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
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@84, there is a pirate party in the uk, it can be found at http://piratepartyuk.org and other pirate parties can be found at http://www.pp-international.net/
It appears that economic intrest are far more important then taking a men’s/woman’s life these days but having said those intrest are defended and guarded by the politicians en lawmakers chosen by ourselves.
The bible spoke about these things happening 2000 and more yrs ago.
They should ban people from the streets for buying guns.
men will call themselves “super intelligent” homo sapiens sapiens the darwinist would say but actually their as dumb as they can be giving people jailsentences for downloading a movie ? i am waiting for the day that downloading gives you the right of visiting a jail …
just think about how many pm’s there are that have kids aged between the age of 15 and 25 who download illegal stuff them selves and who look at porn. Now who’s breaking the law the big fat cats sat at there big desk’s and pushing pencils just to allow illegal imigrants in our country for free.
has anyone got a good copy of “there will be blood”and bucket list?I SAY BRING ON DARK NET .FUCK U BROWN YOU SCOTTISH CUNT GO AND GOVERN YOUR OWN COUNTRY AFTER ALL ITS GOT ITS OWN PARLIAMENT .PS I THOUGHT THE BIT IN BRAVEHEART WHEN THEY CUT THE CUNT UP AT THE END WAS THE ONLY GOOD BIT IN IT.
I would strongly recommend that if (or when) customers start recieving letters from their ISP’s, that they ‘band together’ by setting up a petition on http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/new
This will show the government in no uncertain terms that the voters are unhappy with their actions!
Even people not yet affected can sign and promote the petition against these actions. The petition can be promoted via blogs, social networking clubs, e-mails, sites like this, etc.
Let them know that if they do not respect our human rights, privacy laws, etc that we will vote for the ‘other side’ (and encourage those who would not usually bother voting to do the same)!
As experience shows…the ‘other side’ are just as bad, but if Labour want to hang on to power…
Just a thought!
im surprised that the government doesnt have more important things to worry about.
I believe that they just want to scare people. They do not plan to cut half of the population off the Internet, but some individuals only. In the US RIAA does the same thing with its TE law suits (=> Terror & Extorsion).
It is impossible for any ISP to scan the whole internet traffic! They can however use the old fashioned method of searching for a recent mp3 and collect the IPs of people who made it available.
Anyway, the chance you get spotted by those shitheads is much smaller than a sudden death by a direct meteor strike :-)
simple peeps why not get peerguardian or u could try putting in a ipfilter sorted u wont get sussed
How about putting a “Piracy Tax” on internet conections? between £2 - £3 each month or maybe 10% of the bill? so £1 * 12million bills(guess) £12million a month for TV shows movies and music, and we get to download what we want. everyone’s happy :) All around the world and this would rock!
The only way they will stop my downloads is when they prise my cable modem from my cold dead fingers!
Right fucking on.
There is no such paper as The London Times, it is just The Times.
eventualy with pervertion e.t.c….. crap and stuff like this they will release internet licences and i think this will further complicate this crap
Perfect blog post.
[quote comment="289099"]Like people have said earlier, why not create their own torrent sites/own video files with their own adds to earn their money. The marketing potential of such ventures is massive…think of all the data they’ll get and segmentation they can do![/quote]
The problem with that is that most broadcasters (BBC and ITV included) rarely own all the right to the shows they broadcast.
You really need to think of TV broadcasters as ‘renting’ a show to broadcast a set number of times - after that the licence expires.
Every TV show could have a dozen different rights holders associated with it (music, script, elements) and they would all either need to give clearance or be paid for it to be made openly available online.
[quote comment="289871"]There is no such paper as The London Times, it is just The Times.[/quote]
Oh for instance like, its always been ‘The Guardian’.. and was’nt, is’nt known in some quarters as ‘The Manchester Guardian’?
Peter Loo wept.
I wonder if they will be able to monitor USENETs??
This is probably were true downloaders live
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/15/tiscali_bpi_agreement/
take a look
its not a positive outlook for the record companys but it is starting to happen
is this Matt Mason http://blog.bibrik.com/archives/2007/10/bif_and_matt_mason.html the author of the article, if so do I believe one of Gordon Brown’s puppets
correct.
From the BeeB :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7246403.stm
UK net firms are resisting government suggestions that they should do more to monitor what customers do online.
The industry association for net providers said legal and technical barriers prohibit them from being anything other than a “mere conduit”.
The declaration comes as the government floats the idea of persistent pirates being denied net access.
And in the US one net supplier has admitted to “degrading” traffic from some file-sharing networks.
Traffic control
Net firms have been stung into defining their position by the emergence this week of a draft government consultation document that suggests ISPs should be drafted in to the fight against piracy.
It suggested that people who persistently download and share copyrighted material could have their net access removed.
A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) said the 2002 E-Commerce Regulations defined net firms as “mere conduits” and not responsible for the contents of the traffic flowing across their networks.
If they didn’t do traffic management we would all complain
Gavin Johns, Epitiro
He added that other laws on surveillance explicitly prohibited ISPs from inspecting the contents of data packets unless forced to do so by a warrant.
The spokesman said technical issues also made it hard for net firms to take action against specific types of traffic.
For instance, he said, while some people use peer-to-peer networks to download copyrighted material many commercial services, such as Napster and the BBC’s iPlayer, use file-sharing technology to distribute music and TV legally.
In the US, Comcast admitted in documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission that it does “degrade” some traffic from peer-to-peer networks.
The spokesman added: “We know that all ISPs are involved in traffic management but that is to optimise the service for all their customers.”
A spokesman for Virgin Media said its traffic management system came into play during peak times - between 1600 and 2100.
Action was taken against any customer whose usage exceeded a limit associated with their tariff during that five hour window, he said.
“If you exceed that threshold we will drop your speed for five hours from when the excess is recorded,” he said.
Andrew Ferguson, an editor at Think Broadband, said net service firms manage their bandwidth in many different ways.
Almost all, he said, manage traffic but at certain times impose other systems to smooth out the peaks.
“Some firms will happily let you use as much as you like but will charge you accordingly, and business products that are more expensive often allow unlimited use,” he said.
Others impose charges on customers who regularly exceed their download limits and a few manage their system so users cannot exceed a monthly download cap. The limits that firms impose can also vary widely.
“Any ISP that does not do traffic management is not going to stay in business very long,” said Gavin Johns, managing director of net management firm Epitiro.
He said it was essential to ensure that services which have to be delivered in real time, such as voice and streaming video, were usable.
“Different applications use different ports and have different payloads,” said Mr Johns, “They look completely different from a network point of view.”
“If they didn’t do traffic management we would all complain,” he said.
Mr Ferguson from Think Broadband said although traffic management was common, net providers imposed it in contrasting ways.
“What varies is the degree it impacts users and the openness of providers in telling users it exists and what is and is not managed,” he told the BBC News website.
“Traffic management has a poor reputation as in many cases it is used to keep bandwidth costs down for a provider with little respect to the consumers’ wishes,” he said.
Dont the ISP’s already have this in place but under the name of ‘ Fair Useage Policy ‘, the ISP’s would lose a sh*t load of money because there would be no need for fast Internet speed’s, there’s Virginmedia going down the pan £35-£45 for 20mb, no need for anything faster than 4mb if your not allowed to fileshare.
Awesome writing Matt.
You made my day and made me laugh harder than ive ever laughed at torrentfreak. (which ios alot.)
We need more articles from you. :)
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