UK Pirates Face Disconnection, ISPs Object
Written by Ben Jones on August 26, 2009The latest turn of events with the Digital Britain report isn’t encouraging. Lord Mandelson has reportedly prodded through a proposal to disconnect alleged file sharers, without judicial process, and without waiting for OFCOM to see if such a measure is even needed.
When it comes to confusion and contradiction, the UK’s Digital Britain report is in a league of its own. Just days after denying the reports that Lord Mandelson would be toughening things up when dealing with alleged copyright infractions, it turns out that it’s true. Also, despite assurances last year that the whole process would have a factual basis, that also turns out to be a lie.
It would seem that wherever Peter Mandelson goes, controversy soon follows. He’s resigned from the British cabinet twice before over allegations of improprieties, so he’s just the sort of person qualified to head up the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) (or the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) as it was renamed in June).
The timing is seen as suspicious by some, coming just days after he took a holiday with David Geffen. A government source told The Times “Until the past week Mandelson had shown little personal interest in the Digital Britain agenda. Suddenly Peter returned from holiday and effectively issued this edict that the regulation needs to be tougher.”
The proposal, released in a statement by the BIS today says that waiting to see how the previous recommendation – of seeing how things were going over the next few years, with technological measures to come into force by 2012 – were going to be too slow. As such, they want to push forward with the measures, even if unnecessary, as they make clear:
Previously, it had been proposed that Ofcom would undergo a detailed process in order to ascertain that technical measures were required. With this approach, the earliest that measures could come into play was during 2012. The Government has now reached the view that, if action was deemed necessary, this might be too long to wait given the pressure put on the creative industries by piracy. The new ideas outlined today would potentially allow action to be taken earlier. (emphasis added)
Of course, if action is NOT deemed necessary, if the facts to back up the claims can’t be found for instance, then much of the legislation requested by the copyright industries will not go ahead. That evidence would be hard to find, since at least two separate examinations of content industry figures have shown little to no impact on box office movie sales, or music sales. This may be why there is the sudden push for the legislation, based again on a claim of need, rather than facts.
The ISPs are up in arms about this as well, with Talktalk’s Andrew Heaney telling the BBC: “Disconnecting alleged offenders will be futile given that it is relatively easy for determined file-sharers to mask their identity or their activity to avoid detection.” They are rightly concerned with disconnecting the wrong people, based either on mis-identification by investigators, or the use of open/inadequately secured wifi spots.
The music industry is enthusiastic though, with the BPI happy. “Digital piracy is a serious problem and a real threat to the UK’s creative industries,” it said in a statement to the BBC, while yet again failing to release any data to back up their claims. “The solution to the piracy problem must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive,” it then says, omitting that these proposals are none of these, just as the 1865 Locomotive Act was not effective, proportionate or dissuasive to the take-up of the personal motor vehicle, or in protecting the railway and equine-based industries from the progress of technology.
Meanwhile, as one commenter indicates in a comment on the Digital Britain site, more people will be joining the UK Pirate Party, although the party currently says it’s experiencing only a slight increase in membership. Its members, however, are livid.
Stephen Timms, minister for Digital Britain also made the following statement: “We’ve been listening carefully to responses to the consultation this far, and it’s become clear there are widespread concerns that the plans as they stand could delay action, impacting unfairly upon rights holders. So we look forward to hearing views on our new ideas, which along with those already received, will help us determine the best way to tackle this complex challenge.”
Clearly he hasn’t been listening to the comments made by 6 million file-sharers in the UK, but there’s no harm in making him more aware. The consultation is open until September. So there’s still time to make your voice heard, but please, keep it civil and factual – even if the Content Industry can’t manage the second.
Previously: For God’s Sake – Not Another Pirate Bay Article?
Next: Mininova Ordered to Remove All ‘Infringing’ Torrents
70 Responses
I love the picture :)
“Darth Mandleson”
Its never going to happen, he isn’t in power and his party isn’t going to be for much longer.
Darth Mandleson LoL
About the whole thing, if britons don’t look out they will have 3 strikes very soon, the government is sympathetic to the industry and is well known that they lie through their teeth to the public.
I voted Labour in the past..NEVER again..Its ponced up clueless cretins like Mandleson and Brown that are doing their very best to fuck up the UK proper.Don’t vote Conservative either though,apparently they are planning even worse!..Would joining to a VPN(Virtual private network)to download,prevent people getting caught?
I wonder how much wonga mandy “earned” from this……or was the holiday the payment?
Disgusting
What’s with all the BAD news as of late?! It almost seems as if 2010 will be without bittorrent, not public at least, and then all the BREiN/RIAA/etc will go after private trackers.
Lying, self-serving little tw@t that he is.
FO Mandelson…
lying, self-serving little tw@t that he is.
man i hate this guy and his party, was kind of funny actually a few months ago just before the European elections a labour (the party name that this guy belongs to) representative knocked on my door and wanted to speak to me about “my voting ideals”, I gave her a piece of my mind…
According to the bbc this will be an addition to a bill already in process.
This will now come under fire and be blocked by MP’s so will not go through parliment in a timely fashion. By that time Labour will be out and the Conservatives will be in.
Then all we have to worry about it fox hunting being brought back and tax incentives for getting married….. (im not just making this up)
If its not one thing it a fkn nother
-sigh-
good luck in identifying my ‘illegal’ downloads over my secure VPN.
good luck in identifying my ‘illegal’ downloads over my secure VPN.
when you say resigned – try sacked – the man was a THIEF, he should be in jail for what he did, talk about failing upwards, just goes to show you its all a jobs for the boys club
folks we’re getting royally humped by the people we put in place to govern us – and laughably a Labour party too
have no doubt they wont quit until they own us all – literally
the email for the consultation auto-responds with this
Hi there
I’m out of the office until 2 Sept and the only blackberry I shall be accessing before then is the type which is found in hedgerows (or Tescos for the townies).
For matters P2P Mr Brazier is your man and usually can be found on 020 7215 1295
Your e-mail has not been forwarded.
The original of this email was scanned for viruses by the Government Secure Intranet virus scanning service supplied by Cable&Wireless in partnership with MessageLabs. (CCTM Certificate Number 2007/11/0032.) On leaving the GSi this email was certified virus free.
Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for legal purposes.
It’s pathetic – TF article update?
@ 1
“Its never going to happen, he isn’t in power and his party isn’t going to be for much longer.”
Do you honestly believe a Conservative government will give you a better deal?
If so, you are going to be very disappointed.
The ISPs do well to object. There are over six million of us in Britain and that number is growing every day. They can’t, and won’t, stop us all.
Digital Britain report = bullshit written by a gang of technophobes who think that Facebook should be the only site or service on the internet.
UK is a pathetic puppy of the United States! “America, while you’re at it, are there any more countries you need help invading?”
-Not right now? Well ok, let us know! Anything you want!
Back then to the critical urgent world crisis: Copyright “infringements”(global warming, starving kids — bah!)
——————————–
I for one will find out how to use other peoples wifi. Secondly I will continue to use a combination of Peerguardian and non-European proxy servers for my BT downloads.
@ 1 +14
1- “Its never going to happen, he isn’t in power and his party isn’t going to be for much longer.”
14- “Do you honestly believe a Conservative government will give you a better deal?
If so, you are going to be very disappointed.”
Do you honestly believe that these 2 parties are seperate entites? The “Government” has its agenda and will put this in place no matter which political party it puts in place to continue to fool people that there really is freedom and choice in this global elitist ruled society.
Brown, Mandelson, Cameron or Obama they are all the same – simply faces for media – objects of control.
and just like anyone with half a brain knew that Obama would get into power months if not years before he eventually did, the path for David Cameron has been laid for a couple of years now. This guy will DEFINATELY become pm, and this Mandelson tosspot is a red herring designed to build momentum vote for the chosen one.
Theres nothing you can do, the agenda will be passed and the people will be brain washed through media.
But you can be aware of this and be free in your mind.
Peace x
This actually got a lot of coverage yesterday; even people that aren’t clued up on p2p have been saying how stupid it is.
mandy is twat like the rest of them
This is proof the gov are corrupt. He goes on holiday with (and its probably paid for by) a label owner and all of a sudden, he does exactly what the labels want.
Its as bad as the US where they are all paid off.
Funny stuff: 4 in years from now I’d say that the whole piracy debate will come to a consensus, no matter if favorable to piracy or IP reselling industries. Life will go on. However, in another 20 years, maybe less, It’s very probable that Turing’s test will be satisfied, and we shall start seeing a new age of auto-generated high quality media. And then we shall have a lot of controversy about how computers are hurting humanity’s cultural productions and all that jazz, and how, before with Radio, Cable TV, VideoTapes and P2P Filesharing, the same people already had the same issues, and how nothing of bad ever came out of it.
Maybe we will read articles about how “generative media research” systems, or advanced AI systems were harshly patented, persecution against OSS implementation of the technology, court orders, political lobbing…
It is easy to moan about dishonest politicians who practise cronyism and behave like dictators, by taking power without being fairly elected to government, and making punitive laws against the general population without following fair and proper process.whose only interest is making themselves more wealthy.
instead of moaning about them will the torrent sites provide easy and cheap ways to download torrents without being seen, thus making whatever laws that are made irrelevant
Mandleson’s an unspeakably evil bastard and need to be castrated so he doesn’t pollute the planet anymore.
There’s nothing anyone can really do to stop this, regardless of the fact that labour will be out of power at the next general election, the Tories won’t have the balls to stand up and disagree with the Digital Britain report. We can only hope that schemes like the new pirate bay or something similar will come along as a viable alternative, albeit an undeniable stop down from proper torrent sites.
Dark times we live in people …
“First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.” – Niemöller
I’m just wondering how much civil liberties and personal privacy we can loose…
Mandelson: For there isn’t enough evil and corruption in the world already.
The industry clearly has him wrapped around their (equally corrupt) little finger. What a slimy little puppet he is.
Mandelson: For when there just isn’t enough evil and corruption in the world already.
The industry clearly has him wrapped around their (equally corrupt) little finger. What a slimy little puppet he is.
“given the pressure put on the creative industries by piracy”, in completion: to be more creative and deserve their money.
just another excuse to harvest more taxes. they don’t control it, it’s getting bigger so they want their cut..
This will do for the British Pirate Party what the Pirate Bay trial did for the Swedish one, providing the government continues down this path.
Secure VPNs are affordable. True file sharers will still share ;D
And media that doesn’t make enough money will still be overlooked by MAFIAA and merry friends, so in my case I ain’t even needing a secure connection.
As for Mandy, ask him why he got suddenly interested and want things to get done overnight all of a sudden. I don’t know what is more disgusting: human greed or hipocresy. Pardon me fo any wrong spelling.
Oh, forgot…
“given the pressure put on the creative industries by piracy”
Creativity doesn’t come from you big guys. In fact, you are pretty limited. That’s why I’m into stuff that would not be considered mainstream.
“Its never going to happen, he isn’t in power and his party isn’t going to be for much longer.”
the conservatives have echoed their support already, all though stating that he may have been a little heavy handed, and in all reality, it will be they, who are the successors. The only way to combat this is at the ballot, but i feel that the pirate party will not be ready in any way shape or form for this event. However all is not lost:
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/26-08-2009-internet-file-sharing.html
With some eco, credentials to boot, you be the the envy of all your friend when they find out how middle-class you are. but seriously having a foothold, and an already increasing membership puts them more in a position to apply pressure on whomever is in government, and already has MP’s in the parliment to speak out on our behalf.
I think it’s universally accepted that Madelson is evil and corrupt and his links to less than savoury characters are well known, him having to resign twice now from office. However I don’t think people fully understand how evil and self serving this piece of filth truly is.
At the very same Corfu villa where he met David Geffen he is also alleged to have talked with Gaddafi’s son concerning Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi the convicted Lockerbie bomber who was subsequently released to a heroes welcome.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/17/mandelson-gaddafi-lockerbie-corfu
Greetings from Germany!
Pirate Movement will go on!
Darth Mad Elson looks like a fascist!
Go go go xD
Mandlesons re-re-entry to mainstream politics under the supervision of an unelected Prime Minister just shows how corrupt the labour party is (i’m sure the conservatives and liberals are just as corrupt). The government are setting unrealistic targets and living in a dream world that this is going to stop anyone.
Excellent article.
I don’t intend this comment to be taken as homophobic – but what do you expect when you give a c0cksucker like “Mandy” almost unlimited powers.
Lord Meddlesome isn’t interested in pirates or copyright laws. All that slimy bastard is interested in is lining his own pocket.
“Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody’s looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused”
First I have to say, don’t blame the americans for the corruption that was already in the UK government and just as capable of rearing its ugly little head there as it did here years ago. If you wish to blame us for anything blame us for allowing our politicians to become political role models who no longer care how much of their corruption you’re open to view. You think you’re free? You never have been and you never will be, just like here. Politicians the world over have taken their own countries into the dirt for much less than what these music industry homos pay and will again in the future. To the politicians this is all just more drops in an overfull bucket. You want to blame people? Blame these artists. These artists who sell their souls to these music and movie mogules for the chump change they allow to roll off their sleeves into the artist’s pockets. The artists make the deals that allow these verbally untalented fatcats to get richer. Vote for whoever you want. The next will follow the last and eventually whether you give your rights up freely or protest to no avail they’ll be taken just the same. People the world over learn more and more everyday the only way they’ll ever have control of their own government again will be to go out and take it. Still want to blame someone? Blame yourself. You did the exact same thing as everyone else has in this world in these days and time. You let them take it, and so did we.
#Oh Mandy, you came and you cut off my Broadband#
That aside, I personally hope misfortune befalls Darth Mandelson.
He can rot in hell Mandelson
Get to f*** You earn milions a year go F*** Get a life
Rot In hell
Mandleson’s an unspeakably evil bastard and need to be castrated so he doesn’t pollute the planet anymore.
He wont pollute the planet with his offspring….The slimy bastard is a homo…Cant you tell?…Look at it.
KILL MANDLESON, RUN THE CUNT OVER
evil little mandy
lol @ 43 maybe that word should be added to the expletives filter? but true enough.
However, im really not sure if we are going about this the right way at all.
As we all know, they only thing anyone connected in this, ie. the music industry, government, lobbyists, are interested in is money. so why not hit them where it hurts?
We as file sharers should become completely transparent in what we are sharing. They would then have to take action against us all. This will be incredibly costly to each of those organisations, and there is very little chance of them getting what they believe they are owed, cost them a fortune in legal costs to instigate, and will clog he courts, plus it cause the isp’s to lose business on such a large scale they would step not to mention the loss in tax revenues to the governments, and in legal aid for these court cases. Not one of us could be imprisoned for non payment of the fines, as there is simply no way of dealing with that sort of volume of cases, and imprisoning one and not another would be very risky for any court considering the transparency of offenses by large numbers of people.
In order to be successful, the way would be to create a secret database of people and items shared and build this up over a period, then release the data only once there were too many names for them to deal with in one hit.
Lets stop running and pushing ourselves underground, and bring the fight to them collectivly.
http://www.electro-flashback.com
why is this cu unt mandelson EVEN involved, NO ONE elected him
time for a revolution a REAL one, this is our lives, our finances, our freedoms, our way of life
time to bring them down and start afresh
He _does_ look a bit like a villain, doesn’t he? :P
todays world is run by corporations not governments.only direct democracy can help us get rid of those corrupt political & corporate scum.power 2 the ppl guys and gals.cheers from poland – kingdom of corruption and crime.ps any jobs left in the UK?? lulz ;)
I feel very sorry for these multi-millionare “artists” they must be crying into their pillows at night, thinking that they won’t be able to get the luxury boat that they want.
Basically it comes to this our government cares more what hollywood tells them to do than the british public to whom they are supposed to be looking after!
and NO there revenues have not been drying up but ours have!
Sad times we are living… corrupt governments all over the world are being lead by copy”right” cartels… :(
Its time to a global file sharing revolution and pirate parties are helping a lot!
Sharing is caring.
lol darth vader.
UK sux lol
This is shaping to be a program similar to the US War on drugs without the possible harm and violence element. Seems like more of a pandemic of strong arming ISP’s, attacking the trackers and gearing up for the real battle against the unsuspecting individual.
Hopefully a forum such as the truly unbiased folks at Torrentfreak will begin to promote solutions designed to enhance an individuals awareness of their options in privacy and anonymity. I would imagine the research they have done will have them educate on the inherent dangers of PPTP showing that prominent suppliers of this technology consider it a Political Statement http://bit.ly/GXaHM rather than a proper way to protect yourself. #17 Not Cordelia offered this “I for one will find out how to use other peoples wifi. Secondly I will continue to use a combination of Peerguardian and non-European proxy servers for my BT downloads.” which is a solution as is a VPN which harnesses OpenVPN technology and does not log files.
There is a battle brewing throughout Europe against free speech. While not as fully activated in America, I for one will join the conspiracy theorists and say the business community here is helping to fund the flames. Here is a possible seed http://tinyurl.com/mmv7ts.
Go Greens!
I smell bungs.
I shall certainly not be voting labour anytime soon.
How long before Darth Mandelson forces everyone back onto dial-up connections and criminalizes the use of broadband?
finally Jones delivers what he knows about. GREAT article
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE BRITISH
Romans did
Hitler did
Maggie did
and all this time we have been RAPED by the money men
BROWN sold out our pensions and gave away our treasury to the BANKS
I WILL MEET YOU IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE WITH MY TEN THOUSAND MEN
h33t who doesnt care for a link but will DIE FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM
Business Innovation and Skills = BIAS, not BIS.
Mandelson is indeed a no good politician. This is the reason he was singled out by the moguls, and invited out of the country and the gaze of the U.K media. Its a good thing that the net gives power back to the people, so we can read between the lines of this bs.
The DB report is something else created to look like something is being done, when in truth, the government don’t have the first clue of how to tackle filesharing, just like the moglus that have tried fruitlessly, to no avail. No matter how they try to paint it, file sharing will always be around.
The reason they came to Mandelson, but didn’t approach him in the U.K, is also because they’d be spotted and recognised. These same people, tried to run the same agenda through Brussels but failed. With Eircom in Ireland bending over for them, even though they are part of europe too, the U.K is stuck in the middle, but would more than likely end up on the Europe side.
However, no amount of news flashes by brainwashed media will change things. I also don’t think ISP will be giving up anything, after all, there’s still a recession on. Do the U.K government really want more U.K job losses at ISPs, once they lose too much business, on the say so of grubby media moguls? I just don’t see it happening. And if it did, it would only take another case of miscarried justice and bad press, to put a spanner again things. Back to sqaure one, rinse and repeat.
I think public sites should stick around, and they will. Even if one is shut down, twice as many can be born as always. The hydra will live on, long live the P2P media revolution.
Recently I see null seeders and leechers connected to TPB tracker via Virgin Media bbd. Is this Darth Mendelson’s deed?
I’m voting BNP next time…
Again…
They need to provide a legal alternative or the file sharing will never stop!
Thank you for the link to the consultations page of the http://www.berr.gov.uk web site. I think I shall have to make a submission. Also, a quick look at the “Annual Report and Accounts” on the site show how well paid they are which may be one of the reasons they are so out of touch with reality. Red flags anyone?
@61 “I’m voting BNP next time…
Again…”
You’re a bigger ignorant f*ckwit than Mandy then. . .
Mandelson is a cronie of the bilderberg group and the rothschild banking dynasty. Guess where he was staying when he was holidaying in Corfu? Yep you guessed it, the rothschild villa. And while he was there he met with billionare david gefen who has fingers in the music and movie pies. So it’s no surpise this unelected peer comes back from holiday determined to change legislation that directly affects mr gefen is it?
This guy is a cockroach. Kicked out of government three times for corruption, he’s now wormed his way back into government without even being elected by the people (because no one would vote for him). No democracy in the uk, just an unelected slime ball running everything for the bilderberg.
all that shite in parliament…have no need to illegally download, go buy the real thing…then claim for it…
No offense to the ISP’s but the only reason why they are bothered is because it will created larger overheads so they are bothered about profit.
Honestly I think this is a good thing, I may actually be able to get a job!. Come on its not hard to hide your downloading, its called vpn :DD.
Digital Britain’s response to the public’s ‘outrage’
Might make a good follow up article?
http://digitalbritainforum.org.uk/2009/08/filesharing-some-accusations-and-some-answers/comment-page-1/#comment-5474
Pirate party or lib dem for me, not decided yet but the two corporatist, capitalist-pig’s-wet-dream parties can f**k right off.
Here’s hoping for yet another resignation for corruption and accepting bribes
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