The FSF in the United Kingdoms

Glyn Wintle | 25 Jul 16:55

Consultation into potential legislation aimed at curbing illicit filesharing on the net

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/07/24/government-to-consult-on-legislation-to-curb-illicit-filesharing-as-industry-agrees-voluntary-scheme/

The Government has released a consultation into potential legislation aimed at curbing illicit
filesharing on the net. Several of the legislative options on the table are worrying, and mirror schemes
being discussed in various national and international fora. They include streamlining the legal
process to require ISPs to provide personal data relating to an IP address, handing responsibility for
taking action against illicit filesharers to a third party body, or requiring ISPs to take action against
users themselves or to install filtering equipment to block infringing content...

headers

MJ Ray | 25 Jul 19:10

Re: Consultation into potential legislation aimed at curbing illicit filesharing on the net

*

Glyn Wintle <glynwintle <at> yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/07/24/government-to-consult-on-legislation-to-curb-illicit-filesharing-as-industry-agrees-voluntary-scheme/
>
> The Government has released a consultation into potential
> legislation aimed at curbing illicit filesharing on the net. [...]

The consultation is at
http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page47141.html
Closing Date: 30-10-08

The great big elephant in the room, so far as I've seen so far, is how
are they going to differentiate "illicit" filesharing from regular
filesharing?  The bits I've read so far say "identified (by the rights
holder)" so I suspect they won't, so good ad-hoc cooperative download
tools will also be screwed.  It's all couched in the BPI's favourite
"consumer" language too.  Nasty.

I'll respond once I've time to read it all and I'll also ask my
telco/ISP to respond against this New Enclosure attempt, but I'd love
to read others' thoughts on this.

Regards,
--

-- 
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237