A letter sent out by a US ISP warns customers that by engaging in persistent online piracy they will force the company to downgrade their access plan to the minimum, and customers may have problems with controlling thermostats in the dead of winter.
The letter, posted by an anonymous user on Imgur last week, and first reported on by torrenting news site TorrentFreak, did not mention issues with thermostats by mere accident.
The ISP in question is Armstrong Zoom, an Internet service provider with nearly one million subscribers, based in the northeastern US, where winters can get harsh and where "smart" Internet-connected thermostats are a common device found in many homes.
ISP will downgrade customer Internet speed to a crawl
In its letter, the ISP warns customers that if the company receives repeated copyright infringement notices connected to a customers' IP address and account, the ISP will intervene by demoting the user's access plan to the lowest service level.
"Please be advised that this may affect other services which you may have connected to your internet service, such as the ability to control your thermostat remotely or video monitoring services," the letter reads.
Unlike most parts of the world, copyright holders are allowed to send copyright infringement notifications to US ISPs. While ISPs don't have to act on each notice, nor do they have to alert the user or forward the notice, ISPs are required to take action against "repeat offenders."
Actions aren't standardized and vary from ISP to ISP. Some warn customers, some disconnect frequent offending customers, some block access to certain services, some require users to go through a copyright education course, and so on.
