AT&T, Verizon and a number of other major network providers are set to deploy a new copyright alert system that will flag users who share pirated material. The wind is blowing from the direction of the RIAAS and MPAA.

Once implemented, the motion picture and label industries will have the capability to match the IP address of an individual who illegally streams their intellectual property with an internet subscription. Or at least, that’s the plan. John Casaretto discussed this development in a recent interview on SiliconAngle’s News Desk segment.

When SOPA and PIPA flopped earlier this year, content providers decided to take a different approach to try and mitigate online piracy. The goal remains the same but the method has changed – Cassaretto elaborated.

This copyright enforcement system will issue a warning every time a user is flagged for downloading content from illegitimate sources. It will impose some sort of penalty depending on the individual subscriber’s track record – the ISP may chose to slow down their connection, or simply require them to take a scowling online tutorial.

What really stands out is that these alerts simply stop if the user repeatedly ignores the warning a certain number of times.  Cassaretto’s explanation is that RIAAS and MPAA are after the causal user whom they hope to deter from pirating with these measures, and not the more persistent tech savvy minority who can find adequate workarounds.

Another recent update in this space is that the Pirate Bay, one of the largest BitTorrent site in existence, is moving to the cloud.  Cassaretto lists a number of reasons that could be behind this decision.

There are the obvious ones – he lists reduced operational costs, high-availability and better user experience. But there’s also the matter of dodging authorities: by storing data in the cloud a raid is rendered impractical, especially considering that the site stores all of its information on RAM in an encrypted format.