|
|
|
01 December
Should ISPs Monitor Online Habits For Illegal Downloads?
UK Law Catches Up.
by
SoftwareGuru
The way in which many people use the internet will change next
year in 2010 when UK law finally takes action in respect to
online file sharing and copyright infringement.
Like it or not, the
Digital Economy Bill represents a major change.
Living in the UK, we already accept that
there are laws in place that fine people for dropping
litter or where you park your car, so eventually
internet users will learn to accept that unfairly distributing
intellectual property online is also against the law.
According to CNet.co.uk,
"Internet service providers will be forced to send
cease-and-desist notices to customers they suspect of copyright
infringement."
"The ISPs are then obliged to pass anonymous details of these
notifications to copyright holders. If an ISP refuses, it faces
a £250,000 fine."
"Film studios and record labels will use these notifications as
evidence to apply for a court order to find out the user's name
and address, so they can haul users up in front of civil
proceedings."
In a pre-emptive move, ISPs have already passed on many user
details to rights holders and up to 100,000 internet users may
receive letters in the New Year.
With the rise in availability of legal downloading services in
2009, not forgetting the significant fall in price for physical
products like CDs or home user software, there really is no
excuse anymore for illegal downloaders.
The only reason people started doing it was because they figured
they wouldn't get caught. From this point in time onwards, that
school of thought no longer rings true.
|
|
|
Protecting Jobs in UK Knowledge
Economy.
In 2010 illegal downloaders may receive a first time fine of
several hundred pounds when it can be proved they have been
downloading copyrighted material illegally.
Virgin may be carrying out trials of 'deep
packet inspection' but that's not really much of a
surprise.
ISPs already monitor usage and employ 'traffic shaping'
techniques to decease bandwidth availability during peak hours.
It can identify p2p and filesharing traffic and either slow that
down even more or bring it to a halt altogether.
If your computer's IP address regularly visits a file sharing
site, chances are you're on a watchlist already so targeting
users and inspecting their data is the logical next step.
Even bittorrent encryption won't protect downloaders in many
cases either.
However, in protecting the rights of copyright holders there is
the question of the user's right to privacy. All ISP contracts
have small print which state that they can inspect your data and
withdraw service if any illegal activities are found.
Should this new bill give ISPs the online equivalent of the
right to open your post, and is that worse than an airport
inspecting your luggage?
Is this a sacrifice that users are willing to pay to
ensure the UK's economic future as a place where jobs in the
knowledge economy can grow?
|
Getting The Balance Right.
Ultimately, a balance must be achieved between all of the
factors we have mentioned.
For home users, the price of software and music CDs
have never been cheaper while movie rentals are still relatively
inexpensive.
Illegal downloading has forced more competitive pricing for
legal multimedia products and services.
Therefore, the belief that consumers are somehow entitled to
their revenge for being ripped off over the years should now be
brought to an end.
Especially if the same society can deem it acceptable to pay
between £500 - £700 for the latest iPhone.
The trend of buying expensive consumer electronics and then
expecting to get the content for free provides no incentive to
content makers to create.
If anything, it encourages less investment and innovation in
projects which would provide jobs for the next generation.
Then again, if the current generation were more concerned about
the impact of their own actions, perhaps
Climate
Change wouldn't be the gigantic problem that it clearly has
become.
Mankind's self-destructive tendencies have never been so clearly
evident than at the start of the 21st century.
Isn't it time we take responsibility for the
consequences of our actions?
|
|
Posted by
admin
at
17:25
|
|
Should ISPs Monitor Online Habits For Illegal Downloads?