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UK Government To Terminate File Sharers' Net Access
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."
Encrypt your file sharing. Does anything else really need to be said?
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http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
My ISP, Pipex, has already blocked me from using BitTorrent. At first I thought it was just a problem with the server, but when I couldn't download a single Linux distribution I started getting suspicious.
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.
Summation 2
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
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.
Final proof the government is working against the citizenry, doesn't trust or respect us or have any fucking idea about either technolo9gy or freedom.
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.
So how do they propose that my two flatmates who do fileshare are cut off, whereas the remaing two flatmates who don't fileshare retain internet access?
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.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
It's cliche, but armchair moping about it on Slashdot isn't going to affect the outcome of any vote in this legislation.
Write, phone, or email your MP. I'm doing it, are you?
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.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"intellectual property is dead"
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.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
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.
A thistle is a fat salad for an ass's mouth...
According to TFAs, a consultation paper will be published (BBC says "shortly", Times says "within months"). (These are Government papers to seek out opinions, which anyone can respond to.)
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).
if technological progress is fair. go ask horseshoe blacksmiths, chimney sweeps, and steamship engineers
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Here in the UK, we are forced to pay a tax to the BBC if we watch any TV. Will we be disconnected for downloading content we've already paid for?
(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?
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.
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?
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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If mere suspicion triggers it, this will lead to a LOT of people being pissed off, and outrage will quickly win over the usual democratic boredom at the next election.
The entire idea and practice of globalization, that is so well loved and practiced by big business, is the ability to produce cheap copies. Cheap copies of a manufactured product, or cheap copies of an hour of labor. Business moves a factory that was employing a lot of people over to-someplace else, where they can make their product cheaper. If it is too inconvenient or impractical to move the business, they might import people where their labor-copy is cheaper than the existent local status quo of copies of the labor-hour (legal or not, it appears they can flaunt any sort of moving the labor around laws they want to with no repercussions, wink wink, nudge nudge, not P2P but B2B "labor-hour pirating").
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
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.
Trust me, I work for the government.
I can't wait for this type of legislation to snake its way into the country I live in. Why? We come well prepared already. The gov't here has instituted a "voluntary" filter list of "kiddie porn" sites (in quotes because, apparently, a lot of the sites on the list are completely legal porn) for ISPs to block, which they are now talking about extending to also cover gambling sites. So, we're making good progress in defining unwanted on-line activities already. If they additionally start banning people for file-sharing, why stop there? I mean, bad activity is bad activity, right? The logical step is then to also ban anyone who attempts to view the sites on the filter list, whatever they may be in a few years' time. I suspect the media industry won't be satisfied until everyone is banned from the internet, though.
Buying a ship and heading off to sea is starting to sound more and more tempting.