“The UK government’s business secretary, Lord Mandelson, has confirmed initial plans to cut off Internet service for those who persistently, illegally download files,” Electronista reports.
“The policy should take effect in the summer of 2011 but will allegedly be considered a ‘last resort’ after three notifications,” Electronista reports. “After two initial warnings with close monitoring over the space of a year, Internet users would be disconnected with three months’ opportunity to appeal the decision.”
Electronista reports, “The strategy closely parallels that of France’s newly enacted law, which has been nicknamed the “three strikes law” for the number of warnings and the end result.”
Full article here.
Better protect your wireless networks with a password, if you’re not already.
It would suck to be penalized because your neighbors kid downloaded some warez.
Nice touch, MDN, with the link to George Orwell’s _1984_ novel!
Nice graphic MDN! lol
Note how the Amazon ad in the article features Orwell’s 1984 – very nice touch, MDN.
Didn’t the EU already reach the conclusion that internet disconnection was a disproportionate punishment relative to the crime committed?
France is getting around it by having the disconnection determination made in a courtroom. Sounds like the UK’s approach will be closer to the content industry’s preferred “guilty until proven innocent” approach of three unproven accusations.
Hotspot Shield!
@Gabriel, the “guilty until proven innocent” approach would be more like the media tax in Canada — everyone pays a fine for pirating movies, music and software, whether or not they actually pirate anything. It will be called an “Arrr!” tax.
@ asscrybaby Gabriel
Wahhh, wahhhh, its unfair to cut off thieving pirates, wahhhh. You sound like a me generation spoiled assbrat.
Aren’t there ways around this kind of monitoring? If there aren’t, there probably will be soon.
Wireless password or no, the hacker down the street on the same cable segment (not DSL) can spoof some neighbor’s MAC address and the ISP records will show the neighbor is accessing “illegal content.” So the burden of proof rests where?
ISPs are gonna lose a lot of $$$ as customers cut back on their data allowances.
@ Hm…
Exactly.
What’s ironic is that MDN, with the clear right-wing bent of some of their editors, would take a stand toward piracy and against content owners. I can tell you that if something like this were to be proposed in this country, most of the support would be coming from those on MDN’s favorite side of the aisle and most of the howls of protests would come from the long-haired hippy liberal progressives they so loathe.
Not that I disagree with MDN’s position. I just find it amusing.
——RM
Mandy and co. will be out on their ear come May 2010 at the latest. The only thing good about the current government is that it doesn’t contain the absolutely vile Tony Blair.
Fsck you Mandelson.
For those who don’t know who this slimy little bastard is, he is a political whore who has publicly stated he would defect to Conservative if it kept him in power.
Oh, and he also bought a home in Notting Hill in 1996 with the assistance of an interest-free loan of £373,000 from Geoffrey Robinson, a millionaire Labour MP who was also in the Government, but was subject to an inquiry into his business dealings by Mandelson’s department.
Mandelson is the ultimate fool on the hill.
…”hacker down the street on the same cable segment (not DSL) can spoof some neighbor’s MAC address and the ISP records will show the neighbor is accessing “illegal content.”
So the ISP will go after that neighbour. And this person will find themselves quite surprised after the FIRST warning. And if they did absolutely nothing (i.e. ignored that first warning), they’d be getting a SECOND warning. Now, if it were me getting that second (mind you, that FIRST) warning, I’d protest vigorously, and right away. Since the warning will probably contain most threatening language, I’d rightfully be worried that I’d be left without my connection, so I’d do everything I can to defend myself. The ISP will obviously be fairly close to the real perpetrator, all they’ll have to do is look around the network segment for other computers and find the real guy, who is now facing not just disconnection, but possibly some criminal charges for impersonating someone else (a bit of a stretch in this context, but not totally unlikely).
If you let your ISP send you three really nasty warnings and ignore those warnings (because you haven’t done anything), you really can’t blame your ISP for cutting you off. Kind of like getting arrested for something you didn’t do, and then ignoring the judge and not defending yourself in court (you didn’t do anything, after all; what’s to defend?). Much like police make mistakes (or “mistakes”) all the time, there is a chance your ISP could make a mistake (or a “mistake”). You can still fix the problem; with the internet, there is always a solid virtual paper trail.
@LordRobin…so true!
Why do they always talk about penalising people who *download* illegal content? Surely it’s the person who *uploads* it to the net in the first place that they should concentrate on? Why can’t it be three strikes and out for illegal uploaders?
Interesting.
I guess Internet access is now such a “right” that a thief can complain with a straight face when his ability to steal is cut off. I once took a spray can away from a tagger who was spraying graffiti across a local storefront. His complaints sounded much like some of the above comments.
Q: would anyone actually be caught by this law?
Things you can do to prevent this from happening to you:
1. Encrypted packets
2. Blacknet
3. Proxies
The irony is that Amazon utilizes 1984-style snooping software to place ads in context of the article.
I just have to ask one question. What do they really wan to achieve here?
Surely this will do more bad than good anyway. Half the shows I watch are recommended by people who have downloaded them in the first place. Word of mouth is the still the best marketing system. Why try reinvent the wheel?
Predrag,
The point here isn’t JUST that someone innocent might get cut off, but the fact that by using the industry’s preferred “three accusations and you’re out”, the civil rights and rights to due process of those accused are being violated.
So it doesn’t matter at this point whether the accused is guilty or not, but that they should be allowed their day in court to properly defend themselves – BEFORE they get cut off!!
One’s legal defense should never get put off until after the punishment has been carried out – especially if no guilty verdict has been pronounced FIRST.
When will this law be applied to spammers? There’s no punishment too cruel or unusual for them.
@ Jamie,
Totally agree with you on Mandelson. I never liked the way he has been given access to power. Blair definitely favored him in a way that was not good and the current leadership give him positions even though he is unelected. I’m a Labour supporter but I do think Mandelson has not helped the party in any way.
Dealing with pirates is tricky since it is quite common for the average person to have downloaded copyrighted material for free. I still think that cutting off the service is a better solution than hauling people into court and fining them 100,000s for pirating.
The 3 strikes rule could work because it provides plenty of opportunity to stop downloading for free. Whether the ISPs are able to do this fairly is another question.
I’ve live in the US and the cost of internet is pretty high. I would like to see tiered services so that the high volume consumer has to pay more. It would be good if there were $20 / month services available for the customer who rarely downloads and mostly surfs the web. At the moment I able buy cable, internet and phone from Comcast and the total packing costs in excess of $130 a month.
@DogGone,
Wow, $130 is pretty steep!
I use Virgin here in the UK – £30 per month for 70+ TV channels, a fixed phone line (monthly line rental included) with free evening and weekend calls and 20MB broadband with unlimited usage. All fibre-optic, always connected.
I guess things are pretty different in the US…