block in XML, so that the university or ISP can automate the reading of the infringement information, locate the offending user quickly and put the user into a “penalty box” so that the infringing content is no longer available on the Internet. For example, this action would then only affect that single infringing user and would not adversely affect other users in the same residential network that were also using the same P2P network for legitimate activities. Depending on the rules the university or ISP sets on their penalty box, it could also allow the student in the penalty box to continue to use their Internet connection for academic related (or non-filesharing) activities such as email and web browsing, so that the usercan still their homework online and other necessary activities.

  • ACNS is supported by the major copyright searching vendors, BayTSP and MediaSentry.
  • It is also supported by a packet shaping vendor, Ellacoya, who has already implemented working trials of ACNS at one university and one ISP. Other packet shaper vendors could very easily support ACNS if one their clients asked for it.
  • A university trial has implemented a system that draws on some of the concepts of ACNS. They use routers instead of packetshapers to enforce their policies and create the quarantine (penalty box in ACNS terms). Each case is manually evaluated by their DMCA agent before any action is taken. Once a notice has been reviewed and approved for policy enforcement, the notification to the user, the user’s reply, and moving the user into quarantine is automated. More information about their implementation will be available soon.
  • Other ISPs have used the standard XML to implement automation systems to assist their abuse desks and provide a more streamlined, efficient handling. The XML has proven to significantly benefit their operations, especially as more complainants begin using the XML on their notices.
  • Several copyright holders and trade organizations support ACNS and have begun sending notices with the standard XML infringement data. This includes Universal Studios, Paramount, MPAA, and RIAA. The searching vendors’ other clients can easily “flip the switch” to turn on the XML at any time to further increase the coverage of ACNS.
  • If copyright holders begin sending 100% of all the infringements they find, universities and ISP’s would be completely inundated and unable to cope with the volumes of notices. ACNS would help scale to meet the increase without requiring the ISP to hire additional staff or otherwise spend valuable resources on manually responding to, tracing, and enforcing their policies every copyright violation.

Contact info:

Aaron Markham

Manager of Internet Anti-Piracy, Universal Studios

Tel: 818-777-3111

Email: aaron.markham -at- unistudios.com

Christopher J Bell

Advanced Technology, Universal Music Group eLabs

Tel: 310.865.8495

Email: acns -at- umusic.com