UPDATE: Added mention of the $35 appeal fee in the "Appeals" section below.

Today, major ISPs joined the RIAA and MPAA in announcing a joint program to deal with file-sharing. The document governing this agreement, a "Copyright Alert System," is hosted here. Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy and Technology issued a joint statement on the CAS, available here.

Beyond that, what does this agreement represent? It extends some of the characteristics of some ISPs' existing voluntary notice-forwarding agreements, while stopping short of a three-strikes-and-you're-out procedure.

About a year ago, Free Press and Public Knowledge published a report indicating that NebuAd had conspired with over a dozen US ISPs to conduct no less than Wiretapping, packet forgery, and browser highjacking. 

Over the past 24 hours, there have been several reports that NebuAd -- which never was a company that was quite square with the truth -- told a court in a civil case that they were shutting down: about to shut off the lights and close the door for the final time. 

Or is it? This is, after all, NebuAd.