UPDATE: Added mention of the $35 appeal fee in the “Appeals” section below.
Today, major ISPs joined the RIAA and MPAA in announcing a joint program to deal with file-sharing. The document governing this agreement, a “Copyright Alert System,” is hosted here. Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy and Technology issued a joint statement on the CAS, available here.
Beyond that, what does this agreement represent? It extends some of the characteristics of some ISPs’ existing voluntary notice-forwarding agreements, while stopping short of a three-strikes-and-you’re-out procedure.