UK ISPs react with anger to UK file-sharing policy

[blazer]

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tell you what i think that this is a very good debate and i think that it should be showed to the govement (so they can see our views on this) I think that if people only filesharer every now and then it would be ok but for the people who do it all the time should be banned form the internet.

BTW very long posts ppl lol

[tacoben]

As I have not read the proposal being brought forward by the government if Dan's comments are correct and your get three strikes and you out seems fair. Especially if you have some right of appeal.
I have had my first strike but I did not get any right of appeal and I did not get to see the original complaint and that was annoyed me.

I also think its important to think about what is being stolen. Someone who misses an episode of Eastenders so downloads it from the internet is not committing as serious a theft as someone who gets a DVD quality version of a not even released film.

In the old days if you missed your program you would ask the people at work if they had taped it so you could catch up. Downloading from the internet is just a modern version.

I also agree with Dan that however you moralise it is still theft. My hope is that the media industry will embrace the internet and provide a service that is legal and creates a compromise between the consumer and the industry.

As for consumer rights when you buy a DVD or CD there are strict controls on when you can ask for a refund. So if you buy something and just don't enjoy that is not enough to get your money back. Essentially you take a gamble at how much entertainment you will get.

However once I went to the cinema to watch 'Shallow Hal'. Within the first 30 minutes I was asleep. When I woke up I walked out and asked for my money back. At first the clerk said they were not responsible for the content but as I insisted the film was so bad it made me fall asleep and as I had walked out half way through eventually I got a refund.

Maybe what should happen is the industry has a cinema release, followed by the DVD and then has its own internet download release. Once people get choices like this they will not want to involve themselves in criminal activity.

[blazer]

but if they have there own internet download release most people will wait for that to come out and not buy the film. I dont think that nothing will be solved that way. but thats just me.

[Iain_Begg]

I am not sure why this issue of theft has been cropping up, except through individuals' interpretation. From my cursory research, theft bears absolutely no part in it. Theft is always a criminal offence in the UK. I can find no legal reference to theft in relation to copyright infringements. But I suppose there is no harm in people stating their moral stance, so long as it does not get confused with the legal stance. I accept that I may be corrected on this though.

The relevant acts that I have come across are:
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988);
This defines an 'infringing copy':
These define the offences.

Trade Marks Act (1994);
This deals with the offences under this act.

Video Recordings Act (1984)
Here are the offences under this act.

My understanding is that a compromise has already been reached by some companies - not all though.

I don't think that I described file-sharing as 'pioneering', nor a public duty. Basically it is causing enough stir to get the issue looked at and discussed. In an organised campaign it probably would not be the way to go about it, but it has not been organised. If people are taken to task on downloading copyrighted material, then the law has provision for this. I must confess that I was not aware that any of these cases had actually reached the courts now.

[TVC_Admin]

Thank you for the "education" in English law. As a practicising lawer with over 20 years experience, much of it gained in the entertainment industry, I greatly appreciate the lesson from an armchair lawyer selectively quoting extracts from acts of parliament found on Google.

I would therefore very much debate the point whether file-sharers are spoiling it for the majority. It could easily be argued that they are in fact achieving a change in the thinking and subsequent marketing methods of media which will probably be beneficial to most in the long term.

Sounds very much to me like you were postulating that filesharers were contributing some sort of benefit to mankind through their dubious activities. As I described earlier, a moronic and frankly puerile rationale. The way to get laws changed is through reasoned debate, legal challenge and representation, not through the pursuit of self interest based on systematic theft (previously defined, but loosely speaking, the treatment of someone else's property to which you are not entitled as being your own). That, my friend, is called anarchy.

The debate, in fact this whole thread, is about file sharers, meaning those who upload concurrent to downloading, not those who download (or leech) only. Hence the references to file sharing throughout. Perhaps it might be beneficial to read the previous posts a little more thoroughly, as well as the CDPA in the context of the whole - including the section on criminal penalties. A conviction for theft would be a light relief in contrast to penalties for criminal infringement.

The point I was trying to make wasn't so much that people shouldn't download what they want, just that they shouldn't mislead others into believing that there's any credible moral or legal justification if/when things subsequently go wrong. Sure, do what you want, but make sure you know the consequences beforehand, that way you can form reasoned, balanced judgements about the risks

And if the worst that can happen under these proposals is a stroppy letter from your ISP, then I reckon that just has to be much better than finding a summons on your doorstep. Not even Google will help you out of that mess my friend.

Anyway, legal conjecture is contrary to our forum rules and tiresome, so let's return to the topic shall we?

[tacoben]

Dan is right that to change law you have to show more than self interest.

However if the majority of people are indulging in something then naturally it should be considered correct. With respect that would mean in England more than 26 million people going online and downloading Hollywood films. This does not happen and I think in reality the figure for people downloading illegal content is actually a very small percentage of the population.

A quick look on the internet gives me two figures.

http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resource...-use-drugs.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7240234.stm

So 11 million people take illegal drugs and only 6 million are downloading illegally. Drugs are still winning at the minute.

I was also trying to find out how many people visit prostitutes each year but I am crap at searching for such information.

http://people.exeter.ac.uk/watupman/.../aac/scale.htm

It says we have 80 000 women working so you would have to say that within a year each lady will see more than 100 clients (2 a week). So downloading comes third for needing to be legalised.

As for the use of the word theft. I am not anywhere close to being a lawyer but it is obvious if I take something and don't pay then I am stealing.

[Iain_Begg]

The statute quotes are not mine - they come from the FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) website. If there are any issues about them, it would be better to take it up with them directly.

Uncoordinated individuals involved in a campaign have fewer options available than if they are coordinated. There are always people who just come along for the ride as well - that is inevitable. Campaigns have to be managed within the environment in which they find themselves.

I am sure that most of what I have mentioned applies to both downloading and sharing alike - whether concurrent or not. It is probably more the level sharing that would impact upon the gravity of the infringement (or theft as some may want to describe it).

It seems that things are being read into what I have been saying and incorrect inferences drawn, resulting in some unfortunate characterisations.

I am happy to debate a subject where points of view are reasonably put forward and discussed. But it would be good also to have them accepted on an equal footing.

[TVC_Admin]

Selectively quoting out of context extracts from statutes referred to within trade association websites (such as that maintained by FACT) is hardly conducive to informed debate.

I'm not sure that there is any scope for ambiguity in my understanding of your suggestion that a continuation of wholesale copyright infringement could provoke productive dialogue as to how people market and distribute their own property. Where I come from, the use of unlawful pressure to influence the concession of a lawful right is more commonly referred to as blackmail

If it is any consolation, my statement that your suggestion is frankly moronic is no different from that I would use to the other two lawyers who make up the staff of this forum. For that matter, it is no less than I would expect from either of them had I made such a puerile suggestion myself. I would therefore venture to suggest that you have indeed been afforded equal footing.

The arguments for and against filesharing have all been long rehearsed in open court, specifically the CBS - v - Amstrad case (in which I started my legal career as being part of the legal team representing EMI) regarding home taping. Whereas the argument in favour of home taping was reinforced by the degradation in quality of secondary copies, and digital media arguably isn't, many of the issues remain much the same.

That is how laws are changed, through reasoned dialogue, rational debate and informed legal challenge, not through the tacit incitement of unlawful acts in a public forum, campaigning that could ultimately harm a subsequent formal challenge and the standing of this website at a stroke. For that matter, I'm not happy to see such a campaign coordinated, organised or otherwise, let alone promoted within our forums.

[TVC_H4U]

I think daniel summed this whole area of discussion up well.

The point I was trying to make wasn't so much that people shouldn't download what they want, just that they shouldn't mislead others into believing that there's any credible moral or legal justification if/when things subsequently go wrong. Sure, do what you want, but make sure you know the consequences beforehand, that way you can form reasoned, balanced judgements about the risks

Downloading other peoples work's is bad, but freewill dictates to me that If i can watch the latest episode of Lost from BT or wait for months until its on sky one. Id choose BT.

The consequenes their after, are for the copyright holders to decide.

in my understanding of your suggestion that a continuation of wholesale copyright infringement could provoke productive dialogue as to how people market and distribute their own property. Where I come from, the use of unlawful pressure to influence the concession of a lawful right is more commonly referred to as blackmail

If im reading this right, its not blackmail more of forceing the hand of the copyright holders. In the same way that Americans forced the sale of alcohol via blackmarket (Prohibition ). Filesharers are forceing the hand of copyright holders... Ok it is blackmail but for the better.

If beatles dont want to sell on itunes, then its up to them. If blackmarket wants to listen to the beatles then their gunna have to face the consequences. If court doing so.

Im all for people getting paid for their work, I find the internet is too large and the victims of this new legislation will be the unskilled computer users whom dont know how not to get cought, or are victim themselves.
e.g. Woman with no computer 'settles' with RIAA over piracy claim