back to article IP minister rules out 'three strikes' disconnection law

The Government minister responsible for intellectual property has ruled out a 'three strikes' law denying internet access to illegal file sharers. David Lammy said cutting off users was not "the right road" for UK law makers. The French Government has attempted to create a 'three strikes and you're out' law but has been …

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  1. system

    So...

    This has nothing at all to do with amendment 46 of the EC Telecoms Reform Package then? It's hard to believe that a government so in love with new legislation does not think a new law is the solution to everything.

  2. David Knapman

    It has asked companies that produce copyrighted material to contribute to a consultation

    Is it planning to ask consumers too, or are we going to have the usual one-sided consultation process?

  3. Juan Inamillion
    Thumb Up

    Surely not

    "Lammy spoke about exactly that problem on World IP Day last week. Addressing IP professionals he said, according to a Government copy of the speech, that "there are people missing from this room. The man in the London street. The farmer in the developing world. IP is still the resort of the professionals. That’s what I want to change"."

    Does this mean that The People are going to be educated about copyright and what it means to artists and agents, as opposed to blanket repressive laws constructed and lobbied by and for the 'media' industries? Does it mean there might be created a system of royalty collections and payment that's easily understood, collected, distributed and not onerous?

    Blimey.

    This has to be the most sensible things I've heard from a politician, of any flavour, in a long long time.

    Nah. IIt'll never happen...

  4. GettinSadda

    The problem with three strikes...

    The problem with three strikes is that it is actually "three accusations and you're out".

    If some mistake or malice causes it to look like your connection has been used for file-sharing when it has not, then you lose your right to Internet access without any chance to put your case!

    The ISP would be forced to become judge, jury and executioner!

  5. Eden
    Stop

    Hmmm....

    If they did pass such a law, could we all go using our local MP's and parliments wireless networks for a bit of latest conveyor belt crap chart music torrenting to get them all banned from the inter-tubes forever?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    wow

    Yes i too am impressed what what this politician has SAID, sense from a politician?

    Three strikes and your out should never even be considered, the Internet is quickly becoming a necessity. Removing access to it would be an infringement of basic human needs.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Another Agency?

    Why, oh why, in these times of massive national debt, do we need yet ANOTHER agency to be created that will require to be funded out of the pocket of the taxpayer? Surely Trading Standards currently has remit for this area?

    Why not use the existing agency and then update the current laws to properly reflect the issues surrounding digital media in the 21st century? Perhaps if the law wasn't such a farce, people might be prepared to actually take more notice of it - grey areas such as our lack of "fair use" and "format shifting" rights in this country mean that the law is an irrelevance that is widely ignored by the general population.

    Oh, and if you're going to have a consultation, perhaps speaking to the general public (the ones who will end up footing the bill) might be a good idea, if you want to retain any credibility.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Innocent until proven guilty?

    What ever happened to innocent till proven guilty. A 3 strike law would be "We think you are", "We think you are", "You are. Goodbye" With no word from the consumer to back his case!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    legal file sharing

    can anyone confirm whether downloading cleanly encoded tracks from an album i possess (on vinyl, for instance) is legal or not?

  10. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Next big threat....

    ....scammers using other people's connections to download stuff.

    The innocent always pay more.

  11. Steve

    @kevin

    "can anyone confirm whether downloading cleanly encoded tracks from an album i possess (on vinyl, for instance) is legal or not?"

    Yes: you have paid for a license to access that content.

    No: you do not have a license to copy that content.

    1st, 3rd & 5th day of the week it's the first answer. 2nd, 4th & 6th it's the second. On the 7th day, flip a coin to decide and write a large cheque to a lawyer.

  12. Chronos
    Unhappy

    @kevin

    It's currently illegal, technically, to rip tracks from a legally owned CD to such formats as FLAC. You have no format shifting fair use rights in the UK, although a blind eye is often turned to such activities (or, to quote the review, "it is difficult to enforce"). It follows that downloading tracks is also illegal and, in my opinion, is easier to enforce as the uploader may not have a legitimate licence for those tracks and certainly won't have a licence to distribute, or the "right to copy" which is really the core of copyright legislation.

    However, the recent copyright review addressed the former issue and recommended an exemption (recommendation 8).

    http://www.ipo.gov.uk/consult-copyrightexceptions.pdf ***WARNING*** .pdf file. Page 15 addresses format shifting. I can't see anything in the review that addresses downloading already licensed tracks, so I doubt this will ever be legal, but who is to say you didn't rip that track yourself? Oh, yes, the ISP who will be monitoring your connection for P2P. Silly me ;o)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    New Internet Surveillance Law....

    .... will make it easier to track down copyright offenders. Apparently our internet bills will go up top pay for everyone to have a unique ID no. so it is easy to stitch together all the disparate pieces of data. That will presumably include all those bitTorrent downloads.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ zerofool2005

    I hate being pedantic but it should be "innocent UNLESS proven guilty"

    A subtle / huge difference.

  15. michael

    @ kevin

    *bang* *slam* don't drop the soap

    (just in case you did not get it no under current laws no but apparently they will not prostitute you)

  16. stickman
    Happy

    @kevin

    that's got to be legal mate

    Lammy for Home Secretary!

  17. SImon Hobson Bronze badge
    Thumb Down

    What's the betting that ...

    ... this new rights agency won't have ANY remit at all to loook after the rights of those people who have paid for content only to find that "technical measures" have been put in place to prevent them making fair use of it ?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @kevin

    Your title says file sharing and it is undoubtedly not allowed for you to share material for which you are not the copyright holder, which if you use p2p to get these rips then you almost certainly are doing.

    Then in your text you say downloading. I don't think it's clear that downloading (without uploading e.g ftp or usenet) is banned. Immoral maybe but I don't know that it's an offence to recieve materail that infringes copyright.

    Take a car boot sale or a market, for example. Plenty of people have been nicked for selling DVD copies but no one has ever been prosecuted for buying or recieving a dodgy copy.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Meanwhile in other news....

    The vintners association want people with 3 accusations of being drunk banned from entering pubs.

    Funny how it OK to do something wrong as long as you are paying big business money to do it.

    Paris, ‘cos I used the word ‘enter’ and a word similar to pubes in my post

  20. asdf
    Thumb Up

    The true phrase

    No its actually "innocent UNTIL you are broke" (ie can no longer pay your shake down money to lawyers, who tend to also write the laws). Is this minster NuLab? He can't be because what he said shows common sense and an understanding the nanny state can't micromanage. When is the next election? If even the Americans can quick out the Bushtards isn't it about time the UK joined the rest of the modern world?

    @ zerofool2005

    By dudeskinn Posted Tuesday 28th April 2009 11:16 GMT

    I hate being pedantic but it should be "innocent UNLESS proven guilty"

    A subtle / huge difference.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    EU Telecoms Package - Amendments 138 & 166 May5th

    Unless the Eu Parliament votes against Amendment 138 in the EU Telecoms Package, and votes for some citizens amendments instead, there will be the means to introduce a graduated response through semi-official bodies. This is a move demanded by Sarkozi and supported by UK gov officials in Brussels as late as yesterday.

    More worrying are the Consumer Protection clauses written by Malcom Harbour MEP, which give ISPs permission to block and throttle traffic as long as they put it in the small print.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Another bought and paid for politician

    "I want to show the person in the street that the system actually works in their interests."

    Except that it doesn't. Copyright was originally intended to provide an income for content providers for a set period of time. After which, that content would enter the public domain. Thanks to mass bribery of politicians by the copyright owners, multimedia industries and anyone else with a vested interest, that contract has long been broken.

    The resultant unprecedented levels of what is effectively civil disobedience, has brought the law into disrepute, and ultimately contempt, as it seeks to punish those who are merely breaking a law, as opposed to doing anything morally wrong.

    With the extensions to copyright by lawmakers a regular event, the prospect of society actually benefiting from an irrelevant law, is zero.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Copyright law and the internet

    are mutually incompatible.

    Period.

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