Slashdot Mirror
70% of P2P Users Would Stop if Warned by ISP
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.'"
70% of P2P users would lie about stopping if polled about "illegal file sharing". The other 30% just don't care.
The European Commission recently had a public consultation about this. I'm surprised not more understand the issues involved - my response deals with just a few of them:
Response to Commission from Pirate Party leader
(the first few lines is a preamble in Swedish, followed by the actual letter in English.)
In short, this does not deal with copyrights and culture anymore. It deals with the cost to society of enforcing today's copyright. That cost involves the abolition of the messenger immunity, freedom of the press, and private communications as a concept.
No right exists in a vacuum - there is always a cost to society of enforcing that right. Without a proper cost-to-benefit analysis, no informed decision can be made.