In news that's surprised absolutely nobody, Lord Mandelson has confirmed that the UK will be getting a new Make Rich Record Boss David Geffen Happy law.
By 2011, persistent file sharers will be sent angry letters and then their connections will be choked or cut off.
Here are seven reasons why the plan stinks.
1. It's unfair
Broadband connections aren't per person; they're per building. Should dad's home business be booted off because his kids have been sharing music? Is a café responsible for what its customers do with its Wi-Fi?
2. It's a kangaroo court
Remember "innocent until proven guilty"? Mandelson clearly doesn't. Under the proposed plans, the only time you'll be able to defend yourself against disconnection is to appeal to Ofcom once the decision to cripple your connection has been made. Apparently, appeals will be heard within 30 days. It's not hard to imagine Ofcom being overwhelmed by appeals and that 30 days becoming 60, 90 or 120 days. Not great if you've been wrongly accused.
3. The French are behind it
4. The bad boys will evade it
Encryption, proxies, VPNs, piggybacking other people's Wi-Fi so innocent people get the blame… you can be sure that by the time disconnections start in 2011, there will be all kinds of ways for dedicated downloaders to evade detection. And sheer force of numbers means the plans will never catch more than a minority of file sharers.
6. It'll mean censorship
Given the choice between investigating rights holders' complaints - which will cost time and therefore money - and just blocking anything that might be used for dodgy downloading, which option do you think ISPs are going to choose?
6. Labour won't be around to make it happen
Does anybody other than Mandelson really think Gordon Brown will still be in charge by 2011? If there's sufficient public outcry over the proposed file sharing ban, the Conservatives could make dropping it a election pledge.
7. It's pointless
Oh no! You've been cut off or slowed down by your ISP! Oh look! Your wife/brother/flatmate/space alien who just happens to live in your house has signed up to a different ISP and is letting you use their broadband!
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Your comments (8) Click to add a new comment
sloman
October 29th 2009
8. on the back of this: "The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a trade association for the British record industry, has reported a record breaking year for UK singles with more than 117m sold to date (115.1m in 2008)"
Source:http://www.ispreview.co.uk/
Stop me and my Usenet SSL hahahahaha
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martinb
October 28th 2009
7. So in nulabour's Britain they won't rest until we are all branded as criminals.
So Mr Mandleson are you engaging with MIcrosoft, Adobe, Apple to bring down the cost of music/software for UK consumers so that it is closer to that of the US. After all when I got Photoshop CS4 from Adobe, I paid over the odd's yet it isn't localised for UK English!!
Quite how they will Police this is beyond me, as they can't even Police normal crimes.
Oh well time to dust off the SSL and Encryption!
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lovlid
October 28th 2009
6. @ madjedi.
"Hope the conservatives get in a put a stop to this nonsence before it happens"
Do you think the tories (aaaargh it burns) will drop it if enough money is thrown at them? Delusional and naive.
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beefstirfry
October 28th 2009
5. Mandelson isn't stupid (ok, isn't completely stupid), he knows that this will never actually work. I'm sure this decision was nothing to do with the August 25th meeting with David Geffen, and I'm positive that no kind of financial incentive was given to himself or the Labour Party. Some cynics however might not be so optimistic though...
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avi
October 28th 2009
4. Mandelson needs to concentrate on ditching the Royal Mail and all it's problem and tell the Record Industry to go and stick its head up a dead Bear's bottom! He's too gullible.
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psyfur
October 28th 2009
3. I would love to see if Mandelson can track me using my SSL Usenet connection! This maybe an issue for p2p but there are other ways out there for the dedicated pirate (non somalia types)
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