MPAA Targeted Wi-Fi Back Up

The city wifi system that was ‘shut down by the MPAA’ two weeks ago is back up. The Coshocton County courthouse based Wi-Fi system is up and running again after it was taken offline due to a single copyright infringement notice.

Sony Pictures’ Jim Kennedy spoke with Coshocton County‘s IT Director, Mike LaVigne last week, according to a report by the Cochocton Tribune. At that meeting, Kennedy said it was never the intention of Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) to limit access to the Internet. However, just one month ago Kennedy’s boss, SPE’s Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton, expressed just such a wish in piece in The Times.

So, the very thing the CEO has said publicly he wants to see happening, is not the intention of the company? At best it seems like backtracking when the actual implications of their proposals are revealed, or a spokesman playing down the effects in an attempt to minimize a public relations disaster.

Meanwhile, it is unclear if the anti-piracy program that the IT director found during his initial research has been implemented. Based on the reports, it would appear to be Audible Magic’s CopySense system, which would not work at all at preventing this sort of thing. We can only hope that the county doesn’t spend tax-payers money on expensive and useless equipment like this.

All of this, over a single allegation, only underscores the problems with graduated response systems. One Wiltshire town is about to run out a similar scheme to Coshocton County, but how it will deal with Lord Mandelson’s proposals, due to be announced this week, is unknown.