TalkTalk: fighting the Three Strikes bill
p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- Every cloud has a silver lining and UK ISP TalkTalk appears to have found one in the entertainment cartel’s Three Strikes and you’re Off The Net effort.
In October last year, “Is Carphone Warehouse’s TalkTalk speaking out of both sides of its mouth?” – p2pnet wondered, going on >>>
“We’re full of bright ideas,” it says on its site. But as p2pnet revealed recently, one of them is a plan to have parents acting as corporate copyright control cops on behalf of the entertainment industry.
Mums and dads would censor their kids online with a U, 14 or 18 certificate, or an unclassified rating system
Parents choosing the U or 14 options, would be able to block computers in the household from accessing certain filesharing sites such as the Pirate Bay, as well as pornography and gambling, without having to install extra software on the computer, the Financial Times quoted Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone stating.
The move would, help consumers understand a system that blacklists sites that facilitate piracy, says the story, also quoting Dunstone as declaring, “This is something that we are going to do anyway, as a service to our customers. But through doing it we can also help the content industry by blacklisting sites that have BitTorrent files on them.”
“[...] help the content industry by blacklisting sites that have BitTorrent files on them … ”
Isn’t that censorship, pure and simple? And it’s exactly what Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels want.
However, proving it’s sometimes possible to butter your bread on both sides, “Charles Dunstone, the chief executive of Carphone Warehouse, has said he could be prepared to fight the Government in court should the anti-piracy clauses of the Digital Economy Bill become legislation,” says the Telegraph, going on:
“Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Dunstone, whose company owns and operates the internet and telephony provider TalkTalk, said he refused to send his customers who were suspected file-sharers warning letters about their supposed activity or disconnect them, even if these clauses of the bill became law.
“He explained that he may choose instead to fight the Government in court, if his lobbying fails and that his company would ‘consider all its options’ should these clauses in the Digital Economy Bill go through.”
It reads well and no doubt will appeal to uninformed British surfers looking for a (seemingly) safe ISP haven.
But I find it difficult to to see how TalkTalk’s own censorship plans mesh with the company’s apparent opposition to the Three Strikes part of the digital economy bill.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – TalkTalk double-speak?, October 29, 2009
p2pnet – TalkTalk to launch parent-run censor scheme, September 29, 2009
Telegraph -
January, 2010
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January 29th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
As a long-time reader of p2pnet I feel compelled to point out that you are your own worst enemy. You need advertising support to keep the site online and yet you repeatedly post articles which I am sure disuade potential clients from using you.
This attack against TalkTalk is just one example.
If you can persuade yourself to become more circumspect about whom you rail against, your chances of attracting more advertisers will increase.
Follow the example of other publications who know who to attack and who not to.
January 29th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Censorship is:
1) interference with communication to/by you without your knowledge/consent.
2) an agency employing unfair discrimination in its interference with communication to/by you.
3) interference with free speech to/by you, especially by the state (or other unavoidable agency).
Censorship is not the prohibition of certain classes of speech. Moreover, prohibition does not sanction censorship. It should be illegal to incite violence against people because of their religion or lack of it, but that doesn’t sanction the state’s censorship of its citizens’ free speech (by way of prevention).
However, this only applies to adult individuals able to take responsibility for their speech. Parents may well need to monitor and moderate/censor the communications of their children.
NB Corporations are not human beings and so have no (natural) right to free speech.
January 29th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
The article is not an attack, it is a statement of fact. When you claim to be against one thing but do something similar, and someone else points it out, is that an attack? No.
p2pnet is merely pointing out the contradiction in claims made by TalkTalk.
TalkTalk objects to the 3 strikes proposal, but has no problem with implementing censorship via parents to do the same thing – block filesharing (which is what 3 strikes intends to do).
How does pointing out this contradiction of interest constitute an attack?
January 29th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Aaron M, are you suggesting that p2pnet should be biased in favour of its current and potential advertisers?
p2pnet has to decide between entertaining readers it doesn’t care about in order to sell their eyeballs to advertisers, and caring about its readers with unbiased reports, and selling space to advertisers who feel they may have something of interest to those readers.
A lot of readers come to p2pnet precisely because it’s impartial and pulls no punches. There are plenty of other places if you want mild ‘advertiser friendly’ articles.
Even better would be if there was a way readers could directly sponsor p2pnet for its service, rather than such sponsorship be obtained only from advertisers (I’m working on it – and could also do with some help and sponsorship).
January 29th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
@ Aaron:
I understand exactly what you mean about “being more circumspect” about whom I “rail against”, but I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em. If for any reason someone stops you from seeing or saying something you might otherwise have seen or said, that’s censorship.
As far as ads go, I’m in a strange position. Although advertising does indeed keep the site online, it’s never been the usual kind. When p2pnet first went up, it didn’t have any advertising. It didn’t need any. It was just a personal site, just as it is now. However, it quickly grew to the point where I was on it 24/7, living off my savings. Fortunately for me, five legally constituted companies who’d established themselves online with P2P applications which allowed people to share with each other each rented space. This wasn’t promote themselves. They didn’t need to. They took ads to help me keep p2pnet going. Then one by one they were shot down by the corporate cartels who, as we all know, loathe and fear any form of competition, and who have by now wasted hundreds of millions of dollars trying to turn people with free will into compliant consumers, and gain complete control of the internet.
When the ads went, one guy took up most of the slack and a couple of new advertisers came along and for a very brief period (and for the first, and only, time) my income was marginally more than my outgoings. However, my sponsor had to pull out in December because of the economic crisis, and two advertisers did the same for the same reason.
Now I’m trying to figure out way to keep the site going. But if it means genuflecting to TalkTalk and others of its ilk in an effort to make them want to advertise with me, phk that.
Meanwhile, I have an idea on how to move p2pnet forward, and I’m currently trying to gather enough resources to put it together.
So stay tuned.
Cheers!
January 29th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
@Aaron M:
You say you’re a “long-time reader of p2pnet”, yet you come out with this “fatherly advice” for Jon to be more complacent toward the very things he writes about?!? You’re basically saying “be like everyone else – kiss some ass for sponsorship!”
And, I don’t think you’ve actually read this page for what it is.
TalkTalk has been completely and openly ambiguous about this stuff.
Anyone who cares anything about their true intentions should be calling them out on it.
January 29th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I am also a long time reader of Torrentfreak and although it and p2pnet support many of the same causes, Ernesto is more mature about his approach to various areas of concern.
To see the contrast between the two read his “Neutralize UK File-Sharing Legal Threats – Join TalkTalk”
http://torrentfreak.com/neutralize-uk-file-sharing-legal-threats-join-talktalk-100129/
As i said in my first post, I am not out to hurt p2pnet. I want to see it stay on line but biting the hand that might feed it is not the way.
January 29th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
I’m starting to smell a rat.
Could it be you’re neither a p2pnet nor TF reader, Aaron M? That you’re an industry shill who’s trying stir up trouble?
To get back on track, I don’t agree with Ernesto’s take of TalkTalk. But maybe he knows something I don’t.
In the meanwhile, in much the same way the cartels have managed to pit artists against fans, I’m sure they’d love to see me going after Torrentfreak, and vice versa.
This, mate, is about TalkTalk, the Three Strikes farce, and nothing else, and, fair warning: I’ll delete any further postings from you.
Cheers!
January 29th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
@Jon,
Most likely you are correct in the rat assumption. And most likely it is the attempt by the industry to pit p2pnet and TF against one another. It’s like the insurgents, when they are fighting one another, you can do whatever you like (which is what US foreign policy does). However, when aligned (as they are now) those doing whatever they like have a large problem on their hands.
It is in their best interest to pit p2pnet and TF and the like against one another. Not very creative mind you, as they are ripping off CIA tactics that have been in use since the 50′s.
January 29th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
I don’t know if Aaron M is a shill, but he sure sounds like some publishers I’ve known.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
I have to say while I have asked folks to sign the petition started by Talk Talks chief I have done so soley on the grounds that as the petition states, unjust disconnection is wrong legally and morally, now having said that I have to face in the other direction, I dont support the sneaky and secret p2p throttling employed by Talk Talk, while they may be saying something we all feel needs to be said aloud it does not mean they are in support of all the things we filesharers are.
I hope others find some solace in this information when wondering who is on whos side in any debate involving Talk Talk, it seems to me they are on their own side.
January 31st, 2010 at 4:08 pm
“Follow the example of other publications who know who to attack and who not to.”
This guys is a troll from TalkTalk!
Ok! You have better to get your business to behave as a good contributor of the human society or your business will be destroy.
It is easy to destroy a business but hard to build one and no crappy law will ever change that.
REMEMBER!
This is what they should have teach you at the business school.
Now thanks to you Talktalk became a target!
Good job!