Joint select committee’s file sharing concerns
p2pnet view P2P | Politics:- “The internet is constantly creating new challenges for policy-makers but that cannot justify ill-defined or sweeping legislative responses, especially when there is the possibility of restricting freedom of expression or the privacy of individual users,” says Andrew Dismore.
He’s the chairman of Britain’s Joint Select Committee on Human Rights comporising 12 members from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
The committee had examined the parts of the Bill “that focus on plans to tackle illegal file-sharing as well as a controversial amendment to copyright law”, says the BBC.
“The concern we have with this Bill is that it lacks detail,” it has Dismore saying.
“It has been difficult, even in the narrow area we have focussed on, to get a clear picture of the scope and impact of the provisions.”
As the story points out, the “three strikes rule”, a corporate entertainment industry innovation, “would give regulator Ofcom new powers to disconnect or slow down the connections of persistent net pirates”.
The committee “had concerns about ‘technical measures’ like these and how they would be applied.”
It also examined Clause 17 which would give the government free rein to alter copyright law without passing further primary legislation.
The Committee “remains concerned that Clause 17 remains overly broad and that parliamentary scrutiny may remain inadequate,” the story adds.
It’s interesting how the three strikes thingy, part of the ACTA package being introduced around the world by the entertainment cartels, is always presented by the lamescream press corpse as though it’s a local government, and not corporate, ‘initiative’.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
BBC – File-sharing bill could ‘breach rights’, February 5, 2010
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February 6th, 2010 at 8:00 am
As the story points out, the “three strikes rule”, a corporate entertainment industry innovation, “would give regulator Ofcom new powers to disconnect or slow down the connections of persistent net pirates”.
That’s interesting. I just read in the latest PC Pro (March issue) that the “independent” ofcom that is supposed to regulate the ISP industry in favour of the hapless public is anything but and looks after the ISP industry instead. It’s made up of lots of ofcom and ISP members and the one person who tried to put a contract get-out clause for consumers if their broadband is way slower than advertised was promoted to the board of ofcom and this proposal has quietly vanished. Yes, they’re as corrupt as any other “regulatory” organization. Ridiculously, there’s a regulator for the regulator! It’s independent of course and it’s members are made up of ofcom staff – seriously. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
Therefore I have a feeling that ofcom won’t be flexing it’s customer disconnection powers any time soon, which ironically aligns the ISP interests with those of the public for once.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:15 am
@ Cynix:
” … there’s a regulator for the regulator! It’s independent of course and it’s members are made up of ofcom staff – seriously. You couldn’t make this stuff up.”
Kinda like the RIAA – SoundExchange relationship, eh? And No, you can’t make it up.
Cheers!
February 7th, 2010 at 12:19 am
“I just read in the latest PC Pro (March issue) that the “independent” ofcom that is supposed to regulate the ISP industry in favour of the hapless public is anything but and looks after the ISP industry instead. It’s made up of lots of ofcom and ISP members and the one person who tried to put a contract get-out clause for consumers if their broadband is way slower than advertised was promoted to the board of ofcom and this proposal has quietly vanished. Yes, they’re as corrupt as any other “regulatory” organization.
”
They are British CRTC!
February 7th, 2010 at 5:28 am
After receiving their first strike, what does the Government think will be the most likely reaction of a hardcore music downloader?
A) Having spent years listening to free music and sharing it with friends, they’ll see the error of their ways and cease downloading?
B) Having spent years listening to free music and sharing it with friends, they’ll start logging on to an Anonymous 128-bit encrypted VPN server, enabling them to continue filesharing without fear of detection or disconnection?
You’d have to be living in cloud-cuckoo land to believe that anyone tech-savvy enough to fileshare in the first place would take the first option, especially when the average VPN costs less than an album.
Yes, sure, given time, 128-bit encryption can be cracked, but as it’s the same level of encryption that is used to securely transmit credit card information on the web, this act would put all online commerce in jeopardy – including legal music services. When thousands or millions of people start using VPNs on a daily basis, the Government wouldn’t have a hope in hell of tracking anyone.
The music industry must be really shortsighted. Can’t they see that the three strikes law won’t actually encourage anybody to buy new music? I was disappointed that 20% of respondents to the a2f2a consensus poll still thought “three strikes” was a good idea. Oh well, they’ll just end up annoying their most avid customers and ultimately lose the battle on filesharing forever. Plus, by forcing people to use VPNs, they’re ensuring that music fans have less disposable income to spend on supporting artists.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:40 am
We must not forget how driving poeople to become familiar with (and use) heavy encryption will impact on the fight against terrorism and damage general intelligence gathering techniques as stated by the UK intelligence agencies last year.
It seems helping bring forth three strikes may usher in a new wave of tech savvy terrorists that will use the haystack to hide their activites in, this clearly point to the arguement that the BPI, RIAA are willing or unwilling defacto sponsors of terrorism, and that after all is their own favoured method of attack against the consumer, fear led initiatives such as groundless threats to sue and using erroneous propaganda to mislead or corrupt politicians to “see things their way”, these are all the hallmarks of such groups and should be challenged at every opportunity.
February 7th, 2010 at 10:46 am
The issue of the legality of file sharing has to do with what normal and CONFUSED people (including copyright lawyers and federal judges) know about the law of their country and the country of origin, if a work is in the public domain and what that means, if the work is in the public domain but the owner encourages copying (as is done on one of my favorite radio programs and many other issues.
Take this example of a copyright claim: Web page (http://snowflakebentley.com/) with photographs taken before 1900 claims this:
“No materials or images from this (or any other) website may be resold in any form (print or electronic).
The Public Domain status does not give you the right to resell material unless you have access to the original source and permission from the owner to reproduce the material. Any published works of Public Domain material is only “Royalty free” if explicitly stated.
In other words, you cannot copy public domain works unless you have access to the original and someone gives “explicit permission”.
Since I don’t have access to an original Chopin score, I cannot copy the copy I may have purchased. This means that whoever has the original score can claim an exclusive copyright (a right to copy) on a public domain work.
The claim made about public domain is nothing more than a snow job typical made by publishers of all types of works. Almost all types of publications of public domain works has a copyright claim on the first page.
And what does the legal system and the US Copyright Office or their equivalent in other countries do about false copyright claims made by the publishing industry, which in short is a means to stop legal copying and sharing on one hand and of stealing from the public when public domain works are published? Absolutely nothing.
By the way, has anyone ever received a reduced price when a music record’s contents are in the public domain to reflect the fact that there are no royalties to be paid by the record producer? Doubt it.