Home » UK ISP News Archive » Article Tag: Internet Law (386 Posts)

Articles for Category Tag - Internet Law

UK Sky Broadband ISP Customers Hit by Internet Piracy Threat Letters

13th July, 2015 (12 Comments)

As predicted some users of Sky Broadband, specifically those who are accused of sharing unlawful copies of the movie The Company You Keep (TCYK) over public BitTorrent file sharing (P2P) networks, are beginning to receive letters from a copyright firm (TCYK LLP) that demand compensation.

BT Calls on Ofcom to Tackle Sky’s “Dominance” of UK Pay TV

9th July, 2015 (18 Comments)

The CEO of BT’s Consumer Division, John Petter, has today hit back at Sky (Sky Broadband) for calling on Ofcom to launch a competition review of the operators BTOpenreach division. BT has now similarly demanded that the regulator include Pay TV into its Digital Communications Review and tackle Sky’s “dominance“.

EU Says Governments Can’t Force Universe Mobile Broadband Coverage

19th June, 2015 (0 Comments)

Efforts by the Government to force UK mobile operators into offering universal coverage have been dealt a blow after the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) ruled that such a legally binding Universal Service Obligation (USO) cannot, under current EU rules, be forced upon providers.

Hampshire Seeks Legal Power to Push Superfast Broadband for New Homes

15th June, 2015 (10 Comments)

The Hampshire County Council in England has called on the UK Government to give district councils “clear legal powers” so they can insist, as part of the planning process, that superfast broadband speeds (24Mbps+) are made available to both new build homes and even retrofitted into existing developments.

Future Spy Cameras Could Steal Power from Your Home WiFi Signals

8th June, 2015 (0 Comments)

Researchers working at the University of Washington appear to have become the first to harvest power using signals from home WiFi devices operating in the 2.4GHz radio spectrum band (note: an Asus RT-AC68U router was used for the demo), which allowed them to power several devices including a tiny camera.

Judicial Review of UK Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act Starts

5th June, 2015 (0 Comments)

The High Court in London will today hear the opening arguments of a Judicial Review that has been launched against the controversial Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIP), which among other things governs how much information the security services can collect from UK Internet and phone providers.

Study Finds Mass UK ISP Piracy Website Blocking Pushes Users to Go Legal

5th June, 2015 (3 Comments)

A new research paper from a three man team, which was based out of Carnegie Mellon University and Wellesley College in the USA, has found that forcing broadband ISPs to block individual piracy websites (e.g. The Pirate Bay) had little impact. But blocking a mass of 19 websites in one go did appear to drive UK Internet users towards legal alternatives.

UK ISP Website Piracy Block List Adds Rojadirecta, LiveTV and Drakulastream

1st June, 2015 (5 Comments)

The Premier League and FA have succeeded in having the UK High Court force all of the markets largest broadband ISPs (e.g. BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and EE) into imposing blocks against three additional sports streaming websites that are known to infringe copyright (Rojadirecta, LiveTV and Drakulastream).

UN Warns UK – Internet Encryption and Privacy Must be Protected

29th May, 2015 (7 Comments)

The United Nations special rapporteur for protecting and promoting freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, has published a new report that warns the United Kingdom and other countries against adopting measures into law that would add a backdoor for Internet encryption, which it said risked “weakening everyone’s online security“.

Big UK Internet Providers Forced to Block 7 Pirate eBook Websites

27th May, 2015 (0 Comments)

The United Kingdom’s five largest broadband ISPs, including BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and EE, have been ordered by the High Court to expand their mandatory website blocking (censorship) measures to include seven websites that facilitate the distribution of pirated eBooks (copyright infringement).

2015 Queen’s Speech Touts Revival of Tough UK Internet Snooping Laws

27th May, 2015 (8 Comments)

The annual Queens Speech (State Opening of Parliament), in which a man with a big black rod bangs on a door and a poor old lady with a heavy head ornament gets to speak unexcitedly about forthcoming Government policy, has unsurprisingly confirmed that stricter UK Internet snooping laws are on the way.. again.

Crimestoppers and BT to Continue Fight Against UK Copper Cable Theft

21st May, 2015 (4 Comments)

Criminals who cause misery to many thousands of people every year by pulling vast amounts of BT’s vital copper telecoms and broadband cable out of the ground (Metal Theft) may be displeased to learn that the operator has agreed to continue its work with the independent crime-fighting charity Crimestoppers.

BT Take Ofcom’s FTTC Margin Squeeze Test to Competition Authority

20th May, 2015 (2 Comments)

Telecoms giant BT has formally tabled an appeal with the Competition Appeals Tribunal (CAT) against Ofcom’s new “margin squeeze” test, which is designed to keep the operators FTTC “fibre broadband” prices under control by forcing them to “maintain a sufficient margin between [their] wholesale and retail superfast broadband charges“.

UK High Court Forces ISPs to Block Websites Hosting Popcorn Time App

28th April, 2015 (2 Comments)

The High Court has approved a new injunction that forces all of the major broadband ISPs (BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband, EE and TalkTalk) into blocking their customers from being able to view several websites that host a BitTorrent-fuelled video streaming app called Popcorn Time, plus a few other piracy sites.

IFPI Claims 20 Percent of Fixed Line Internet Users are Music Pirates

16th April, 2015 (6 Comments)

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has published its annual Digital Music Report 2015, which slams online content platforms like YouTube for not sharing enough of their revenues and claims that 20% of fixed-line Internet users regularly access services that offer pirated music.

Ex-UK Copyright MP Calls for ISPs to Proactively Tackle Internet Piracy

31st March, 2015 (3 Comments)

The former Intellectual Property Adviser to the Prime Minister, Mike Weatherley MP, has published a new paper that calls for a dramatic change to the current EU Safe Harbour provisions (this removes ISPs, in certain circumstances, from liability for the illegal activity of their customers), which would weaken some of its protections and force ISPs to act more like an Internet police force.

UK High Court Adds 17 Internet Piracy Websites to the Block Lists of Big ISPs

25th March, 2015 (10 Comments)

The High Court in London has once again used Section 97A of the United Kingdom’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA) to force major broadband ISPs into blocking their customers from being able to access 17 predominantly MP3 download sites, which were found to be facilitating Internet copyright infringement (piracy).