EU Telecom Deal Finished — No Three Strikes

a_n_d_e_r_s writes "The battle was hard, but the final text of the agreement ensures that people in the EU are not disconnected from the Internet without a chance to get a fair and impartial hearing beforehand. The important part is: 'Accordingly, these measures may only be taken with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. A prior fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.' This means that if someone is accused of copyright infringement, they can't just be disconnected from Internet. It lets the accused get a chance to disagree and take it to court first. The urgency clause means that a computer can be disconnected if it is part of an ongoing DDoS attack. Next, this has to be implemented into the EU nations' own laws, so the final ruling on how this will be implemented is not out yet. But, overall, it looks like a great success in stopping informal three-strikes disconnections."

Comments

Re:ACTA

[Anonymous Coward]

Now what happens if ACTA gets signed? According to yesterdays article, ACTA may be requiring some form of n-strikes law. Maybe this will prompt the european negotiators to remove the language from ACTA. Naaaaaa, that would be too sensible...

From the article,

A prior fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. and The right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.

I think this pretty much makes ACTA, as we know it (and you have to keep in mind that no-one around here knows the exact text of the treaty) invalid and impossible to sign if it has the rumored provisions.

Court System Strain

[davegravy]

If they have to have a hearing for each case, won't this seriously bog down the court system?

Will the industry then be limited to going after only the biggest offenders?

Re:Impartial?

[lordmetroid]

Good luck finding one of those, as has been shown by the pirate bay case, there are none.

Re:Well played. The noobs think they got something

[TheRaven64]

In the UK, you can (or could, not sure if it's still true) often get off a speeding ticket because they won't bother chasing any more than six months old. There are a number of things you can do, such as request copies of the camera pictures and so on that take a good 9-12 months to complete before they take you to court and if you delay these as long as possible the system becomes so backlogged that they drop you and just go after people who will pay immediately. Maybe this kind of law will get the same treatment...

Re:No great victory

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Three Strikes without due-process was one of the major faults of this bill, tho' comparatively still a minor "smokescreen" to the real issue. Three Strikes was leaked from the secret negotiations, to attract the bulk of protest and citizen lobbying while the real doozy was held in reserve; "global DMCA".

What's the status of those provisions? I wouldn't celebrate too soon.

Re:Electricity

[spun]

A discussion, hmmmm? Well, lets' dissect your posts for some clue as to why you've been treated the way you were.

In your original post, you said: "I think the difference is that you don't need the internet to live a normal life." You haven't qualified that by stating 'for most people' as you finally did after being slapped down, twice.

You went on to say, "Infact it usually contributes to leading an abnormal life or even not having a life to start with. " This is not self deprecating humor. You made no attempt to show this applies to you. Perhaps you wrote that with all intention of being humorous, perhaps you were just being a dick, the point is, we don't know your intention because it wasn't made clear, all we have to go on are your words, and your words are derogatory, not humorous.

Finally, you say, "Water is needed to drink and bathe and electricty is needed for at least heating homes." which is simply a non sequiter. We weren't talking about water and electricity, we were talking about municipal water and electricity.

You weren't modded down for being anti-Internet. You were modded down because, a.) you presented a poorly constructed argument unsupported by facts, and b.) you sounded, intentionally or not, like a condescending asshole.

Let me remind you that I didn't call you a prick, or a condescending asshole. I said you could prove you weren't a prick. And I said you sounded like a condescending asshole. See the difference?

Finally, let's demolish the smoking rubble that is all that is left of your argument, to whit, your statement, "I don't think the majority of people depend on thier home internet connection for thier livihood. Get me soem numbers if you have proof, otherwise you are just talking out of your ass like me. Those that do, should have a buisness type account and really should not be doing illegal things with it."

It doesn't matter if there are (currently) a majority of people who depend on the Internet. The question is, are there any? Yes, I think we both agree there are. So, shutting off their Internet would have at least the same impact as shutting off your electricity.

We can't simply make exceptions for people who's job depends on the Internet. That is not fair or equitable. It is not fair to say, "Well, business users shouldn't be doing bad things on the Internet anyway," as you did. How do we know they were? This whole thing is very extra-judicial, anyone could be falsely accused and have very little recourse to defend themselves, and no options for rebuilding their lives after their Internet connections were permanently shut off.

In short, it appears that you support and defend this three strikes legislation, and do not think of a permanent injunction barring people from using the Internet as any sort of cruel and unusual punishment because only dweebs and weirdos with no life use the Internet. That is why you were modded down, and why I was modded up for refuting your specious reasoning.