Music and film industries to decide who gets broadband
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT, which used to cover the world red, has decided to outsource decisions about who can get broadband to the music and film cartels.
A new policy drawn up by Lord Mandelson, which gives the movie and film industries the power to order an ISP to cut off people it suspects of filesharing, has turned ISP's incandescent with rage.
After all the entertainment giants have told us in countless studies that they think every student is a 'pirate', so therefore we can expect everyone under the age of 30 to be cut off straight away.
UK ISP TalkTalk has complained that Lord Mandy's plan is likely to "breach fundamental rights" and will not work.
TalkTalk's director of regulation, Andrew Heaney, told the BBC News he would like to see a clamp down on illegal filesharers. However he said this would best be done by making sure there are legal alternatives and educating people, writing letters to alleged filesharers and, if necessary, taking them to court.
This is of course the natural way of doing things in a democracy with a decent judicial system, but seems to be alien to both the Government and the music and film dinosaurs, which seemed to want people carted off to prison camps.
What is particularly scary about this is that the big media conglomerates will rely on IP addresses to catch filesharers, so those who share an Internet connection will be punished along with those who are victims of IP spoofing.
To make matters worse, the ISPs will have to pay half the cost to find out which of their customers are alleged 'pirates'.
Virgin Media agreed that "persuasion not coercion" was key in the fight to crack down on the estimated six million filesharers in the UK.
Virgin told the Beeb that Mandy's cunning plan was a "heavy-handed, punitive regime [that] will simply alienate consumers." µ
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this is typical of recent politics
mandelson is UNELECTED and he deputised for the holidaying prime minister (who is technically unelected) while this travesty was orchestrated.
what is the country coming to?!
our country has been sold out to private moneygrabbers and those who sold it out, also got wealthy in the process
Considering the citizen don't vote for these people, would make sense why they don't care, I guess laws should have been changed long ago, but since they where not I think you will have to live with this new Gov. that you will see more and more in the UK, I feel for you.
I wonder what else they will come out with in the coming years, oh yes no dogs for muslim houses, haha, we need more wacky news from there.
@ usurping victim couldnt have put it better myself!
or another tactic the government is fond of is to go overkill with the punishment on first release then water it down alittle to the exact punishment they wanted in the first place!
Is it that hard just to make several subscription based services that allow you to download, listen and watch music and videos as much as you like?
E.g. 20 EUR per month should be a good start for both sides (users and industries).
They'd be making more money than now, piracy won't be an issue and we all will live happily ever after.
Makes you wander how some corporate managers are being picked...
This is a typical story in UK. Most of the minister are incharge of the departments of which they dont know much about. Then they seek advise from people who are in the industry and then laws are passed favouring that industry rather then for the benefit of general people.
Recently this has been the style of labour government. So i think its about time they are booted out.
youre right, they dont know about the job they are paid to do. they are simply professional blaggers.
but they are certainly very 'genned up' on how to scam free cash from the public!
one law for the rich etc etc......
I doubt a change of goverment will change the ongoing tragedy our laws have become, they're all a bunch of corrupt idiots.
Does anyone own a cellar that runs under the House of Commons?
"the music and film cartels"
Is this a code-word for something?
Well, it seems like the feeling so far is that the government are not aware of the implications. Which I agree. Choice, value and convenience of legitimate downloads need to catch up to that of the peer-2-peer community. (spotify is a big step in the right direction).
I have used p2p, but I also buy legitimately.
Most of my p2p was either for a film/music I already have that I want in a more usable form to play on other devices, or to try before I buy in the case of games.
Nothing makes me more angry than to pay for a game and feel totaly cheated, with no chance for a refund on the basis that its a load of rubbish and badly made, (the endless spewing of 'tycoon' games as an example).
Its the same with films. I have been to the cinema and paid to watch a film after seeing a trailer thinking "That looks pretty good", and find that the only goods bits were in the trailer, the rest of the film was utter pig-poo. Thats as much a crime as piracy in my humble opinion. :-)
Other observations in this matter to consider:
The Gaming industry isnt mentioned in this round of the piracy war, just music and film. hmmmm
ISP's could block traffic for p2p by filtering or strict traffic shaping.
If piracy was eliminated, broadband usage would be significanlty reduced
would this effect the ISP's revenue? (cynical, but the ISP's can increase profit from the traffic of illegal file sharing)
Is piracy financialy worse for the artists than buying pre-owned from the high street?
Should the punishment be worse for downloading the content or making it available?
Chew on those thoughts. :-)
Piracy should not be supported by any means, however, one wonders if Mandi is just fishing for a job post the next election. Maybe he has seen that BIG writing on the wall ?
Why else would he be supporting the mafia-like entertainment industry ? I remember those £15 CDs in the UK being sold for $12 in the US.(Supply and demand, huh). I don't see anyone in the government standing up for the consumer in this area and supporting the rights of the honest purchasing public !
This can only spell bad news for consumers and artists alike. The artists have to speak up and make their voice heard or else their revenues and reputations will suffer. Only the corporate entertainment moguls will be making the big bucks.
MAFIAA - one acronym, one program, one Fuehrer!
Your government belongs to US.
Perhaps you should learn about IP Spoofing before you think that any sort of 2 way communication can take place between 2 hosts when one of them has the wrong IP in its packet headers.
The MAFIAA doesn't give a Sh*t if the whole internet gets shut down, because their the only ones who think their loses are because of the net. They want the system that was in place before the Internet evolved, PERIOD. Consumers buying CD's, going to the movies, renting movies, etc,etc.
Perhaps you should have a look with Wireshark what packets and where are routed by your ISP. You'd be surprised in some cases.
@usurping victim, do you even understand how this country's politics system works? Yes, Mandelson is a bit of a conundrum, but as for your suggestion that Gordon Brown as PM isn't elected, then you're a fool, because no prime minister in the UK has ever been elected.
You elect a party, that party elects its leader and if that party becomes government, then its leader becomes PM.
it just highlights that we do not live in a democracy, it is a dictatorship with a single democratic action once every 4 years or so
the dictators then do a deal with private industry using public funds and retire to a lucrative directorship in that industry and disappear into obscurity.
government is business now and it is very bad. we should do something about it
to get rid of Mandleson. I get the feeling it will garner an AWFUL lot of signatories.
Great ide...click...hisss