The Center for Copyright Information, which help ISPs punish Internet copyright infringers by administering a "six strikes" warning system, was scheduled to start up the operation before the end of this year.

But today CCI announced that the rollout will be delayed at least a few months, until "early 2013." The reason given: damage from Hurricane Sandy, "which affected our testing schedules."

CCI Executive Director Jill Lesser wrote in a blog post:

Our goal has always been to implement the program in a manner that educates consumers about copyright and peer-to-peer networks, encourages the use of legal alternatives, safeguards customer privacy, and provides an easy-to-use independent review program for consumers to challenge alerts they believe they’ve received in error. We need to be sure that all of our "I"s are dotted and "T"s crossed before any company begins sending alerts, and we know that those who are following our progress will agree.

The six-strikes system involves using a third-party service, MarkMonitor, to locate user accounts that are trading copyrighted files online. Then it's up to the Internet service providers to get in touch with those users through an escalating system of warnings and ultimately punishments such as throttled speeds.

Earlier this month, two of the ISPs that will be involved with the system—Verizon and Time Warner—discussed the logistics of integrating the new system into their services by the end of 2012.