UK ISPs agree to illegally file-share their users' records

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: July 24, 2008 2:56:35 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] UK ISPs agree to illegally file-share their  
users' records

UK ISPs agree to illegally file-share their users' records
24/07/2008 12:28:00 - by Ian Scales
<http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?newsid=43568&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10 
>

Six of the UK's biggest ISPs have caved-in to music and movie industry  
pressure and have undertaken to define and adopt a 'code' in an effort  
to reduce copyright-breaking file sharing.

But there are clear signs that ISPs haven't just been steamrollered.  
The agreement, announced today by the UK government, involves carrots  
as well as sticks, with the Brown administration promising to come up  
with a draft bill on the issue and to foster a general agreement that  
will see ISPs and content owners develop 'legal' file sharing services.

In other words ISPs will get to share the spoils of any revenue- 
generating services that are now developed in return for policing the  
'legal' file sharing boundaries. Or, as we prefer to characterise it,  
'You hold them down, I'll remove their wallets'.

This is exactly the development that libertarians have been warning  
about in the run-up to the passage of the telecoms package (see -  
European telecom package supporters answer back). That particular  
European Parliament legislation (to be debated and voted upon in  
September) clears the way for national governments to introduce  
legislation that would compel ISPs to do a bit of illegal file sharing  
of their own.

Under the proposed rule changes ISPs would be obliged to share  
information about 'illegal' file-sharing behaviour and would also be  
obliged to warn and police their own users under threat of a law suit  
from content owners.

This is a huge change to the established relationships between user,  
ISP and content owner, since it breaches the Internet's essential  
privacy and neutrality principles.

On privacy, the breach is obvious. ISPs would be breaking their  
obligations to their own users and sharing information about their  
addresses and their on-line behaviour. Hypocrisy or just rolling-over  
and playing-dead to the order of the big boys?

The threat to neutrality is just as insidious though less obvious. In  
the case of the UK an immediate conflict of interest is created by  
ISPs ' policing role and their ability to tap new revenues through the  
offer of an alternative on-line service (an opportunity itself created  
by the policing). Neutral indeed!

[snip]




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