The Center for Copyright Information announced earlier this week that deployment of the Copyright Alert System, AKA “six strikes,” has been delayed. CCI said that instead of launching by the end of this month, the ISPs involved in the program will begin sending alerts “in the early part of 2013.”

CCI Executive Director Jill Lesser blamed the delay on “unexpected factors,” primarily caused by Hurricane Sandy, which “seriously affected our final testing schedules.”

“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,” Lesser wrote on the CCI website Wednesday. “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.”

It remains to be seen precisely how the alert system will work, or how it will deal with some of the thornier technical and legal questions that might arise from it — and now it appears that we will all be waiting just a bit longer before answers to those questions begin to surface.