The "six strikes" anti-piracy program is on its way, for real. Jill Lesser, head of the Center for Copyright Information—the enforcement agency in charge of the system—confirmed that the system is coming this year in a September interview with Ars. Speaking at a New York Internet conference, representatives of two of the biggest ISPs, Verizon and Time Warner, have finally described how their systems will work.

Despite the "six strikes" moniker, both Verizon and Time Warner talked about systems that work in three essential phases. First comes the "notice" phase, which simply involves letting users know they've been tracked on copyright-infringing sites. Verizon customers, for example, will send notifications to primary account holders via both e-mail and telephone. "We send a notice to the customer, saying there's been an allegation [of] illegal activity with copyrighted files," said Verizon VP Link Hoewing.

Next is the "acknowledgement" phase. This is when the customer will have to actually acknowledge having received those notices. Hoewing said his company's customers will experience this as a pop-up window. The idea here is to make extra sure they're getting to the right people. In a house or apartment with a shared Internet connection, he noted, five people may be using the same account, with just one person—likely not the account holder—engaged in copyright infringement.

Finally, there's the "mitigation" phase. This is when users who have traded copyrighted files are actually punished, and Time Warner and Verizon take different tacks here. Verizon users will have their speeds throttled for between two and three days, said Hoewing. And even then, they'll have the right to appeal the case, which will be handled by an independent arbitration firm, he said. (The user will have to pay a $35 filing fee for the appeal.) Before the speed reduction begins, subscribers will be given a 14-day advance notice.

Time Warner users will see popular websites blocked. "We're constructing a soft landing area, where the customer is restricted in the type of browsing that they can do," said Time Warner VP Fernando Laguarda. "If they appeal, all those measures are suspended pending the appeal."

The target of "six strikes" is the casual copyright infringer, not dedicated pirates. At one point, moderator Declan McCullagh of CNET asked how the content owners and ISPs would deal with customers who might use a system like TOR to hide their identity. "Will this just push determined pirates into a darker area of the Internet?" he asked. "Will you just catch the loser ones, who aren't that smart?"

CCI head Jill Lesser responded that the goal isn't to stop "serial pirates" trying to avoid IP laws. Rather, it's to educate "the vast majority of the people for whom trading in copyrighted material has become a social norm, over many years."

Both the content company participants and the ISPs emphasized that "education" is the goal, rather than lawsuits. "This is not about suing users at all," said Ron Wheeler, a senior VP at Fox Broadcasting who was on the panel. "This system is not designed to produce lawsuits—it's designed to produce education."

Other ISPs may be participating soon. A Cox spokesperson told TorrentFreak, which first reported on the conference, that it was invited to participate but decided not to, for now.