February 12, 2008

UK Proposes Three Strikes And You’re Out Illegal Downloading Law

Duncan Riley

45 comments »

A “draft consultation Green Paper” to be released by the UK Government proposes a three strikes and you’re out law to combat illegal downloads.

Under the proposal, UK internet users will be monitored by their ISP’s for illegal downloads, and those caught will receive an e-mail warning in the first instance, internet suspension the second time, and then termination of their contract on the third strike. A similar law was proposed in France back in November 2007.

According to the BBC quoting The Times, broadband firms which failed to enforce the rules could be prosecuted, and the details of customers suspected of making illegal downloads would be made available to the courts.

The proposal faces several serious hurdles, such as attributing blame where internet access is shared, and then determining what is illegal content. Although BitTorrent traffic is primarily pirated material, there is also increasing amounts of legal material as well. Even this week a German record company offered its entire music catalog via Pirate Bay, so even using and accessing material from the most famed pirate site of them all may not actually constitute downloading illegal material.

The proposal unsurprisingly comes from the Music and Record industry, and although not yet law is being promoted by the UK Government as part of a “comprehensive plan to bolster the UK’s creative industries,” so looks like it will be implemented at some time in the future. [Techcrunch UK has more].

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3 strikes and then out for UK ‘illegal’ downloaders? at dougbelshaw.com

February 12th, 2008 at 3:11 am

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Robbie

February 12th, 2008 at 2:35 am

Just another proposal that’s not enforcible unless they forbid encrypted connections etc.
garg

February 12th, 2008 at 2:37 am

what about goverment bringing legislation for wallet ripper , who for their unique content are charging as much as they can?
Darren Stuart

February 12th, 2008 at 2:48 am

this will be hard as hell to prove and I can’t see the ISP’s going for it, how will they know what files are illeagal? how will they deal wth streaming flash and divx content?
Leaving The Day Job

February 12th, 2008 at 2:49 am

Totally unworkable. Is the Government going to maintain a list of banned individuals which every ISP will have to check before they’re allowed to connect anyone? Just another dumb idea from a Government that proves over and over again how little they understand IT.
Maya

February 12th, 2008 at 2:54 am

No such problems for Indians. Indians can still download full movies only from http://moviemazic.com. We are completely legal site. Any piracy issues you find feel free to sue google.

–
Thanks
Maya
Simon

February 12th, 2008 at 3:02 am

Even if they do manage to enforce this, where do consumers go to get their legal movie downloads? There’s no real, easy alternative…
Developer

February 12th, 2008 at 3:03 am

Agree with Darren Stuart.
Duncan Riley

February 12th, 2008 at 3:07 am

Darren
here in lies the problem, the logistics of checking and verifying every download is horrendous, but that’s never stopped a dumb idea becoming law before.
Armand Rousso

February 12th, 2008 at 3:20 am

Comprehensive plan to bolster the UK’s creative industries seems to be the issue here.
Solutions should comes from insiders and not Politics.
Dean Marry

February 12th, 2008 at 3:22 am

I am on the same trend as Armand Rousso on the fact it should come from insiders…
Richard

February 12th, 2008 at 3:27 am

Just another example of the current UK government trying to extend the surveillance society that we are currently living in here.

No doubt that whoever the politicians are that tabled this on behalf of the music industry they will be lining their own grubby little pockets somehow.

The music industry is grabbing at straws, their business model has been completely disrupted and they are understandably running scared and are trying anything and everything to cling to their old business model. They are just trying to protect the massive profits that they have made in the past.

The music and film industry needs to concentrate on revamping their business model, innovate and offer the consumer something of real value that they are willing to pay for rather than trying to stick a finger in a burst dam.
Mark

February 12th, 2008 at 3:28 am

It might become law, but they would not be able to enforce it. Like all prohibition laws, it’s main purpose is to scare and when people find ways to circumvent it the effect will be zero (except for the bureaucracy needed to administer the law, the politicians gathering “free points”… etc. You know the usual stuff)
asgoodaspossible

February 12th, 2008 at 3:28 am

yeah you guy are right! the rule will not work cause they doesn’t understand what is internet! how do they measure bittorrent or p2p file is illegal? can i buy a mp3 and then download using bittorrent or p2p? lol
miquel

February 12th, 2008 at 3:37 am

It is good to know that the UK government is at least so stupid as the spanish & french government.
Simon Cast

February 12th, 2008 at 3:52 am

This will go along fine up until the point that various backbenchers realise that they will probably loose more votes as their constituents are booted off the internet than they will get supporting the bill.

It also makes a mockery of the UK Governments plan to use broadband access to boost jobs.
Darren Stuart

February 12th, 2008 at 4:17 am

@Duncan maybe they have been speaking to china :p
NatC

February 12th, 2008 at 4:35 am

Unfortunately, at least here in France and as part of nearly the same proposal, companies will not have to prove (as in providing evidence to a judge) that the people are faulty, they will directly address the internet service providers with their claims. The idea is that the strikes wil be applicable to SUSPECTED people.
What the companies expect is that these people -small numbers at first, as with the RIAA in the US- will be frightened enough that they cease downloading (if they ever did), and though this will be applied to a limited number of people, that it is publicized enough to stop everyone from downloading copyrighted materials.
Ths is my current understanding of the proposal here in France, while the details are still discussed and will include an “independant authority” somewhere in the process.
Matt_

February 12th, 2008 at 4:46 am

More like The UK has been speaking to Australia who also want to censor and filter information thats sent over the internet .

http://www.efa.org.au/2008/01/.....-proposal/

Im sure Duncan Knows all about that stupid proposed law .
Nigel

February 12th, 2008 at 4:53 am

If this ever becomes law I suspect the number of people using encryption or anonymous proxies to increase. And given the competition in Bit Torrent clients I suspect it will become easier to switch these on (maybe even on by default).

Yet again technology will find an effective way to route around clumsy laws.
FdX

February 12th, 2008 at 5:09 am

I don’t know how it works in the UK but in France the owner of the rights have now the right to collect the Ip adresses of illegal downloaders and then, the ISP have to give them the names of the guys behind the IP. So basically, illegal download is not forgiven only illegal download of stuff wich someone can prove they own the rights (is this last sentence real english ?? :-)…

What i mean is that big companies will probably look for people who download the top 10 most downloaded stuff…. Basically it’s gonna be harder downloading “Transformers”…. probably not “Citizen Kane”
FdX

February 12th, 2008 at 5:11 am

Also i’ve been using wuala for some time now, and i’m not sure it’s possible to easily track people sharing copyrighted stuff on wuala…. so maybe the future is here
FdX

February 12th, 2008 at 5:16 am

@ Leaving The Day Job: it’s not that complcated in fact, if you blacklist someone with his name, adress and bank account it should work
William

February 12th, 2008 at 5:38 am

Most of the guys who come up with these laws/proposals are soo far from relaity its just unbelieveable..! I’ll bet my right arm most have never used a PC!!

Have they not learnt anything from previous piracy cases..? The music industry learnt the hard way!!
miquel

February 12th, 2008 at 5:44 am

And how to control the opened wifi networks? The ignorant politicians in all countries are under the presure of the same lobbies.
Todd

February 12th, 2008 at 5:45 am

You may expect intentional “poison pills” as a countermeasure, where copyrighted songs are hidden in web pages and downloaded when the page loads - causing hundreds of thousands of people to unknowingly break the law. Pod casts innocuously labeled “Best recipe for cupcakes” are MP3s.

They intend to revoke internet access to half the population of Britain?
NotABug

February 12th, 2008 at 6:53 am

“This is bullocks!”
Wibbly

February 12th, 2008 at 7:51 am

This is laughable anybody with a gram of network savvy will be around this in 10mins, Ip masking, spoofing, proxies etc. spring to mind, then theres the coders that will start to write the programs to deflect around the problem, What one man can make another can undo.
Also a large majority of people dont encrypt their wireless network, and wep encryption is easy to get around there is many a tutorial on the web about that.
The only problem here is the price structure why should the likes of Madonna become a billionaire for doing as much work as anybody else, the music and film industry had it too good for too long, power to the peerple. LOL
Alize

February 12th, 2008 at 9:57 am

Pity they don’t do this count for robbers, muggers and rapists first.
plop

February 12th, 2008 at 9:59 am

@22

I’ll bet my right arm most have never used a PC!!

LOL
plop

February 12th, 2008 at 10:05 am

i thought governments should have been busy fighting global warming etc, yet no in the UK they have the time to get up to all sorts of sleaze while in the mean time peddling claptrap for corporations who have a history of dubious dealings.

I’m starting a new political party (hidden behind a proxy sever) in the UK called the ‘pirating-party.com’ vote for me in the coming elections…..
Saim Baig

February 12th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Once again?
Nothing will happen again.Illegal Downloads can’t be stopped sir.If it happens then boy, Uk users will have a boring internet.
Grant Downie

February 12th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

Unfortunately I didn’t check techcrunch earlier today- leaving the delivery of this news the hands of my flat mate.

If the UK are proposing these measures.. and feel that it is possible to enforce.. then why do so many other internet crimes go on within the UK?

I hate to do it and use the word… but every now and then a story crops up regarding Paedophiles within the UK managing to get access to sites which hosts this illegal content. Why oh why.. is the government flexing their “Big Brother” muscle on illegal downloading and not focussing this on the greater good? Not just paedophiles, but Internet fraud also!

Now I don’t know my exact stats on this… but i’m pretttty confident Internet Fraud within the UK costs far greater than copyright infringement. As I say I could be completely wrong, but as a British citizen I can say I would far prefer hearing Fraudsters and paedophiles are being “banned”, and not someone sat at their pc watching the latest ‘pirated’ movie while drinking some OJ.

But as most folk have already said- I look forward to when I’m sat on my flying pig and reading the paper of users being caught with this new proposed law.

Downie.

//end rant.
Chrißo

February 12th, 2008 at 11:11 pm

This is sad. Why can’t all these so-called victims of piracy just learn that by working against the world of internet they are only making themselves bigger targets? A compromise is needed, similar to projects such as GNU and other freeware initiatives.
Smart

February 13th, 2008 at 12:47 am

Why are tax payers paying the government to protect a dying business model? How many people have to go to jail before the chimps evolve?

Also, this is a great way to end open wifi as we know it.
Guy

February 13th, 2008 at 4:39 am

This is a great idea, the music and film industry are slowly dieing from piracy. If we want decent entertainment in the next 20 years, we have to keep paying for it. I would ban ALL file sharing… its the cheapest and easiest way. I know its spit your dummies out time, but do we want to be entertained? If we keep stealing art, there will be nothing left of any great value to steal.
AntiStar

February 13th, 2008 at 5:09 am

He Guy, go jump off a bridge!
Grant Downie

February 13th, 2008 at 7:38 am

@Guy

Entertainment has been around for jundreds of years in all sorts.. They didn’t have big flashy Ads.

You are aware when you watch a film such their are dozens of placed ads by sponsors which they would of received millions for.

Take for example James bond - Casino Royale. Can you honestly say that the vaio and sony phones were rammed in you’re face in a really obvious way?

If were talking about supporting the industry- then we do. We go to the cinema when they produce something worthwhile, we buy cd’s when its of an artist that you know is a worthwhile purchase.

I download yes, just because

a) I’m impatient and want american shows as they are released in the states. I still pay my tv license..

b) Again, the quality of ‘entertainment’ the past few years has been dire!

The industry is NEVER going to die… believing that in 20 years it is going to vanish is a terrible terrible assumption.

It’s technology, they need to learn to work with it not fight it. And suiing everyone of their “clients” of their work is not moving with it.

Downie.
yahn

February 13th, 2008 at 10:35 am

It makes mi sick. They treat their costumers as criminals and now they want ISPs to cripple internet connection for everybody and get us all under surveillance just because they are not able to come up with a business model suitable for digital age… does that make you angry too? Does that make you wanna boycott those who finance RIAA?

It certainly works for me…

I have bought hundreds of original DVDs in my life. I am not going to buy any DVD, I am not going to the cinema, I am not buying any CD until they have given up their war against us - their consumers. They have no right to watch my internet connection, they have no right to force the ISPs to do that for them, they have no right to fight innovation and make everyone responsible for their inability to adapt themselves to this new situation… but they don’t understand. So lets let their wallets do the talking.

It would be much easier to live without their stupid movies than without freedom.
Shayne

February 14th, 2008 at 5:11 am

Why doesn’t the music industry follow in the foot steps of any search engine or website that makes money off of advertisements. Google and yahoo take in huge revenue from advertisements. Why not offer their own songs from the own website for free and collect revenue from advertising.

1. By offering the songs for free you would make the market for illegal copies of the product not worth while creating. Majority of consumer would respect this avenue and would goto the correct site to get the music.

2. You would create an avenue to generate a lot of money to make up for loss in sales.

3. Look at all the money you would save by not having to research piracy formats. No more lawsuits about incompatible mp3 players.

PS. Are they going to hook my tape deck or VCR up to the internet, so they can find out when I’m recording live feeds too. (radio, cable/satilite tv) Thats why the cd came out. There was no way copy them at first.
Shayne

February 14th, 2008 at 5:19 am

I’m putting my 4 cents in.

If they actually implement this law. An easy way around it would be to create a simple encryption which changes file name and bit around. Hell sending the data backwards would most likely get the data by the isp with out them know.

Who going to create this software to scan the packets and what would the price tag to this software be.
Shayne

February 14th, 2008 at 5:34 am

Okay 2 more cents,

How much business are the isp willing to loss to force these rules.

Two scenario’s

1st. A business lossing internet access because multiple users download illegal content. Is an ISP going to cancel a big client.

2nd. Home users downloading illegal content. Are the ISP’s willing to lose thousands of clients.
treesmoker08

February 15th, 2008 at 9:56 am

i completly agree with everything said on this site (apart from guy @ #36)

there is sooooooo many more problems in england like all the yobs killing people, phedo’s, robbery ect. but a big group of politicts have got together and thought:

we either spend money on the crimes that are crippling Britian.. OR………..
we make as much money as we can taxin Britian in another atempt to watch every move we make.

i seriously hope the isp’s are doing everything they can to stop this law going through because they will lose SOOOOOOOOOO much money if this goes through because most of the people that buy these 20MB+ Broadband deals are the ones that download all the movies, music and games.

@ Wibbly (post #28) i can only hope that your right mate because i cant think of anything else that id want to use the internet 4.
Martin

February 17th, 2008 at 3:31 pm

I wonder if they’ll censor google image of the MP who died in his tights with an orange down his throat.
bob

February 20th, 2008 at 1:57 pm

Buy music and films end off!!!!

filesharing wont kill off the big companies but will kill off small music genres eg Hardcore trance etc!