Slashdot Mirror
For Now, UK Online Pirates Will Get 4 Warnings -- And That's It
New submitter Tmackiller writes with an excerpt from VG247.com: The British government has decriminalised online video game, music and movie piracy, scrapping fuller punishment plans after branding them unworkable. Starting in 2015, persistent file-sharers will be sent four warning letters explaining their actions are illegal, but if the notes are ignored no further action will be taken. The scheme, named the Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (VCAP), is the result of years of talks between ISPs, British politicians and the movie and music industries. The UK's biggest providers – BT, TalkTalk, Virgin and Sky – have all signed up to VCAP, and smaller ISPs are expected to follow suit. VCAP replaces planned anti-piracy measures that included cutting users' internet connections and creating a database of file-sharers. Geoff Taylor, chief executive of music trade body the BPI, said VCAP was about "persuading the persuadable, such as parents who do not know what is going on with their net connection." He added: "VCAP is not about denying access to the internet. It's about changing attitudes and raising awareness so people can make the right choice." Officials will still work to close and stem funding to file-sharing sites, but the news appears to mean that the British authorities have abandoned legal enforcement of online media piracy. Figures recently published by Ofcom said that nearly a quarter of all UK downloads were of pirated content."
Tmackiller wants to know "Will this result in more private lawsuits against file sharers by the companies involved?"
The article starts off saying that they have been decriminalised, but then the government is still calling them illegal and apparently more people might be sued over this "decriminalised" behaviour. So what exactly is the stare of the legality of pirating in Britain?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I hope so - somebody needs to stop freetards running amok with other people's hard work
sue me.
Is this 4 warnings per ISP, per year?
It seems to me that there should be a cycle date, because users may go through different ISP's at some point, or have new friends/roommates/parents that don't give a royal **** about filesharing.
Personally I nag my parents every time I visit because I've seen all the pirated stuff they have. If it was ever available to buy or VOD, then I make the same kind of Frustrated Marge "hgrnnnmmm" noise, when the "Homer's" in my family pirate things.
Agreed.
No more blackmail settlements, no more blanket anonymous lawsuits, no more copyright trolls.
Somebody needs to stop those freetard publishers running amok with other people's hard work.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
If people are illegally sharing stuff, then get 4 pieces of paper, print stuff with ink, and mail it to them? Why bother wasting the ink, paper and postage to send the letters if no further actions are to be taken?
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of music trade body the BPI, said VCAP was about "persuading the persuadable, such as parents who do not know what is going on with their net connection." He added: "VCAP is not about denying access to the internet. It's about changing attitudes and raising awareness so people can make the right choice."
We could not get file sharers drawn and quartered, so we are going to spin the decision that we fought kicking and screaming to our advantage and make us look better than we really are.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
somebody needs to stop freetards running amok
That just made me laugh! Freetards...Classic!
... in litigation.
In court, a person could not use the, "Gee ... I didn't know," defense.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The history of antipiracy lawsuits, especially in the US, would seem to suggest that they do bugger all to reduce piracy, at an enormous cost to the IP owner and the taxpayer. When the patient's dying on the table and your best witchdoctor isn't helping, maybe it's time to switch to a better kind of medicine.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I hope and think that the brainwashing of the younger "freeloading" generation will fail.
It is truely disgusting to see the attempts to brainwash the people to protect vested economic interests.
The collateral damage to prevent sharing of bitstreams is just too high.
We cannot prevent this, neither with laws nor with brainwashing. Sharing is just too easy and natural.
We'll have to adapt our economic model to the new reality instead, the "new normal".
The correct answer is, both.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
How much did this cost?
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Oh, Stacey's GOING to be a whore.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
On the one hand, its nice that this regime is measured and not over the top. On the other hand, if I hadn't pirated anything, because my flatmates/kids/friends/neighbours had done something I didn't know about, I'd still be pissed off receiving that letter. I don't think the good people of the UK should be completely satisfied with this situation. There should be a way to push back and say, no I didn't do it, take your stinking letter back.
It's because there's no convenient way (other than pirating) to get the media you want to watch/listen to, when you want to watch/listen to it. If the media companies would make *everything* available under a subscription model (like Netflix), there would be no need to go to Pirate Bay to get it. I suspect much of what is pirated is watched once. Figure $60/yr for a VPN, or $20/mo for Netflix (which, sadly, doesn't have a tenth what's available by torrent), and the media companies could do pretty well...if they would only do it.
Well, this thread is off to a great start. I expect great things here, dont disappoint me.
This sounds a lot like the "copyright alert system" that ISPs and the MPAA and RIA started 2 years ago. You get an email form your ISP when you illegally download copies of Game of Thrones on bittorrent. Or so I've been told.
Do not treaties require the UK to be active in this?
When you use a torrent you are also sending data blocks. So even if you leach you are still "supplying" while you are downloading. This make the situation civilly more precarious and becomes criminal too.
Huh? We're not talking about artists suing studios.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I tell her to carry condoms. At least there's a chance she'll heed that one.
Hormones are more powerful than anything you can do as a parent. Deal with it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Of course you can! It's even easy.
For-sale content of course cannot compete on price with free stuff. That's a given. But there are two areas where you can very easily compete with it: Convenience and quality.
Of course, if you're like the content industry and artificially lower both for the sake of "fighting piracy", you only shoot your own foot.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Dear Sir/Madam,
We found out that from your IP address someone downloaded our stuff. You may now either admit guilt and pay $inconvenient_sum or spend the next 10ish years in court in a legal battle against a company with more funds than dear God himself over $ridiculous_sum. You'll probably win the suit, but for sure it will cost you more than $inconvenient_sum, and you can bet your ass that if you dared to try getting it back from us, we'll drag it out 'til the red guy from the basement complains about heating problems or you're finally totally broke.
It is of course entirely your choice.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What happens if I share completely legal software? How are they supposed to tell if what I am sharing is in fact legal to share freely? I am constantly playing around with VMs and what not and love playing with various systems. So what happens to nerds like me who just happen to use a lot of bandwidth just tinkering? I think this is ridiculous on so many levels. Besides just because torrents are being used doesn't mean you are doing something illegal. A lot of free software is shared via torrents. Well I am just preaching to the choir here you all know what I am getting at. Either way what you do with your connection to the internet is no one else's business.
Deal with it.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Time to get that UK seedbox I been eyeing. w00t!
Aside of a rather tasteless joke that comes to my mind...
Do you really want them to rip?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When the corporations can provide me with a superior product I might decide to pay them. But right now, I have a native copy of HL2 for Linux that doesn't require Steam. I have copies of just about every version of Windows which can be installed to and run from flash drives. Neither of these things can be legally purchased. When "they" stop artificially crippling technology I might pay them for it. Of course, I'll probably have my own army of open source killbots by then.
Nah, you just need another voodoo chicken! Damn kids...
You have no idea how hard it is to find a virgin chicken in my town, much less one for sacrifice....
It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.