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 ;).
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What utter tripe.
I’d be interested in knowing who the putz was who drafted this in the first place. I smell a puppet in the pocket of the media industry.
can i get your book from bittorrent?
thanks Matt, I know I was buying into the hype but when these sorts of disinformation campaigns begin I turn to folks like yourself for insight and guidance.
keep it up
drive physical book sales.
Watch this space for more on that soon. :)
I agree with this post. But it’s worth noting that the purpose of this possible legislation may not be to stop ‘all’ illegal downloading per se. Rather, it provides the possibility to ban individual users from accessing the Internet who are the source of pirated material (i.e. seeders, distros). They don’t want to ban everyone, they just want an unbelievable amount of leeway to pursue their own objectives (which in this case is promoting the interests of a small sector of the economy and society).
As you mentioned, it’s both unfeasible and not beneficial to ban every single person who downloads pirated material off the the Internet. But that may not be the goal.
FUCK EM! i love to p2p.
[quote comment="288078"]can i get your book from bittorrent?[/quote]
Lolz0rs…
I knew this was a bunch of crap as soon as I heard it (which was, incidentally, via the missus, who came running into the den shouting “They’re going to ban all file-sharers from the internet!”
Mheh-heh… =]
Good article but you guys are missing the point. My understanding is that they will not filter and inspect “every packet” but rather continue to catch downloaders the old way (i.e. by connecting to a torrent, tracing the IP address to a UK ISP) - THEN it will be very easy for them to ask the ISP to disconnect the user.
That’s my understanding
hey Matt,
you got a piratebay link to that book? :)
@10 Please read the comments before and you’ll get his answer.
The 4 top UK providers have made a voluntary agreement with the hollywood fucktards to monitor and ban filesharers. As long as they can bypass European law, they dont need legislation to get what they want. As far as procsecution of providers and the giving up of details, the case against Telefonica set a precident where ISP’s CANNOT be forced disclose users details, I guess they couldnt give a shit about that law as it doesnt suit them.
Fucked if you do, fucked if you dont, the’ll do what the fuck they like.
@11 i was’nt talking about a ‘legal version’
rip>post link. :D
i read this link from the register,there,s an interesting article from the bpi at the bottom of the page about blanket licensing???,mabye the record comps are trying for another bite at the cherry,after all when there hit,s run dry after purchases they can continue to gather even more cash by these protests,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/12/anti_filesharing_paper_leak/
nice and succinct Matt, cheers, i was getting a lil panicky about this stuff (as i’m actually not doin great on the anxiety level at the moment) so thanks for the info. and i will probably buy your book, i don’t know why, i just prefer Paper Media. its nice to read on the bus, train etc…
When the British get inspired by the French, it is for a stupid law… Cause indeed, this idea is coming from my country France :(
Over 40 million people in the UK download and share illegal files. I don’t think the ISP’s are gonna say to the goverment. Oh yea! We will cut off millions of our customers losing billions of pounds. Funny Eh?
we cant stop file sharers, so lets just stop all traffic on the internet!
BRILLIANT!
[quote comment="288148"]Over 40 million people in the UK download and share illegal files. I don’t think the ISP’s are gonna say to the goverment. Oh yea! We will cut off millions of our customers losing billions of pounds. Funny Eh?[/quote]
hahaahha
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
I love the way you smashed that article to pieces. Nice! :D
I got an email once from my ISP saying I had been downloading files illegally and that was a polite warning. I had got tracked for downloading a game I already had, I as only downloading it in the first place because EA sells shitty quality disks that keep breaking!
I’m all for the Pirates, If I download music and I don’t like it I’ll delete it. If I really like it then I’ll buy it, but continue to use the Torrented one because it doesn’t have shitty protection.
Totally awesome, couldn’t agree more. Biggest load of bullshit I’ve heard for a while now. Can’t stop the people sharing the files so stop everyone else from using the internet…..? Cocks.
[quote comment="288148"]Over 40 million people in the UK download and share illegal files. I don’t think the ISP’s are gonna say to the goverment. Oh yea! We will cut off millions of our customers losing billions of pounds. Funny Eh?[/quote]
yeah tru.
TorrentFreak > BBC Tech
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