UK Considers Forcing ISPs To Block File Sharing

from the as-if-that-will-work dept

Thu, Oct 25th 2007 4:27am — Mike Masnick

Following the recent UK shutdowns of OiNK and tv-links, Lord Triesman, the parliamentary Under Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills, is now threatening to regulate ISPs if they don't stop file sharing. Unfortunately, Lord Triesman seems a bit confused both about technology and economics here -- which is disappointing, as his thoughts on regulations would impact both negatively. He seems to think that this would involve an easy technology fix saying that "it is quite possible to know where it is happening and who it is happening with." Then he follows that up with: "we will be able to match data banks of that music to music going out and being exchanged on the net." That sounds good, but unfortunately, he's been misinformed. While it is true that many people do reveal who they are, those who are serious about this stuff know how to remain mostly hidden. Triesman says that they're not concerned with 14-year-olds sharing files, but only the professionals who are making "multiple copies for profit." The problem is that those are exactly the people who won't be caught by these methods.

Next up, Triesman trots out the old and tired myth about how piracy will cause the music industry to disappear: "We have some simple choices to make. If creative artists can't earn a living as a result of the work they produce, then we will kill off creative artists and that would be a tragedy." Yes, it's true that if they can't earn a living from what they do, we will lose new creative content (I'm assuming he didn't really mean that it would kill the artists literally), but the big implicit assumption there is that piracy means they can't earn a living from the work they produce. As we've seen over and over again that's not true. If you understand the economics, you can use free file sharing to your advantage to make a bigger name for yourself and make more money from other sources. To imply that file sharing kills off creative content is clearly incorrect -- and it's about time that myth died off.

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Filed Under: business models, copyright, file sharing, p2p, uk

43 Comments

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Ajax 4Hire, 25 Oct 2007 @ 4:32am

Might as well try to stop Volkswagons on roads
Trying to stop P2P would be like the Parliament trying to outlaw Volkswagons on the British Roads.

The Volkswagon drivers will just switch to a different car;
P2P will just switch to a different protocol/port, duh.
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- Mark Powell, 14 Feb 2008 @ 1:48pm
  
  Re: Might as well try to stop Volkswagons on roads
  Im a vw driver and i would not switch to a diffrent car..Good point though , should of use the name ford ..
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 5:04am

The fact that his title is "Lord" automatically implies that he knows nothing about anything modern.

We in the UK know this.
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- ma1wrbu5tr, 25 Oct 2007 @ 12:12pm
  
  Re:
  Lord=Pompous
  
  God Save The Queen!
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Mike F.M, 25 Oct 2007 @ 5:05am

How can you?
How can you block something that has so many legitimate uses and actually does the music industry the world of good (even if they don't recognise it)?

That's similar than getting the P2P sites to regulate the content. Not going to happen and basically impossible.

Even if they did somehow manage to get this into effect, as Ajax 4Hire said, they would just go elsewhere and design newer ways of doing exactly the same things.
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Paul, 25 Oct 2007 @ 5:47am

Let him know about the other side of the coin
The Music Industry funds lobby groups to feed FUD to the minister and like a good little public servant seeing an opportunity to raise his profile - off he goes.

The issue is the fact that the 'Music Industry' is a dinosaur that is not capable of modifying its business model to accommodate the changes in technology and public demand.

The vast majority of criminals are the general public reacting to the unreasonable constraints created by the Music Industry as it struggles to make its outdated business model continue to generate revenue. Admittedly there are a minority of offenders who deserve prosecution for abusing the law to make money. The minority do it so that they can use the music in a manner suited to todays technology. Price is also an issue as the majority are of the opinion that high volume low cost is the answer that is easily achievable by todays technology. The Music Industry is adamantly sticking to the opposite, hence the conflict.

Unfortunately the people that suffer will be the public who do not have lobby groups to represent their opinion. This imbalance causes the minister to incorrectly assess the issue.

I have sent my opinion to him. Just one voice from the masses against the lobby groups but it may help. If you feel strongly enough to add your weight to our side of the argument the minister can br contacted via

info@dius.gsi.gov.uk. (That's the best I could find)

The more he gets, the more chance he may see things from our point of view and see through the FUD.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 5:49am

I'm not sure this is such a bad idea. If you think about it if the ISPs did block current P2P and other file sharing networks how much innovation would spring up to defeat these blocks?

I'm betting new and improved methods, with possibly a higher level of encryption and anonymity would spring up to replace the existing file sharing tools.
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Overcast, 25 Oct 2007 @ 6:19am

They should just shut down the whole internet!! It's possible someone could come up with another way to share files!
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 25 Oct 2007 @ 6:20am

Hmm
In a way, post #5 kind of has a point.
Although I cannot condone it as I would not feel that the ends would justify the means in this case.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 6:31am

The British upper class has never been noted for integrity or intelligence.
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MojoMick, 25 Oct 2007 @ 6:42am

RE:#5, #7 yep ..
an interesting point, AC and K_T - and I definitely agree that the community will simply adapt, improvise, and overcome any such nonsense.

however, the problem here is the direction that these fools want to take things. here's my (paranoid?) view of what they want - and this is why it's a bad road to get started down:

1. eeeeeeeeeevil scary p2p is blocked.

2. community adapts, comes up with new methods, including encryption methods which will defeat even the best deep packet inspection tools (which, be assured, are installed and running RIGHT NOW in every major and most minor naps)

3. lawmakers again being lobbied by riaa use their idiotic arguments as an excuse to pass laws to make it illegal to use any type of packet encryption - or *unapproved* protocols for that matter - unless *approved* by license or some crappy government agency. this will be presented, of course, as an effort to "save the children" from the eeeeevil of p2p and file sharing or pr0n or terrorists or ___ (fill in the blank)

(and heaven forbid you might want to surf/browse/work anonymously - you *must* be a terrorist if that's what you want - besides *what have you got to hide?!* ...)

4. bow to big brother. rights ? what rights ? you don't have no stinkin' rights.

points 3 and 4 are their goals anyway. they could really care less about the stupid riaa, just that riaa still has deep coffers and continues to ,*ahem*, assist in re-election campaigns ... and nice chalets in the alps ... and get you invited to all the *cool* parties with hookers and coke ...

oh, but what am I saying ... it doesn't *really* work that way, now does it ? I'm just a paranoid git ...
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- TheDock22, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:15am
  
  Re: RE:#5, #7 yep ..
  Everyone keeps arguing that P2P is used for transferring of legal files. You can not deny though that most of the traffic is from sharing of files that you would normally have to pay for (I mean, how many people download a copy of Linux compared to sharing music). Beside, for all the legit content out their you can download directly from a website, so blocking P2P is not going to ruin your opportunity to get legit programs and music. So, I do not see what the big deal is. I haven't used file sharing programs in at least 3 years, I just buy my music or programs.
  
  Also, off topic, there was an article about Radiohead that said they ditched their record label to produce music on their own. That's not true, they switched to a new label called ATO Records which is an imprint of RCA/BMG.
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  - Chronno S. Trigger, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:50am
    
    Re: Re: RE:#5, #7 yep ..
    Go to Pittsburgh some day, or the US capital DC, or Georgia. Most people speed in their cars. Lets ban cars since most people break the law in them. There are other ways to get around. Its the same way as downloading Linux distros threw HTTP. It works but much slower.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 25 Oct 2007 @ 6:50am

Yah, #9
Yah, thats why I said I cannot condone this. It is a stupid path. The people who are behind creating the tools we use now will probably go along this path anyways because of the ISPs limiting or delaying (comcast anyone?) the traffic as is.
I believe there is already one such program called Gigatribe, but I still have yet to research that one.
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Cixelsid, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:10am

Umm...
Protocol Encryption is alive and well and living in uTorrent.
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Boris Jacobsen, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:17am

Hypocrisy
"If creative artists can't earn a living as a result of the work they produce, then we will kill off creative artists and that would be a tragedy."
This is a representative of the same duopoly of UK governments (Labour has proved no better than Conservative, sadly) that has pushed forward a string of reforms that involve charging public venues such as pubs and clubs and restaurants higher and higher licence fees for hosting live music. Many 'venues' have therefore ceased emplyoying musicians. As a consequence, many many fewer musicians are able to earn a reasonable living out of live performance in the UK now than, say, 30 years ago.
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Haywood, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:21am

I wouldn't pay for broadband without p2p
I doubt I'm alone in this. If all I could do was surf and check email, I may as well go back to dial-up.
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- TheDock22, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:49am
  
  Re: I wouldn't pay for broadband without p2p
  So you wouldn't watch videos, surf high content websites, watch news, or download legit software of the internet with high speed?
  
  What a dumb comment you made that the only thing worth having broadband is silly P2P sites.
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Silicon.shaman, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:25am

umm... bait & switch?
Consider this...they can force the ISP's to install government spy software, [there aren't that many here after all].

Now, they say it's comparing all the data packets against a "bank of registered music" files, and it'll probably scan for keywords too...

we know it can't do what they say it's doing... so what if it isn't?

What if this is their way of getting in unlimited and indiscriminate spying on us ordinary people in via the backdoor? They know we'd never fall for the "we're looking for terrorists" scam like the American's did.

It's in the nature of all Governments to acquire more power, and the more power they have, the more they grow paranoid that someone's out to take it away.

Or maybe I should just invest in stocks in tinfoil do you think?
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- Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 6:48pm
  
  Re: umm... bait & switch?
  What if this is their way of getting in unlimited and indiscriminate spying on us ordinary people in via the backdoor?
  What, you Brits wouldn't let yourselves become a surveillance society would you? Next thing you know, you'll be going round installing cameras in public places just to keep an eye on each other.
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chris (profile), 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:32am

que darknets in 3, 2, 1....
learn what a darknet is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet

then read the darknet paper (by microsoft):
http://crypto.stanford.edu/DRM2002/darknet5.doc
http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/docs/darknet 5.pdf

the harder you try to stop P2P, the further you drive the technology, and the further you drive it underground.

the shutdown of napster begat gnutella, which begat bittorrent. blocking bittorrent/shutting down trackers will beget tunneled and encrypted connections on random ports (or worse, port 80) to ad hoc networks.

once all p2p traffic looks like VPN traffic, what are you going to do? make VPN traffic illegal? outlaw SSH? even if you could against the wishes of the business community, you will just drive things even further underground.

can you ban IRC? how about file transfers in AIM/yahoo/skype/you name it? how about people using myspace/facebook/email/irc to arrange local meets with usb hard drives and wireless mesh?

even if you get the local police involved, how can they stop it all? the answer: they can't.
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RandomThoughts, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:57am

Most people speed in their cars. Lets ban cars since most people break the law in them.

Chronno, would your preference be that since most people speed in their cars, cops should stop handing out speeding tickets?
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- Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 6:51pm
  
  Re:
  ...would your preference be that since most people speed in their cars, cops should stop handing out speeding tickets?
  Would yours be that since most people speed, everyone should be sent a speeding ticket?
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Benjie, 25 Oct 2007 @ 8:02am

lawl
watch freenet hit release some day and let them have fun tracking a P2P program that uses random ports from 1024-65535 and uses fully encrypted connections
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- Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:26pm
  
  Re: lawl
  watch freenet hit release some day and let them have fun tracking a P2P program that uses random ports from 1024-65535 and uses fully encrypted connections
  I haven't looked at Freenet in a while, but the last I knew they had completely given up on the idea of an anonymous censorship-proof public network. It seems that after a lot of time and effort was invested in trying to get the network acceptably usable they finally discovered that the main problem was that they were essentially being continually attacked by a large, sophisticated and persistent (years) distributed denial of service attack. Which actors had the motivation and resources to conduct such a campaign? That's open to speculation, but the result was that the freenet developers decided they had bitten off way more than they could chew and gave up on the anonymous public network idea. Instead, they took the easy way out decided that non-public security-through-obscurity private underground networks or "darknets" would be much easier. Of course, those kinds of "secret" networks have already been around for a long time and in many different flavors thus making Freenet an almost completely irrelevant "me too" project.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 25 Oct 2007 @ 8:53am

Re: #12, Dock22
You must fit right in with the MPAA / RIAA / Government types. There is a tool, made for good, but it can be used for bad and is used for bad, so lets ban it. It seems like a rather silly argument. How about lockpicks. They are made. If you lock yourself out of your house it is perfectly legal for you to use them to get back into your own house. However they are probably used more often for theives. So why not ban them? I chose lockpicks to try to attain something closer to your view where the tool is used "mostly" for bad but has perfectly fine uses.

Sacking the good because of the bad is never a good path in anything. But maybe thats just my high morals. Which, my morals, are simply my opinion, and everybody else's will vary.
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RandomThoughts, 25 Oct 2007 @ 9:03am

Killer, the lockpick tool kit isn't a good example. That can get you locked up for owning burglar tools.

Why would you think morals have nothing to do with the law?
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- Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:33pm
  
  Re:
  Killer, the lockpick tool kit isn't a good example. That can get you locked up for owning burglar tools.
  Bull. Lockpicks have legitimate uses. A hammer can be a burglar tool also but owning one doesn't you're going to prison. A baseball bat can be used to assault someone too but owning one doesn't mean you're going to prison. It depends on what you're doing with it. Again, just owning it isn't a crime.
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bshock, 25 Oct 2007 @ 9:04am

Britain Takes the Lead in the Descent into Fascism
Where's Guy Fawkes when you need him?
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CharlieHorse, 25 Oct 2007 @ 9:20am

umm, no ...
lockpick is a perfect example, in fact.

you cannot be "locked up for owning burglar tools."

you can only be locked up for committing burglary.

are you saying that all locksmiths are going to be locked up because they own lockpick kits which (if I may infer your assumption!) by your definition are "burglar tools." ?

what about a screwdriver ? it can be used to jimmy a lock. so - do we know lock up all mechanics and contractors who own the "burglar tool" commonly known as a screwdriver ?

just curious as to where your logic is going/coming from, RT.
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- RandomThoughts, 25 Oct 2007 @ 9:29am
  
  Re: umm, no ...
  A person commits the crime of possession of burglar's tools if he possesses any tool, instrument or other article adapted, designed or commonly used for committing or facilitating offenses involving forcible entry into premises, with a purpose to use or knowledge that some person has the purpose of using the same in making an unlawful forcible entry into a building or inhabitable structure or a room thereof.
  
  2. Possession of burglar's tools is a class D felony.
  
  From Missori's laws. And yes, a screwdriver could be considered a burlar tool. Depends on how you use it.
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  - TheDock22, 25 Oct 2007 @ 9:34am
    
    Re: Re: umm, no ...
    Also, in many states you need to carry a license/permit to possess lockpicking tools. If you can't prove that you will go to jail.
    
    By Killer_Tofu's philosophy, let's just require a license for anyone wanting to connect to P2P services. Then if they violate the terms it will be easy to track them down and punish them accordingly.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:40pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: umm, no ...
      Also, in many states you need to carry a license/permit to possess lockpicking tools. If you can't prove that you will go to jail.
      Many? That's a real weasel word. So just how many is this "many"? One? Two? 49? None? Citation?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:36pm
    
    Re: Re: umm, no ...
    ...with a purpose to use or knowledge that some person has the purpose of using the same in making an unlawful forcible entry into a building or inhabitable structure or a room thereof.
    That's considerable different than what you said before. Same old RandomThoughts.
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  - Owen, 4 Dec 2008 @ 4:15pm
    
    Re: Re: umm, no ...
    Actually,
    
    If you had any of this stuff in your own home (burglars tools as you put it, lockpicks, screwdrivers etc) then you are fine...
    
    If you're out and about and the police suspect you of attempting burglary because you have such tools on you then you can be charged with the offence of "going equipped" at least in this country anyway (UK) don't know what the rules are for the US but I imagine fairly similar...
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 25 Oct 2007 @ 1:11pm

Licensed
Licensing people is not the answer either.
I don't license you to surf specific places on the net.
The government should not be given any such power.
If you believe they should, China might be a perfect place for you, as it would fall right in line with those views for now.
I am trying to speak up to make mine a more free country where our own people are not treated like criminals just for breathing. Saying that, I do realize that I am in the US and this article is about the UK. So this last bit is a little off topic.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2007 @ 7:51pm

No Internet Without Peer to Peer
Those who claim that the internet would be usable without peer-to-peer seem to ignorant of the fact that the whole internet architecture itself peer-to-peer, not client-server. Yeah, you can layer client-server stuff over that, but without the underlying peer-to-peer stuff nothing is going to work.
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CharlieHorse, 26 Oct 2007 @ 6:52am

RE:ummm, no
k - I have done some thinking and research on this and I stand by my original post.

the MS law that R_T refers to seems to be giving the state leeway to form some determination of intent. thus it's vaguely worded form. (gives lawyers wiggle room, so to speak.) it does not outright make it illegal to simply carry the tools.

again, going by our discussion - thus you would be committing a felony for the simple act of possessing a screwdriver. however, if leo catches you in act of jimmying a lock on the backdoor of the local liquor store, then you are carrying the tools with intent, etc. etc. and yes, I would say you are then prosecutable - primarily for attempted B&E - but also they'll probably throw on the possession charge if you have the specific lockpick tools as well. otherwise I still would argue that I will not be locked up for merely possessing lockpick tools - even in MS!

I will concede the point that in areas where there is a definite legal requirement to have a license to carry such tools, that you may be then liable.

otherwise - it is the intent that the law is more interested in, not the mere possession.
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- Anonymous Coward, 29 Oct 2007 @ 7:57pm
  
  Re: RE:ummm, no
  the MS law that R_T refers to seems to be giving the state leeway to form some determination of intent. thus it's vaguely worded form. (gives lawyers wiggle room, so to speak.) it does not outright make it illegal to simply carry the tools.
  That's right, it doesn't. That won't stop RT from claiming otherwise though.
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- nelly the pirate, 20 Mar 2008 @ 9:05am
  
  Re: RE:ummm, no
  there is the same law here in the uk the term is going equipped meaning that you have an object on your person that could be used for burglary that you have no need to be in possession of
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2008 @ 1:00pm

50 cent is looking realey skint now!!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Feb 2008 @ 1:01pm

50 cent is looking realey skint now!!!!
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Marty Bellmore, 30 Jul 2008 @ 5:13am

WEB BASED P2P (HOW WILL THEY STOP THAT)
They are never gonna stop file sharers. There are web-based p2p services like FilesWire which work directly from the web and can be used on any internet connected computer. (work,internet cafe,uni, etc). So how are they going to pinpoint p2p activity if it is not even tied to your ip address.
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