House of Lords passes internet piracy bill

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March 18, 2010

Does the British Government actually get the difference between online user behaviour, offline conversion and online protection? Or do they just like using that sledgehammer in the corner to crack a nut.

Well said sledgehammer has been out in force and this new piece of legislation (which is aimed at protecting the music industry) but fails to realise that it just won’t work. The Labour Government is trying to appease businesses (particularly the music industry), they really haven’t seen the big picture. The threat is to cut off those that persistently offend downloading - whereas companies such as Facebook, British Telecom and even the mighty Google say that this is too severe and that a fine would suffice.

This law looks like its been written with no concept of how people can access the net? What about those with unlimited bandwidth via their mobile phones, what about the fact you can purchase a pay-as-you-go broadband dongle and download at high speeds at will. Also, as per Lord Lucas’ video (embedded), if you have multiple users using your router whether it be via wired or wireless how can you identify this individual?

” We are calling for massive campaign of citizens to demand that their MPs debate this dangerous bill”

Jim Killock – Open Rights Group

As for shutting down sites. I must admit not knowing much about this but, if the site is hosted in a country which isn’t affected by this law (anywhere other than UK) then how are they going to shut it down or block it. Why does the Labour government want to apply the same methodologies that the Chinese use to block dissidents and free speech?

“a measure allowing courts to use injunctions to force internet service providers (ISPs) to block certain websites – also prompted criticism from companies, consumer rights campaigners and academics.

They argued that it would lead to “blocking based on accusation arther than a court injunction” and could shut down sites like Google and You Tube”

Quote from BBC News Website Article (see related links)

I must admit that music and films are so cheap these days that I’m not one for downloading music (unless via iTunes, Amazon or Play). I find it fantastic that the range of TV shows on iTunes include those that previously haven’t been released in the UK – for example “Highlander” – probably “Chips” and “Manimal” will be soon forthcoming.

The internet has opened up a lot more opportunities for the music publishers in the world and they dont have to worry about having different encoding methods (which surely must save them millions in manfacturing costs! Yet they are worrying about people wanting something for free – you’re always going to have that problem when recordable media is cheaper than the films! I’m sure those that are around my age will remember the betamax and VHS formats – and being unable to borrow a film from a friend because you had one format and he had another.

How about a law that makes computers come with anti-virus and firewall protection that comes preconfigured for its purpose. How many people actually buy this at point-of-sale. I know I never used to but, now am never without my trusty Kaspersky security which blocks so much unwanted content and gives me a lot of piece of mind.

18/03/2010 - Metro (one of the free London papers) reported that online piracy costs 39,000 jobs per year and costs £1.4billion in 2008. Pirates are reporting that these figures are scaremongering yet other figures state that by 2015 1.2 million jobs could be lost and £215 billion in revenue.

“Piracy is killing the industry. it is not the best word to use – it conjures up images of adventure and Johnny Depp. We need to change our attitudes towards illegal downloading and recognise that it is theft”

Agnete Haaland, President of the International Actors Federation