High Court Ruling

[Mister Musicman]

BT and Talk Talk have lost an appeal over controversial measures to tackle copyright infringement online. The internet service providers (ISPs) had argued the UK's Digital Economy Act was incompatible with EU law.

The Act will mean ISPs will have to send warning letters to alleged illegal file downloaders, as well as potentially cutting users off. The firms' lawyers said the stricter measures could result in an invasion of privacy and run up disproportionate costs for both ISPs and consumers.

I'm not denying this is wrong. But why is it the job of ISPs to police or punish a breach of copyright belonging to someone else?
:DJ:
Rob

[DazzyD]

Without going in to the politics of this too much (which would be against forum rules) this decision will have a negative impact on everyone that uses the internet and law-abiding internet users will suffer, too.

Why? Because ISPs have to foot 25% of the bill of any appeals that will arise from internet users who receive the illegal filesharing letters. And this money has to come from somewhere so it will come from increased internet charges for pretty much every ISP customer.

Also, we can expect a lot of mistaken cases whereby people will receive these letters who haven't downloaded any material illegally. I purchase a lot of music each month from sites such as 7Digital so my bandwith usage will be high compared to others. The only way my ISP can see that what I am downloading is legal is to intercept the data I am downloading. So, information privacy is now set to be a thing of the past. At the very least, this will result in slower file downloads while the ISP checks out this data before passing it on down the line to me.

There's also a knock-on effect for legitimate download sites. If people using these sites start to get wrongly accused of illegal filesharing then they're going to stop using these sites - it simply won't be worth the hassle. The smaller download sites will lose income and we'll see them start to go out of business, or put their prices up - an end to cheap, legal music downloads, perhaps?

I'm not against the Digital Economy Act in principle. But, having followed this fiasco since it was rushed through parliament in the dying days of the last Government, it is obvious to me that this Act creates more questions than it answers without tackling the root causes of copyright infringement and piracy and also completely disregarding the average person's right to privacy.

As an aside to the main subject, let's not forget it was this Act that gave rise to the shady, and now frowned upon, practice of Speculative Invoicing, whereby people only suspected of illegal file-sharing were sent letters demanding they pay £400 "compensation" or face being taken to court. In fact, the heads of two law firms who adopted this practice have now been banned from practising law by the Law Society. Oh, and despite the many letters sent to suspected illegal file-sharers, there hasn't been a single conviction in a UK court of anyone who has received one of these letters.

I fear for the future of a "free" internet. Only time will tell.

[Dynamic Entertainment]

Without going in to the politics of this too much (which would be against forum rules) this decision will have a negative impact on everyone that uses the internet and law-abiding internet users will suffer, too.

Why? Because ISPs have to foot 25% of the bill of any appeals that will arise from internet users who receive the illegal filesharing letters. And this money has to come from somewhere so it will come from increased internet charges for pretty much every ISP customer.

Also, we can expect a lot of mistaken cases whereby people will receive these letters who haven't downloaded any material illegally. I purchase a lot of music each month from sites such as 7Digital so my bandwith usage will be high compared to others. The only way my ISP can see that what I am downloading is legal is to intercept the data I am downloading. So, information privacy is now set to be a thing of the past. At the very least, this will result in slower file downloads while the ISP checks out this data before passing it on down the line to me.

There's also a knock-on effect for legitimate download sites. If people using these sites start to get wrongly accused of illegal filesharing then they're going to stop using these sites - it simply won't be worth the hassle. The smaller download sites will lose income and we'll see them start to go out of business, or put their prices up - an end to cheap, legal music downloads, perhaps?

I'm not against the Digital Economy Act in principle. But, having followed this fiasco since it was rushed through parliament in the dying days of the last Government, it is obvious to me that this Act creates more questions than it answers without tackling the root causes of copyright infringement and piracy and also completely disregarding the average person's right to privacy.

As an aside to the main subject, let's not forget it was this Act that gave rise to the shady, and now frowned upon, practice of Speculative Invoicing, whereby people only suspected of illegal file-sharing were sent letters demanding they pay £400 "compensation" or face being taken to court. In fact, the heads of two law firms who adopted this practice have now been banned from practising law by the Law Society. Oh, and despite the many letters sent to suspected illegal file-sharers, there hasn't been a single conviction in a UK court of anyone who has received one of these letters.

I fear for the future of a "free" internet. Only time will tell.

Youve just summed up my thoughts exactly...and saved me typing them ;)

[Jiggles]

People meddling in things they will never understand! :( Going to ruin what the internet is. The people who share this stuff they know what they are doing and know exactly how to get around it. The only people who are going to get hammered with this are those who dont do it.

[paulg]

I thought this was old news and the latest was to block websites such as Pirate Bay. It's theft. Hurrah, I say but let's hope that places such as Ebay, Gumtree and the like are treat in a similar vain if they allow instances where copies of copyrighted material are sold on.

[Larry B Entertainment]

let's hope that places such as Ebay, Gumtree and the like are treat in a similar vain

If thats the case you may as well kill me now :eek: I cant live without ebay :D

[musicologydisco]

It's easy enough to download anonymously using a proxy server like BtGuard so the determined will carry on regardless.

[Dynamic Entertainment]

It's easy enough to download anonymously using a proxy server like BtGuard so the determined will carry on regardless.

Exactly....but its the honest people who buy their music online or legally stream films that are gonna get hammered

[hammy]

Wont this also affect Netflix?

[Dynamic Entertainment]

Wont this also affect Netflix?

Yep....anyone using alot of bandwidth...

[Shaun]

Yep....anyone using alot of bandwidth...

Can't see it myself. I see it panning out differently.

From the Guardian..

The government will now be able to compel internet providers to send out warning letters to subscribers accused of illegal filesharing.




Rights holders have agreed to foot 75% of the costs in each of the three fees.

They confirmed that the ISPs should pay 25% of relevant costs, which are operating fees incurred when identifying which subscribers are accused of illegal downloading.




That sounds to me as if it's still going to be the copyright holders using whatever methods they do to identify those stealing, then contacting the ISP's to confer, confirm, and ask the ISP's to contact people. All that's changed is that they now have the power to demand that the ISP's take further action against those that are distributing and sharing copyright material (where as before there was no legal requirement for the ISP's to do so). I can see all our our internet bills being increased though to foot the "25%" that the ISP's are being forced to pay.

It won't be case of of everyone having every bit of bandwidth scrutinised by their ISP's, and those that's using a lot of bandwidth getting scare letters from their ISP's. The powers at be within the film and music industry will no doubt still be doing all the monitoring, and then just contacting ISP's to take action. It just wouldn't be practical or feasable for ISP's to do all the monitoring themselves.

[DazzyD]

People meddling in things they will never understand! :( Going to ruin what the internet is. The people who share this stuff they know what they are doing and know exactly how to get around it. The only people who are going to get hammered with this are those who dont do it.

I couldn't agree more.


I thought this was old news and the latest was to block websites such as Pirate Bay. It's theft. Hurrah, I say but let's hope that places such as Ebay, Gumtree and the like are treat in a similar vain if they allow instances where copies of copyrighted material are sold on.

Nope. This High Court Judgement is definitely today's news. This is about the Digital Economy Act and the ability to prosecute those only "suspected" of downloading illegal material. The Pirate Bay situation is a different matter altogether.


Can't see it myself. I see it panning out differently.

From the Guardian..




That sounds to me as if it's still going to be the copyright holders using whatever methods they do to identify those stealing, then contacting the ISP's to confer, confirm, and ask the ISP's to contact people. All that's changed is that they now have the power to demand that the ISP's take further action against those that are distributing and sharing copyright material (where as before there was no legal requirement for the ISP's to do so). I can see all our our internet bills being increased though to foot the "25%" that the ISP's are being forced to pay.

It won't be case of of everyone having every bit of bandwidth scrutinised by their ISP's, and those that's using a lot of bandwidth getting scare letters from their ISP's. The powers at be within the film and music industry will no doubt still be doing all the monitoring, and then just contacting ISP's to take action. It just wouldn't be practical or feasable for ISP's to do all the monitoring themselves.

Having been in opposition to the Digital Economy Bill since it's inception on grounds of privacy, I fear you are seriously underestimating the powers that the "Big 4" in the music industry have in this area. Innocent people have already been receiving these letters under the guise of Speculative Invoicing and, after this ruling, many more people will receive them. Anyone downloading content illegally will continue to do so undetected via a proxy server (as has already been stated) so it will really be the innocent who suffer both in terms of increased internet service fees and from mistakenly being accused as copyright pirates.

Whilst it is up to the Music Industry to detect piracy "suspects", and at their cost, the only way they can do this is to monitor data passed over the internet. Do you really want your personal data being monitored by a body whose sole purpose in the industry is to make money for the industry? If they really cared about the privacy and rights of internet users would they really be using they Speculative Invoicing tactics with law firms such as ACS Law (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16616803) to effectively bully suspects in to paying £400 without a proper trial? This is totally against what the legal system in this country is built upon - the premise of being innocent until proven guilty and the requirement of a fair trial. These basic rights, that are enshrined in UK Law, are being massively eroded with the passing of this Act. I really am disappointed that our legal system has bowed to big players in the music industry.

Would the last one out please turn out the lights? :(