Instead of controversial “three-strikes-and-your-out” policy, internet subscribers will face as yet determined sanctions like warnings, speed throttling and perhaps content filtering.
Sometime tomorrow UK government business minister Baroness Vadera is expected to announce a deal she brokered between the country’s big six ISPs – BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB, and Carphone Warehouse – and Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the communication industries in the United Kingdom, to combat piracy in that country on behalf of copyright holders like the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), who has been the most vocal on the issue.
“This is something of a step into the unknown for the internet providers, music industries and ministers,” said Fergal Sharkey, the former Undertones singer who is now chief executive of British Music Rights, the body that represents musicians. “But we can’t go on without it – no business can survive after losing as much revenue as the music industry has.”
The Carphone Warehouse, if you recall, had previously said that it would refuse to become the Internet police and “impinge its customers’ rights and restrict their freedom of use of the internet.”
“TalkTalk has written to the BPI confirming that it will continue to protect its customers and under no circumstances will it voluntarily adopt a scheme that requires it to begin disconnections or sharing customer information with the music industry,” it wrote in a press release.
Apparently it had a change of heart when it was guaranteed that it would in no way have to terminate the Internet subscriptions of customers who fail to heed a third warning for suspected illegal file-sharing.
The only thing that remains now is for ISPs and copyright holder groups to draw up a code of practice on how they propose to deal with copyright infringements, and the government will then consider how this can be backed with legislation.
The first series of sanctions are expected to be warning letters that will be sent to thousands of the most prolific downloaders to inform them that their activity has been detected and is being monitored.
The second may involve more substantial action involving speed throttling and content filtering.
However, no details are yet available of what sanctions may be used against repeated file-sharers. Some would like to see ISP customers pay a tax to cover the cost of illegal downloading, or for heavy downloaders have data usage caps imposed on them to slow them down..
It’s good news that the controversial “three-strikes-and-your-out” policy for suspected file-sharers has seemingly been abandoned, but it does point to a more unsettling course for ISPs where a user’s traffic and data are monitored for any hint of illegal activity.
One has to wonder what kind of cooperation the ISPs must have with copyright holders and to what extant their Internet usage will be monitored.
Say what you will about the corporitization of the US, but at least we do have some privacy on what is the world’s leading and single most important means of knowledge and communication.
Stay tuned.
Related Posts
- Swedish ISP Calls UK Plans to Fight P2P ‘Amateurism’
- Music groups to sue ISPs over piracy
- UK Film & TV Producers Demand ISPs Fight Piracy
- Demanding the Impossible – RIAA Demands ISPs Fight Piracy
- UK SURVEY: 20% Want ISPs to Fight P2P
Loading ...
Is it my imagination or is Britain turning into a police state faster than the U.S.?
This is absolutely disgusting… these ass wholes must be stubbed out before Britain turn into a UK version of the American patriot act!… I very rarely ever download music but I never buy it on CDs and i only buy PC games and Movies On DVD if i love them. It’s a matter of respect and pride of owning something official that make me want to buy it in a box… forcing me to buy something I’m not going to play or watch over again will not stop me file sharing!
@open_universe
You are absolutely correct. I live in the US but have been keeping up with the integration of the Police state through out the developed world. Britain is in worse shape than we are…..for now.
read this morning…I use pipex one of the UK’s oldest/best providers…they haven’t signed up yet. When they do I will move to another. I’m an artist a musician and a file sharer. UK was fooled by a labour government who promised liberty freedom and equality but instead gave us war infiltration of privacy and a collapsing economy built on speculative non-productive assets. They give in to big business over morality every time. Only yesterday a woman was given 6 years for fraud she pretended her husband was dead to try and get the insurance claim. The big sentence is about the powers kissing the ass of corporations. A brutal rape and beating wouldn’t even get half that time. Fight the power people we’re all being turned over and fucked right up the arse!!
Larry Pickleman
myspace.com/larrypickleman
An absolute disaster for freedom of expression. Many artists including the commenter above as well as myself use file-sharing. I personally post my music on there to be heard. Obviously big business doesn’t want that. To think my idea that someday the entertainment industry will eventually try and control the internet to control competition was greeted with skepticism. This is proof of concept right here. I knew it would eventually boil down to this (you’re not an RIAA member therefor you’re not allowed to promote yourself online)
-Drew (AKA DJ Frozen IceCube)
What’s sad is that the MPAA’s in on the deal…..
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9650/Music+Industry+Praises+Deal+Forcing+ISPs+to+Combat+Illegal+File-Sharing
They seem to forget who pays their bloody wages..
this is very simple… no point in my having the internet if I can’t use it the way I want..
one warning letter on my doormat = one strike – goodbye .. plus a saving of £60 pcm..
“you’re not an RIAA member therefor you’re not allowed to promote yourself online”
That’s exactly right.
It’s easy to say this is just crazy Britons but this could easily come up in any other country!
I DL stuff I fancy listening to but wouldn’t buy. I have a core set of bands I’d buy and if I fancy a movie DVD’s are cheap enough these days. The record/movie industry aren’t going to get any more money out of me than they would have before these draconian new rules possibly they’ll get less as if I like something I’ll buy other albums of theirs but if I can’t listen to it first I’m not likely to go and shell out a tenner on something that might be crap.
This ‘Labour’ gov’t we have knows it’s days are numbered and are cheerfully f*cking us over to be honest the bastards get enough money out of me with the outrageous level of fuel tax….
Anyone remember the chant from the poll tax riots that scared the shit out of the rozzers?
“THERE’S MORE OF US THAN YOU”
I used file sharing to watch movies that I would never see otherwise because they are piss poor or not worth spending money on. When I do want to own a movie I use netflix or the local library if you know what I mean ; )
They are never gonna stop file sharers. There are web-based p2p services like FilesWire which work directly from the web and can be used on any internet connected computer. (workinternet cafeuni etc). So how are they going to pinpoint p2p activity if it is not even tied to your ip address.