The UK's Digital Economy Bill which is already hitting much opposition with over 22,000 objections listed on the government’s official petitions site now faces a new potential problem http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/ in that it could be in breach of EU laws. Professor of Internet Law at the University of Sheffield Lilian Edwards has now claimed that the Bill could make it impossible to operate a free wireless network legally.
The Bill is aimed not just at the suspected copyright infringer but at "a subscriber to an internet access service [who] has allowed another person to use the service, and that other person has infringed the owner’s copyright by means of the service". This means if you have a wifi service which is unsecured you would become responsible for their alleged copyright infringement. So anyone with a free Wi-Fi network now is liable for strangers' copyright infringements. So does this include or exclude cafes, hotels, community services and remember Swindon is about to offer city wide wifi.
Wi-Fi operators could police their networks and block certain unlawful file-sharing sites, but is this really pratical and who decides and draws the line? Then there is the question of the European E-Commerce Directive, which gives network providers immunity from liability for the actions of their users while they are ignorant of those actions and have no real effective control. The Directive also says that operators have no obligation to monitor networks.
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Showing posts with label piracy legislation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label piracy legislation. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Are All Pirates Treated Equally?
The piracy battles rage on with on one hand the content owners resolute to take on the fight through every and any means and on the other the pirates who play by different rules and vales. Some may think it’s a battle of morals between right and wrong but the reality is that both sides do not agree even on the definitions and therefore are fighting over principles that they will never agree on. Media companies are struggling to persuade consumers to pay for video, music or news online and many consumers believe content on the Web is free.
“The history of file-sharing is that every time the industry takes action, by the time it tackles a bigger source of the problem, the problem has moved elsewhere,” said Mark Mulligan, analyst at Forrester Research.
A recent study has found that 8 %of consumers have admittedly watched an illegally downloaded video file. The study, conducted by research firm Futuresource Consulting, surveyed consumers in the US, UK, France and Germany. The survey also found that 90 percent of those who watched video content online had never paid to watch news or recently-missed TV shows. Just over half had never paid to watch new movies. But most said they would or might be willing to pay in future.
Last week Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found guilty and received what many see as an obscene fine totally out of proportion to the crime. Was she guilty – Yes. Should she be fined – Yes. However the fine itself has just made life more difficult for all as its hardened one side and introduced an element of bad press for the winners. Where The Pirate Bay guilty – as Napster, Kasaa and others before. The the RIAA (Recording Industry Assn. of America) has failed to cut into the volume of copyrighted material on peer-to-peer networks, what has started to shift the balance has been broader licensing. Often people still turned to piracy because they couldn’t find what they were seeking on authorized channels.
In last week’s Digital Britain white paper the government set out its ambition to reduce online piracy by 70 per cent. Its plans included requiring internet service providers to write warning letters to customers spotted illegally downloading music, TV shows and movies, while persistent “offenders” could be pursued in the courts.
If, after a year, fewer than 70% of those receiving warnings ceased downloading, Ofcom could impose measures such as barring specific sites, filtering illegally acquired content or limiting the speed and capacity of broadband connections.
So on one hand we have everyone trying to control. Restrict and grapple with copyright infringement but is this message a consistent one?
Google scanned significant copyright material in the guise of fair use. The case was never proven because it was railroaded to produce a settlement that only lawyers can comprehend. It is also viewed by many as rewarding those who infringed. What message does that send out to the market?
What we face is a law and governance that flies with the wind or some may say the dollar. What is right to prosecute those who as individuals can make little impact on the numbers, prosecute the carriers who give them a portal, prosecute the services that are happy to work within DMCA and a safe harbour or those who scan first, claim it is for humanity and then say they are going to be a bookseller and sell the stuff they effectively took?
Crazy world and clearly one where some are more equal than others.
“The history of file-sharing is that every time the industry takes action, by the time it tackles a bigger source of the problem, the problem has moved elsewhere,” said Mark Mulligan, analyst at Forrester Research.
A recent study has found that 8 %of consumers have admittedly watched an illegally downloaded video file. The study, conducted by research firm Futuresource Consulting, surveyed consumers in the US, UK, France and Germany. The survey also found that 90 percent of those who watched video content online had never paid to watch news or recently-missed TV shows. Just over half had never paid to watch new movies. But most said they would or might be willing to pay in future.
Last week Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found guilty and received what many see as an obscene fine totally out of proportion to the crime. Was she guilty – Yes. Should she be fined – Yes. However the fine itself has just made life more difficult for all as its hardened one side and introduced an element of bad press for the winners. Where The Pirate Bay guilty – as Napster, Kasaa and others before. The the RIAA (Recording Industry Assn. of America) has failed to cut into the volume of copyrighted material on peer-to-peer networks, what has started to shift the balance has been broader licensing. Often people still turned to piracy because they couldn’t find what they were seeking on authorized channels.
In last week’s Digital Britain white paper the government set out its ambition to reduce online piracy by 70 per cent. Its plans included requiring internet service providers to write warning letters to customers spotted illegally downloading music, TV shows and movies, while persistent “offenders” could be pursued in the courts.
If, after a year, fewer than 70% of those receiving warnings ceased downloading, Ofcom could impose measures such as barring specific sites, filtering illegally acquired content or limiting the speed and capacity of broadband connections.
So on one hand we have everyone trying to control. Restrict and grapple with copyright infringement but is this message a consistent one?
Google scanned significant copyright material in the guise of fair use. The case was never proven because it was railroaded to produce a settlement that only lawyers can comprehend. It is also viewed by many as rewarding those who infringed. What message does that send out to the market?
What we face is a law and governance that flies with the wind or some may say the dollar. What is right to prosecute those who as individuals can make little impact on the numbers, prosecute the carriers who give them a portal, prosecute the services that are happy to work within DMCA and a safe harbour or those who scan first, claim it is for humanity and then say they are going to be a bookseller and sell the stuff they effectively took?
Crazy world and clearly one where some are more equal than others.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Pirates: One Step Forward , Two steps Back
France's top legal body, the Constitutional Council, which examines whether bills that have been passed by the French parliament are in accordance with the French constitution, has rejected a key provision of the new legislation aimed at punishing internet pirates. The law, approved last month, gives officials the power to remove web access for those caught repeatedly downloading protected material. However the Council ruled that only a judge could bar people from the web, describing access to online services as a human right.
Some consumer groups had warned that the wrong people might be punished, should hackers hijack their computers' identity, and that the scheme amounted to state surveillance.
We then have the case of the RIAA versus Jammie Thomas-Rasset in her retrial in Minnesota. The defence lawyers Kiwi Camara and Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson aimed to question the very substance of the RIAA case to file a class-action lawsuit against the recording industry later this summer.
However they have already had one set back as their attempt to bar Media Sentry’s evidence on the grounds that they were not licensed as a private investigator in Minnesota has been thrown out. They still aim to challenge the RIAA to prove it owns the certified copies of the copyrights in question. If it can't establish that fact, the case could be dismissed.
Some consumer groups had warned that the wrong people might be punished, should hackers hijack their computers' identity, and that the scheme amounted to state surveillance.
We then have the case of the RIAA versus Jammie Thomas-Rasset in her retrial in Minnesota. The defence lawyers Kiwi Camara and Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson aimed to question the very substance of the RIAA case to file a class-action lawsuit against the recording industry later this summer.
However they have already had one set back as their attempt to bar Media Sentry’s evidence on the grounds that they were not licensed as a private investigator in Minnesota has been thrown out. They still aim to challenge the RIAA to prove it owns the certified copies of the copyrights in question. If it can't establish that fact, the case could be dismissed.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
French Reject Piracy Bill
French politicians have rejected piracy legislation which proposed that people caught downloading music illegally three times should be cut off from the internet. Even with the backing of President Nicolas Sarkozy the bill appears to have fallen at the final hurdle. The socialist parliamentarian Patrick Bloche is widely reported saying that the bill was "dangerous, useless, inefficient, and very risky for us citizens." The legislation earlier approved by the Senate, was unexpectedly defeated in a vote of the National Assembly.
Under the legislation, users would receive e-mail warnings for their first two identified offenses, a certified letter for the next, and would have their Web connection cut for any subsequent illegal downloads.
Under the legislation, users would receive e-mail warnings for their first two identified offenses, a certified letter for the next, and would have their Web connection cut for any subsequent illegal downloads.
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