By Tim Ferguson, 22 February 2008 16:39
NEWS
The government has unveiled plans to tackle illegal file sharing along with steps to protect intellectual property and promote broadband.
Legal Eye on illegal file-sharing
Read silicon.com's legal columnist, Simon Levine's verdict on this issueÂ…
Although the government has a preference for voluntary action by ISPs to crack down on illegal file sharing, it has warned it will turn to statutory regulation if no solution is found by April 2009.
The government said it supports discussions between ISPs and rights' holders about action for illegal file sharing as part of a Department for Culture, Media and Sport action plan for the creative industries.
A survey by moneysupermarket.com found 17 per cent of British people admit to illegally downloading content, although one in eight said they are unaware their downloads are illegal.
Almost half of respondents (45 per cent) admitted to buying illegal discs, while 18 per cent said they've offered a pirate disc to someone else.
There will also be work carried out to improve understanding of intellectual property and step up enforcement through the 'Fake Free London' campaign.
The action plan also outlines the need to prepare the way for the adoption of new technologies to ensure the country doesn't get left behind competitively or technologically.
This includes further development of broadband - through schemes like the Business Link network and Enterprise Capital Funds - to help the UK's creative industries remain competitive.
Comments
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1. Charles Smith
This is a "Cane Toad" solution. Good intentions to protect copyright, but the wrong method. It will only increase costs and punish the innocent.
It would be far better for the publishers to devise a common scheme of copyright protection. Sadly their current efforts are not good.
2. Roger Huffadine
When I saw the title I thought the government were finally going to stop sharing all of our data by stopping loosing disks.
3. anonymous
Why should the ISPs have to fund what is inadequate copywrite protection by the media companies. It is up to them to protect their IP not the companies who run a delivery service.
Media companies should stop bleating and giving the Government excuses to create more laws and use some of their vast resources to get their own house in order.
4. Prakhar Bahuguna
Right, that's it. I'm off to Norway now, where the police have actually decided to investigate murders and robberies rather than downloading a couple of tunes.
5. anonymous
Illegal file sharing is not my problem or that of my ISP, or the government, which should be acting on my behalf, not that of record companies.
The government proposes to make the ISP’s examine every packet of data or file and then, by some magical method not of the government’s devising, determine whether that data is being transferred illegally. Presuming they manage this they would then be expected to report the miscreant to an as yet unidentified body who would, at least for as long as the presumption of innocence remains in this country, have to investigate to ensure that the file was in fact an illegal transfer.
I, as an ISP user would have to pay for this as it would cost a lot of money. I would also likely suffer degradation in my service as each and every file I send or receive would be subject to inspection.
In the case of wireless hotspots and open wifi networks it would be totally impractical, if not impossible to determine who the recipient was, leaving the owner/operator of the service open to unfair prosecution and penalty and possible disconnection.
I wonder if the cost of implementing such a big IT project across all the ISP’s, and the financing of the investigatory and prosecutory bodies would exceed any lost revenues incurred by the media companies. Would they offer to pay for the project and it’s ongoing costs? Would they pay me for the loss of quality of service I could expect?
The media companies have to sort out their own security, their own artists and their own business model, and not come squealing for help to the rest of us. They are frankly not important enough.
If the government is to involve itself in the internet then as a citizen I expect the government to be acting on MY behalf and solving MY problems which simply put are spam and scam. Currently my email filters are removing almost 900 messages a week, which I have to pay for, and I am getting upwards of ten scam invitations a day, including by the way, a nasty new turn in scam email; the death threat if I do not pay.
Unfortunately this, in my view, rather more serious internet crime was dismissed by my county constabulary as something they had no ability to investigate or solve, so what chance is there of a proper investigation by the police of every trivial suspect download?
I say to government; act on behalf of me and my fellow citizens who you are there to represent. Don’t mess with me via my ISP because a few Plc’s can’t manage their own businesses.
6. Karen Challinor
let me think ...
I don't share files illegally, I have however used bittorrent to legally download large files, the BBC iPlayer service is also a variant of this
the existing legislation regarding copyright theft is more than sufficient to prosecute illegal file sharers
and the entertainment industry has been very successful in applying lawsuits to illegal filesharers in the past and there seems to be no reason why they should not continue to do so
so basically this doesn't affect me, it is not my problem and further it is being dealt with very effectively by existing laws
however if HMG passes legislation forcing the ISP's to do something about it, it will become my problem
my ISP along with all the others will be forced to invest in extra equipment and intrusive monitoring of network traffic possibly leading to an overall slowdown of my internet access
now this equipment and monitoring will have to be paid for, and the money will come from my pocket because no one else is going to stump up the cash
so as this is not my problem why the hell do I have to pay for it ?
7. Karen Challinor
... and a further thought
currently if the entertainment industry suspects an individual of illegally sharing files they have to find evidence and take the suspect to a court and prove their case, which they have done very successfully to date
this legislation changes that
if the entertainment industry suspects an individual has been sharing files they can now instruct the ISP to punish said individual without recourse to law, no judge or jury will ever see the evidence the decision is based on
what happened to "innocent until PROVEN guilty" ? for the entertainment industry this seems to be changed to "suspected until we think we've seen something bad and then we'll have you"