The Copyright Alert System (2013 to 2017): how six strikes worked

Archive summary, written 2026. From 2011 to 2017 this web address belonged to the Center for Copyright Information, the group that ran the Copyright Alert System. This site is not that group and does not speak for it, its member companies or any internet provider. These pages are a plain history of how the program worked, what it reported and why it stopped.

People still search for six strikes because old letters, news stories and university guides point here. If you want the detail, start with what a Copyright Alert actually said at each stage or how the program launched between 2011 and 2013. If you have a notice from your provider today, the program described here is over; read our guide to a copyright infringement notice from your ISP instead.

01The short version

The Copyright Alert System was a voluntary deal, not a law. Music and film companies watched peer-to-peer file sharing networks, recorded the internet addresses that appeared to share their works, and sent notices to the provider that owned each address. The provider matched the address to a customer account and forwarded a warning, called a Copyright Alert.

The first alerts only informed. Later alerts asked the account holder to click to confirm they had read them. After that, the provider could apply a temporary "mitigation measure", such as slower speeds or a page the user had to get past before browsing. A subscriber who thought the alerts were wrong could ask for a review, for a fee.

Supporters saw it as a way to educate people and point them to legal music and video without lawsuits. Critics, led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, saw a private enforcement system written without public input, with weak protections for people wrongly accused. Both views are part of the record, and these pages give both.

02Timeline

Each date above is checked against a document from the time. The plain-English guide to the 2011 agreement covers the first row in detail.

03Who ran it

The program was set up by a Memorandum of Understanding dated July 6, 2011. In a February 18, 2014 paper for the World Intellectual Property Organization, an MPAA executive described it as a voluntary agreement that supplemented the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Its parties were the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), their major member studios and labels, and five internet providers: AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Trade groups for independent record labels and film producers were also named in the agreement.

The agreement created the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) to run the program and its public education. Under the 2011 text, a six-person executive committee governed CCI, three seats chosen by the rights holders and three by the providers. A three-person advisory board drawn from consumer and subject-matter experts could give advice but had no vote. Rights holders and providers split the cost of CCI 50/50.

Only home wired broadband customers of those five providers were covered. Business accounts, mobile service and dial-up were outside the program, and so was every other provider in the country.

04How an alert moved through six stages

Each provider wrote its own version, but the 2011 agreement set a common frame of up to six alerts in four steps:

1. Educational step (up to two alerts). A notice that someone had reported file sharing on the account, with information about legal sources.
2. Acknowledgment step (two alerts). The account holder had to click to confirm receipt, without admitting anything.
3. Mitigation step (one alert). The provider told the subscriber which temporary measure it would apply and that review was available.
4. Post-mitigation step (one alert, and possibly more). A further measure, plus a warning that rights holders could still sue.

There was a seven-day grace period between alerts, and the count reset after twelve months with no new notice. Our page on the six alert stages and what each one did goes step by step.

05Appeals and independent review

Once an alert said a mitigation measure was coming, the subscriber could ask the American Arbitration Association to review it. The 2011 text set a $35 filing fee, refunded if the subscriber won. It allowed six grounds for review, such as a wrong account, use by an outsider the subscriber could not have stopped, permission from the owner, or fair use.

Critics said the fee, the short deadline and the fixed list of defenses made the process too narrow. CCI said it was a fast, low-cost option that never replaced the courts. The full rules, the fee waiver and the numbers are on the page about how the review of a wrongly sent alert worked.

06What it reported

CCI released one detailed public progress report. In its May 28, 2014 announcement of the report, CCI said the program sent 1.3 million alerts in its first 10 months. More than 70% were at the educational stages, and subscribers filed 265 review requests. Readers of the same report at the EFF counted about 722,000 accounts that received alerts.

The figures, and what they could not show, are on the page about what the Copyright Alert System reports said.

07Why it ended

On January 27, 2017, CCI said that after four years the program would conclude its work. As Variety reported that day, no reason was given, and the MPAA's general counsel said the system was not set up to deal with hard-core repeat infringers. The EFF wrote on February 6, 2017 that it welcomed the end but worried about what might replace it.

The page on why six strikes ended in 2017 sets out both readings.

08What replaced it for subscribers

No single program replaced it. Rights holders still send infringement notices to providers, and providers still forward many of them, under each provider's own policy. Federal law also asks providers to have a policy for ending service to repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances, which is a different thing from the six-step alert ladder.

If you received a notice recently, read what a provider's copyright notice means now and what to do in the first week. It explains what such a letter can and cannot do.

09Every page in this archive

• What was a Copyright Alert?: the six alert stages, how detection worked and what an alert never did.
• Wrongly sent alerts and the review process: who could ask for review, the six grounds, the $35 fee and how disputes work now.
• The 2011 to 2013 launch: the agreement, the delays and the February 2013 start, with the reaction at the time.
• Results and reports: the May 2014 progress report, figure by figure, and the gaps critics pointed out.
• The 2017 ending: the closing statement, the arguments on both sides and what changed for subscribers.
• The Memorandum of Understanding: who signed it, what each side agreed and the later extensions.
• Copyright Alert System FAQs: short answers to the questions people still ask about six strikes.