Slashdot Mirror
UK's 'Three Strikes' Piracy Measures Published
judgecorp writes "UK regulator Ofcom has published details of plans to disconnect illegal file-sharers. It is the 'three strikes' policy which ISPs unsuccessfully appealed against, and it requires ISPs to keep a list of persistent copyright infringers (identified, as usual, by their IP address). ISPs will have to send monthly warning letters to those who infringe above a certain threshold. If a user gets three letters within a single year, the ISP must hand anonymised details to the copyright owner, who can apply for a court order to obtain the infringer's identity (or at least, an identity associated with that IP address)."
VPNs will be the order of the day!
In other news: First Post! :P
I really, really want it to become a trend to deliberately download red-flagged content from IP addresses other than your own. Do it over poorly-secured Wi-Fi, or public access or whatever, but do it to prove a point.
That seems like the natural activist thing to do.
Wouldn't this make onion routing potentially illegal?
That's not the worry. Drive around putting files on people computer that you wouldn't want on your own machine.
I need TIN FOIL!!
We have the darknets ready to run.
Should not it be called "The Taken Wicket Policy"? What is this "Three Strikes" non-sense you speak of?
Off for a spot of tea...
Shouldn't that be "alleged persistent copyright infringers"?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Yes thats right, even though it is only an accusation, it will cost the innocent £20 to deny the accusation! telegraph article
For every three strikes policy there should be a home run policy. A home run would be a crime of such complexity and grand proportion that its perpetrators would get off free and clear. The US seems to have an unspoken home run policy that is frequently applied to those who work on Wall Street. The UK has a similar policy in their own investment banking sector.
So, what would be a home run in this instance? Uploading the top 10 movies and songs of 2012 onto every web-connected machine?
Of course I jest.
I can't believe the submitter missed out the worse bit!
From the BBC News:
So now you're automatically assumed guilty .. and can only prove you're innocent after you've paid for the "privilege" to do so!
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Well, the trap is that they could be mislabeling infringing content, there could be content you own that you're uploading/downloading to a cloud service they're unaware of that they could flag, they don't know who's using the computer at the time, nor the IP address really. Could be automated by a trojan for all they know.
Twinstiq, game news
"...to those who infringe above a certain threshold."
The sliding window approach allows ISPs to harvest just enough infringers to keep big content supplied with a steady stream of lawsuits with ready-made payouts. Not that big content is suffering in any measurable way from copyright infringement to begin with. The problem with these approaches is that they falsely assume that every download is another lost sales opportunity. The flaw in their reasoning here is that people's pockets don't suddenly get deeper as soon as they have no choice but to pay for content...they just view less content.
It's interesting when you think about it. The media producers are pushing for the so-called pirates to be punished by removing their ability to pirate or assist others in doing so by uploading.
If they were truly motivated purely by profit, wouldn't they be pushing instead for massive civil penalties, or perhaps some sort of tax?
Banning pirates from the internet does little to increase profits even IF you follow MAFIAA logic that every single pirated file equates to one "stolen" sale, because where are people most likely to buy music? Online.
This leads to several possible conclusions (ranked in order of probability (by my analysis), descending):
1) The entire music/film industry is basically panicking and is unable to think straight due to the massive upheavals caused by the Internet, and they're lashing out like a scared animal.
2) They actually do not care about pure profits, but are instead concerned primarily with maintaining control of distribution, making this as much an attack on iTunes as The Pirate Bay.
3) They are fully aware of how ineffective this will be at curbing piracy, and plan to use this as a stepping-stone to something bigger and worse ("Look, even with the Three Strikes law, we're still making only billions of dollars per minute, we need a law that taxes people by the megabyte to use the Internet because they might use it for PIRACY!").
4) They're just a pawn in someone else's Evil Master Plan.
Don't forget that this is all done to "protect the Artists" (we all know the truth, but most don't).
It is therefore reasonable to attack the artists that come out in favour.
The Telegraph article has a photo of Adele. Don't know her opinion, but either they come out against soon or they are presumed in favour (though for 20 quid I will review their case) Boo outside their concerts. Use "xxx Kills The Internet!" Or, organize a public "CD burning" (have some real ones, have a bunch that you printed covers with a quality colour printer). The point is: make it personal. It's no longer the Grey Anonymous Regulatory Organization that is the bad guy. Give them a face.
But: make sure to not bother those artists that come out against, to the contrary, support them.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
"Oh you've got evidence that this person was infringing? Well, it's a dynamic IP, so we can't guarantee that's the same person..."
(a week goes by)
"Oh right, so you've somehow worked out that it is? Yeah, I guess it does look like it fits a pattern of a single user. Is that definitely copyright-infringing material?"
(a week goes by)
"Yeah fair enough, you can apply for the anonymised details. Just sign here... and here... and here... and have your solicitor sign here... here... and, uh, here... Good. And how do you want to pay for that admin fee? Ah, we don't take Amex."
(a week goes by)
"Right here's your anonymised data"
(a month goes by, while the court paperwork gets filed, lost, refiled, buried in a peat bog, posted to Azerbaijan and eventually found in the ruins of a disused hospital somewhere near Glasgow)
"Oh, the contact details? Sure, just need you to sign here, here, and here... cool, and your solicitor needs to sign here, here, here, here and here... Lovely. Now, how would you like to pay the admin fee?"
(a week goes by)
"Oh, the contact details? Sorry, it's run over its time limit and we've wiped them. Would you like me to send out new forms?"
Depends how the law is written. When the police around here wanted to introduce photo-radar speed traps and red light cameras it actually required the government to re-write the law. The offence you are charged with if you are pulled over for speeding is "operating a motor vehicle above the posted speed limit on a roadway", however if you are caught by photo radar it's actually a different offence called "being the owner of a motor vehicle being operated above the posted speed limit on a roadway" (the latter being added to the law specifically to allow for photo-radar where they'd have no proof of who was driving) The two different offences actually carry different penalties as well, they each carry identical monetary fines, however the former also includes demerit points, whereas the latter does not. My guess is that the law for your parking example is worded in such a way that the owner of the vehicle is responsible, regardless of who drove it there.
Just wait for another re-write of copyright laws making it an offence to be the account holder of an internet connection where unauthorized copying has taken place. makes it much easier to prove then the current situation where only the person actually downloading the content can be nailed.