By David Meyer, 18 June 2009 09:15
NEWS
...and then, if this does not succeed, release the identities of the infringers to the rights holders.
Nicholas Lansman, the secretary general of the ISP Association, said the group was pleased the government had ruled out introducing legislation to force internet companies to disconnect persistent users of illicit P2P file-sharing. He called that solution "disproportionate".
"I am pleased that the government has taken the position, advocated by ISPA, that unlawful online copyright infringement should be reduced through offering viable legal alternatives," Lansman said in a statement. "ISPA supports the use of existing legal channels to bring targeted civil action against repeat infringers. ISPA doubts the effectiveness of technical sanctions and would urge that the initial proposals be given every chance to succeed before such sanctions are considered."
However, history has shown that the threat of legal action does not reduce privacy, according to ISP specialist Michael Downs, from the ICT services company Telindus. He added that the report keeps up the pressure on ISPs to police their users, which then places them in a "bad light" with their customers.
"There is an opportunity here for the ISP to not be the police but to work with the content providers to deliver what the customer wants by providing a much greater service," added Downs.
Asking ISPs to provide personal customer data to rights holders could be seen as a breach of privacy and be potentially damaging to vital customer relationships, said Lee Myall, regional director at next-generation network operator Interoute. "It also means a huge additional administrative burden for ISPs on behalf of another industry," Myall said in a statement. "Responsibility should be placed at the source of distribution, away from the ISP."
Robin Fry, a copyright expert at law firm Beachcroft, said Digital Britain's anti-file-sharing proposals showed the government is "floored" by what to do. He believes neither the copyright owners nor the ISPs have any appetite to challenge file-sharers directly.
"There are no votes and no financial incentive to re-run a Pirate Bay trial in Britain," Fry said in a statement. "Users are technically savvy and, even if challenged, many will simply set up further user accounts or sign up to overseas ISPs. None of the proposals in the Digital Britain report, nor our current copyright laws, will change what users are doing."
Fry called for a radical change to the UK's approach to copyright in the digital age. "Maybe it's time for the copyright laws to be redrawn to legitimise what millions are doing already," he said. "We need to consider a general fair-use provision to allow sharing for private purposes - not a debate about who should be the one to tell-off file-sharers. Such a fair-use provision would acknowledge copyright, but permit limited usage for non-commercial purposes."
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. karen challinor
a telephone tax to support internet investment while simultaneously taxing the ISP for fibre
not exactly joined up thinking is it
I suspect the legislation to pass this will contain a few clauses that will eventually introduce an internet usage tax
2Mb/s will make us a world leader - will it really, somehow I doubt that
ISp's handing over personal details to copyright holders - well they'd better have proof of copyright violation that will stand up in court first
which basically means deep packet inspection as you can call files anything and I wouldn't put it past a few enterprising people to share something innocuous with a suggestive name just to get a day in court and make the ISP look bad
DPI would avoid that but opens a huge can of worms over privacy of information and who pays for the equipment to do it
2. Anthony Hunt
This "Digital Britain" report is more about re-inforcing the monopoly of music and film companies. Downloading being the current witchcraft.
I can be sued for downloading TV, film or music, unavailable in this county legally, because the "industry" wants to control the prices per region (read rip us off).
Yet if I have my internet connection capped, slowed, filtered or even spyed on, I have no recourse, despite paying for a unlimited 8GB service, which I never get.
We should have had fibre to home years ago and the excuses coming from goverment for not doing this get thinner every day.
"Digital Britain" is a zero not a one.
3. drew stephenson
Not worth the screen space it was written on. They've managed to come up (once again) with a document that is out of date before it was issued. Hence the need for more consultation, and how much will this end up costing us?