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UK ISP Spots a File-Sharing Loophole, Implements It

Posted by kdawson on from the this-way-round dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As well as taking an active part in OFCOM's code of obligations in regards to the ill-conceived Digital Economy Act (the UK three-strikes law for filesharers), niche ISP Andrews & Arnold have identified various loopholes in the law, the main one being that a customer can be classified as a communications provider. They have now implemented measures so in your control panel you may register your legal status and be classed as such." Another of the loopholes this inventive ISP sussed out: "Operating more than one retail arm selling to customers and allowing customers to migrate freely with no change to service between those retail arms, thus bypassing copyright notice counting and any blocking orders."

7 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Lets get rid of it by funkatron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Vote pirate, or green or yellow or something like that. Anyone who thought that this was a good idea doesn't deserve to win.

    --
    "Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
    1. Re:Lets get rid of it by grantek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ISPs siding with the public domain is a good step towards having governments listen to someone other than media corporations - hopefully plenty of people flock to this.

    2. Re:Lets get rid of it by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The key issue for me is not the copyright law. I don't care if Paramount and other companies want to protect their income stream on the new Star Trek movie.

      The issue for me is that these 3-strike laws assign punishment without benefit of trial by jury. And once that precedent is set, then the government can further erode the rights of Englishmen. "You were caught stealing three times. 5 years jail for you." - "But I had no trial." - "Precedent shows we don't need to give you a trial. Take him away!"

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  2. Who say geeks don't make good lawyers? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apparently those running the ISP - presumably geeks - know how to interpret the laws better than those who wrote the laws themselves.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  3. Hmm... by AlexiaDeath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A communications provider is say someone that operates a free Wifi hot-spot and they are immune? And anyone can sign up? O_o Somebody has effectively neutered the entire law. You guys really vote some Pirate party to your parliament to properly put an end to this crap properly tho.

    1. Re:Hmm... by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A communications provider is say someone that operates a free Wifi hot-spot and they are immune?

      Doesn't even have to be that. The contract for the line coming into my house is with me. My wife and kids use that line, without a contract with the ISP. How could they do that if I - the contracted individual - wasn't providing them with the service?

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  4. Re:Don't see this working by physicsphairy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are only circumventing the intended aims of the people who lobbied the law into being.

    Regarding the written law itself, they are legitimately following and making use of the provisioned measures. It doesn't sound like they are relying on particularly liberal interpretations of the text, but rather are going off of what it plainly states.

    Granted, I don't know a great deal about UK law, but it sounds to me like it's rather more on the legislature want to remove these elements than for judges to sit down and play psychoanalyst of the "offender" and for the legislature simultaneously.

    --
    When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.