What was a Copyright Alert? The six alert stages explained

Archive summary, written 2026. This page explains what a Copyright Alert was during the six strikes years. It is history: the program closed in 2017, and this site is not the Center for Copyright Information that ran it. For the whole story in one place, see the Copyright Alert System overview and timeline.

The structure below comes from the Memorandum of Understanding in its final text dated July 6, 2011, the agreement that created the program, checked against reporting from the week alerts began. An MPAA executive's February 18, 2014 paper for the World Intellectual Property Organization describes the same ladder from the supporters' side: educational alerts first, then alerts that must be acknowledged, then mitigation measures. Each provider filled in its own details, so the exact wording and penalties varied from one company to the next.

01Where an alert came from

An alert started with a rights holder, not the provider. Music and film companies used a monitoring firm to join public peer-to-peer swarms, such as BitTorrent, and log the internet addresses that seemed to be sharing their works. Each logged event became a notice sent to the provider that owned the address.

The provider matched the address and time to a customer account and sent the account holder an alert. The rights holder did not learn the customer's name in this step. The 2011 agreement covered only home wired broadband accounts of AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.

The alert went to the person who paid the bill. It did not say who in the house had done the sharing, because the provider could not know.

02The educational alerts

The first one or two alerts were educational. Under the 2011 text, they had to say that a notice had been received and repeat its details. They also had to explain that infringement is illegal and against the provider's terms, point to legal ways to get music and video, and warn that more alerts could lead to penalties.

They also told the subscriber that a review would be available before any penalty, and suggested keeping records that might help. Providers sent these by email, account pop-up, letter or automated phone call. The agreement gave a seven-day grace period after each alert, and further notices in that week could trigger reminders that did not count as new strikes.

03The acknowledgment alerts

The next two alerts asked for a click. The subscriber saw a pop-up or a temporary page before browsing and had to confirm receipt. Confirming was not an admission: the 2011 text said the subscriber acknowledged the warning, not participation in any infringement.

These alerts also warned that the provider could hand over identifying information if served with lawful process, such as a subpoena. That line mattered to critics, because it showed the program did not shield anyone from a lawsuit.

04The mitigation alerts

The fifth and sixth alerts came with a "mitigation measure". The provider named the measure and waited 10 business days or 14 calendar days, so the subscriber could ask for review. The 2011 list of options was:

• a temporary cut in upload or download speed;
• a temporary drop to a low service tier, with 256 to 640 kbps given as an example;
• a temporary warning page shown until the subscriber called the provider;
• a temporary restriction of internet access for a reasonable period;
• a temporary warning page leading to a short copyright lesson.

Providers chose differently. In the Christian Science Monitor's February 27, 2013 report, Verizon said it would slow repeat accounts to a little faster than dial-up for two to three days. The EFF's February 28, 2013 FAQ reported that AT&T would require an online copyright course after four alerts, and that Comcast would show an in-browser alert that required a call to the company.

After the sixth alert, a provider could stop forwarding notices but kept counting them, so a rights holder could use the count if it chose to sue.

05How detection worked and how it was checked

The 2011 agreement required CCI to hire a technical expert to review the rights holders' detection methods and the providers' matching of addresses to accounts. In October 2012 CCI said its expert, Stroz Friedberg, had found the monitoring system accurate. TorrentFreak reported on October 22, 2012 that the firm had lobbied for the RIAA between 2004 and 2009, and a law professor it quoted called the choice disappointing. CCI, in the statement TorrentFreak quoted, presented the expert review as part of a program built to be accurate and fair to consumers.

Under the agreement's review rules, the detection systems were presumed to work as specified. A subscriber could still show a factual error in the address or the file, and that presumption fell away if the technical expert ever found a method inadequate.

06What an alert never did

• It was not a lawsuit or a court finding. The same EFF FAQ answered "Is CAS a law?" with a plain no: it was a voluntary agreement.
• It did not give your name to the studio or label. The provider kept that unless it received lawful process.
• It did not end your service under the program. CCI said providers would not use account termination as a program penalty. Temporary restrictions were possible.
• It did not stop a lawsuit. The 2011 text required the later alerts to say that rights holders could still sue.

These points are also covered, question by question, in the six strikes FAQ for today's readers.

07If you get a notice today

Alerts under this program stopped in 2017. A letter or email about copyright from your provider today comes from that provider's own process, usually forwarding a notice from a rights holder. The steps and the stakes are different, so read what to do about an ISP copyright notice now.

If you believe an old or new notice named you by mistake, the history of challenging a wrongly sent alert explains how review worked then and how disputes work now. Where real money or a lawsuit is involved, talk to a lawyer licensed where you live.

The stages above were set out in the 2011 agreement between the providers and the rights holders; our plain-English reading of the six strikes Memorandum of Understanding covers who signed it and what each side promised. For how the alerts were rolled out in early 2013, see the launch history.