Large Irish ISP To Enact "Three Strikes" Rule For Copyright Violation

Squeeonline writes "One of the biggest broadband providers in Ireland will make the country the first in the world (according to the broadsheet newspaper the Irish Times) to introduce the 'three strikes' rule. 'Eircom will from today begin a process that will lead to cutting off the broadband service of customers found to be repeatedly sharing music online illegally. Ireland is the first country in the world where a system of graduated response is being put in place. Under the pilot scheme, Eircom customers who illegally share copyrighted music will get three warnings before having their broadband service cut off for a year.' ... The mechanism by which it operates was challenged in the courts by the Data Protection Commissioner. Apparently, IP addresses do not constitute 'personal information.' Personally, I use filesharing all the time, but I use it to download large open source Linux ISOs. How will Eircom legally differentiate between that content, and the content that some ragamuffin may be downloading illegally, without infringing privacy laws?"

Comments

Actually many other countries have three-strikes

[qirtaiba]

If only it were true that this makes Ireland "the first in the world". In fact there are already three-strikes laws in France, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, and (though not yet fully implemented) the United Kingdom. In a sense Ireland doesn't even rate a mention against these countries, because its "three strikes" system is not law, but just the policy of a single (admittedly large) ISP.

France's law is the first and most draconian. In its original form, which did not require a court judgment before the user was disconnected it failed a constitutional challenge, but it has since been re-introduced and remains on the books.

A favourite quote of mine comes from the judgment of an Australian Federal Court judge in a case decided earlier this year, in which he said:

One need only consider the lengthy, complex and necessary deliberations of the Court upon the question of primary infringement to appreciate that the nature of copyright infringements within the BitTorrent system, and the concept of “repeat infringer”, are not self-evident. It is highly problematic to conclude that such issues ought to be decided by a party, such as the [ISP], rather than a court. Copyright infringement is not a simple issue.

"Three strikes" rules -- unusual?

[Kargan]

I work for a tech support firm in the US, supporting a number of different ISPs, and at least a handful of them actively enforce a "three strikes" rule, once they are notified by media watchdog companies that a certain IP address that's assigned to them is guilty of copyright infringement. It goes first strike - cut off service till you contact the main office and sign a document to indicate that you've removed the copyrighted material from your pc. Second strike - same deal, except you lose your service for 3-7 days. Third strike, they cancel your service permanently. I'm kinda surprised this story is making /.

Re:Not quite

[Grumbleduke]

Well all music is copyrighted...

No, it isn't.
We don't (yet) have indefinite copyright anywhere. In Ireland (as in the UK), the copyright on sound recordings (so MP3s and whatnot) expires 50 years after the recording was made. Obviously, this means works recorded in the 60s will be dropping out of copyright soon. That will include the early works of some rather big names including the Beatles. It is no wonder that the lobbyists are hard at work extending it - screw investing in new bands, mustn't let the stuff they've already bought (and don't have to pay the artists for) become available for free.

Personally, I have quite a bit of music I have downloaded that is not copyrighted.

Re:bad, but better then being sued

[bfree]

The important thing to note is that this 1 ISP is the former government monopoly who still runs the last mile of copper upon which nearly all DSL in the country depends. I wonder if they will include the customers of their wholesale DSL customers who to many provide the only opportunity to escape from the clutches of Eircom? The only meaningful competition to them is UPC, mentioned in the article, who run the largest cable tv network in the country.