UK government + File sharing = Stupidity. What a surprise!
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2009/08/new-fast-track-clampdown-proposals-expected-today/
This week, the evil "intertron" baffles and confounds those zany politicians. Watch as they fall over themselves to introduce unenforceable, impractical and unpopular laws on their own people, for the umpteen-billionth time!
Those crazy politicians. It's rather cute, watching them fumble around in the darkness of the 21st century.
This week, the evil "intertron" baffles and confounds those zany politicians. Watch as they fall over themselves to introduce unenforceable, impractical and unpopular laws on their own people, for the umpteen-billionth time!
Those crazy politicians. It's rather cute, watching them fumble around in the darkness of the 21st century.
Replies
Anyways, is this a big deal? Sounds fine to me... Better than fining people 675 thousand dollars for 24 songs. Especially when the fine for stealing the actual CD is only 2,500...
But seriously the idea works in theory but alot of people are now depend on the internet in one way of the other so if the message isn't spread out properly it could easily turn into a fiasco.
Doesn't really bother me much the only reason I used to fileshare was to get music I couldn't find in shops but now with itunes and all the jazz that shouldn't be a problem.
Although this is all implying they will only block the internet of people who participate in illegal file sharing an it doesn't target people who uses file sharing systems to gain faster downloads of perfectly legal files.
the actual law cutting off people's internet access seems interesting, and I find it neat that France found it unconstitutional - As someone who has grown up with an internet connection since he was 11 or so I find it interesting that it is being considered infrastructure and a necessary service rather than a perk.
Ultimately I live in America so I can't really be arsed to care about the UK other than that their legal system tends to be about 5 years closer to 1984 than American law.
I don't really think game developers have a place to bitch about cracking down on music and movie piracy when we bitch so much about game piracy. It seems like its all shitting in the same pool.
"In the report, the then communications minister Lord Carter said illegal filesharers should receive letters warning them their activities could leave them open to prosecution. If that failed to reduce piracy by at least 70%, Ofcom would have the power to call on internet companies such as BT to introduce so-called "technical measures" to combat piracy. The most draconian of these measures was to slow down a persistent filesharer's broadband connection, but it would not appear until 2012.
But today the government will take the unusual step of proposing much stricter rules midway through the Digital Britain consultation process. Illegal filesharers will still get warning letters but if they continue to swap copyrighted material they could have their internet connection temporarily severed, although it may be possible to retain basic access to online public services."
Is this saying they're expecting a 70% drop in all piracy, or that the warned folks need to drop their personal piracy by 70%?
It seems like they're saying if 70% of all piracy isn't reduced by sending out these letters, then they will enforce their new rules. Which basically seems like an out to give them full authority to impose their shit since sending letters to some individuals with no knowledge or concern for the whole will obviously not reduce all piracy by 70%.
On the other hand, if the individual is allowed to pirate at 30% of their initial piracy, it seems like the government is condoning a certain level of piracy, which seems to contradict their stance on the issue.
But seriously its like you imported a bunch of US senators... Did they come over to the US for a visit and drink the water? I hear that's a really bad idea.
P2P networks are worse because companies are employed by the likes of EMI, Sony et-al to monitor all traffic on them, regardless as to what that traffic is or for (I don't know *how* that's technically done except for reading something about 'baiting'). So yes, that very action means everyone is under suspicion rather than specific individuals who the authorities could justifiably (and 'lawfully') monitor.
The point, more than the "oh it's so unfair" stuff, is the fact that the government has already been thinking about doing this for a couple of years now, and decided earlier this year that it was a little draconian, so decided against it. Peter Mandelson has a dinner date with David Geffen and all of a sudden its the number one priority. We have far more worrying issues to deal with than filesharing, but it seems that the friends of the idiots in charge have more of a say in what should be governed than the actual populous does.
The thing that rather worries me about the whole thing is that they actually don't have the first idea what they are legislating. Those measures are INSANE. You can't monitor that level of traffic effectively enough to be able to say, without a doubt, that the person that you have decided to punish for a so-called crime is actually guilty of a crime in the first place. For instance, World of Warcraft uses BitTorrent to distribute it's updates, but I seriously doubt that Labour understands the difference between "BitTorrent" and "The Pirate Bay".
Combine that problem with the fact that in order to implement even a percentage of these measures, there has to be constant surveillance on the ISP's part, on the governments behalf. Making private organisations do their dirty work in the first place is bad enough, but the fact that they are essentially telling them to spy on their customers? That gets a little too 1984 for me.