Illegal net users to be cut off

[gentlex]

People who download music and films illegally face being cut off from the web under plans being considered by ministers.

Internet service providers (ISPs) could be legally obliged to take action against those who access pirate material.

Users suspected of breaking the rules would be subject to a "three strikes and you're out" policy, receiving an e-mailed warning first, followed by a suspension, and then finally termination of their internet contract.

The Government is expected to confirm that it intends to legislate on the issue when it publishes a green paper on the future of the creative industries next week.

Broadband firms who fail to enforce the rules could reportedly be prosecuted, and details of suspected customers made available to the courts.

A draft of the green paper, obtained by The Times newspaper, states: "We will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action on illegal filesharing."

Some six million people are estimated to download files illegally every year in the UK, costing music and film companies billions in lost revenue.

Major ISPs such as BT, Virgin and Tiscali have been in talks with the entertainment industry over introducing a voluntary scheme for policing pirate activity, but no agreement has been reached.

Sticking points are thought to include how disputed allegations would be arbitrated - for example, when customers claim other people have been "piggybacking" on their internet service.

A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association told The Times it remained hopeful that a deal over a voluntary system could still emerge: "Every right-thinking body knows that self-regulation is much the better option in these areas."


http://uk.msn.com/

 

[neil1962]

More bad news

 

[spareafagmate]

when i read ur title my heart missed a beat. if will this apply to u if u dont download excessively? how can they prove u have been using p2p programs?

 

[wonko]

odd - I thought there were more than 6 million people with net access in the UK lol

seriously tho - if this is passed it's the thin edge of the wedge - who knows what will be deemed "undesirable" in the future and dealt with the same way

 

[jedi_ringo]

cripes

what will all the internet providers do when nobody like us can use them anymore?

 

[ant1]

all this is going to do is make people think about having there internet service removed the goverment need to wake up and smell the coffee and understand that this could never work why is anyone in the uk going to sit back while the rest of the world downloads music its so daft only our goverment could of thourght of this well done mr brown now stand back and think and say to himself what a total money waster i am how will we enforce something like this

 

[hamba]

Plundering the pirates

The government has taken the first steps toward enforcing a ban on illegal internet downloads - with the prospect of cutting broadband services for persistent offenders. Is such a move is practically enforcable

The muffled sound you can hear is that of beleagured record company executives, and their counterparts in film and television boardrooms, cheering this morning's headlines about leaked government plans to take a hardline on illegal downloads. They would be wise, however, to leave the cork in the champagne bottle for now.

An industry that has at every turn bungled and botched its attempts to stem the flood of illegal downloads unleashed since the rise to prominence of Napster at the turn of the century believes it may finally have found a solution.

Increased broadband penetration, the continuing move to link the PC to the television and ever-increasing download speeds (Virgin Media is currently trumpeting its new 50Mb service) mean the Hollywood studios and TV giants are now at the crunch point faced by the music industry eight years ago.

A whole generation are growing up believing that free music, movies and television programmes are their birthright. They are happy to shell out for gig tickets and T-shirts but baulk at paying a penny for music or, increasingly, TV programmes and films.

In truth, the leaked details of next week's positioning paper (not, as reported, a green paper) represent a restating of the existing position. Last year's Gowers review of copyright in the digital age similarly called on ISPs and the media industry to come to a voluntary agreement and warned of legislation if they could not.

The idea is not a new one: for the last year the record labels and Hollywood studios have been campaigning intensively for internet service providers to monitor their customer's usage and cut them off if they are downloading copyrighted content. U2's manager Paul McGuinness last month backed calls from international trade body the IFPI for legislation to tackle the problem, blaming the woes of the music industry on the west coast technology "hippies" who had conspired to devalue music.

Their thinking seems sound in arguing that a typical 14-year-old My Chemical Romance fan is far more likely to fear the social stigma and parental backlash of the imminent threat of having their web connection taken away than the remote prospect of a court summons landing on the doormat.

Privately, they accept there will always be a hardcore of hackers and computer-literate downloaders who will try and get around any restriction by masking their IP address and other means. But they hope the threat of disconnection would force the vast majority of consumers to think twice before downloading illegally and force them to go down legal routes such as the iTunes music store instead.

Four of the biggest ISPs - BT, Tiscali, Orange and Virgin Media - have been in negotiations for around six months to come to a voluntary agreement. But not only do they still remain wary of establishing a precedent in taking responsibility for the actions of their subscribers, but there are sticking points over how disconnections will be enforced and who will arbitrate if a downloader is found to have been piggybacking on a neighbour's wi-fi connection.

Yet there is general agreement that something must be done and some argue that legislation is preferable because it will ensure a level playing field in compelling all ISPs to comply rather than putting those who refuse at a competitive advantage.

Several things have changed to make what once seemed an unlikely prospect a reality. Nicolas Sarkozy wasted little time in introducing a similar law in France, providing a workable model for other governments around the world.

Around 95% of traffic at night is believed to be over peer to peer filesharing networks - much of it transferring pirated content. With the huge upsurge in data traffic generated by the popularity of video sites like Joost and the BBC's iPlayer, it is in the ISPs interests to look for ways of freeing up their networks.

And technology has also moved on. Virgin Media acting chief executive Neil Berkett earlier this month spoke of rather disturbingly named "packet sniffing" technology can accurately determine exactly what their customers are downloading.

Aside from the privacy questions of examining just what people are watching and listening to, there is the dilemma of what constitutes an illegally pirated file. Music tracks and recently released Hollywood films may seem pretty straightforward, but what about a BBC programme from the iPlayer that has had its copy protection removed?

And how exactly will it work in practice? If you have your account blocked by one provider, are you allowed to sign up with another? With a growing emphasis on digital learning and narrowing the digital divide, is it fair to penalise the siblings of those who transgress by denying them an internet connection too?

The other point is a cultural one. Having accepted there is little point in demonising their potential customers by pursuing them through the courts, will pursuing them in this way make them any more amenable to the media giants who have in many cases not yet come up with attractive legal alternatives? And despite improved detection technology, experts say it remains impossible to say with complete certainty that someone is downloading an illegal file, particularly as some traffic over P2P networks remains perfectly legitimate.

Despite the detail in this morning's report in the Times suggesting the new regime would be based on the French "three strikes and you're out" model, Whitehall sources say next week's document will be short on detail beyond restating the threat of legislation if the preferred option of a voluntary agreement can't be reached. A consultation paper to be released in the spring will go into more detail.

The initiative should also be viewed in the wider context of the government's willingness to legislate the internet. The earlier position that it was unregulatable and beyond national boundaries is giving way in a number of areas, from content regulation to gambling and copyright, to a belief that attempts must be made to at least try and place some regulatory framework around what is becoming the main conduit into our homes for entertainment, information and services.








Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Tuesday February 12 2008
guardian.co.uk
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

 

[jiro]

only person that can really be hurt by this is big downloaders (dl all the time) so the isp's will have an excuse to go after them. i really dont c this helping the record companies cus isp's wont want to piss off their customers. and this only targets filesharing so even if some are put off they will find another way to get wat they want on the world wild web

 

[jamrop]

Really do hate what is happening to the UK. Privacy is out the window. This is really really bad news

 

[ant1]

this is just so daft you will get people jumping into cars with laptops and go looking for a wifi connect to it download there mp3s lol and come home what are the goverment thinking of i think there should all sit down and say to each other ummmm i think we got this wrong

 

[timekeeper]

Well i think the voluntary scheme is the only way to go otherwise isp's will end up losing customers hand over fist .

 

[FAGAN]

This will suit Virgin and the rest of the ISP's out there, any excuse to scrape bandwidth back - this Government has much much bigger fish to fry than this nonsense, you will NEVER stop piracy.

This is the typical using a sledgehammer to crack a nut way of thinking in Britain today.

 

[hawkish]

It mentions P2P but not ssl newsservers - Most 'downloaders' for profit use usenet, does that mean usenet is not affected?

 

[Ph@ntom]

Just Use a cloned Modem!

If they Turn you off...................Change Your MAC................and your Back!

 

[d99]

Just Use a cloned Modem!

If they Turn you off...................Change Your MAC................and your Back!

hah yeah i was just thinking the same thing! if this proposal goes ahead there will be alot more people "happy" to use hacked modems, and loads of legitimate users could end up cut off

 

[stew2709]

Encrypt encrypt Encrypt

 

[Munkey]

Encrypt encrypt Encrypt

Agreed SSL on Newsgroups would be fine to use under the current proposal

 

[mcgirt]

I read a similar article months ago with the French ISP's trying to pull this shit. It's the usual scenario, they keep trying to stop it, and then we all **** it, then they try again....and so on.

Sounds more like the government are trying to reduce usage to hide the fact the whole infrastructure is shite and about to **** up. Not to mention most other countries are far more advanced because they have invested in technology, unlike the UK who just wait on everyone else to do it 1st.

 

[sakiblateef]

This is not a really good move to stop piracy. People will still continue to download illegal stuff even if this law comes into force and while the music and movie firms make the money it will be the broadband firms that will loose out on revenue with the amount of contracts they would have to terminate.

 

[english]

and how many people will be booted off because of clonies? it's a silly idea.