5 Reasons Why Illegal Downloaders Will Not Face a UK Ban
There’s been a lot of buzz about a story The London Times ran this morning under the headline “Internet users could be banned over illegal downloads,” which also appeared on the BBC website under the even more alarming headline “Illegal downloaders ‘face UK ban.” Time to get a couple of things straight.
The Times says “people who illegally download films and music will be cut off from the internet under new legislative proposals to be unveiled next week.” Actually, this story is complete balderdash. But the fact that this nutty proposal is getting anywhere at all illustrates how ignorant the powers that be are about downloading.
Let’s get a couple of things straight –
1. This proposal was a draft consultation green paper, defined as “a proposal without any commitment to action.” The government receives many of these on a daily basis. They are like junk mail at Number 10 Downing Street. The Prime Minister’s toilet paper is more important than most green papers, and both are usually filed in the same place.
2. This proposal is totally and completely unworkable in the real world. ISPs will not accept liability for the contents of packets (nor should they), and it would be impossible for them to open and check if every single download and upload was legal or not without the entire Internet grinding to halt. This isn’t in the best interests of the government, the ISPs or the voters. Banning customers and exposing yourself to billions in liability isn’t a good business strategy. Criminalizing six million citizens and inconveniencing the rest is not a vote winner.
3. It would be impossible to tell the difference between illegal downloading and legal activities such as downloading software patches, using torrents to share stuff legally, playing online video games, using VoIP, photo sharing, telecommuting, and many others. The resistance from the private sector would be as strong as it would from the general public.
4. The very idea of this goes against the ruling of the European Court, which says EU member states are not obligated to disclose personal information about suspected file sharers. It would also fly in the face of Article 10 of the European freedom of expression laws, which gives every European the “freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”
5. WiFi piggybacking and encrypted packets make it impossible to tell who is downloading what in the first place. These techniques are only getting more sophisticated, while for the most part, the content industries collectively remain as dumb as a box of hair.
So in summary:
Insert Toilet Flushing Sound FX Here
This idea makes as much sense as trying to ban people from singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to each other over the telephone network, or burning down libraries to protect the publishing industry. But what’s frightening about such ideas is that they are still taken seriously all over the world by powerful decision makers in government and industry who have absolutely no clue about how the Internet actually works, or the damage such laws could do to democracy.
Before there is any more discussion about this, the music and film companies need to definitively prove illegal downloads cost them millions of dollars in lost revenues. CD sales are falling because nobody uses them anymore, and Hollywood is in rude health despite the pirates. There should be no more talk about changing laws and spending tax payer’s money on this ‘problem’ until someone proves there really is one.
Furthermore, if there is a problem, tax payers shouldn’t have to pony up in the first place. The content industries need to stop braying at governments to protect inefficient business models and look at the real solution that’s been staring them in the face for ten years.
For those who are interested, my book: “The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism” is out now through Free Press, , and probably soon on a BitTorrent tracker near you ;).
Previously: Kuwait Government Blocks 20 BitTorrent Sites
Next: Danish Pirate Bay Block Breaks EU Law
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who wants to live in britain anyways?
this is never gonna get implemented…. and if they did, there’s always VPNs…. like it said in the article, it would grind the internet to a halt. DON’T BOTHER!
Good news i was getting worried …
as i thought i was gonna have a little man on the corner of every uk STREET.!
SAYING U WONT DVD…!!!!!
Great news…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li….
Take part in the poll.. so far 77% say No to banning :)
I take it enabling torrent encryption would make it impossible for an ISP to tell that a download is illegal?
[quote comment="288227"]I take it enabling torrent encryption would make it impossible for an ISP to tell that a download is illegal?[/quote]
No, not really. They could still see what you’re downloading, just not that you’re using BitTorrent to do so.
Woot Matt just (soon™) sold another book!
I wonder how long the shipping will take lol.. Never bought from Amazon before thought they were US only but apparently not.. :)
[quote comment="288215"]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li….
Take part in the poll.. so far 77% say No to banning :)[/quote]
If I can vote for banning the daily mail, I’m there!
I believe the whole point of this being so widely put out as a news story was just the UK government’s way of trying to frighten 15 year olds off of using p2p. Another thing that seems to support it is that the story kept getting repeated on the news segments on BBCthree (whose key demographic is 15 to 25 year olds) thing is the government just doesn’t get that this age group is probably the most tech savvy and is more likely to see straight through this bull.
[quote comment="288228"]
No, not really. They could still see what you’re downloading, just not that you’re using BitTorrent to do so.[/quote]
They could make a guess at it being Bittorrent, but they can’t see what you’re downloading unless they can crack RC4 on the fly (unlikely). Of course, the fact that you downloaded a .torrent file 5 seconds earlier is a bit of a clue. SSL torrent trackers required.
Just to correct a couple of inaccuracies in the article: the newspaper is called “The Times” not “The London Times”. This is important because it is actually a widely read national newspaper and is certainly not just a newspaper for London.
Secondly, a green paper is a proposal put forward BY the government. The artcile gives the impression that green papers are received by the government from some non-government organisation (e.g. the IFPI). This is not the case. Green Papers come from within government itself.
The government has stated “We will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action on illegal file-sharing.”.
There is still a good chance that this will not happen, the main reasons being that: 1. it gives ISPs the kind of power that only a court should have. A person must remain innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 2. Since the internet is now a normal part of life (e.g. like electricity supply) then to remove someone’s access to the internet will likely be in breach of his humans rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.
European Convention on Human Rights.
?
Didn’t know humans had rights , I thought that was only the case if that human accompanied a large bank account.
[quote comment="288165"]im sure it will come down to some sort of licence method,and you cand bet the goverment will have there fingers in the till[/quote]
in uk it’s possible :P
1) take those 5 points, show it to the French.
2) See what they say before you dismiss it.
[quote comment="288274"]Just to correct a couple of inaccuracies in the article: the newspaper is called “The Times” not “The London Times”. This is important because it is actually a widely read national newspaper and is certainly not just a newspaper for London.
Secondly, a green paper is a proposal put forward BY the government. The artcile gives the impression that green papers are received by the government from some non-government organisation (e.g. the IFPI). This is not the case. Green Papers come from within government itself.[/quote]
It is and was the ‘london times’, ‘the times of london’ and latterly ‘the times’.
A green paper is proposed legislation by parliament not necessarily by the incumbent government.
Here In the UK, 34,104,175 people are estimated to have Internet access, say 10% illegal download stuff so thats 3.4 mill people illegal download, they all get banned so thats 3.4 mill X £15 per month = 51 million per month and 612 million per year.
there is more chance of seeing harry potter smoke crack in his next film than isp giving up over 600 million a year
I CANT WAIT TILL THEY START BANNING ALL YOU THIEVING SCUM OFF THE NET.
I HOPE THEY PASS THIS LAW AND I HOPE THEY PROSECUTE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU THIEVES. FUCK ALL Y\’ALL!
VIVA LA GFY.COM
[quote comment="288343"][quote comment="288274"]Just to correct a couple of inaccuracies in the article: the newspaper is called “The Times” not “The London Times”. This is important because it is actually a widely read national newspaper and is certainly not just a newspaper for London.[/quote]
It is and was the ‘london times’, ‘the times of london’ and latterly ‘the times’.[/quote]
If you’re writing for an international audience, or an American audience, it’s always best to stipulate it’s The ‘London’ Times, or people assume you mean the New York one. Same with the Observer.
The US has too much influence in the UK. They’ll try to get our ISP’s to declare identities, even if not legally obliged.
So the UK will MASS adapt to Dark Nets, and secure VPN’s, Usenet, and Relaxxs.
This is not what police enforcement really wants. Six million citizens adapting to untraceable totally private connections, Dark Nets.
I’ve just read a witty opinion piece in ‘The Telegraph’[UK Tory newspaper] : “Can Gordon Brown catch online pirates?”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/02/13/do1307.xml
they think if do this in every country going get all so called lost money back one of these days they are going have own up make better music and movies people want see and GFY no FUCK you VIVA Freedom
Good points TorrentFreak! That deserves a few hefty bags of jellybabies. Some yummy for ya tummy!
Wouldn’t this be a great oportunity for the users to test out some cool new encryption protocols?
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