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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.
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.
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They send you a letter with 4 warnings inside.
Because they can turn around in a few years when this is normalised behaviour and say "Hey, isn't it ridiculous that we know who all these inveterate pirates are, but we aren't doing anything? Maybe we should pass a simple law that fines them a few hundred quid, that's not much of a problem, is it?"
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
... 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.
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