Anti-Piracy Group Already Protesting That UK's Anti-Piracy Law Doesn't Go Far Enough
from the history-lessons dept
History teaches us that representatives of copyright holders will complain about any new development in information or communication technology and try to stop or limit its use. Well, it is no surprise then that, over in the UK, the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) is claiming that existing, already far-reaching copyright enforcement measures in the not-yet implemented Digital Economy Act (DEA) will be rendered useless when the new 4G mobile phone network rolls out. The 4G mobile phone networks has been anticipated with much fanfare and will provide mobile broadband speeds, which are many times faster than the 3G network we have become used to in the UK. According to FAST, mobile users and operators now also need to fall within the scope of the controversial DEA.In a recent Techdirt post about the DEA, Glyn Moody finished with the sentence "The longer the great Digital Economy Act farce drags on, the more absurd it becomes from every viewpoint." With FAST's claims, the debate is set to continue, and yes, it will become more absurd. Here's a short recap of DEA before we see how history repeats itself when its lessons are ignored:
- The DEA was hastily passed at the end of the last UK Parliament's term to "combat piracy", or whichever rhetoric was used this time.
- The act initially proposed to block websites and disconnect repeat infringers of copyright in a graduated response type system, or otherwise limit internet access. Customers may also be taken to court because ISP's would be obliged to disclose personal information of their customers.
- The scope is limited to the largest ISP's in the UK, which covers about 93% of its citizens.
- The implementation of the DEA has been delayed due to heavy criticism. Some of these ISP's went to court about the hefty costs which need to be made to enforce copyrights online.
- Some provisions, such as the blocking of websites at the ISP level, have since been scrapped. This was not met with much resistance from rights holders, as they already had their Supreme Court precedent set with the blocking of the Pirate Bay.
- More specifics about this piece of legislation can be found around the internet, but as a final point it must be mentioned that -- surprise surprise -- the whole impact assessment of the act was based on highly inflated and controversial figures with bogus methodologies, provided by private stakeholders.
Let's dive into the claims of this most recent attempt to attack the technology as legacy players try to stay relevant. Of course, every time they do this, they discover that they're on the wrong side of innovation. Again. And, all too often, the goals of these groups run entirely contrary to the real wishes of those they claim to represent. Julian Heathcote Hobbins, General Council at FAST, states the following:
The DEA has the potential to be a valuable piece of legislation in the fight against illicit peer-to-peer copyright infringement and a significant development for rights holders as an educational programme. However, the DEA must remain timely. The issue is that by the time the DEA is finally implemented, technology could have moved on so far making the Act ineffective in helping to deal with those using 4G networks to share files. In its current form the DEA is not sufficiently flexible in scope to account for advances in technology.Another representative, Jonathan Cornthwaite, a lawyer in London and member of FAST's Legal Advisory Group, then goes on to state:
[...] As we are now witnessing, technology does not stand still and gaps are appearing in the DEA as the use of mobile devices accelerates. Unless this situation can be remedied, it may be of less assistance, leaving rights holders with a watered down remedy.It is fascinating to see these representatives finally realizing that regulation will not be able to keep apace with technological developments, where innovation happens at internet speed. They are right in stating that legislation must be flexible to stay timely and to move with technological and societal advances, which are indeed moving at an unprecedented pace.
However, they fail to think through that it may not be the enforcement side, but actually that the copyright system lacks social legitimacy because it is out of date and out of touch with how we now live in media. The approach chosen by these representatives leans more towards a permission innovation society as identified by Mike in a recent post, where former Register of Copyrights, Ralph Oman, expressed that he feels any new technology should have to apply to Congress for approval, before it is allowed to exist. Instead, we should follow the sensible part of Mr. Heathcote Hobbins and Mr. Cornthwaite's analysis and make the underlying copyright system timely and flexible so it takes into account technical reality, which, indeed, does not stand still.
A group of UK mobile operators have branded their 4G service "Everything, Everywhere" (EE), indicating they understand what consumers want: all media available at any time in any place. This does not directly mean consumers want media for free. Most are willing to pay for access, especially when the service purchased offers them the ability to use works without undue restrictions. A line can be drawn as to which uses are permissible and which are not. However, if restrictions inhibit normal media usage as consumers expect it, and penalties include disconnection, throttling or otherwise limiting the promise of the super-fast paced mobile internet experience, copyright will further lose social legitimacy and work-arounds will be found.
France's graduated response scheme -- HADOPI -- has already failed miserably, thereby proving the critics right that such a scheme is not workable nor desirable with regards to media sharing on the internet. Why then push for a very similar DEA anyway? Give it another go in a new country, hoping for different results? Apply it to new technology and hope the criticism will go away? To quote Einstein: "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: anti-piracy, digital economy act, uk, wireless
Companies: fast
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Insightful
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results. - Albert Einstein
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Insightful
/TotallyNotStillMadOrAnything
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Insightful
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So instead of having the Government evaluating where they went too far and they should be implementing this or not, they want to make them feel like they are doing too little, and need to do a lot more to make them happy. Evil bastards.
I would hope the Government is not that naive to believe them, but reality has shown otherwise.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
They are just shouting for the sake of shouting. Sir Mandelson is not around to do their bidding any more.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
I blame the moonshine he brews on the stoop of his mountain shack!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
Funny how you put it down to moonshine, I put it down to generations of in breeding.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
Makes the most sense if you ask me...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
OOTB doesn't actually read the articles before commenting on them, as evidenced by this comment.
That makes him different. And irrelevant. And trollish. And quite possibly insane, but for different reasons then Einstein's quote.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[insert blatantly obvious and obligatory pot and kettle observation here]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."
Like you. You do see the hilarity in your comment as you accuse Mike of EXACTLY what you do?
Day after day of personal attacks while appearing you have not read ANY of what he writes.
A+ for consistency though.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
Stop the presses! Seriously! OotB DID NOT read the article, yet commented on it not knowing a word of what was contained therein? Color me SHOCKED! SHOCKED I TELL YOU!
(I won't bother disassembling the rest of your comment, as with that first line I read all I needed to know. It would be you harping on about this or that, yet still not having a clue about anything. Hmm. Doing the same thing, day after day, yet expecting different results. Ala people giving a shit what he has to say. OMG GUYS! OotB is insane! Again, COLOR ME SHOCKED! Or not.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Hang 'em from the yard-arms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
\rant
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
BT Broadband Subscriber checking in!
Able to access all sites currently listed as blocked by the High Court ruling.... Yes Sir!
DEA effective... No Sir!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No worries UK, the US is right behind you in becoming the ideal police state! Hang on, we'll be right there!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
As for FAST's latest stuff... actually, this could be quite fun. If they did persuade the government to force Ofcom to change the DEA "Initial Obligations Code" (again), Ofcom would probably have to go through another round of consultation, rewrite a lot of it and send the new version to the EU for 3+ months for them to look into it. That would push back implementation by another 6-9 months, so it won't be in force until late 2014/early 2015.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
(I took a gander at that "fact filled" website your username links to. I put "fact filled" in quotes because it's anything but. Love the conflation between a Kickstarter crowdfunded gaming device and piracy. At that point I realized it was like reading a website created by OotB and bob and David "why doesn't anyone pay attention to me" Lowery combined. Not scary so much as sad and pathetic and a waste of bandwidth.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
The collection agencies who collect royalties but never pass them on to the content creators?
The Hollywood companies who cook the books to make their gains look like losses to justify their tirade against technology?
History tells us that mammoth corporations abuse the law regardless of their industry.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
Google only shows results of what people are searching for. It makes money by providing a service people want. TV Guide has done this for years.
YouTube has come along way since being bought by Google. They provided the Content ID system on their own dime without asking those who benefit from it to chip in anything. Here is a great example of a tech company trying to make the content creators money, only to be villainized for it.
Broadband ISPs? Really? I suppose you think headphone manufacturers also owe content creators something too.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
"Youtube" - Actively, on their own dime, created and put in place ContentID. A system which scours YouTube for content belonging to the registered rights holder and monetizes it, providing them with revenue streams, even for content put up without their permission. As well as allows for the taking down of unauthorized content.
"Broadband ISPs" - Actively pass on copyright infringement notices, on their own dime, at the behest of copyright holders. Also attempt to bundle services to customers in attempts to reap more profits, but also in partnership with various media conglomerates.
"Megaupload" - Was in the process of creating an entirely new distribution model that would give 90% of all revenue to artists of all walks. Actively followed DMCA procedure, despite not being legally bound to do so.
"Limewire" - Meh. This one is sold old I don't know why it's even being brought up. But let me ask you one question, ethicalfan. How much of the money won in the suit against Limewire went to the artists again?
"Napster" - See previous bit. As well as previous question. Oh yeah, didn't they go legal? So why are they being brought up?
"Grokster" - See previous bit. (Minus the part about going legal.)
"Bearshare" - See previous bit.
"Grooveshark" - See previous bit.
Etc. - You're an idiot and the facts are against you. History teaches us one important thing. Those tech companies, who you would vilify, all actively go out of their way to create new products and services that content creators and those they tend to work under utilize, and without whom you'd still be creating silent pictures, recording to vinyl (maybe) and what have you. And who have more often than not, allowed you to generate new revenue streams, as well as open up entirely new markets for you (the royal "you) to have access to and market your products in.
But yes, let's try and vilify tech companies. We'll ignore the abuses of the law done by content creators and those who most often use the content creators ("we're doing this for the artists") to get their way. (I guess your list left off Hollywood accounting, royalty withholding, and so on and so forth. Hypocrite, they name is ethicalfan.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No, history teaches us that tech companies will abuse the law
You lost the argument several decades ago, mate.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There is no use arguing for it, nothing can or ever will be good enough. Any rules just change the specific means of the activity, but never stop the activity.
It is simple stupidity to imply anyone can/will. Don Quixote would piss his trousers laughing at your foolishness and proceed to charge a windmill.
What is considered piracy is simply sharing, and that behavior is so deeply entrenched into human nature as the greed that drives these groups.
To achieve their goal,the only chance of success would come from a Pyrrhic Victory where there are simply no humans left to share.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's just another sign no matter what is done, it is never enough and by the way, someone else should pay for our concerns.
Plum sickening the greed that shows through these demands.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Unfortunately it is unlikely any conservatives will do so, liberals are under too much pressure to get any of their own ideas through to pull support and labour will just keep on being in excruciating birth-pains!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No it hasn't.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But most of all, there are so many ways to get things for free WITHOUT resorting to illegal downloads. Cyberlockers, dropbox, gdrive, spotify and the easiest and fastest of all, Youtube.
Despite the fact you can invest in a VPN with super high encryption in a piracy heaven for just a few quid, there really is nothing you can do to stop piracy.
And let's not forget, in years to come, not decades, you will be able to download and print clothing, toys, art, tools and more with your own 3d printer and PNC machine at your desktop. Listening to free music and downloading films for free will be nothing compared to that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]