Swedish ISP Calls UK Plans to Fight P2P ‘Amateurism’

Swedish ISPs line up to criticize recent news that copyright holders and ISPs in the UK have agreed to a joint effort to combat illegal file-sharing.

Last week I reported how the so-called “Big 6″ ISPs in the UK – 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, had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) 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.

Signatories endorse five principles in the MoU:

• That a joint industry solution is the best way forward
• That they will work together to educate consumers about why illicit file-sharing is wrong
• That making content available in a wide range of user-friendly formats is important
• That they will engage in a 3 month trial to send letters to 1,000 subscribers per week suspected of downloading or uploading unlicensed, copyrighted material
• That they will work with OfCom to identify effective measures to deal with repeat offenders

The news was immediately criticized by a number of people in both that country and abroad for the fact that it means a third party – copyright holders – with no apparent oversight will be monitoring the data transfers of an entire population.

A number of Swedish ISPs have been quick to criticize the plan and have made plain their opinions that it’s a flagrant violation of customer privacy.

“We don’t want to act like police and feel that a system similar to that in the UK is a deep invasion of privacy,” said Annika Kristersson of internet and telecommunications company Tele2 to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

“It would entail us having to spy on our customers.”

It’s also observed that the plan negatively impacts the Internet subscribers for the sake of a mediocre return – that is that it’s simply not a good idea to target Internet connections when it has become such a vital tool for education, communication, and more. Disconnecting users means also removing them from what has become a global town square and is a poor way to combat illegal file-sharing.

“To try to restrict connections and reduce connection speeds shows a high degree of amateurism,” said Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung to SvD.

“Today there are so many tasks carried out over the internet.”

Once again the Swedes seem to realize the importance of privacy and the rule of law. With copyright holders being the ones reporting the IP addresses of suspected file-sharers it makes one realize that the whole scheme is based on their integrity and due diligence. Have these two terms ever been used to describe the entertainment industry?

Exactly.