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From Wikipedia
“We will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action on illegal file-sharing.”
So begins the proposed piece of legislation that will implement a “three strikes” rule in the UK. Simply, if you’re caught three times illegally downloading copyrighted material, your Internet connection will be severed. British ISPs will be legally required to kick you off the Net. A round of applause for Gordon Brown’s Government, everyone. Bravo.
It’ll work like this. Users “suspected” of having illegally downloaded something will get an e-mail from their ISP notifying them of their anti-social behavior. A second offense will result in a temporary suspension of Internet connectivity and a third will see the contract with your ISP ripped apart.
France has similar proposals, but this feels a little closer to home, the Brits being cousins and all.
This is pretty interesting technologically. Who’s to say someone didn’t use your Wi-Fi connection to download Amy Winehouse or Cloverfield? (Although I have a feeling courts would say the onus is on you to properly manage and secure your Wi-Fi connection.) What if I’m at a café and spoof someone’s MAC address and use their paid-for hot spot connection to connect to the Internet and download away? Who’s at fault there? Or, what if I never get that initial “warning” e-mail? What if I’ve configured my spam filters in such a way that the message is deemed junk and automatically deleted?
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The proposal is only part of a larger Green Paper right now, so it’d have some way to go before being adopted as law.
On a scale of 1-10, how annoyed are you after reading that? I’m pretty high up there, mainly because I view these type of cases (the old one-to-many entertainment industries crying about their lost revenue) as being a waste of society’s time. I’m truly sorry LatestPopTrash didn’t sell as well as you’d like.
Users face Net ban in crackdown on pirates [The Times]
