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EU Proposal Would Outright Ban BitTorrent Sites, Make ISPs Copyright Cops & Use 3 Strikes

from the just-what-the-industry-ordered dept

Mon, Feb 2nd 2009 7:04pm — Mike Masnick

You have to give the entertainment industry lobbyists credit for one thing: they never give up. When one of their proposals gets slapped down they always have many other efforts underway to give a similar proposal life somewhere else. So what if the EU Parliament said that using a three strikes policy went against basic civil rights? Just get another person to come up with a proposal that's even more strict. That seems to be what's happening as the EU Parliament may consider a proposal by Manuel Medina Ortega, which TorrentFreak notes basically is a perfect wishlist of the Big Copyright players. You've got your three strikes policies, your demands that ISPs "take responsibility" and (best of all) the declaration that all BitTorrent and file sharing services are 100% illegal -- no questions asked. Hmm. Apparently someone forgot to inform all the creative folks who are happily using such systems to distribute their works... I don't know enough about European politics to know if this is likely to go anywhere, but given earlier EU Parliament rulings, I'm hopeful that this is quickly tossed aside as being completely out of touch with reality.

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Filed Under: eu, europe, isps, parliament, three strikes

27 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2009 @ 7:41pm

WOW
Blizzard warning
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- eleete, 2 Feb 2009 @ 7:46pm
  
  Re: WOW
  Global Warming Climate Crisis. must do something NOW !!!
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2009 @ 7:57pm

Record and movie industry:

9,999,999,999,999 strikes and counting: DIE ALREADY!
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elduderino, 2 Feb 2009 @ 7:58pm

holy crap
blizzard uses a bittorrent style to distribute its patches and stuff
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peniis, 2 Feb 2009 @ 8:27pm

hmmm
ok ban file sharing services, but you can't ban people from having an FTP server and some friends... you can't force people to buy your crap if they don't want to when anyone can make a copy of something in a digital age. there will ALWAYS be a way. this just parallels 'uncrackable' hardware, where sadly, the public is already 10 steps ahead of you.
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- nasch, 3 Feb 2009 @ 8:33am
  
  Re: hmmm
  I'm not sure either of those things are true. In theory at least, it would be possible for a government to ban FTP servers. I mean if they could consider banning one protocol, they could ban some other one. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it's not impossible. And they can certainly force people to buy their crap, via a mandatory music fee/tax. Technically that only forces people to pay for their crap, not actually obtain it, but that's splitting hairs.
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- Anonymous Coward, 3 Feb 2009 @ 12:10pm
  
  Re: hmmm
  > ok ban file sharing services, but you can't ban people from having an FTP server and some friends...
  Really? Did you notice that most ISPs already ban ALL SERVICES on their customers' computers, not just FTP? If not, perhaps you should read the terms of your contract. And maybe you also noticed that most ISPs already block all traffic from third parties to their customers, thus making it impossible for granny to offer her pictures on the web from her own computer. That is why people have to rely on commercial (ad supported) third party sites.
  The reason why ISPs already obey all orders from the entertainment industry is simple: they are part of the MAFIAA. We have the same situation in the EU and US. And I think there is only one solution to sponsor the Internet as a network: break up the industry, separate the ISPs from the entertainment industry. Then we will have a fair market. Perhaps we could also eliminate the middleman by opening up wifi access points and using cable connections as backbone. The truth is that the backbones are already heavily subsidised, very much like public roads.
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Dr.A, 2 Feb 2009 @ 8:47pm

maybe this can explain it
If you succeed in cutting off the torrents, many of the "global" artists will be much less popular, leaving the space for local artist to get noticed by the public. "American" / "English" culture will become much less influential in most of these countries.

Free pirated american media acts in a way like the free food we send to Africa, preventing any chance of a real agriculture developing there.
For tangible goods you have a dumping price policy but it is difficult to apply that to the unlimited free goods.
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- Xiera, 3 Feb 2009 @ 7:08am
  
  Re: maybe this can explain it
  Really? I'm an American and most of the music I listen to is from Europe...
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2009 @ 8:50pm

Manuel Medina Ortega
this guy g it all wrong:

instead of adding all those rules/laws.

he just has to lobby for more expensive slower internet access.

if every1 has to pay 200USD for a 256down 64up connection all his problems would be solved
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2009 @ 9:07pm
  
  Re: Manuel Medina Ortega
  yes, good idea, make a byte more expensive than a gallon of water
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mike allen, 2 Feb 2009 @ 11:16pm

answear
go to library borrow CDs go home rip or copy CDs go to library return CDs borrow CDs rip copy CDs and on it goes takes longer but still viable.
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- Jane, 6 Dec 2010 @ 11:58am
  
  Re: answear
  mike allen, try to look here: http://nanotorrents.com
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Daniel Lucraft, 3 Feb 2009 @ 12:12am

Think there's been a mistake
If you check the actual text of the report, it seems to recognize the controversial nature of P2P sites, and specifically leaves them out of the 'illegal' part:

"One very sensitive area is that of ‘peer-to-peer’, i.e. the phenomenon of websites and software
whereby internet users share, either directly or via a shared site, files containing reproductions
of protected works or services without the consent of the rightholders (Napster (centralised),
Kazaa (decentralised)).

The activities of websites that are NOT part of the peer-to-peer phenomenon and which allow
downloading of protected works or services without the necessary authorisation are illegal,
and no exception can be applied to them."

So I think there's been a mistake somewhere with this article.
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- Anon, 3 Feb 2009 @ 7:58am
  
  Re: Think there's been a mistake
  A mistake? A mistake like how you place a "s" where a "z" should be three times with three different words? :)
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  - Anonymous Coward, 3 Feb 2009 @ 8:54am
    
    Re: Re: Think there's been a mistake
    I think UK English uses "s" instead of American English which uses "z".
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Alex (profile), 3 Feb 2009 @ 1:48am

It's an opinion only...
It's not legally binding. Also it's by a parliamentary committee that usually bows to rights-holders' interests. There's hope --- Amendment 138 (banning 3-strikes) wasn't in the original Telecoms package as voted on by the same committee, it had to be added in the plenary vote.
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Claes, 3 Feb 2009 @ 2:05am

Here in Sweden the attempt to get this passed has been seen by some as a way to politically influence the outcome of the trial against Pirate Bay which will be held in just two weeks. The Pirate Bay is explicitly mentioned in the Medina proposal as an example of a site that illegaly spreads copyrighted works on the internet (even though it's of course only a torrent search page and a bittorrent tracker).

Now there are of course different jurisdictions within the EU and activity of The Pirate Bay may be legal in some countries and illegal in others (just like providing a YouTube-service probably wouldn't be possible under Swedish law), but still it almost seems to be bordering on slander to call the site illegal when its legal status is still unclear in most european countries and there hasn't been any conviction.
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Ben Lebedinets, 3 Feb 2009 @ 4:03am

hmmmmmm....
just like eq2 or diablo 2, put very strict cd keys on albums, even if you have an ipod, you need to have entered the cd key atleast once to be able to play it, the album has to be a single file, software maybe.

.....but people can and always will be able to record sound....hmmm...
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- Xiera, 3 Feb 2009 @ 7:13am
  
  Re: hmmmmmm....
  CD keys that were commonly cracked and led to legit users being unable to play because someone else found their key.
  
  And even then who's stopping people from sharing the CD key with the song?
  
  A bad idea for all parties.
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Ben Lebedinets, 3 Feb 2009 @ 4:05am

hmmmmmm....
hmmmmm...
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claire rand, 3 Feb 2009 @ 4:36am

private servers
next step will be a proposal to ban "unlicensed" servers. it won;t work either
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Kiddy Saver, 3 Feb 2009 @ 6:56am

Thank God...
Thank god they are doing this... I'm sure it helps to protect the children...
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Feb 2009 @ 7:54am

The report exhibits a sensitivity to the points raised from both sides of the aisle. To vilify it and the author is quite unfair and does lead me to wonder if it has truly been read for content, or if this is simply another pavlovian response to anything having to do with the continuation of copyright law in general.
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The Authority, 3 Feb 2009 @ 11:02am

Mistake.
The only mistake is visiting this site. You are all animals and you belong in a soo.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Feb 2009 @ 11:04am

Rediculous
If the industry was subject to its own rules, it would have been banned from the net a long time ago.

Maybe babies can be "chipped" at birth, and music will only play on devices that detect their chip.
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Good tidings, 20 Feb 2009 @ 9:42am

the medina ortega report is dead...
No, seriously. Maybe it's because the elections are on the horizon. Maybe because the text would fail if it was presented by a first-year law student. Anyway, it's dead... Strange how the report being on the table got loads of press coverage, but its failure is getting none.
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