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UK Government To Terminate File Sharers' Net Access
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Feb 12, 2008 08:44 AM
from the finally-getting-these-monsters-right-at-the-source dept.
from the finally-getting-these-monsters-right-at-the-source dept.
An anonymous reader writes "New plans published by the UK Govt show that they hope to terminate internet access for people suspected of breaching copyright by file sharing. Under the proposed new laws ISPs who fail to enforce the policy will face prosecution in the courts. Users falling foul of the new law will be subject to a three strike policy: First suspected instance of illegal file sharing they would receive a warning, at the second — a suspension, and at the third they will have their Internet connection terminated. It isn't clear whether users will be prevented from ever using the internet again, or whether simply subscribing to a new ISP will reset the process."
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Submission: UK Govt To Terminate File Sharers' Net Access by Anonymous Coward
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News: UK ISPs Want Copyright Holders to Pay if Users Sue 147 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "After the recent draft legislation in the UK, which would create a 'three strikes' policy to cut off anyone accused of online piracy, the ISPs are asking for liability protection when users are wrongly identified. They're worried that when users are wrongly blamed for piracy, as has happened in several widely-reported investigations already, they will turn around and sue their ISP. The ISPs, of course, think that the record companies — or whoever else wrongly identified the file sharers — should be the ones to pay out any such judgments. The British Phonographic Industry, however, disagrees and wants the ISPs to simply use their Terms of Service to disconnect people. Apparently, that means they think that the ToS should be able to remove any legal recourse people might otherwise have against being misidentified."
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Your Rights Online: UK ISPs Resistant to Monitoring Users 79 comments
ethericalzen writes "An article from BBC News online states that ISPs in the UK are resistant to the government's desires for monitoring their users' data. The government seeks to have ISPs turn off the access of users who are 'persistent pirates'. The ISPs are citing technical and legal reasons for why they do not wish to do this. Legals reasons include surveillance laws which prohibit ISPs from monitoring a user's data unless compelled by a warrant. Technical reasons include an inability to accurately identify copyrighted material that is legally being transferred over p2p clients, and copyrighted material that is being transferred illegally over p2p clients."
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News: Australian Government Considers Copying UK Copyright Law Ideas 190 comments
msim brings word that Australian legislators are considering an anti-piracy measure that would require ISPs to terminate internet access for people who repeatedly download copyrighted material. The legislation would set up a three-strikes system similar to the one proposed in the UK recently. While British ISPs resisted suggestions that they act as internet police, the response may not be the same in Australia, where the government has already tried to censor the internet.
"Under the three-strikes policy, a warning would be first issued to offenders who illegally share files using peer-to-peer technology to access music, TV shows and movies free of charge. The second strike would lead to the offender's internet access being suspended; the third would cancel the offender's internet access."
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Your Rights Online: 70% of P2P Users Would Stop if Warned by ISP 318 comments
Umpire writes "As the UK considers a three strikes policy to fight copyright infringement, a new survey reports that 70% of UK broadband users would stop using P2P if they received a warning from their ISP. 'Wiggin commissioned the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey, which found that 70 percent of all people polled said they would stop illegally sharing files if their ISP notified them in some way that it had detected the practice. When broken down by age group, an unexpected trend emerges: teenagers are generally more likely to change their behavior than older Internet users.'"
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Entertainment: IFPI Turning To Lawsuits 85 comments
Sherman's doppleganger writes "The IFPI (the "European RIAA") has made a lot of noise about filtering this year, but it looks as though 2008 is instead becoming the year of the lawsuit. The IFPI has now sued an Irish ISP in an attempt to keep copyrighted content off of its network. 'The lawsuit accuses Eircom of abetting illegal downloading by allowing copyrighted material to traverse its network unimpeded. The IFPI... wants the ISP to start filtering traffic to scrub all illicitly uploaded and downloaded copyrighted material on its network.' The lawsuit comes less than a week after an Israeli court forced the nation's three biggest ISPs to block access to HttpShare.com."
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Ummmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ummmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Ummmm (Score:5, Informative)
I can see my ISP's point, but they're making my life difficult.
Parent
Re:Ummmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Ummmm (Score:4, Interesting)
It states several times "customers suspected of making illegal downloads."
I'll add some facts here ...
The way this works is like this: IFPI (or more likely some contracted-out company) will connect to "Teeney_Spears_best_of.torrent" bittorrent, and will note down the time and IP address of all the other machines in the swarm. Any which belong to a UK ISP will result in a notification being sent to the ISP who will forward it along to the customer. Three srikes etc.
The ISPs won't be monitoring connections, because (surprisingly) that is illegal interception and can only be done under carefully controlled conditions as specified in the RIP Act. Oh actually, it can be done by everyone and their dog in local government, but that is a separate issue [openrightsgroup.org].
Encryption and suspicion don't really come into this. Plausible deniability, neighbours and visitors using your wifi connection, challenges over the chain of evidence, compromised machine, etc. are all possible, assuming any of these cases ever makes it to court. The whole point of the voluntary agreement is to avoid cases coming to court and needing solid evidence.
Rich.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ummmm (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Read the article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7240234.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Here are extracts.
A draft consultation suggests internet service providers would be required to take action over users who access pirated material.
According to the Times, the draft paper states: "We will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action on illegal file sharing."
This is a draft proposal for discussion, so now is the time to act.
Write to your MP, explaining how the proposed legislation would be
Going after downloaders would seriously inconvenience legitimate users of P2P networks, such as those who use them for FOSS distribution. Driving people to encrypt their distributions would just result in an escalation of the problem and the gov't would
Re:Ummmm (Score:5, Informative)
A better answer is for the content industry to come up with a new business model. Obviously the world has changed and their old one doesn't work anymore.
Parent
Re:Ummmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, that does not imply that it cannot lead to successful prosecution when an ISP is identified as being in violation...
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Re:Ummmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Opening emails or data packets is illegal if you simple extend the law about snail-mail. If they stepped into this, they are making their unconstitutional (well, it's UK, so substitute whatever you have for constitution) rules, which makes it pretty much irrelevant whether you encrypt your uploads or not.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Um... you encrypt the transfer, not the file itself. Ever heard of SSL? Sort of like that.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said.. I am sure there are probably protections in place to prevent abuse... heh.. okay maybe not...
Overreaching will kill it (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
please dob yourself in (Score:3, Funny)
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Comments
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bittorrent already blocked (Score:5, Informative)
I've fixed it now, but I'm not impressed that Pipex see BitTorrent as a cancer that needs to be cut out, and if anything innocent goes with it, then that's OK because it's for the greater good.
"Suspected" incidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice to see that they're not even going for proven guilt in this case. So what happens when some poor Brit has his internet connection pulled for downloading Ubuntu ISO's or WOW updates via BitTorrent... or the media companies just screw up and finger the wrong IP as infringing.
Re:"Suspected" incidence (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:"Suspected" incidence (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually what I read is worse than this. Anything they do not like will be turned into "suspected" illegal file sharing. Blog the wrong thing? Suspected illegal file sharing. Visit an unapproved website? Suspected illegal file sharing. Have an ISP connection with my competitor? Suspected illegal file sharing.
Don't think it will happen? Obviously you don't understand human nature too well.
6 Million "Illegal Downloaders" in the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:6 Million "Illegal Downloaders" in the UK (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Time to emigrate (Score:4, Insightful)
Enforcing this would require constant monitoring of all communication over the net. I'm not suprised our government doesn't see any issue with this as they are totally morally bankrupt. One tenth of the population is doing this and the first thought is surveillance and punishment. Good going.
I hadn't realised how much they were in the pocket of the **AA/BPI etc though.
This is a civil matter, for civil courts that should decide a reasonable fine and that be the end of it.
Flatmates (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, no-one's proposing that. They just expect me (internet is in my name) to police my flatmates computers for them. Bottom-up stazi citizenry for your future police state here we come.
Write to your MPs (Score:5, Insightful)
Write, phone, or email your MP. I'm doing it, are you?
Been there, done that (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately they simply responded to tell me that p2p destroys the creative industries, is responsible for terrorism and organised crime and that it must be stopped at all costs.
Of course, this ignored every legitimate point I put across to them and when I replied back asking if they could instead answer my points and how they can justify their decision when my points are taken into account I simply didn't get a response.
Writing
Encryption won't save you (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the legal hurdle to invoke this penalty is merely "suspicion," encryption is no protection. Using an encrypted link to a suspect site or using an anonymizing service can be enough evidence in and of itself.
Would we tolerate this with any other utility? (Score:5, Interesting)
What about all the people falsely accused? Are they going to have to go to court and prove they DIDN'T do anything illegal just to get internet access back?
A sad day for the UK, and an unfortunate precedent that I'm sure the U.S. and others will soon follow.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Those damned customers, they must be STOPPED!
Consultation Paper (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps if a few thousand people respond to that as well as complaining on the Internet, it may help stop such laws (not that the Government is obliged to listen to consultation responses, but it's one possible way of opposing new laws, and makes it harder for the Government to claim there is public support).
Just switch to wifi (Score:3, Insightful)
The next step (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok so we have Britain proposing the monitoring of the entire internet, Australia is proposing an ISP-level filter, US cable companies are doing their own selective torrent throttling and various countries such as China already have expansive firewalls and filters in place. Even if this proposal falls through, or is modified somehow, I think we're going to have to accept that governments are in the pockets of the media companies and service providers will target users of p2p because, in their opinion, they aren't making as big a profit as they might like.
The next step is to ask what we, as the science, engineering and computer-loving community who have been using BitTorrent and various other protocols for legitimate uses before all the kids figured out they could score Amy Winehouse albums for free, can do to either circumvent the policies initiated by the above various groups or to bypass them completely.
Napster, Limewire and the first generation p2p clients collapsed so BitTorrent was designed and users flocked to it. Now it appears that BitTorrent is going to suffer the same fate (if not now than definitely in the near future - the increasing pressure put on ISP's and governments around the world by copyright holders is going to see to that).
We can't afford to fight fire with fire. Invasive laws and techniques used by companies such as Comcast may be un-Constitutional, or against the terms of service but the average p2p-user can't afford to launch a civil case against one of the biggest corporations in the USA. My suggestion is for a new protocol to be established, with the emphasis on sharing legitimate files such as patches, Linux ISO's, videos, game demo's etc. Inevitably the first people to jump onto the new system will be the true geeks (By this I mean your average Slashdotter) and by doing so, they can utilise it to its full extent (Something like the early days of BitTorrent) whilst the MPAA/RIAA flog a dead horse.
Of course it's only a matter of time before pirates jump onto the new protocol and then we watch the whole show unfold again. However p2p-users have proven resourceful and it's only a matter of time before yet another protocol is developed and the cycle continues. But the advantage lies with us. The cost to the developer of something like BitTorrent is minutely small when compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars MAFIAA throws away in its attempt to stop piracy. If we keep it up long enough we might finally get the message across that p2p != piracy, or we might simply bleed them dry.
A little story about Nokia (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Germany Nokia recently decided to move production to Poland, where labor is much cheaper, shutting down a large factory in Dortmund where 3000 people are employed. 3000 people out of 80+ million is a
Licence Fee, and Other Issues (Score:3, Interesting)
(Yes, the BBC is doing fairly well at introducing content online, but AFAIK that's still got DRM, only available for a certain period etc, and it's a hassle to install new software.)
Another problem is that the TV market is not anywhere near as a free market as say music, in that consumers are restricted by what their TV/cable/satellite company offers. For example, Virgin Media and Sky had a petty squabble, so VM suddenly cancelled the Sky channels on its service (3p a day per customer was too expensive for VM to pay to Sky). I'm sure people would gladly pay the 3p a day themselves if they could, but the only options are to not watch, or download.
If this really was costing billions, wouldn't they have worked out their petty squabbles?
Not to mention, it would help if UK shows weren't shown months after the US - even if it's going to be legally available on your TV, people don't want to watch it months after everyone else, risk being spoilered and so on. Imagine if music CDs were released months later in some countries?
Globalization and Cheap Copies (Score:4, Insightful)
Big business (and their sock puppets big government that they own completely and control now in the modern corporacracy (which is what are governments are now mostly) care not a whit how many "little people" are hurt economically, as long as their "cheap copy" business model stays intact. they promise and insist this is the "best method" possible for the modern economy.
We are told by our business and governmental leaders that this is the new plan of the 21st century, that to be efficient, we need the cheapest copies of a good or labor-hour as possible, with the tradeoffs to those disposed of their previous employment that they will receive-cheaper copies of whatever-else, could be the same exact thing they used to make, and frequently is. Lather rinse repeat across the board in the employment world.
The official rule now is, you accept globalization, take your day to day chances with your job, in exchange, big business and big government are promising "cheap copies" for you as a consumer. Of everything, no exceptions, the cheapest copies possible.
OK, fair enough! That is the economic "deal" they have created for everyone to enjoy. Globalization rules! Cheap copies of everything for everyone!
But...wait a minute..something isn't quite right here yet... exactly where are the "cheap copies" of digital bits "for sale" legally?
We have this "cheap copy" replicator technology now that shows us the cost of making the cheap copies of digital bits is pretty low, amazingly low. But the business world insists on "legal" copies that are vastly higher in end user retail price than what their own globalization cheap copy models suggest should be the actual true "tradeoff price" according to their "you must accept globalization no matter what, it is the new law and practice" rules.
Critics of that might say "you are leaving out the costs of producing the original in the first place, someone has to pay for that as well!". True enough as a criticism on the surface level, but let us go just *one* step below that and look at it.
When big business, with big governments help and permission, moves non-digital bits copy manufacturing to the "cheaper to make copies" place, they are *also* sidestepping why this new move becomes cheaper. A primary reason is they can completely sidestep a series of societally imposed environmental regulations, or actual costs of production...they can "make more profit" by *not* paying their previously worked out societal "bill" or "cost of original production" of being a little more respective of our commons, the environment. They usually also-at the same new "cheaper to make copies" place- can get to use and exploit the "cheap copy" of lower cost per hour labor by being allowed to support local near-slave drivers tied to repressive regimes who can seriously exploit their own labor force slaves in complete avoidance-avoiding a previous production cost- to what they previously had to include in the cost of making copies, by ignoring such things as child labor laws, workplace safety, and so on. But see, that doesn't matter, as long as a "cheap copy" can then be resold back to "the consumer". That's the globalization trade structure we are under now.
So that counter
Judge Dredd art imitates life? (Score:3, Insightful)
For a long time, I thought there were laws and rights inbetween
Whoopee (Score:4, Insightful)
Buying a ship and heading off to sea is starting to sound more and more tempting.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Lawmakers (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no British law - Scotland has its own system, which I haven't seen made mention of yet as to how this proposal affects us.
You need to appreciate the sheer volume of ludicrous laws that have been implemented in the UK since Tony Blair's New Labour were voted into power. There are a lot of things that have been made illegal that people don't even know about. This looks to be another of those scenarios where someone has been lobbying the government who have been in discussion with industry members without any public transparency or debate and are about to introduce some sweeping, ill-conceived and ill informed draconian law.
People in the UK need to wake the fuck up and stop paying so much attention to all the bullshit that the news tries to make us focus on and face up to the real issues. Look at the effect of islamic terrorism post media coverage - the UK was subjected to terrorist attacks from Irish Republicans for over 30 years which people accepted and lived with effectively, now the media has created a focussed paranoia which is impacting settled British families of Asian decent.
This may sound extreme but there are parralels as to how many dictators have drawn attention from there real interests by blaming a group of people. In this cas the recession is the issue but we can just blame p2p users.
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Re:welcome to the latest round of whack-a-mole (Score:5, Insightful)
So the movie makers, musicians, writers, software developers and game designers should all go do a basic course in plumbing and carpentry?
I don't know about you, but I need to pay the bills. You are basically saying that thanks to selfish leeches who think everyone owes them free entertainment for life, our entire collective digital industries are now dead and buried, to be pursued only by hobbyists at the weekends?
Personally, I'd rather it didn't come to that, and if that means using the law to crack down on people blatantly and repeatedly infringing copyright, then good. Someone copying a mates Cd was never the issue. Its people who leave servers on 24/7 distributing tens of thousands of files that were only released yesterday that is the problem.
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go ask the aztec and incan nobility (Score:5, Insightful)
or, refuse to adapt to change and obsolescence, and fight bravely agains tthe dying of the light. go ahead, pass more laws against file sharing. go ahead, hire 10x more pit bull lawyers. go for it dude
as if it will actually matter
accept reality, or don't, i don't care. whatever you think is right or wrong doesn't mean reality is going to necessarily reflect that. you can't realistically enforce your beliefs. so your beliefs will not be reality. sorry, but that's the truth. there is in fact naturalistic morality, and beleiving in real moral right and wrong. i'm sorry to break this to you, but intellectual property is not naturally moral. and os it is a completely articifial construct, and, when unable to be enforced, ceases to be respected. you can't reason or argue with a teenager as to why they must pay bertelsmann $10 because they want to listen to michael jackson. there is natural, moral compelling reason for them to respect intelelctual property. it's a fucking joke
furthermore, the real losers of this game is the distributors, not the artists. they already screw the artists with hilarious contracts. go look up "monkey points" on wikipedia and tell me again about how pirates are hurting artists. they aren't hurting artists at all, they are hurting distributors. distributors are screwing you, and have been screwing you long before the internet even existed
if distributors are removed, i think maybe 1/10th of the money involved goes away. but as before artists saw only 1/1,000th of the money in play, now they will see 900% of the money in play. so artists make out better for the destruction of distributors
so pirates are good for artists, by destroying the people that really screw you
you, like many people, mistake disrespect for a defunct distribution model as disrespect for artists
wake up
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of them, yes. We've got more than the free market can actually feed, and the bubble of copyright is about to burst.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Though it is nearly impossible to control sharing, sharing may not be the only or even the main motivation behind the law. Consider that pretty much anyone can be accused of file sharing, irrespective of whether the person actually engaged in it. How would you defend yourself? It is your word against theirs.
In short, if approved, this law provides an excuse to deny any citizen Internet access. In particular, it can be used to deny access to people eng
Re:Not suprising, and tbh about time (Score:4, Insightful)
When an industry fails because technology made the production damn cheap and within reach of everyone, there is a real, structural growth in the economy. It means productivity has gone up. This is exactly what happened with music and film. It has become cheap to make and cheap to distribute. The huge costs of studio equipment and record factories are gone. More digital content will be made for less money. More budget will be available for art and entertainment of a higher quality, like live gigs and high quality film theatres.
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Re:Not so fast (Score:5, Insightful)
If that is the case, how do you explain the masses of Free Software?
How do you explain the rich culture and works that were created before copyrights were even invented?
How do you explain the fact that publishers struggled to be the ones to get to publish the 9/11 Commission Report, even though they could not get a copyright on it, and even though any other publisher could publish it as well? How do you explain that this report made quite a buck for the publisher that published it anyhow?
If indeed copyright drives quality content (which I believe it does not), is it really worth the extra laws that have to imposed on all citizens? Is it worth the trouble of policing information?
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Re:Not so fast (Score:4, Interesting)
You seem to try and imply that copyright, or more specifically, the collection of royalty payment for each copy, is the primary driver for the creation of content.
No. I suggest that it is one driver for the creation of content. Clearly other mechanisms from live performance to altruism also serve as effective motivators to varying degrees.
I have suggested before that the biggest single advantage of a copyright-style framework over any other method I've seen proposed is that it provides a credible mechanism for creators to make expensive works and each of many consumers to contribute a small share of the cost. In other words, it encourages the widest possible distribution of the works that take the most time and effort to produce, rather than charging higher amounts by making enjoyment of such works a scarce commodity (commissioned work, limited ticket sales at concerts, etc.).
If that is the case, how do you explain the masses of Free Software?
Free Software is a terrible example to use if you're trying to show a better way than copyright. The amount of useful, high quality commercial software developed via copyright absolutely dwarfs the amount of useful, high quality software developed under a Free Software model. Even flagship Free Software titles are often not as good as the commercial equivalents. And of course, this particular argument ignores the fact that commercial software development pays the rent for a large proportion of the people who contribute to Free Software in their spare time.
How do you explain the rich culture and works that were created before copyrights were even invented?
Again, this one is easy: far less work was produced, and far fewer people enjoyed it because it wasn't as widely available.
How do you explain the fact that publishers struggled to be the ones to get to publish the 9/11 Commission Report, even though they could not get a copyright on it, and even though any other publisher could publish it as well? How do you explain that this report made quite a buck for the publisher that published it anyhow?
Because even a thin margin is useful if someone else is paying for the original work to be done?
If indeed copyright drives quality content (which I believe it does not), is it really worth the extra laws that have to imposed on all citizens? Is it worth the trouble of policing information?
Copyright is no different to any other law. It should simply codify an accepted convention that informed people will respect without any need to police them, and provide a means for penalising the few who refuse to play by the same rules as everyone else. The fact that this is not the case today is indeed a damning indictment of the current copyright regime, which I believe is primarily down to poor public understanding of the economics involved and allowing the megacorp middlemen to have all the power when it should be the artists and the consumers who are the important groups. But fixing the ignore and the power imbalance are relatively easy, and do not require removing the entire copyright system.
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