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Privacy Government Politics

UK ISPs To Face Piracy Deadline 287

Posted by kdawson from the opening-envelopes dept.
superbrose notes that despite lots of legal difficulties regarding Internet privacy, the UK government is going ahead with plans to punish ISPs for allowing their customers to download illegal music and films. The claim is that there is "rampant piracy" in Britain with more than 6 million broadband users downloading files illegally every year. "The government will on Friday tell internet service providers they will be hit with legal sanctions from April next year unless they take concrete steps to curb illegal downloads of music and films. Britain would be one of the first countries in the world to impose such sanctions. Service providers say what the government wants them to do would be like asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted."
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UK ISPs To Face Piracy Deadline More

UK ISPs To Face Piracy Deadline

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  • If you live in the UK. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chriseyre2000 ( 603088 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:29PM (#22516924) Homepage
    Let your MP know what a bad idea this is: http://www.writetothem.com/ [writetothem.com]

    • Re:If you live in the UK. (Score:5, Funny)

      by somersault ( 912633 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:32PM (#22516986) Homepage Journal
      Don't forget to include a couple of MP3s to sweeten the deal

    • 6 MILLION! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Would that be 10% of the WHOLE population (including oldies, sickies and kiddies)? Sounds like it's time to change the law, not enforce it harder.

      • Re:6 MILLION! (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:18PM (#22517804)

        The claim is that there is "rampant piracy" in Britain with more than 6 million broadband users downloading files illegally every year.

        6 million?? This sounds like a job for . . . da - da da da . . . Hitler!!

    • Petition (Score:4, Informative)

      by IAmAI ( 961807 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:59PM (#22517488)
      You can also sign this petition: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/openinternet/ [pm.gov.uk]

      • Re:Petition (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sakdoctor ( 1087155 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:14PM (#22517752) Homepage
        Every single on of those that I've signed has reached critical mass, causing me to receive a piece of government propaganda telling me why I'm wrong.

        For example:

        Me: "I don't want an ID card. Police states are not good"
        Reply: "Dear terrorist, having an ID card is good. It will keep you safe"

        I'm not going to sign this one because I already know what the reply will be.

        • Re:Petition (Score:4, Funny)

          by Cheesey ( 70139 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @02:02PM (#22518594)
          Quite right. I signed another one at about the same time as the ID cards one. This is what happened:
          Q. "Dear Prime Minister, please abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools."
          A. "The Government remains committed to a diverse range of schools for parents to choose from, including schools with a religious character or "faith schools" as they are commonly known. Social divisions along religious lines are definitely a good thing and have certainly never caused any problems of any sort. Anyway we didn't read what you said, we don't care what your opinion is, because we are right."
          So I guess if you want to change things you just have to go out and vote. Ha ha, I split my own sides there.

    • Re:If you live in the UK. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by owlnation ( 858981 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:07PM (#22517616)
      I can write to them, but since my MP is a member of the New Labour Regime, I'm far from convinced he is able to read.

    • Re:If you live in the UK. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:14PM (#22517734) Journal
      It seems that your country and mine are in some sort of contest to see who can write the stupidest, citizen-hostile, corporate-friendly laws. And here I thought my (and I use the word "my" lightly here) country was the only one that was bought and paid for by the corporations.

  • You never know... (Score:5, Funny)

    by man_of_mr_e ( 217855 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:30PM (#22516938)
    Service providers say what the government wants them to do would be like asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted.

    Don't give them any ideas...
    • Next up, UK requires that automobile manufactures equip all autos with a buggy whip in their boot, in case the auto runs out of petrol and might then be pulled by horse.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by somersault ( 912633 )
        I prefer all my whips to be fully quality assured and debugged before using them to abuse my equestrian fellows. Anything else is just a waste of tax payer's money.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 )

          I prefer all my whips to be fully quality assured and debugged before using them to abuse...
          Funny, that's what my dominatrix said.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:31PM (#22516966)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Microlith ( 54737 )

      Every person I know in the EU in that age bracket downloads most of the media they consume rather than buying authorized copies.

      Surely you don't believe they do so for any other reason than the price is zero. Some may, but I imagine the majority think more about the price than any righteous belief that "information wants to be free."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sm62704 ( 957197 )
        Surely you don't believe they do so for any other reason than the price is zero

        I don't know aout him, but I surely believe there are lots more and far better reasons than "the price is zero". I won't enumerate them here because the post would rightfully be modded "redundant". Surely you have seen at least some of the reasons? You're not new here, after all, Mr. UID 54737.

    • Re:More than 6 million I'm sure (Score:5, Insightful)

      by alexgieg ( 948359 ) <alexgieg@gmail.com> on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:41PM (#22517156) Homepage

      If users could only group together for political power like some are starting to do in Sweden, the course of democracy might be able to break copyright law.
      This won't happen, in any country, unless and until government sanctions against file sharing become prevalent enough to affect the majority of Internet users living there. Unfortunately, as long as it only affects one person in a million, no one except those interested in the subject itself will care.

      On the other hand, this British law, if enacted, might become the fire that will trigger that reaction. Just wait and see the growth in the amount of people pissed by false positives, or just pissed, for things to start to change.

    • Re:More than 6 million I'm sure (Score:5, Insightful)

      by raddan ( 519638 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:54PM (#22517392)
      Not only that, but, the UK has a total population of about 60 million people. So 10% of the population is engaging in piracy. Within the age bracket you mention, that's probably pretty much everybody. I have a feeling this is going to turn out like Prohibition did. Despite the fact that it gets banned, everybody still does it, the authorities are powerless to stop it, and in the end, the authorities who puts those laws in place get moved aside by those who want those laws repealed.
      • We're too used to getting shit on in the UK and now everyone's placid, when the smoking ban was introduced there was hardly any protest, but in iceland they openly flout the ban.

      • Re:More than 6 million I'm sure (Score:4, Insightful)

        by sm62704 ( 957197 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:30PM (#22518036) Journal
        That's what we said about the US marijuana laws back in the 1970s, when it seemed everybody was smoking it and those who didn't didn't care if you were (including the police but excepting the politicians).

        Now they have everyone convinced it's addictive (it's habit forming but not addictive), causes cancer (it doesn't, and in fact prevents cancer) and leads to harder drugs (it doesn't; the laws against it do).

        Instead of it being legal, now most employers drug-test everyone. There are now people addicted to crack who switched from marijuana when their employer started random drug testing; pot stays in your system a lot longer than cocaine.

        Rather than P2P being legalized, expect some nanny-state, anti-freedom, pro-corporation, anti-people asshat like Reagan to come down like a load of bricks on P2P who convinces everybody that P2P leads to cancer, terrorism, and global warming.

        Indies give their MP3s away. Share those, ignore the MAFIAA bands. Don't share their music, don't buy their downloads, don't buy their CDs, don't go to their concerts. They are the problem, and if you contribute in any way, whether monetarily or by sharing their music, you are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

        Just say "no."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cheesey ( 70139 )
        But prohibition never went away, even though it never worked. In fact, it spread to other countries via "free trade" agreements, and continues to fund a vast worldwide criminal industry to this very day.

        I think the analogy with prohibition is sound, though, and ultimately schemes to keep piracy off the net will lead to two things if they succeed: (1) no online anonymity or privacy, since you must track what people are doing if you are to enforce anti-piracy laws, and (2) a move back to sneakernet for duplic

      • I have a feeling this is going to turn out like Prohibition did. Despite the fact that it gets banned, everybody still does it, the authorities are powerless to stop it, and in the end, the authorities who puts those laws in place get moved aside by those who want those laws repealed.

        I think this will be more likely once the baby boomer population has moved on, and government is inherited by people who've spent more time growing up and living in an information-centric world rather than a paper one. Righ

  • The ISPs died for my sins.
    • Careful. We don't want people to start arguing over which ISP it was that got killed and what its specific policies were.

    • Re:I Suddenly Feel Religious... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sumdumass ( 711423 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:52PM (#22517332) Journal
      If they acted like that, they might get a reprieve.

      what I mean is, if all ISPs in the UK staged a strike by cutting Internet access everywhere for two or three days and claim that would be the only possible way to ensure their customers aren't pirating anything, I am sure that the outrage would force another look at the law. And if they did this 2 different times, like once on Thursday Friday and Saturday, it could cause direct deposit information and payroll services to be interrupted. If they did this on again a week later on lets say Monday and Tuesday, there would be so much upset and confusion that those who think they wasn't effected will be.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chyeld ( 713439 )

        .... And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in

      • If I were in charge of an ISP in the UK, I would immediately block the Kontiki P2P system, as there is no way for me to know whether that traffic is legitimate BBC shows or pirated material, same with other ports used for P2P - IE everything but a few whitelisted ports. I would also block all encrypted traffic on those remaining ports as there is no way for me to tell if it is illegal or not. But keep the blogs and news sites up so everyone can read about the reaction to this bill.
      • And this requirement actually came through, I would get my tools out of the garage and renew my plumbing contactors license.

    • Unenforceable? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rHBa ( 976986 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:54PM (#22517376)
      I've been wondering about this since the story broke last week, presumably someone will have to keep a definitive blacklist of banned users, otherwise you could just go to another ISP and sign up for another connection.

      This makes me wonder, will the address/telephone line be blacklisted or the individual user whose name the line was in?

      If the former, then it would suck if you just moved into a place that had been blacklisted. If the latter, what's to stop someone else in the household from signing up for another connection?

      I can imagine many student houses with 4 or more people living there, assuming it takes a few months to get noticed and sent you first warning, another couple to get your second and another couple of months to get cut off, you could then sign up again under another name and go for another round...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      The ISPs died for my sins.

      If you're a mammon worshiper, then your religion in fact does say sharing is a sin. Mine says not sharing is.
      And now for something completely different...
      CRASH RATTLE! BANG CRUNCH CRASH!
      "I think she's dead"
      "No I'm not"
      CRASH RATTLE! BANG CRUNCH CRASH!
      "That was the death of ISP, Queen of Scotts. And now your radio will explode."
      BOOM
      "Well what's on the telly then?"
      "Looks like a penguin to me."

  • The solution is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:35PM (#22517040) Journal
    Block downloading of all music, films, and other content that might be illegal.

    Yes, this is essentially a shutdown of the WWW in the UK. So? It's what the Gov wants, right?

    • Re:The solution is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:43PM (#22517188) Journal
      It't not what the government wants, it's what the **AA wants.

      This is one of those things that will come to a head very quickly and when the egg lands, it won't be on the faces of users or ISPs. It will be on the faces of those who enacted the law.

      The trouble, as we all know, is that there is no way to determine what is illegal and what is not. There will be far too many false positives, and far too many obviously innocent people will be caught by filters and such. It will go as far as MPs will let it go. Perhaps there is a manner in which people in the UK can force MPs to download LEGAL files to show them how easy it is to be caught, and perhaps demonstrate in real life how difficult it is to find the illegal stuff by asking them to PAY for additional filtering equipment/systems for businesses, schools, hospitals etc.

      There are lots of people that want to help filter out illegal content, unfortunately, they also want to get paid.

      Once you get buy-in on the government paying the costs for such systems, turn to appendix F and show them how these systems will be worked around in something like 24 hours of implementation.

      Or perhaps you can all chip in and buy them a whack-a-mole game for the parliamentary house restaurant?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cHiphead ( 17854 )
      I say we proactively block all traffic from the UK to the internets if they do that, theres no point in having internets at all in that case.

    • Re:The solution is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by moderatorrater ( 1095745 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:51PM (#22517310)
      Honestly, everything that we see on the internet is copyrighted. Everything. It's not the ISP's responsibility to make sure that the content that's being downloaded doesn't have a copyright, because everything has one when it's created. It's the responsibility of the person doing the distributing to make sure that they aren't distributing goods illegally. This is insanity and it needs to end.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jez9999 ( 618189 )
        No, but it will be the ISPs' responsibility to make sure that content being downloaded doesn't have a record label's copyright. :-(

        Our silly, stupid government.
    • Dunno about the government but the MPAA-types sure would love that. It must be nice being able to pressure*cough*bribe*cough* people into making laws to help your antiquated business plans stay afloat.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )
      Yep, this shit from our government is disgusting.

      The other prime offender in this, I'm afraid, is the BBC. Just this evening I've been hearing from some asshole 'business correspondent' on Radio 5 Live who was interviewing a representitive of ISPs. He said something like "what's the problem here - these guys (the record labels) tell you who's breaking the law, and you chuck them off the internet." With idiocy like that going unchallenged on the mainstream media, no wonder the record industry and governme

  • Escalation right around the corner... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:40PM (#22517132)
    From TFA:

    Service providers say what the government wants them to do would be like asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted.


    It's going to get even worse. Imagine asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted, after half of the mail writers get tired of these draconian measures and start sending their messages in code.

    What if P2P users start encrypting their traffic? The difficulties involved would be significant, but not insurmountable. Are the ISPs supposed to treat every user transmitting & receiving encrypted data as a criminal?

    • Re:Escalation right around the corner... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:48PM (#22517274) Homepage Journal

      What if P2P users start encrypting their traffic?
      Then you make private encryption a criminal offense, easy.
      Big brother is watching you... you don't have anything to hide, do you?

      • Re:Escalation right around the corner... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:04PM (#22517568)
        I know you're joking/exaggerating, but it's worth pointing out that making encryption illegal would b impossible. It would, for instance, make it illegal to do any kind of secure online commerce or banking. It would basically destroy any company that relies on the Internet.

        There are so many legitimate types of encrypted traffic (SSL, SSH, VPN, etc.) that they can't outlaw it. P2P programs can certainly go beyond mere encryption and specifically obfuscate the type of traffic, making it appear as another class (e.g. https) or even use steganography to hide the data in otherwise legitimate-looking data streams.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by maxwell demon ( 590494 )
          Well, that could easily be solved: Encryption is only allowed with certificates generated and signed by a government agency; ISPs then can get the private keys of their customers from the government and thus read the data streams, while the evil guys can't (because of course the key would never leak from the ISP).

    • Re:Escalation right around the corner... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by garyok ( 218493 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:28PM (#22518008)

      What if P2P users start encrypting their traffic? The difficulties involved would be significant, but not insurmountable. Are the ISPs supposed to treat every user transmitting & receiving encrypted data as a criminal?
      No, but the UK government might with the Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act (and Heaven help you if you're muslim and you start encrypting your traffic). What worries the ISPs is without that file-sharing then there's no real reason to have a sweet 20Mb/s connection and we might as well all downgrade to a bargain-basement 512kb/s connection as all we're going to be able to download is our emails and a few safe content-free BPI-approved websites. The ISPs are caught between a rock and a hard place - if they let filesharing happen they get fined and, if they don't, then they lose lucrative customers.

      What bothers me is that, at the moment, there's no legal way for me to download the content I want in the UK. I suppose I'm atypical in that I'd be happy to pay for TV I watch through iTunes (or a similar service), as long as it becomes available at the same time it's originally broadcast in the US. What cheeses me off is having to wait months before it's available in the UK, then only available to a particular broadcaster I can't receive (Sky), and then it's only after it's picked up by a terrestrial broadcaster and their season ends that it's released to DVD and I can pick it up and watch it according to my schedule. This is usually a year after it's originally broadcast! Sorry, but I'm not too hot on delayed gratification for the sake of someone else's out-dated business model.

      Good news is that the Beeb are catching on and starting to stick their latest programmes on iTunes, like Ashes to Ashes, but I don't just want their stuff. Who only watches one TV channel?

      The crux of the argument is that an industry is using legislation to a) protect their out-dated and increasingly irrelevant business model, and b) keep artists under their thumb so they can use them up and then discard them when the cash cow dries up. These BPI and BFI people are talentless vampires, sucking the life out of creative geniuses - don't protect them, eliminate them. And reward the content creators! Now they've got their pay deals sorted, for the love of FSM buy the content off the interweb or on DVD if you like it. If you've already downloaded it on the sly, think of it as pro-active timeshifting.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )
      New idea:

      Send MP3s by snail mail?

  • So let it be (Score:4, Insightful)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:40PM (#22517136) Homepage Journal
    6 million people is about 10% of the total population. Maybe if such a large portion of its citizens want to do something it shouldn't be illegal. If the government were obeying the will of the people this shouldn't even be an issue.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Microlith ( 54737 )

      Maybe if such a large portion of its citizens want to do something it shouldn't be illegal.

      I don't know about in England, but in the US that's considered a poor argument in favor of mob rule.

      While I don't agree with the bent the UK government is taking, abolishing copyright in favor of mob greed isn't the right tactic.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by kebes ( 861706 )

        I don't know about in England, but in the US that's considered a poor argument in favor of mob rule.

        You're right that just because "everyone is doing it" doesn't mean something should be legal. However it does mean we should take a moment to re-analyze why the law exists, and whether the law is achieving its aim.

        For instance, driving speed limits are routinely broken, yet this doesn't mean we should abolish speed limits. The purpose they serve (increasing safety) may outweigh the consensus opinion. (Nevermind for a moment that a strong argument for raising speed limits could also be made.)

        What's di

      • What you call mob greed in civilized countries is considered to be the reason why we live in a society.

        This viewpoint and it's history in the USA is not suprising however, as anyone who has ever taken a look at the origins and establishment of the USA must have noticed it's upper class roots, the control this upper class exercises and the repecussions of the aforementioned to democratic values.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sm62704 ( 957197 )
        ...in the US that's considered a poor argument in favor of mob rule.

        Funny, it used to be called "democracy". But I'm 55 and don't live in the same country I grew up in. I used to live in the USA, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where what you did was none of anybody's business unless it impacted them. I don't know what damned country it is now, neoconica? But at any rate it's now the land of the nanny and home of the coward, whose government is bought and paid for by the foreign corporations
    • That's the downside to democracy. The minority always get screwed. And sometimes the minority can be a pretty damned large group.

      Until 51% of the population decide to unanimously enact change then said change is unlikely. Not impossible, mind you. But unlikely.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by owlnation ( 858981 )

      6 million people is about 10% of the total population. Maybe if such a large portion of its citizens want to do something it shouldn't be illegal. If the government were obeying the will of the people this shouldn't even be an issue.

      Quite correct, unfortunately the 0.001% that's running the country is in fact criminal, so there's not much we can do about it -- except leave. Seriously, this is but one further step, out of many already taken, towards totalitarianism.

      The sun has set on the British Empire

    • I contacted my MP (Oliver Letwin) when this story first broke on BBC news's website. I detailed the technical reasons why such a thing would be near imposible and asked that very same question.

      He's got a month to reply to me, shadow chancellor or not his first job is to his constituants, he he doesn't bother responding to me, actually hold a surgery I'm never going to vote for the guy. If I get a standard response which clearly shows he hasn't read my message I'm sure the other 350 constiuants who work i

  • Government response (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @12:41PM (#22517152)

    Service providers say what the government wants them to do would be like asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted.


    In response, a government minister said, "What a great idea! We'll need to get going on that, too!"
  • Keep in mind folks that the Net Neutrality that was allowed to expire several years ago here in the US have ISP's common carrier status. For those who oppose Net Neutrality, ISPs will be required to police the content crossing their pipes to avoid legal liability.

  • How Far Will It Go? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:02PM (#22517528) Homepage Journal
    Stuff like this makes me wonder just how much invasion/erosion of privacy will be tolerated in the UK before people rise up and flood into the streets in protest. Of course, I wonder how far the same thing will go in the US before a similar reaction too! But it seems that our friends in the UK are farther along this particular curve than the US.

    • Stuff like this makes me wonder just how much invasion/erosion of privacy will be tolerated in the UK before people rise up and flood into the streets in protest.
      We can't. Effectively, we need police permission to protest nowadays. And because they enforce that under anti-terrorist legislation, they can be pretty heavy handed about enforcing it. Not third-world type heavy-handed (yet), but heavy enough.

  • Extraordinary lack of procedural clarity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Budenny ( 888916 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:03PM (#22517540)
    It is extraordinary how little clarity there is about procedures. The industry tells your ISP they suspect illegal behaviour. What is the standard of proof? What's the process for deciding if the evidence is convincing? How is it to be challenged? Disclosed?

    Then your ISP writes to you. You say the allegations are false and libellous. What happens next? Do you get to cross examine the industry spokesperson who made the allegations?

    Then three strikes, they disconnect you. You sue them. Who is liable? Them? The industry body?

    Its not so much iniquitous as unworkable in its present form. You basically cannot do this without all the expense of the courts, which is what they're trying to avoid.
    • I think it is time for people to start mailing complaints that certain government officials have violated their copyright, and let the ISPs follow these draconian rules.

  • Easy answer to this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Borealis ( 84417 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:07PM (#22517598) Homepage
    The easiest way to combat this is to then monitor the traffic of politicians and their families first. Obviously any piracy problem is most serious when practiced by a member of the parliament or their families, so careful monitoring of all communications from politicians is obviously a priority. After that, monitor traffic from anybody employed by the recording industry and their families. Then the families of the owners of all major industries. After that, ensure that no members of the police force are secretly pirating. If you get through that list without a repeal of the directive then you can monitor the rest of the populace, but I suspect that'll be a short lived initiative.

  • All UK ISPs should shut down for a day! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:10PM (#22517656) Homepage
    Just a single day! I think they'll get the message that they shouldn't try pushing stupid laws on them after that.
    • Great, hit all the people who don't download illegal stuff why don't you?
      • It would do more than that. It would affect almost every aspect of commerce!

        The point is that if they think they can put stupid laws in place and then start with their "sanctions" and crap, why not have the ISPs "sanction" the country for a day to show where this sort of nonsense could go?

        The people and businesses need to push back when they are being pushed around... and who knows, it could potentially save the need for yet another revolution against the British Empire... I mean really! How many violent
  • ...for the ISP:s to determine if a download is legal or illegal as time progresses?

    Considering that there are legal download and streaming alternatives now. And there will be more in the future...

    Who is going to decide?

  • When will they learn (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blhack ( 921171 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:15PM (#22517758)
    To every lawmaker on the planet:

    OUR COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE IS GREATER THAN YOUR OWN! We have got hordes of geeks working on ways to circumvent every single way you have ever conceived to censor what we do.
    What happened with iTunes DRM? It got owned by qtfairuse.
    What happened when you blocked bittorrent? We started encrypting it.
    What happened when you blocked the port that bittorrent runs on? We started running it on a different port.
    What happened when you throttled NNTP connections? We started using lots and lots of simultaneous connections, each of them throttled, but collectively adding up to our original speed.
    What happened when you started blocking NNTP all together? We started running it over port 80 and disguising it as legitimate SSL traffic.
    What happened when you started listening to our phone calls? We started using encrypted VOIP.

    Every single time there has EVER been ANY attempt at stopping people from doing what they want it has only caused them to grow stronger. Don't challenge us to develop stronger encryption, because we will. Its like spraying a weed with weed killer, eventually you're just going to create stronger weeds.

    What you are trying to do in the UK will absolutely fail. History has shown this. Non tech-savvy users will be alienated for a while, until we create yet ANOTHER work around for your idiotic bureaucratic attempt at pleasing your own appetite for money and power.

    I cannot repeat enough that this WILL fail.

    The community welcomes your attempt at censoring us. It will only present us with yet another challenge and cause the gap between our skills and your own to grow.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by rHBa ( 976986 )

      The community welcomes your attempt at censoring us. It will only present us with yet another challenge and cause the gap between our skills and your own to grow.

      This reminds me of mountainbiking in my local woods. The ramblers, wardens etc started putting logs across the trails in an effort to stop us riding them, little did they know that the extra obstacles made the trails even more fun to ride :-)

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by downix ( 84795 )
      Hear hear!

      Informations wants to be free, period. To try and close up the pandoras box which is progress is akin to sticking a cork into a volcano. You'll get burned, then watch your city get buried by lava when the eruption does occur anyways.

  • There are only two ways I can see this going (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jimicus ( 737525 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:15PM (#22517768)
    Solution 1: A solution is implemented which pays lip service to the requirement - something like ISPs poisoning the entries their DNS servers provide on demand of the BPI - or if they're really paranoid, null-routing the IP addresses. This is the kind of thing the ISPs would go for, isn't too onerous and doesn't actually do anything to solve the "problem".

    Solution 2: The Great Firewall of Britain. This is what I see the Government doing if the ISPs don't. I doubt it'll be terribly effective because the government will outsource providing appropriate technology to a consultant like EDS (a company that specialises in taking money off UK government departments in exchange for half-baked systems which don't really work properly) and once the technology is ready, ISPs will be obliged to deploy it.
  • Tell them suspicious activity related to file sharing was detected on their network and, in accordance with the new law, they've had their access terminated. Oh, and of course, no refunds...

    1984 Marathon, at with Big Brother, all night. Every night!

  • Welcome to censorship (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gilesjuk ( 604902 ) <giles DOT jones AT zen DOT co DOT uk> on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:17PM (#22517796)
    So much for lack of censorship and freedoms.

    The media giants have too much power, they just can't face decline. There's a massive amount of music, films and media out there, the demand and supply doesn't always match. I for example don't want much that Hollywood churns out, I don't like a lot of popular media. So am I to be prosecuted because I don't purchase rubbish commercial music and use p2p?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shados ( 741919 )
      If you don't want much that Hollywood churns out, then nothing would happen to you. I mean, if its so crappy, you wouldn't download it, even for free, no? If you pirate it, its because you actually did want it: its just the price you weren't happy with.

      Me, when I think something is shit, I go and get something better. If you think Windows is crap, get Linux. If you think Britney Spears is shit (who doesn't?), don't buy her music, get other stuff. If you think most commercial music is crap (I do), get indy m
  • Lets suppose it were something else. People are buying cigarettes for minors in supermarkets. So the government says, the anti smoking league should be able to monitor people buying cigarettes by observation. Then they give a name to the supermarkets. These then deny service to these people. Refuse for instance to accept their credit cards.

    Or speeding. We get anti speeding bodies to notify their insurers that they have been observed breaking the speed limit, who then have to terminate their insurance.
  • Fuck the whole shebang. Legalize "piracy". Have everyone distribute everything à gogo. Have only Government paying for the production of downloadable art, through something like the BBC or the CBC, financed through taxes. No more private profiteers. Scrap private producers.

    Voilà, problem solved.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:45PM (#22518292)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Where does the government's authority come from? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cuantar ( 897695 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @01:55PM (#22518478) Homepage
    If a significant percentage of the population regularly does something that happens to be illegal, perhaps it's the law that needs to be re-examined, not its implementation.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Shados ( 741919 )
      Thats not how it works. With that logic, black men and women still shouldn't have any rights. There are WAY more people who go above speed limits than there are file sharers. Should we abolish those? (I know that a significant percentage of Slashdot readers think so, but...).

      The government is given (indeed, by its people) the authority to do whats best for the country for the present and the future. Remember, these are not democracies, but democratic republics, or variations of it. Its job is to handle issu

  • Meanwhile, in Springfield... (Score:3, Funny)

    by sm62704 ( 957197 ) on Friday February 22, 2008 @02:50PM (#22519334) Journal
    As you might guess, Springfield is home to Alderman Simpson. Yep, that's not bullshit [illinoistimes.com]. But what does Springfield (see links in the the update at the bottom of the journal) [slashdot.org] have to do with a law about people in Britain downloading music?

    Well, a young Springfield woman was found dead in her home. Her face had been chewed off by two pit bulls, which were taken to the animal shelter on suspicion of murder, no bail had been set for the dogs.

    The coroner says she overdosed on cocaine before getting her face chewed off. Her live-in boyfriend had an airtight alibi- as the Springfield paper reports [sj-r.com]:

    The detective, Scott Kincaid, outlined for the coroner's jury the police department's investigation into Strode's death, including statements from her boyfriend, who left the house about 3:20 that morning to meet another woman. He then got up about 10:45 a.m., downloaded some music from a computer and went to a hardware store to buy a furnace filter.
    So for those of you who are against downloading music, I say SO THERE! =P

  • Sweden's Pirate Party (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Russ Nelson ( 33911 ) <slashdot@russnelson.com> on Friday February 22, 2008 @03:42PM (#22520044) Homepage
    Sweden's Pirate Party points out that the only way to give the "content" industry the protection it needs is to control all speech. Thus, file copying must be permitted not to protect a few thieves, but to protect everyone's freedom of speech.

    In other words: Your need to make money isn't going to infringe our freedom of speech.

    Figure out a different way to make money.

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