Britain’s spy and police agencies have in effect come out in support of file sharers.
The UK government is twisting and turning in its efforts to please the entertainment industry by finding a way to impose the same Three Strikes anti-P2P plan that’s giving Hollywood and Big music lobbyist Nicolas Sarkozy so much trouble in France.
The plan would have governments such as Sarkozy’s performing as taxpayer-supported Hollywood and Big Music agencies, and ISPs functioning as online copyright police.
After months of bitter controversy, the Trois Grèves law been ‘passed’ in France and now it remains to be seen who Sarkozy’s administration answers to: the French people, or Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures.
The same question is begging in the UK where lord Peter Mandelson is touting the scheme on behalf of the cartels.
It calls for alleged copyright infringers to receive two warnings and if they fail to toe the corporate line, to be unilaterally disconnected from the internet.
However, reports the Times Online, the police and intelligence services are, “calling on the Government to drop plans to disconnect persistent internet pirates because they fear that this would make it harder to track criminals online”.
Mandelson, the business secretary, “has vowed to use the Government’s forthcoming Digital Economy Bill to introduce new measures to fight illegal file-sharing of music and films,” says the story, going on:
“He has also proposed that persistent pirates should have their internet connections suspended temporarily.
“But The Times understands that both the security services and police are concerned about the plans, believing that threatening to cut off pirates will increase the likelihood that they will escape detection by turning to encryption.
“Law enforcement groups, which include the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Metropolitan Police’s e-crime unit, believe that more encryption will increase the costs and workload for those attempting to monitor internet traffic. One official said: ‘It will make prosecution harder because it increases the workload significantly’.”
MI5 and MI6 have, “also voiced concerns about disconnection,” says the story, continuing:
“Lord Mandelson’s intervention came two months after the Government’s Digital Britain report, published in June, failed to back disconnection. Instead, it proposed giving Ofcom, the media watchdog, powers to direct internet service providers to block pirate websites or ‘throttle’ connection speeds.
“It is understood that the Digital Economy Bill will specify a list of technical measures that can be deployed against illegal file-sharers, but it is not yet clear whether account suspension will be included.”
But a unique new group, comprising music fans and music makers, insists techology measures aren’t the answer and won’t work.
The initiative, “is taking on the diplomatic and negotiation approach whereas governments and legislators are hitting down punitive policies on their citizens,” says ZDnet, going on: >>>
Jon Newton of p2pnet, alongside Billy Bragg, musician and director of the Featured Artists Coalition, have begun work on a2f2a.com (artist-to-fan-to-artist), a campaign started to discuss how artists can cut out the middleman — such as the suicide inducing RIAA — and ensure artists are fairly remunerated.
Along with their mission statement, the efforts seem to be focused towards not only admitting there is no technological solution to the problems artists already face, but that users would be ‘willing to pay for music if they can be sure that the money is going to the artists whose work they enjoy’.”
But the music industry is, “desperate for the Government to adopt the suspension plans,” says Times Online, stating, “It has mounted a lobbying effort and believes that Lord Mandelson will follow through on his proposals.”
However, it goes on, “some industry figures believe that account suspension is a ‘poison pill’ that will have to be jettisoned to get any measures through Parliament in what will be a tight legislative timetable before next year’s election”.
And a new YouGov poll suggests the public are strongly against the proposals with nearly 70% saying anyone suspected of ‘illegal’ downloading should have a right to a trial in court before restrictions on internet use were imposed.
Only a tiny 16 per cent were in favour of the draconian Three Strikes plan.
In addition, culture secretary Ben Bradshaw no says “controversial measures to tackle illegal file-sharing will be watered down,” according to the Guardian, which goes on:
“He told the House of Commons culture, media and sport committee that rights holders will have to obtain a court order before punishing persistent offenders by reducing or cutting off their internet connections.
“Earlier this year, business secretary Lord Mandelson said that internet service providers would be forced to hand over information on customers who used illegal sites heavily to music companies and film studios so that they could take action.”
Bradshaw also said anyone targeted would also have the right to appeal against the decision.
Meanwhile, the far that “pirates will increase the likelihood that they will escape detection by turning to encryption” is already at the least a day too late and a dollar too short.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton
October 26th, 2009 at 9:04 am
“…internet service providers would be forced to hand over information on customers who used illegal sites heavily…” [emphasis added]
Whose gaffe is this? The Guardian’s? Mandelson’s? Somebody is suffering from some arse/elbow confusion.
But the UK police are actually talking sense: this plan would undoubtedly be the last straw that makes encryption the default mode for file sharing programs (and, I suppose, “illegal sites” – should such places actually exist).
October 26th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Yeah, I always shake my head at the spin-talk that keeps getting circulated…
“Illegal Sites”, “Illegal filesharing”, “Illicit P2P programs”, “Bandwidth hogs”, “Stealing songs”, “Spoiling it for others who use their connection legally”…
It just doesn’t end!
No wonder people who aren’t into this stuff are confused.
October 26th, 2009 at 10:28 am
” But the UK police are actually talking sense: this plan would undoubtedly be the last straw that makes encryption the default mode for file sharing programs (and, I suppose, “illegal sites” – should such places actually exist). ”
That and sneaker nets. The labels will eventually push too far. Imagine one cd purchased per 50 or so people in a sneakernet. How do you think THAT will affect royalties ? It would ba shame, since the artists aren’t the ones to blame, it’s the politicians and the labels, but the artists will be the ones shafted the most.
October 26th, 2009 at 11:16 am
It’s not sneaker nets that the cops and spooks are scared of, its the prospect of 70% of the traffic on the internet being encrypted.
How do you find the real terrorist in all that snow?
October 26th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
“How do you find the real terrorist in all that snow?”
That’s easy, according to the Canadian, American, and British Governments – EVERYONE is a terrorist!
(And, we should ALL be afraid of them.)
October 28th, 2009 at 12:58 am
While it’s always good to have more people against stupid laws like this, I’m concerned about that apparent lack of knowledge of the various organizations on this matter.
First, encryption is not an effective countermeasure against file-sharing monitoring to begin with, so it’s unlikely that things such as three-strikes plans would promote the use of encryption (although I suppose rumors could lead to the widespread adoption of encryption by those ignorant of how the system works, even though it’s not effective). While encryption can protect against deep packet inspection systems such as Comcast’s BitTorrent throttling and (hypothetical) content filters, to find someone (or, more accurately, some IP address) sharing copyrighted files on a P2P network all you need to do is connect to the network like a client and search for/download files from other people. As you’re the legitimate recipient of the file, it doesn’t matter if encryption is used – you have the encryption key to begin with. Darknets, anonymous VPN hosts, and things like Tor are the big threat to things like these three-strikes laws (oh yeah, and little things like “due process”); there are also “anonymous” P2P networks coming out, but I’m not knowledgeable enough with how those work to give an informed opinion on their effectiveness.
Second, only the entirely clueless (and short-lived) cyber-criminal isn’t already using encryption, for all the cases where encryption would be effective at making it harder to track them down. If you know enough to create a buffer overflow or SQL injection or some other type of “hard hack” (things where you have to figure out how to do it yourself, based on a particular computer’s vulnerabilities), you most definitely know enough about computers to know when encryption would help you cover your tracks. Even people who can spoof URLs in a plausible way probably know that much. About the only cyber-criminals that wouldn’t be expected to know basic cyber-security are script kiddies that simply run hacking programs other people engineer and write, without knowing anything about how they work; and I’d wager those are fairly low on the threat list as far as cyber-crime is concerned.
The same could be said for terrorists: if they’re too incompetent to use even the most basic cyber-security measures right now, they’re probably too incompetent to pose any actual threat. For truly dangerous terrorists, strong cyber-security is mandatory, not coincidental.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:20 am
Oh, and while we’re on the topic of three-strikes laws (and as I now am registered on this site), I actually like this idea of Sean Adams, quoted on BBC:
Instead of cutting people off the internet, I’d much rather they sent the worst offenders into studios for a week to do community service to understand exactly what goes into the process of making music.
It’s always been my position that teaching respect for (not to be confused with “fear of”) the creative industries is the only viable long-term weapon against piracy, but I hadn’t thought of that particular application, before.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:09 am
“Instead of cutting people off the internet, I’d much rather they sent the worst offenders into studios for a week to do community service to understand exactly what goes into the process of making music.”
That still implies that the filesharer has actually committed some sort of crime. This is nothing but spin and propaganda talking. Weeding out this kind of bullshit is the first step towards any “respect”.
And, let’s not pull any punches here!…
What kind of message is Adams delivering, anyway?
Does he feel he deserves some sort of respect from the fan? And, does he so strongly feel that way that he also feels the need to “teach” this respect??
Are the fans not an important part of the equation?
Without them, you’ve got no market. If anything, that “respect” he talks about is ideally a MUTUAL sentiment. And, like it or not, when someone wants to hear your music, whether or not you think they’re “stealing” from you, you’ve got a fan. Alienate ANY of your fans, and you effectively dilute that fan base. They downloaded your music because they wanted to hear it!
It’s already been proven over and over that many filesharers download music and still BUY the product, and being able to download that track and sample it was the SELLER. It’s also been proven that many downloads that don’t incite a purchase still get heard by others who do purchase. (An example of free “viral” promotion.)
It’s time to start examining the baseless crap, told to both the artists and the ignorant public at large, by these pig-headed, self-destructive cartels that call themselves “labels”.
It’s time to start thinking for yourselves.
You’re already quite aware of the politics used by the MAFIAA you’re dealing with. You know they’re willing to do everything they can to completely criminalize every new technology and its users in their desperate attempt to save a failing business model, while not sparing any expense (lots of it being money that should have rightly gone to artists, I should mention) in spreading the lies that help accomplish this.