Copyright Alert System FAQs, answered for 2026 readers

Archive summary, written 2026. These are the questions people asked about six strikes when it ran, answered from the record for readers now. The full history is in our Copyright Alert System archive. This site is not the Center for Copyright Information, which published its own FAQ at this address until 2017; the answers here are ours.

The short version: the program is over, an old alert has no effect today, and a notice you get now comes from a different process.

01What was the Copyright Alert System?

It was a voluntary agreement, signed in July 2011, between the RIAA, the MPAA, their major members and five internet providers: AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Rights holders monitored peer-to-peer networks and sent notices; providers forwarded up to six warnings, called Copyright Alerts, to home broadband customers.

The program was run by the Center for Copyright Information, set up under a Memorandum of Understanding dated July 6, 2011. In a February 18, 2014 paper for the World Intellectual Property Organization, an MPAA executive described the agreement as a voluntary supplement to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Alerts began in late February 2013. For what each alert said, see the six alert stages explained.

People judged it in very different ways. Supporters, including the studios, labels and providers behind it, saw an education-first approach that steered people to legal music and video without suing them. Critics, led by digital rights groups, saw a private enforcement system written without public input, with too little protection for people who were wrongly accused. Both views are part of the record.

02Did an alert mean I was being sued?

No. An alert was a warning forwarded by your provider. It was not a court filing, and the program itself never took anyone to court.

It also did not protect you from a lawsuit. Under the 2011 text, later alerts had to say that rights holders could still sue, and that the provider could share identifying information if it received lawful process such as a subpoena. Reporting at launch made the same point: the program kept names from rights holders, but it did not stop legal action.

03Could my internet be cut off?

Not permanently under the program. CCI said providers would not use account termination as a program penalty, and the EFF's February 28, 2013 FAQ reported that statement. The 2011 list of penalties was temporary: slower speeds, a lower service tier, a warning page until you called, a short restriction of access, or a copyright lesson.

Temporary restriction could still be disruptive. Providers chose their own measures, and some described suspending access for a set time. Separately from the program, providers kept their own terms of service and their policies on repeat infringers under federal law.

04Was my personal information shared?

Not by the program itself. Rights holders saw an internet address and a time; your provider matched that to your account and sent the alert. The 2011 agreement said providers would not give identifying information to rights holders except under lawful process, or where a subscriber chose a review defense that required it.

Your provider still knew which account got which alert, and kept a count. That count could matter later: after the sixth alert, providers kept tracking notices so a rights holder could use the information if it chose to go to court.

Critics raised a different privacy concern: the program depended on rights holders watching what people shared on peer-to-peer networks. The EFF called that a form of monitoring that many users found invasive.

05Could I challenge an alert?

Yes, once an alert said a penalty was coming. You could ask the American Arbitration Association to review it and earlier alerts, for a $35 fee that was refunded if you won, or waived for some people. There were six grounds, including a wrong account, use by an outsider you could not have stopped, and fair use.

Very few people used it. CCI reported in May 2014 that subscribers filed 265 review requests over the more than 1.3 million alerts sent during 2013, and that 47 succeeded, most because someone outside the household had used the connection. CCI took that as a sign of accuracy; critics said the fee, the deadline and the fixed defenses kept people from trying. Those figures are broken down in what the program's reports said.

The full process, its critics and the numbers are on the page about wrongly sent alerts.

06Does any of this still apply?

No. CCI announced on January 27, 2017 that the program would conclude its work, as Variety reported that day. Old alerts have no effect, the review process is closed, and no provider is bound by the 2011 agreement.

Copyright notices themselves continue. Providers still forward rights holders' notices under their own policies. On March 25, 2026, in Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment, the Supreme Court held that a provider is not contributorily liable just because it knows some subscribers infringe. If you have a notice today, read what an ISP copyright notice means now, and talk to a lawyer licensed where you live if a settlement demand or lawsuit is involved.

For the copyright rules that apply now, start with the copyright basics section. Families sorting out downloads and shared Wi-Fi can read our guide for parents, and anyone looking for movies, TV and music can check how to tell a legal service from a pirate one. The text of the agreement behind the program is summarised on the Memorandum of Understanding page.

Two questions from the alert years still come up most: whether a use of someone else's work was allowed, which the four fair use factors decide, and what students should know, covered in our guide for students.