It has continued to be a problem regarding the distribution of copyrighted material from our cable modem subscribers.  In compliance with our Internet Subscriber and Service Agreement and with federal copyright laws, we have had to terminate services for users based upon this infringement.  Companies such as IP Echelon and Safenet have been scanning ISPs nationwide on behalf of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Columbia Pictures Industries Inc., Screen Gems, Inc. and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

If you are using any form of "peer-to-peer" service, BitTorrent or any service that provides the ability to upload and therefore permit “DISTRIBUTION” of this material, you are in VIOLATION.  These programs include but are not limited to applications such as: Ares, Bearshare, BitTorrent, Blubster, eDonkey, eMule, Frostwire, Gnutella, iMesh, Kazaa, Limewire, Morpheus, MP3 Rocket, Napster, uTorrent and WinMX.  A more comprehensive list can be found at Wikipedia at the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer#Networks_and_protocols. 


The “quick fix” to resolve this issue is to either uninstall the violating application or to turn off uploads inside the application itself.  By default, these programs have uploads turned on.  It is not something you choose to do but are forced to do just by installing the program.  More info can be found at http://www.respectcopyrights.org/faqs.html.


Please note that this is a violation of Federal Copyright Laws.  We will work with you to determine the problem to prevent this from happening in the future.  Continued abuse situations can result in termination of your service.  If we permit these actions to continue then we run a risk of cancellation of our service for all subscribers.


Additional information regarding our Acceptable Use of Internet Services can be found at the following links:

Service References:
Internet Subscriber and Service Agreement: www.harlanonline.net/legalthree.htm
System Rules: www.harlanonline.net/legalthree.htm#System_Rules
Copyright Reference: www.harlanonline.net/legalthree.htm#Copyright
Respect Copyrights: http://www.respectcopyrights.org
Federal Copyright Laws: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html