UPDATE UK Government Promises Not to Terminate Illegal File Sharer ISP Accounts
Posted: 22nd Feb, 2010 By: MarkJ
The Government has pledged "not [to] terminate the accounts of infringers" in its response to a small petition that called on the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to abandon Lord Mandelsons Digital Economy Bill plans to ban individuals from the Internet based on their use of "illegal" peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing via UK broadband ISPs. But all is not what it seems.The Petition:
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page22497
The use of P2P is neither illegal nor exclusive to copyright theft. Many free software providers use this form of distribution, as does the BBC’s iPlayer. If citizens are innocent until proven guilty, ISP’s would be forced to monitor internet usage to ensure that no copyrighted material is being transferred. This flagrant disregard for privacy is comparable to forcing the Post Office to search through parcels for photocopied documents or mixtape cassettes.
Such requirements would place enormous strain on ISP’s whilst failing to prevent the distribution of copyrighted material through hidden IP’s, http or ftp. Who is punished in the case of shared family connections? The increasing role of the internet in access to society should not be underestimated.
Cutting off households deprives families of education, government services and freedom of speech. We do not see this as a fitting punishment, nor do we believe the breaches in privacy involved to be justifiable under copyright law.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page22497
The use of P2P is neither illegal nor exclusive to copyright theft. Many free software providers use this form of distribution, as does the BBC’s iPlayer. If citizens are innocent until proven guilty, ISP’s would be forced to monitor internet usage to ensure that no copyrighted material is being transferred. This flagrant disregard for privacy is comparable to forcing the Post Office to search through parcels for photocopied documents or mixtape cassettes.
Such requirements would place enormous strain on ISP’s whilst failing to prevent the distribution of copyrighted material through hidden IP’s, http or ftp. Who is punished in the case of shared family connections? The increasing role of the internet in access to society should not be underestimated.
Cutting off households deprives families of education, government services and freedom of speech. We do not see this as a fitting punishment, nor do we believe the breaches in privacy involved to be justifiable under copyright law.
The petition, which is not to be confused with TalkTalk's significantly larger (33,240 signatures and counting) Dontdisconnectus one (here), won only 550 signatures but that was still enough to earn a response from the PM's office. However nobody will be surprised to learn that much of their reply supports the Digital Economy Bill, except for this bit.
The Prime Ministers Office said:
"We will not terminate the accounts of infringers - it is very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme – and therefore probably criminal – cases.
We added account suspension to the list of possible technical measures which might be considered if our measures to tackle unlawful file-sharing through notifications and legal action are not as successful as we hope. This is but one of a number of possible options on which we would seek advice from Ofcom – and others – if we decided to consider a third obligation on technical measures. However what is clear is that we would need a rapid and robust route of appeal available to all consumers if we decided technical measures were needed."
"We will not terminate the accounts of infringers - it is very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme – and therefore probably criminal – cases.
We added account suspension to the list of possible technical measures which might be considered if our measures to tackle unlawful file-sharing through notifications and legal action are not as successful as we hope. This is but one of a number of possible options on which we would seek advice from Ofcom – and others – if we decided to consider a third obligation on technical measures. However what is clear is that we would need a rapid and robust route of appeal available to all consumers if we decided technical measures were needed."
Political language is ambiguous and some people could easily read this as being a shift in government strategy when in actual fact it represents no change at all. They are still threatening to suspend users from the Internet, even though they can only identify the owner of the connection and not the actual infringer. In some cases even the source data can prove unreliable and has been known to target innocent users.
At the very least this does give us an idea of how the government might choose to respond when TalkTalk's petition closes later this year. Of course government petitions like this rarely have any impact on policy and usually just result in the spouting of more pro-government position propaganda.
UPDATE - 23rd February 2010
Some new comments from the Open Rights Group and TalkTalk today.
Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, told ISPreview:
"The government has chosen the term ‘temporary account suspension’ because it sounds boring and reasonable. But it’s just spin. What journalist would report a story about ‘temporary account suspension’? The fact is that families will not be able to connect to the internet. That sounds like disconnection to us."
"The government has chosen the term ‘temporary account suspension’ because it sounds boring and reasonable. But it’s just spin. What journalist would report a story about ‘temporary account suspension’? The fact is that families will not be able to connect to the internet. That sounds like disconnection to us."
TalkTalk's Director of Strategy and Regulation, Andrew Heaney, added:
"The Government's latest announcement on its copyright protection proposals is nothing more than semantics. It is still the case that on the say-so of record labels and film studios people will have their internet connections suspended (ie disconnected). All that the Government seems to be saying is that permanent disconnection will be reserved for the very worst offenders. But they have been saying that since day one. There is no change.
This is simply spin which masks the real issue. The detection system will implicate innocent people whose connections have been hacked into. They will still be deemed 'guilty' and then have to prove their innocence. The Digital Economy Bill will give rights holders the power to act as a judge and jury, allowing them to demand that ISPs disconnect their customers without having to prove their case in a court of law. TalkTalk is the only major ISP that has said it will simply refuse to do this and will fight its case in every court in the land and in Europe if it has to.
The proposed copyright protection measures are utterly futile. Determined filesharers will find other, undetectable ways to access material, leaving innocent people to bear the brunt of this oppressive legislation."
"The Government's latest announcement on its copyright protection proposals is nothing more than semantics. It is still the case that on the say-so of record labels and film studios people will have their internet connections suspended (ie disconnected). All that the Government seems to be saying is that permanent disconnection will be reserved for the very worst offenders. But they have been saying that since day one. There is no change.
This is simply spin which masks the real issue. The detection system will implicate innocent people whose connections have been hacked into. They will still be deemed 'guilty' and then have to prove their innocence. The Digital Economy Bill will give rights holders the power to act as a judge and jury, allowing them to demand that ISPs disconnect their customers without having to prove their case in a court of law. TalkTalk is the only major ISP that has said it will simply refuse to do this and will fight its case in every court in the land and in Europe if it has to.
The proposed copyright protection measures are utterly futile. Determined filesharers will find other, undetectable ways to access material, leaving innocent people to bear the brunt of this oppressive legislation."
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