Never believe in mirrors or newspapers - Tom Stoppard
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Digital Economy Act is delayed by high court challenge
A HIGH COURT CHALLENGE by ISPs to stop the UK Government's plan to harass filesharers with warning letters has delayed implementation of the Digital Economy Act (DEA).
The Government's cunning plan is to have a mass-notification system to send out warning letters to alleged filesharers. But BT and Talktalk's refusal to act as Internet cops has seen them file a high court challenge that has delayed the DEA by six months. The controversial DEA legislation was already behind by four months so that's a ten months implementation delay in total.
"This is a deadline - we would hope the code can be made before then and are still aiming to have the first notification letters go out in the first half of next year," said a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
But the Government still plans to go ahead with the letters early next year, despite the high court challenge. The INQUIRER spoke with the DMCS, which said that planned date will also depend on two secondary legislative acts, one of which is being drafted with Ofcom. However, both of those secondary pieces of legislations are still in draft form, so the date could slip back again anyway.
The ISPs oppose the DEA. BT and Talktalk have both said the DEA puts too much power in the hands of the big content providers, implying it was rubber stamped by the Government at the behest of the media conglomerates.
The ISPs also said the DEA could be in violation of EU privacy laws. ISPs have said time and again that the clue to their business is in their name - Internet Service Providers. They maintain that they aren't in business to police their subscribers as Internet cops. µ
Tags: Software
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The fake "Bill Gates" poster wants to see all file sharers executed. Funny, that. I have proof that Bill Gates' first software product, a version of Tiny BASIC distributed on paper tape and sold for the outrageous price of $500, was in fact pirated. It is bit-for-bit identical with a public domain Tiny BASIC except for the copyright statement.
So it seems that "stealing" software is OK as long as you build a multi-billion-dollar International Megacorp from that theft.
Don't mistake my meaning; software piracy is stupid, but it is by no means a serious criminal act if the pirate doesn't make an attempt to profit from it (as the Government of Red China blatantly does).
And in any case, if the RIAA/MPAA want to persecute someone, they can damn well do it on their own dime, rather than trying to force ISPs to do their work for them without just recompense. The Digital Economy Act is simply a Bill to legalise theft and slavery, by the big content owners.
and how does the government intend to prove guilt? Will someone who downloads via p2p torrents be hounded? if so what about all the wow subscribers who receive torrents that way? Just donloaded the A10 warthog FS from DCS....via torrents....legally from their website. What about Usenet clienst, they are encrypted so how will isps know what is being pulled? The only thing this act will ever acheive is scaring a few kids downloading the odd Beiber track and drive the illegal market underground. The hardcore downloaders WILL NOT STOP, they will find ways to circumventthe checks very easily. We will soon see a return to unscrupulous individuals selling their warez on dvd at car boots and markets whilst innocent and legitimate users get hounded for no reason. Perhaps if the media organisations change their cost models and wind in the greed levels we can find a happy medium? they keep on about piracy hurting sales yet each year announce an increase profit margin...someone womewhere is telling porkies.
Even if you considered every file sharer a "pirate" or more precisely, a "thief" that would not warrent a severe penalty such as death. In fact, civilized societies do not have the death penalty.
Let's assume that sharing a game is identical to stealing from a store. What is the legal penalty for that?
Not as harsh as you would like it to be, dear poster.
Of course, in real theft, someone loses property, thus money while in file sharing, consisting of copying, no one actually loses property & the claim taht one loses a sale is highly contested.
The only good pirate is dead or in prison for a long time.