ISPs to Ban P2P With New European Telecom Package?

An anonymous reader writes "ZeroPaid is reporting that ISPs could be turned into the copyright police through European legislation that received a number of 'intellectual property' amendments. Many of these amendments can be found here. Judging by the amendments, ISPs could be mandated to block legitimate traffic in an effort to 'prevent' illegitimate traffic. To help stop this legislation, you can check out the action page. Additional coverage can be found on EDRI and Open Rights Group."

Comments

No Free Content

[EzInKy]

I really think they are missing the point of how this technology has made an impact on how we get our content from the internet.

No, they see the point perfectly clear. Their view is that people need to stop thinking that they can get free stuff from the internet. The last sentence of this BBC article sums up the industry's position pretty well:

"We don't believe that society can allow the free consumption of content to persist"

Re:Not going to happen...

[Kjella]

You must be new here. I'd like to welcome you to the wonderful world of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act

There's plenty speech that isn't legal as copyright is a restriction on freedom of speech itself (as is libel, slander, fraud, deceptive marketing, threats, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater abd so on), but they all go towards the content of the speech not the means of its transmission. If I record my own political speech, convert it to mp3 and put it up on bittorrent except bittorrent doesn't work because it's been shut down by the state apparatink, do you understand where I'm going with this? There's a reason "freedom of the press" is in the first amendment, look at the old Soviet Union or the current China, when the government can shut down any media they want you're well on the way to fascism.

Re:Weird

[BlueStrat]

Oh yeah, mandatory Trusted Computing, the magic bullet. Because enumerating and safeguarding against all known good or bad software products has worked sooo well in corporate environments.

Apparently, you don't grok how "Trusted Computing" works. It works on a "white list" principal. If any of the software/OS/applications/BIOS/hardware isn't on the white list, then the machine in question will not certify as "trusted" when queried when you attempt to connect to your ISP or any other "trusted" machine, appliance, or service. Any time you attempt to connect, "T.C." authorization servers verify the "trusted" or "not trusted" state of the machine with a hash generated from the machines' hardware/software and the unique keys stored in the silicon against hashes/keys on a "T.C." authorization server.

Currently, the "T.C." chip is a discrete IC on the motherboard. It will soon be integrated directly onto the CPU wafer. There's no "getting to" the keys contained, as they never leave the IC, never resides in RAM or on a data bus. So unless you have advanced, very expensive equipment for reverse-engineering and fabricating microchips at the micron level you're out of luck. Even were someone to succeed, all that trouble and expense would only allow *one* machine to falsify a "trusted" state, and only until it was discovered and its' unique keys revoked at the T.C. authorization servers, all but "bricking" the machine as far as any use in conjunction with the "trusted" network.

I truly believe this will be the next major battle in the arms race between those who wish to control information and people, and those that want freedom, and might very well be the last if they succeed. They've already committed themselves to this path and fired the first shot with the inclusion of the outboard "T.C." chip on many/most(?) motherboards. If they succeed in fully rolling this system out, times will surely get "interesting" indeed, in that bad old Chinese curse kind of way.

Cheers!

Strat

FUD

[damienl451]

I've just read the amendments in question and I think La Quadrature is overreacting. In and of themselves, these amendments do not threaten the survival of bittorrent and other P2P protocols. La Quadrature appears to start with the assumption that there is something sinister going on and reads potential threats to the internet into the Directive. Amendment H1 provides, first, that

a national regulatory authority may issue guidelines setting minimum quality of service requirements

. Nothing strange about it, it might even allow regulatory agencies to mandate ISPs to advertise more truthfully.

if appropriate, take other measures, in order to prevent degradation of services and slowing of traffic over networks,

Traffic shaping is not necessarily bad. Why should I have to wait 5+ seconds for a webpage to load just because the guy next door is downloading 24/7?

and to ensure that the ability of users to access or distribute lawful content or to run lawful applications and services of their choice is not unreasonably restricted.

This is where there can be disagreement on what this amendment is trying to accomplish. On the one hand, it might be used to restrict P2P sharing. This is La Quadrature's interpretation. On the other hand, however, this passage can also be construed as protecting our right to use our internet connection as we see fit, provided we are not engaging in illegal activities. For instance, should ISPs block or throttle all P2P traffic, a user might file a complaint with the regulatory authorities, which could judge that, since it unreasonably restricts the ability of users to access lawful content, such a measure is illegal.

Their analysis of Article 21 (4a) is not much more accurate. What is says is that, "when appropriate", ISPs may be forced to send "public interest information" to subscribers. The inclusions of

(c) means of protection against risks to personal security, privacy and personal data in using electronic communications services

argues against La Quadrature's (confused and barely understandable) analysis that this article refers to mandatory takedown notices. A more charitable -- and plain -- reading suggests that ISPs would be required to send a brochure to their customers to tell them that copyright infrigement in really bad. This is why both existing and new subscribers (who, obviously, haven't downloaded anything illegal yet), are mentioned. In all likelihood, the only thing this amendment will accomplish is that all subscribers will get a leaflet that explains why they should install a firewall and an anti-virus program.

It's FUD, pure and simple. Most of the arguments on La Quadrature's pages are either non sequiturs or slippery slope arguments ("may" does not equal "shall").